After Civil Servant Philip Christy crosses paths with the mysterious Bertram Ingledew in the respectable suburb of Brackenhurst, Philip and his sister Frida, married to the wealthy Scot Robert Monteith, become friends with the stranger. Bertram has some unconventional concepts about society, and as the story unfolds, his beliefs and actions cause much disruption in the family and the neighbourhood.Who is Bertram? Where does he come from? Allen explores some interesting ideas about society, some of which are curiously relevant today...

Gregor Mendel (1822 - 1884) was an Augustinian monk in the St. Thomas monastery in Brno. His seminal paper "Experiments on Plant Hybridization" presents his results of studying genetic traits in pea plants. It is the ground breaking work on inheritance, being the first to differentiate between dominant and recessive genetic traits. His work was long ignored and deemed controversial, however, at its rediscovery at the turn to the 20th century, it earned Gregor Mendel the title "father of modern genetics".

Do you know the difference between sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks? Are you interested in their geologic origin, chemical composition or how each type affects the landscape? Do you know the differences between limestone, granite and marble as building materials? You will find these and lots of other interesting facts about rocks in this second edition of "Rocks and Their Origins" published in 1922. The author, Grenville A. J. Cole, was an English geologist, Professor of Geology in the Royal College of Science for Ireland and an avid cyclist.

"It is barely a century and a half ago that certain philosophers, who, it should be remarked, were very ignorant of the primitive history of man, of the variations of his mental constitution and of the laws of heredity, propounded the idea of the equality of individuals and races... It is in the name of this idea that socialism, which seems destined to enslave before long the majority of Western peoples, pretends to ensure their welfare... The object of this work is to describe the psychological characteristics which constitute the soul of races, and to show how the history of a people and its civilisation are determined by these characteristics...

A galactic war has left the Terran Federation in ruins. Formerly civilized planets have decivilized into barbarism. Space Vikings roam the wreckage, plundering and killing for gain. Lord Lucas Trask of Traskon was no admirer of the Space Vikings, but when murder takes his wife on his wedding day, Trask trades everything he has for his own Space Viking ship and sets out on a galaxy-wide quest for revenge.

An expedition to Mars discovers the remains of an advanced civilization, which died out many thousands of years ago. They recovered books and documents left behind, and are puzzled by their contents. Would the team find their “Rosetta Stone” that would allow them to unlock the Martian language, and learn the secrets of this long-dead race?

Two-hundred years after a global nuclear war, two explorers from a research outpost, that largely survived the cataclysm, discover a settlement of humans who have managed to maintain their civilisation despite ferocious cannibal neighbours, the Scowrers. However, the explorers must turn detective in order to understand the mystery of their hosts philosophy and religion. (Description by Reynard)

Uller Uprising is the story of a confrontation between a human overlord and alien servants, with an ironic twist at the end. Like most of Piper’s best work, Uller Uprising is modeled after an actual event in human history; in this case the Sepoy Mutiny (a Bengal uprising in British-held India brought about when rumors were spread to native soldiers that cartridges being issued by the British were coated with animal fat. The rebellion quickly spread throughout India and led to the massacre of the British Colony at Cawnpore.). Piper’s novel is not a mere retelling of the Indian Mutiny, but rather an analysis of an historical event applied to a similar situation in the far future.

Natives of the distant planet of Kwannon believe that their world is about to end, and in preparing for the apocalypse, may be unnecessarily bringing about their own demise. The planetary government can’t overcome its own bureaucracy to help them, and the military is overwhelmed. Can a single newsman change the course of a whole people, and save their world?

The Terro-Human Future History is Piper’s detailed account of the next 6000 years of human history. 1942, the year the first fission reactor was constructed, is defined as the year 1 A.E. (Atomic Era). In 1973, a nuclear war devastates the planet, eventually laying the groundwork for the emergence of a Terran Federation, once humanity goes into space and develops antigravity technology.The story “The Edge of the Knife” (collected in Empire) occurs slightly before the war, and involves a man who sees flashes of the future. It links many key elements of Piper’s series.

Jack Holloway, a prospector on the planet Zarathustra discovers small furry creatures. These creatures are obviously intelligent, but are they animals or are they sapient? If they are sapient the planet will be declared a protected zone and the company that is developing the planet commercially will lose their exclusive rights to the resources…

H. Beam Piper (1904–1964) was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of “Paratime” alternate history tales.

An undercover Paratimer has disappeared on assignment while in an alternate time line, and it’s up to Verkan Vall of the Paratime Police to save her. To do so, he must infiltrate a universe in which assassination is an honorable profession, and reincarnation a scientific fact. Will Verkan Vall survive in a world of killers and the undead?

The Galactic Empire is slowly 'welcoming' into the family of civilized worlds those systems so far off in the backwater of the galaxy that they have been overlooked and ignored for the past 500 years or so. This is purely routine work because every planet offered the chance has eagerly accepted the invitation. Mainly because the enlightened Empire lets the planetary government continue to rule and do whatever it wants...with a few minor restrictions of course; and because the they are shown what happens to planets who decide not to accept the invitation...

"There's some reaction these days that holds scientists responsible for war. Take it one step further: What happens if "book-learnin'" is held responsible ...?"

I'll bet you did not know that our little earth is not limited to the single time line on which we happen to exist. That's right; There are actually thousands, no many millions of parallel times, each existing alongside all the rest, using the same real estate, but following their own path. Some extremely primitive, some very advanced, but all blissfully unaware of the others. Of course this does not affect us at all, unless ... unless one of these time lines discovers the existence of the others and then a way to move easily back and forth from one to the other...

The Paratime Police had a real headache this time! Tracing one man in a population of millions is easy--compared to finding one gang hiding out on one of billions of probability lines!