A Del Rey Book
Description
From back cover of Del Rey paperback 1979: HELVA HAD BEEN BORN HUMAN ... but only her brain had been saved -- saved to be schooled, programmed and implanted in the sleek, titanium body of an intergalactic scout ship. But first she had to choose a human partner -- male or female -- to share her exhilarating escapades in space! Her life was to be rich and rewarding -- resplendent with daring adventures and endless excitement, beyond the wildest dreams of mere mortals. Gifted with the voice of an angel and being virtually indestructible, Helva XH-834 anticipated a sublime immortality. Then one day she fell in love!
How the series evolves
Books in this Series
The Ship Who Sang
From back cover of Del Rey paperback 1979: HELVA HAD BEEN BORN HUMAN ... but only her brain had been saved -- saved to be schooled, programmed and implanted in the sleek, titanium body of an intergalactic scout ship. But first she had to choose a human partner -- male or female -- to share her exhilarating escapades in space! Her life was to be rich and rewarding -- resplendent with daring adventures and endless excitement, beyond the wildest dreams of mere mortals. Gifted with the voice of an angel and being virtually indestructible, Helva XH-834 anticipated a sublime immortality. Then one day she fell in love!
The Princess Bride
The Princess Bride is a timeless tale that pits country against country, good against evil, love against hate. This incredible journey and artfully rendered love story is peppered with strange beasties monstrous and gentle, memorable surprises both terrible and sublime, and such unforgettable characters as... Westley, the handsome farm boy who risks death (and much worse) for the woman he loves; Inigo, the Spanish swordsman who lives only to avenge his father's death; Fezzik, the gentlest giant ever to have uprooted a tree with his bear hands; Vizzini, the evil Sicilian, with a mind so keen he's foiled by his own perfect logic; Prince Humperdinck, the eviler ruler of Guilder, who has an equally insatiable thirst for war and beauteous Buttercup; Count Rugen, the evilest man of all, who thrives on the excruciating pain of others; Miracle Max, the King's ex-Miracle Man, who can raise the dead (kind of); and, of course, Buttercup... the princess bride, the most perfect, beautiful woman in the history of the world!
Blue Adept
In Book Two of the epic adventure that began in SPLIT INFINITY, Stile discovers life on Proton and Phaze is getting more difficult. On Proton he's a serf trying to prove his right to exist by competing in the Great Games. And on Phaze, where only magic worked, he was the Blue Adept trying to master the powers of sorcery. On both worlds, someone was trying to assassinate him. And as if that weren't enough, he has to win the love of Lady Blue, fight a dragon, discover the ultimate weapon, and of course, seek out the all-powerful Citizen who was trying to kill him!THE APPRENTICE ADEPT SERIESBook One: SPLIT INFINITYBook Two: BLUE ADEPTBook Three: JUXTAPOSITIONFrom the Paperback edition.
Departures
From inside flap: What if history had taken a different path, made a detour, and deviated just a little bit from the road it chose? Here, Harry Turtledove explores such "what ifs" in twenty alternate-history stories ranging from ancient times to the far, far-different future. Persia has conquered Greece; Athens is in ruins. Yet even under Persia's rule, the power of the people can never be completely broken. . . A werewolf boy tears through Cologne's medieval stretts in search of sanctuary from the angry mob. But who will shelter a creature so hated and feared? A student from the far-off future sets off on a field trip to study Genghis Khan -- and finds him in the twentieth century? And many more! "He's one of the finest explorers of alternate histories ever." -- Locus
Star Trek - Log One
Star Trek The series they could not kill! Good news for Star Trek fans: the series is back on the air! The critically acclaimed animated series features all new stories of the starship Enterprise and its famous crew. Ballantine proudly launches the Star Trek Log series, lively adaptations of the best episodes - now in paperback for the first time. Complete in this volume Beyond the Farthest Star Yesteryear One of Our Planets Is Missing
The sword and the satchel
Kilgore had long dreamed of great adventures and magic. But when he alone proved able to draw the magic sword Kildurin he found himself embroiled in more than he had wanted. With the aid of a crotchety old wizard he set out for the far north across lands beset with trolls, frost giants, dark elves, and all the minions of dark sorcery. It was his duty to find and destroy the evil wizard Surt, who was threatening to bring never-ending darkness and eternal winter to the land of Skarpsey. If he could survive the perils of the journey, he would then have to face Surt alone -- one man and his sword against the might of the greatest wizard and all his cohorts. And there was a further problem. There had been twenty previous attempts to end the life of Surt, and all had failed. Surt, it seemed, could not be killed!
