The Garland library of science fiction

Synopsis - Welcome to the nightmare world of Paradys! Jehanine: demon or saint? Her days she spent at the Nunnery of the Angel; her nights in the vicious back streets of Paradys, wreaking revenge on men for the wrongs she had suffered at their hands. ‘How fast does a man run when the Devil is after him’ Andre St Jean is about to find out, as a young man collapses at his feet and presses into his hand a strange scarab ring, containing the secret of life... The stranger pushed a note across the table: ‘In a week or less I shall be dead.’ In a week, he was, and most unnaturally. She found herself drawn to the house where he died, to unravel the web of mystery and horror that had been spun about him...

This 1940's science fiction book is about a space station located at the Venus/sun Lagrange point (hence the "equilateral" of the title). The station's main mission is to facilitate communication between Earth, Mars and Venus. The crew deals with various crisis (pirates, politics, and dishonest salespeople) and produce some inventions, including the invention an FTL drive and a matter transmitter. Written as 13 short stories, they share a single continuity and setting and the book reads like a novel with 13 chapters. The book has aged well, especially considering that it is hard science-fiction, and the writing is excellent.

Davy is set in the far future of our world, in the fourth century after the collapse of what we describe as twentieth-century civilisation.

"We have been sent back." "Too far." -- Palgrave. "No." -- Sylvester. "Too far, " Palgrave's thought reiterated with a kind of numb fear. "They sent us back too far. Out of space and time. We do not exist. Annihilated. Never get back. Dead for ever." "Not to far, " Savadan's thought felt for out minds with the skill born of long practice. "I have been to this place before. We shall get out. Follow my will." "What place is this?" I wondered. "It has no namae. Call it the Desert of the Dawn." "Why? There is no light." "It is dark now, but the dawn will not fail us. I begin to see. The darkness on my left is giving way. I remember. Before this desert in the region farther back where Dill was sent, all is perpetual night. After this desert, forward time where the sender is, there is no darkness. We were sent back." "From where?" several queried. "From the light, to see its first dawn." "Is this Desert of the Dawn in the same fold of space and time as the region whence we were sent back? Who remembers?" Yes, who could remember, for they were in -- the time stream.

A State Trooper steps around a tree and finds himself in a another world. Fortunate for him he was a student of military history because the new world he finds himself in, needs him. State Trooper Calvin becomes Lord Kalvin due to his knowledge of early gunpowder and weapons. Classic Science Fiction, multi-dimensional travel into an alternate universe where there is a corrupt gunpowder theocracy just waiting to be broken up, a beautiful princess and lots of black powder weapons. Probably the first SF alternate history story from a historical perspective, Piper beat everyone to this genre, and did it so well at it that it took several decades for any competitors to appear. Good characters, good action, good historical analysis.

"In the beginning was the Shining One, Ptath, god of land, sea and space, on whom be all praise heaped, and countless prayers offered that he may return to his chosen race from his millions of years of merging with the race, which noble sacrifice he made for the glory of his people and for the development of his spirit, O Diyan, O Kolla and divine Rad." Holroyd blinked at the words, then closed the book. The wonder af it grew and grew, and slowly a conviction formed: He was dead. Except for this resurrection in the body of a god, he would he lying dead on a battlefield. But now it was two hundred million years later, and he was destined to rule the world. He was the god they worshipped as Ptath.

When Robert Wolff finds a strange horn he has the key to the door between universes. A door through space-time leading to a space unlike ours, built on tiers, where he has to work his way up to find out who created it.