Showing results by author "Gordon R. Dickson" in All Categories

Life on Earth is good. Disease is checked, hunger ended, and war and suffering abolished, with liberty and justice and a high standard of living for all. But Paul Formain, a strangely gifted young engineer, doesn't believe a word of it. So he comes to Walter Blunt's Chantry Guild, whose motto is "Destruct!" and whose stated goal is the end of civilization. There are Alternate Laws at work in the world, says the Chantry Guild; Walter Blunt has pledged his life to them, and to the principle of destruction as a positive force.

Throughout the Fourteen Worlds of humanity, no race is as feared and respected as the Dorsai. The ultimate warriors, they are known for their deadly rages, unbreakable honor, and fierce independence. No man rules the Dorsai, but their mastery of the art of war has made them the most valuable mercenaries in the known universe. Donal Graeme is Dorsai, taller and harder than any ordinary man. But he is different as well, with talents that maze even his fellow Dorsai. And once he ventures out into the stars, the future will never be the same....

It's obvious that Cletus Graeme - limping, mild-mannered scholarly - doesn't belong on a battle field, but instead at a desk working on his fourth book on battle strategy and tactics. But Bakhalla has more battlefields than libraries, and Graeme sees his small force of Dorsai - soldiers of fortune - as the perfect opportunity to test his theories. But if his theories or his belief in the Dorsai lead him astray, he's a dead man.

Men of War on the Dorsai worlds, men of Faith on the Friendly Worlds of Harmony and Association, men of Science, the Exotics of Kultis and Mara, and the Splinter cultures which had produced even stranger new talents. Those who knew said it was the Dorsai who supplied soldiers to the sixteen worlds. The Friendlies supplied cannon fodder, common soldiers who could be relied on to obey orders at all times. But even cannon fodder can sometimes produce genius.

The Interbeing League had been formed to make contact with new intelligent races in the galaxy and offer them membership. But when the League encountered the Hokas, furry creatures strongly resembling the teddy bears of Earth, the league's agent, Alexander Jones, could have been excused for wishing he had a simpler assignment than making sense out of the Hokas - such as singlehandedly stopping an interstellar war.

Thrown into the alternate universe of 14th-century England, 20th-century mathematician Jim Eckert and his wife, Angie, have become Sir James, Baron de Bois de Malencontri, and Lady Angela. A bit of a shock, but they'd coped with it. In fact they were dealing with their new life's hazards and magical manifestations just fine. Until Jim is suddenly transformed into a dragon. None too pleased about this latest turn of events, Jim turns for help to his neighbour, the magician S. Carolinus, who takes him on as an apprentice.

Through no fault of his own, the once human Jim Eckert had become a dragon. Unfortunately, his beloved Angie had remained human. But in this magical land anything could happen. To make matter worse, Angie had been taken prisoner by an evil dragon and was held captive in the impenetrable Loathly Tower. So in this land where humans were edible and beasts were magical - where spells worked and logic didn't-- Jim Eckert had a big, strange problem.

In The Final Encyclopedia the human race is split into three Splinter cultures: the Friendlies, fanatic in their faith; the truth-seeking Exotics; and the warrior Dorsai. But now humanity is threatened by the power-hungry Others, whose triumph would end all human progress. Hal Mayne is an orphan who was raised by three tutors: an Exotic, a Friendly, and a Dorsai. He is the only human capable of uniting humanity against the Others. But only if he is willing to accept his terrifying destiny... as savior of mankind.

Donal Graeme was a Dorsai, a mercenary soldier, and also a mutant gifted with insight into the path forward for the human race. Through his gifts, Donal would come to bend time and live three lifetimes - and, in the process, run into problems he had not expected: first, his own flaws, and second, the existence of another mutant, Bleys Ahrens. Bleys is a man with a clear vision of the struggle in which he's involved - but an increasingly deficient sense of human values.

