Showing results by author "Sylvia Engdahl" in All Categories

A Newbery Honor Book and a Book Sense 76 Selection, Enchantress from the Stars is a science-fiction classic. Three alien races meet on the small green world of Andrecia. The Imperial Exploration Corps wants to claim the planet for its own, but the Anthropological Service stands in the way. And when young Elana makes contact with native Georyn, a love story exploring the very depths of human emotion unfolds.

Starship pilot Terry Radnor is elated to be among those chosen to defend the secret colony Maclairn against enemies who pose a threat to the spread of paranormal human mind powers. He commits himself wholly to the goal of that world, not guessing how far his effort to protect it will take him from everything else he cares about--his promising career as a Fleet officer, contact with people who share his newly-discovered psi capability, his wife and unborn child. Torn away against his will after learning a secret too deep for its disclosure to be risked, he is forced into exile from all that ...

On completion of her training as an agent of the interstellar federation's Anthropological Service, Elana is sent to a world whose people may soon destroy their civilization. Since not enough is understood about the situation to justify any interference with their evolution, the Service has no power to act; its agents must go as helpless observers, posing as natives, in the hope of gaining knowledge that may help to save other worlds. This passive role proves intolerable to the young, inexperienced agent assigned to the same city as Elana, a city under totalitarian rule. After falling in ...

This new edition of this book includes fewer essays than the original edition, which was too long to be issued in print form at a reasonable price. It has been shortened in order to offer paperback and audiobook editions of essays about space that the author feels are worth preserving in those formats. (The omitted essays and the appendix “Space Quotes to Ponder” will remain available at her website.) Sylvia Engdahl became fascinated by the idea of space travel in 1946, and has believed since the early 1950s that expansion of our species to other worlds is vital to the preservation of ...

As captain of his own starship Estel, Terry Steward, born Terry Radnor, is committed to spreading acceptance of psi powers and other advanced mind capabilities throughout the colonies of humankind. Barred from contact with his beloved planet Maclairn, he now journeys from world to world, heralding the hopeful future about which he alone knows the full truth. But the opponents of mind-powers are gaining strength, and on Earth the persecution of people who develop such abilities is increasing. Soon targeted by bounty hunters, Terry risks everything that matters to him in a desperate attempt ...

Ardith Moran is elated by the prospect of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations, elated enough to stake her life on her conviction that they exist after the exploratory expedition's leaders turn back. The last thing she expects is to fall in love with an alien, much less for their love to play a key role in saving Earth from tyranny and eventual ruin. As a member of the Anthropological Service, he is willing to make sacrifices and expects her to do the same. Can she, influenced by the legacy of the now-legendary Captain of Estel, convince Earthborn people that they can't retreat from ...

Three hundred people in a starship low on life support--they must land fast, or they’ll run out of air. Captain Jesse Sanders is their only pilot. How can he choose where to locate their colony with no chance to explore the raw new world? How can he shuttle them all to the surface within a few short hours? And when the site proves less than adequate, how can he live with the knowledge that his own astrogation error was what got them into such a fix? Isolated by choice on a world they have reached in secret, the colonists hope to establish a culture based on psi powers that can someday ...

Noren knows that his world is not as it should be--it is wrong that only the Scholars, and their representatives the Technicians, can use metal tools and Machines. It is wrong that only they have access to the mysterious City, which even in boyhood he longed to enter. Above all, it is wrong for the Scholars to have sole power over the distribution of knowledge. The High Law imposes these restrictions and many others, though the Prophecy declares that someday knowledge and Machines will be available to everyone. Convicted in youth of heresy, Noren has only recently come to believe in the ...

Noren knew that his world was not as it should be - it was wrong that only the Scholars, and their representatives the Technicians, could use metal tools and Machines. It was wrong that only they had access to the mysterious City, which he had always longed to enter. Above all, it was wrong for the Scholars to have sole power over the distribution of knowledge. The High Law imposed these restrictions and many others, though the Prophecy promised that someday knowledge and Machines would be available to everyone.

This book consists of essays by the author of the Newbery Honor book Enchantress from the Stars and ten other science fiction novels, selected from her collections Reflections on Enchantress from the Stars and Other Essays, From This Green Earth: Essays on Looking Outward, and The Future of Being Human and Other Essays, which are available only as ebooks. Because of their length these collections cannot be issued as paperbacks at reasonable prices, so this short sampler has been produced for the benefit of readers who have a strong preference for print books and/or audiobooks. It contains ...

Crime is considered illness, untreated illness is crime; ambulance crews are the only police. Dead bodies stay on "life support" forever. Can anyone gain freedom? When burned-out starship captain Jesse Sanders is seized by a dictatorial medical regime and detained on the colony planet Undine, he has no idea that he is about to be plunged into a bewildering new life that will involve ordeals and joys beyond anything he has ever imagined, as well as the love of a woman with powers that seem superhuman. Still less does he suspect that he must soon take responsibility for the lives of people he...

Noren knows that his world is not as it should be--it is wrong that only the Scholars and their representatives the Technicians, can use metal tools and Machines. It is wrong that only they have access to the mysterious City, which even in boyhood he longed to enter. Above all, it is wrong for the Scholars to have sole power over the distribution of knowledge. The High Law imposes these restrictions and many others, though the Prophecy declares that someday knowledge and Machines will be available. No longer the heretic he once was, Noren has come to believe in the Prophecy's intended ...

Melinda Ashley has a plan for her life, and a trip to Mars isn't part of it. When she receives a spaceliner ticket as a high school graduation gift from her dad, she is dismayed, but reluctantly agrees to go with him--in part because she's infuriated by her fiance's high-handed declaration that she can't. Her outlook begins to change when she meets Alex Preston, a second-generation Martian colonist who is going home after college on Earth. Alex believes settling Mars is important. He's looking forward to the role he expects to play in the colony's future. Melinda finds this hard to ...