The cool war
From jacket front flap: Fred Pohl, multiple winner of science-fiction's top awards, presents a breathtaking romp through the energy-poor world of the 2020s -- a gripping chase-intrigue novel with a highly unlikely stand-in for James Bond. One day, the Reverend Hornswell Hake had nothing worse to contend with than the customary power shortages and his routine pastoral chores, such as counseling the vivacious Alys Brant -- and her husbands and wife. At nearly forty, his life was placid, almost humdrum. The very next day, Horny Hake was first enlisted as an unwilling agent of the Team -- secret successor to the long-discredited CIA -- and then courted by an anti-Team underground group. In practically no time at all, Horny and Alys were touring Europe on a mission about which he knew zip, except that it was a new move in the Cool War, the worldwide campaign of sabotage that had replaced actual combat. For the team and its opponents, though, the Cool War could be as perilous as any hot one, as Horny Hake discovered when he came up against Leota, lovely leader of the underground cabal, dedicated to destroying the Team; Yosper, the Bible-thumping, foul-mouthed nonogenarian killer; The Reddi twins, professional terrorists who turned up in the oddest places at the worst times and always managed to make Horny's life miserable; Ane Pegleg, master of such lethal toys as the Bulgarian Brolly and the Peruvian Pen. Picaresque and fast-moving, THE COOL WAR is also a deeply ironic, often hilarious, yet thought-provoking look at where we could be, some forty years from now.
Tarzan and the madman
Synopsis - A beautiful white girl on safari is captured by a lost civilization of semi pagan tribesmen and worshipped as a prisoner goddess...Two ruthless crooks on a feverish hunt for a lost hoard of gold in Tarzan’s territory plunder the tribesmen and creatures of the forest in their relentless search... And a young man – strong bronzed and dressed in a loincloth calls himself ‘Tarzan’, and causes chaos and confusion among all but the most faithful of the real jungle hero’s followers.
Fellowship of Talisman
This was medieval England in the 1970s, again beset by the ancient Evil that had kept the Dark Ages from ever lightening. Half the country was in the grip of the fell Harriers, and it was through these Harried Lands that Duncan of Standish would have to make his way to Oxenford. His mission was to authenticate a long-lost testament which offered the only hope against the terror. Beset by Harriers, Duncan is saved by Diane, great-granddaughter of a renegade wizard, and joined by the strangest company ever assembled: a timid hermit, a ghost who knows nothing of ghosthood, a banshee, a grumpy goblin, a witch who could never quite make herself evil enough, and a demon who is AWOL from Hell. Duncan believes himself protected by the talisman of a wizard's bauble. But when the Evil forces detect the company and mount a final assault against them, Duncan sees his only hope crumble in failure. He is left with only his courage and his mission...
Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works, the novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found. The book's tagline explains the title as "'the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns": the autoignition temperature of paper. The lead character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who becomes disillusioned with his role of censoring literature and destroying knowledge, eventually quitting his job and committing himself to the preservation of literary and cultural writings. The novel has been the subject of interpretations focusing on the historical role of book burning in suppressing dissenting ideas for change. In a 1956 radio interview, Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States. In later years, he described the book as a commentary on how mass media reduces interest in reading literature. In 1954, Fahrenheit 451 won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and the Commonwealth Club of California Gold Medal. It later won the Prometheus "Hall of Fame" Award in 1984 and a "Retro" Hugo Award, one of a limited number of Best Novel Retro Hugos ever given, in 2004. Bradbury was honored with a Spoken Word Grammy nomination for his 1976 audiobook version.
The October Country
"The October Country is many places: a picturesque Mexican village where death is a tourist attraction; a city beneath the city where drowned lovers are silently reunited; a carnival midway where a tiny man's most cherished fantasy can be fulfilled night after night. Each of the stories in Ray Bradbury's masterful collection is a wonder, imagined by an acclaimed tale-teller writing from a place of shadows. But there is astonishing beauty here as well, born from a prose that enchants and enthralls, that chills like a long-after-midnight wind, that lifts the reader high above a sleeping Earth on strange wings."--P. of cover.