Showing results by author "Avram Davidson" in All Categories

Ready for a story? Here's a selection of some of the finest science fiction shorts of recent years, including stories from Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, William Gibson, Robert Sheckley, Terry Bisson, Avram Davidson, and Philip K. Dick.

In his science fiction novel Rork!, Ran Loman wants only to be left alone, to get away from it all. That's why he volunteers for duty on Pia 2, the most remote, isolated world in the Galaxy. The problem on Pia 2 is redwing, a plant used throughout the galaxy as a medical fixative. Redwing grows ony on Pia 2. And lately, less and less is being harvested. Lomar's assignment: find out why, and do something about it.

Swarthy, hairy, ostracized by others of his tribe, Arnten set off to lead a life of proud and lonely independence in his primitive world of Thule - Ultima Thule - where men huddled in animal skins against the arctic cold and used crude clubs and spears to kill the giant prehistoric animals that roamed the land. But Arnten - "The Bear" - was quicker of body and sharper of mind than his fellow men, and he had a special destiny: a path beset with mortal danges and evil witchery he must overcome to save himself, his world, and his woman, from the evil one called "The Wolf"!

This is a classic collection of short stories written by Avram Davidson, one of the most acclaimed fantasists of the 20th Century. It includes his best-known short story, "Or All the Seas with Oysters", and more.

Inspired by medieval legends about the poet Vergil, who was revered not only as the author of the Aeneid but also as a powerful necromancer, Davidson embarked on his Vergil Magus series in the '60s with the intriguing novel The Phoenix and the Mirror. In this sequel, Vergil answers a magical summons from Averno, both the wealthiest and the filthiest of cities. The magnates there are worried about the waning and shifting of the natural fires that have fueled their industries and fouled their air.

Peregrine, bastard son of King Paladrine, thought he had trouble when he was transformed by a sorcerer into a falcon. In fact, his real troubles began when the prepubescent princess Ruby changed him back into...well, almost a prince. A bastard. Whereupon he found himself dragged off by a dyspeptic dragon, smooched by a sphinx, wooed by the weefolk, and finally appointed Sub-Imperial-sub-Legate, which is still not quite a prince, but somewhat more elegant than a bastard.

Avram Davidson's final Vergil Magus novel, The Scarlet Fig, continues the adventures of the wandering mage through an alternate ancient world filled with exotic landscapes, populated by creatures of myth and legend.