Feared and respected as the most effective soldiers humanity has ever known, the Dorsai find their reputation at risk when an invader attacks their planet, inhabited only by the Dorsai women who are left behind to defend it.

'Tis the season for treachery: The Earl of Somerset is throwing a lavish Christmas feast, a revel above all others to celebrate the holiday. But the Dark Powers have chosen this joyous time to launch a massive offensive. An army of land-hungry trolls has laid siege outside the Earl's fortress, while a nest of venomous traitors waits to hatch its deadly plan from the inside. Now Sir James, the brave Dragon Knight, must fight a battle unlike any he has ever known - a battle no man, knight, or dragon can win.

After the collapse of civilization, when the social fabric of America has come apart in bloody rags, when every man's hand is raised against another, and only the strong survive. "Jeebee" Walther was a scientist, a student of human behavior, who saw the Collapse of the world economy coming, but could do nothing to stop it. Now he must make his way across a violent and lawless America, in search of a refuge where he can keep the spark of knowledge alive in the coming Dark Age.

In The Dragon on the Border, Sir James, the Dragon Knight, faces his most terrifying challenge - the Hollow Men, spirits of the dead in empty suits of armour. Their weapons are all too real, and a slain Hollow Man can be resurrected within two days. As long as one of their unholy number endures, no Hollow Man can ever truly die It's a battle that could test any dragon. Not to mention a knight. Or an American. Or all three in one!

A lone ship piloted by Dorsai Amanda Morgan runs the blockade of the Earth. She has come to rouse Hal Mayne from his research to go to Kultis, where the secretive Chantry Guild holds mastery over the Alternate Forces. The answers they find there may decide humanity's most critical moment.

As a young mathematician, Jim Eckert was transported to a parallel medieval world where he found he had the ability to transform himself into a large but none-too-bright dragon named Gorbash. Jim Eckert's daring exploits have earned him a title - Baron de Bois de Malencontri et Riveroak - and he has settled down to a peaceful life as a feudal lord, with his beloved Angela at his side. But a new peril endangers his enchanted realm - as the King of the Gnarlies teams up with the Earl of Cumberland, Jim's longtime rival, to kidnap his adopted son, Robert.

The Dragon Knight must confront the three disasters that lie in wait for any visitor to the English Middle Ages: War, plague, and Plantagenets. The plague is caused by a covert invasion of shape changing goblins who seek to take over the world. Meanwhile, Eckerts castle is invaded by Plantagenets: Edward III, his son Edward The Black Prince, and Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent. Against the background of a full-scale human-versus-goblin war, these worthies move in a swirl of intrigue and dynastic tension.

Pacifism will always be a powerful moral force, even - perhaps especially - to the Dorsai. For those of this planet of warriors born and bred are not as other men; once a Dorsai’s heart is given he holds nothing back, and does not count the cost. Even if that cost be the very planet of his birth, and he becomes a Lost Dorsai.

Baron Jim is in the thick of it again. Somehow he's found himself taking on England's oldest enemy - the French - who have entered into an unholy alliance with a most fearsome horror: The mighty serpents of the deep underseas. Nobody has battled them before; nobody even realized they could leave the sea. And with the serpents as their allies it's only a matter of time before the French invasion succeeds - unless Baron Jim can stop them.

Gordon R. Dickson continues his acclaimed saga of a 20th-century American transformed into a Dragon Knight - and transported into a fantastic medieval adventure! The Dragon Knight's journey to the Holy Land is supposed to be a simple quest...but pirates, sea giants, and the legendary Djinn threaten to make his voyage the most dangerous odyssey known to man - and dragon.

In the legends, after their final battle, Arthur and his knights went to Lyonesse, the land under the sea. Now Lyonesse is threatened by a resurgence of the Dark Powers, those mindlessly malevolent forces that struggle to stop the course of History. And Jim Eckert and his friends are called upon to stop them. Arthur and his court live on in Lyonesse because, even though centuries have elapsed, there are still those who believe in them.