The Expendables had struck it lucky at last. After grappling with the revolting Death Worms of Kratos, the deadly Rings of Tantalus and the weirdly anachronistic military society of Zelos, their fourth mission looked an easy one. Argus was an earth-type planet with one major continent, comfortably covered with vegetation. But that was before The Expendables encountered the deadly harpoon tree, or the low-lying plant which grasped greedily at anyone who dared to set foot on it, or the hornets that paralyzed their victims - so as to enjoy their food in peace. Worst of all the lurking horrors of Argus was the deadly hallucinogenic pollen which turned quiet Santa Maria crew members into vicious maniacs.

Zelos seemed an ideal planet for colonization. Possessing one large continent and numerous archipelagos, it had a climate and vegetation comfortably like that of Earth. Captain James Conrad and his crew of Expendables started on their initial reconnaissance of the planet. For the first time they found human beings already in residence. But this was a society remote from anything they had ever before experienced. For the Emperor of this strange world controlled his domain through the great annual War Games. Only the fittest could survive - and only they were allowed to procreate. Through this 'death control' the population was limited to twenty thousand. There was only one way the Expendables could get permission to establish a colony on Zelos. Risking their own lives, they must compete in the dreaded War Games. And, somehow, they must win.

First they went to Kratos - and faced the Deathworms. Then they went on to Tantalus and tried to fathom the Rings - which could only have been fabricated with the help of highly sophisticated machinery. And then they discover an alien spaceship orbiting the planet in strict silence and incommunicability. When they finally boarded the vessel, it was obvious that it had been derelict for centuries - as a result of some dreadful battle. Meanwhile down below, the enigmatic Rings lay waiting to deal with intruders - as they did the deadly vampire tree. Once again, Commander James Conrad and his team of Expendables faced their mission to find planets suitable for colonization. The second of a new series of books, The Rings of Tantalus seems guaranteed to further launch Richard Avery as a very special writer of modern science fiction novels. And there are more to come.

The Expendables were criminals, offered pardons in exchange for exploring alien worlds. But their mission takes them to Kratos, where the local lifeform is giant, slimy and hostile!

TEN MEN AND WOMEN ESCAPED IN THE STARSHIP - THE ONLY HOME THEY WOUKD KNOW FOR GENERATIONS - THE SEED FROM WHICH THEY WOULD BUILD A NEW RACE. The Solarian was a hundred metres high and, at its broadest point, twenty metres in diameter. It was designed to carry an initial crew of ten people - five men and five women - with provisions for subsequent children. Yet in that vast hull every cubic metre of space was indispensable, for the ship was a self-contained world, required to support human life independently for centuries. No member of the crew, male or female, could regard themselves as a separate entity, an individual personality. But each person was a part of a total life-unit, a dedicated nucleus that might one day expand into a tribe; that might, phoenixlike, bring forth a new human race.

Vanessa Smith looked like any normal seventeen year old girl. But Vanessa wasn't normal at all. She possessed extraordinary telepathic powers - and in the 1990s telepathy was the ultimate weapon in psychological warfare. Vanessa, along with other gifted children, was virtually a prisoner at Random Hill Residential School, developing her abilities for Government exploitation. So when she escaped, Vanessa became a political embarrassment. Questions were asked by the Opposition. It was vital for the Prime Minister, the ruthlessly dictatorial Sir Joseph Humbolt, that everything that marked Vanessa's existence should be erased. And orders were given that she should be hunted down - using telepaths like herself - and destroyed.

The Dag Hammarskjold takes off from Woomera, Australia for the new human settlement on Mars. Planet Earth is being eaten away by uncontrollable pollution, starvation and disease. Its life expectancy is nil. This is the last spaceship, its passengers the last people on earth with any hope. But it is never to reach its objective. Five thousand years later its captain wakes up to a new world undiscovered in his time and to a bitter experience he must fight alone.

Philip Shane, journalist for the London Sunday Sentinel and undercover agent for the British Government, sets out, at the Prime Minister's request, to investigate the death of key scientists on the moon. His fellow travellers are Claire Scott, daughter of Sir Fabian Scott, pioneer of Lunar City; Professor Denis Quarles, a one-man Investigating Commission; Gaff Midley, a psychiatrist; the Ferry Rocket Commander and crew. At Woomera, firing base for the Ferry Rockets in the year AD 2050, Shane is drugged and sabotage occurs. On the Commonwealth Space Station, 1079 miles above the Earth the Ferry Rocket Commander is killed. Who is responsible, and why?

What happened on Judgement Day? Do we have Martian ancestors? Will we blow up the world? In this collection of his best SF stories, Edmund Cooper gives his own inimitably entertaining answers to these and other such intriguing questions. From The Death Watch to The Brain Child, Cooper 'considers possible scenarios'. Sometimes he is serious, sometimes satirical. Sometimes he is uncomfortably close to the truth.

At first he though it was all part of some crazy nightmare. But it wasn't. Russell Graheme, M.P. was one of a handful of passengers flying from Stockholm to London. One moment flying peacefully in the sky, the next lying in an un-Earthly green coffin. Grahame was the first to emerge from this strange resting place. But for him, as well as for the others, it had been only the ecliptical experience. Soon all were to find themselves lost in a bizarre world of Mediaeval knights, Stone Age warriors and gremlins, caught unalterably in the weirdest cocoon of Time.