Poul Anderson

En una tierra en la que el reino de Faerie existe en una dimensión paralela a la del mundo de los hombres, Skafloc, el ahijado de los elfos, habrá de liberar la terrible maldición que pesa sobre Tyrfing, la poderosa espada runica que rompio Thor y que ahora vuelve a ser necesaria para salvar a los elfos en su guerra contra los trolls. Pero Skafloc tambien habra de enfrentarse a su propia sombra: Valgard, que ha ocupado su lugar en el mundo de los hombres. Considerada como un clasico de la fantasia heroica, La espada rota fue publicada originalmente en 1954, el mismo año que La Comunidad del Anillo, de J.R.R. Tolkien: "Ambas novelas se basaban en fuentes escandinavas y anglosajonas, pero la de Anderson estaba mas proxima a sus origenes, una tragedia de ritmo trepidante, impregnada de fatalidad, en la que el heroismo, el amor y la ambicion de los seres humanos, manipulados por dioses, elfos y troles amorales, tienen inevitablmente consecuencias tragicas". Michael Moorcock"Poul Anderson posee esa habilidad para escribir y esa imaginacion disciplinada capaces de iluminar los rincones mas oscuros."Isaac Asimov

La inteligencia artificial ha llegado a un nivel de desarrollo que permite depositar el contenido de la mente humana en un ordenador para lograr una especie de inmortalidad híbrida. El astronauta Christian Brannock da la bienvenida a este avance tecnologico, que le facilitara la consecucion de su sueño: explorar las estrellas.Mil millones de años despues, Brannock es enviado a la Tierra para investigar ciertas anomalias. Durante su estancia conoce a Laurinda Ashcroft, otro deposito hibrido. Brannock y Laurinda unen sus fuerzas para investigar a Gaia, la mente suprema que domina el planeta, y conocer la verdad de sus terrorificos planes secretos para la Tierra.

La inteligencia artificial ha llegado a un nivel de desarrollo que permite depositar el contenido de la mente humana en un ordenador para lograr una especie de inmortalidad híbrida. El astronauta Christian Brannock da la bienvenida a este avance tecnologico, que le facilitara la consecucion de su sueño: explorar las estrellas. Mil millones de años despues, Brannock es enviado a la Tierra para investigar ciertas anomalias. Durante su estancia conoce a Laurinda Ashcroft, otro deposito hibrido. Brannock y Laurinda unen sus fuerzas para investigar a Gaia, la mente suprema que domina el planeta, y conocer la verdad de sus terrorificos planes secretos para la Tierra.

En una tierra en la que el reino de Faerie existe en una dimensión paralela a la del mundo de los hombres, Skafloc, el ahijado de los elfos, habrá de liberar la terrible maldición que pesa sobre Tyrfing, la poderosa espada runica que rompio Thor y que ahora vuelve a ser necesaria para salvar a los elfos en la guerra que mantienen contra los trolls. Ademas, en medio de este ambiente, Skafloc tambien habra de enfrentarse a su propia sombra: Valgard, que ha ocupado su lugar en el mundo de los hombres.

Esta recopilación de cuentos y novelas cortas de Poul Anderson muestra ante todo una muy notable variedad de temas y estrategias narrativas de quien es sin duda uno de los principales maestros de la ciencia ficcion contemporanea y uno de los autores mas influyentes en el genero. Aunque se considera, por lo general, que Anderson es indiscutiblemente inimitable en las narraciones "epicas" (batallas glacticas, conflictos que atañen a constelaciones enteras, largos viajes en el tiempo) muchos de los relatos reunidos en estas paginas muestran tambien la extraordinaria inventiva del autor cuando se trata de describir, por ejemplo, la naturaleza de una planta, la composicion de una atmosfera insolita, o los problemas de un hombre comun.

Captain Sir Dominic Flandry was a top man in the Intelligence Corps of the Imperial Terrestrial Navy. He knew that on the outer edges of the empire, civilisation was spread hideously thin. The stars faded towards barbarism, with the great evil Empire of Merseia beyond.But there were times when Flandry abandoned his senior position of command to go out into the field. Then he operated like the cool and brilliant agent he was, a ruthless, highly-trained professional. And in these three fast-moving adventures Captain Dominic Flandry shows that a space-age secret agent has to stay on top of the job - or succumb to nameless horrors.

Early in the 21st century the world is enjoying an uneasy peace, with a distinct division between the "straight" society and the various fringe groups that go to form the Byworld.Tension grows, however, over the presence of an alien spaceship that is orbiting the world, bearing a single occupant - the Sigman. It appears that no-one knows how to communicate with the Sigman; no-one knows the purpose of his visit. Until two people - one "straight" and the other a Byworlder - solve the problems involved; and in so doing trigger off a series of violent plots and counterplots that mount to a frenetic climax.

The barbarians in their long ships waiting at the edge of the Galaxy waited for the ancient Terran Empire to fall, while two struggled to save it: ex-Admiral McCormac, forced to rebel against a corrupt Emperor, and Starship Commander Flandry, the brilliant young officer who served the Imperium even as he scorned it.Trapped between them was the woman they both loved, but couldnt share: the beautiful Kathryn - whose single word could decide the fate of a billion suns.

Meet David Falkayn, sharpest young trader in the Polesotechnic League and susceptible only to the lithe curves of unwary space-girls. In three ingenious, fast-paced tales of interplanetary adventure and intrigue, Falkayn shows himself equally handy with his wits and a blaster. See him untangle alien taboos, outwit alien invasions, manoeuvre adroitly through alien revolutions - and then twist everything up again for his own crafty purposes.

This is the culmination of the greatest adventure series in the history of science fiction.With A Stone in Heaven Poul Anderson has brought the career of Dominic Flandry full cycle. From the beginning Flandry has piece by piece mortgaged his soul that the long night of galactic barbarism might be held off just a little longer. Now, face to face with his personal long night, Flandry is offered one last chance for love and honour in a universe he has come to believe holds neither...

Like two giants the old enemies faced each other across the reaches of the galaxy - the Terran Empire and the Ythrian Domain. Terra was a Leviathan, encroaching ever further among the stars, promising peace and prosperity - but at the price of freedom. Ythri was smaller, but an empire in its own right, peopled by birdlike beings with a civilisation and intellect that easily matched Terras own.And between the adversaries lay Avalon. One single planet, inhabited by human and Ythri alike. Both sides wanted to claim Avalon, by persuasion or by force, for it was a key world that could turn the tide of the war. But Avalon had developed a unique culture, a powerful blend of human and Ythrian thought. And Avalon had ideas of its own....

AN ACCIDENT IN TIME...Duncan Reid was snatched out of the twentieth century from a cruise liner in the mid-Pacific. Oleg Vladimirovitch came from Novgorod in medieval Russia. Udin was a Hun barbarian who lived by cunning and the axe. Erissa had been a sacred priestess in a lost continent. And a mistake in a time-experiment by a race from the far future had thrown these four unlikely comrades together, pulling them through a warp in the fabric of space and time to a world which was ancient history.The strange alliance that Duncan and his comrades formed in that unfamiliar world was to take on a significance that none of them could have foreseen. For not only their own future, but they very future of the world they had found was at stake...

Ace Lieutenant Dominic Flandry was not a man easily swayed from his duty to the Empire; not, that is, until galactic vice king Leon Ammon offered him a million-credit bribe, a voluptuous woman called Djana, and a chance to explore a dark and treasure-laden moon.Yet within the desolate peaks and valleys of that strange world of ice and shadows, Flandry found more than he had bargained for. Supposedly barren, the planet swarmed with a hideous race of strange, inhuman creatures, infernally controlled by a deranged and brilliant computer brain. Each, like a piece in a bizarre and vicious chess game, was programmed to kill. And although Flandry did not know it - so was the woman he loved.

Steve Matuckek Book 1In a war waged against Black Magic, the fact that Steve is a werewolf and his wife is a highly skilled witch is not unusual. But their adventures prove very unusual, even for their world, when they are given the task of neutralizing an enemys ultimate weapon - the worlds most powerful demon.

You cant go home again. For home is not merely a place, but a situation and when that situation changes, home is no more. Captain Edward Langely of the experimental starship Explorer was to learn thi

His father had been slain in a heinous ambush; his grandfather, in an act of brotherly murder. His blood was of the Skjoldungs . . . and even the most unremarkable of seers knew his life would be as sweeping as it was savage.From the roiling midnight years before his birth, to the unshakable love and twisted fates that brought him to the throne of his ravaged Icelandic kingdom, Hrolf Krakis magnificent saga is the story of an age of runes and ravishments, of blades and omens . . . and of a man who ruled and was ruled by an inescapable destiny.