Maxima Library

The day Gabriel Chrome, a failed book sculptor contemplating his suicide on the Thames Embankment, stumbled on the suicide bid of the naked Camilla Greylaw, was a day of hopeful redemption for a corrupt and violent world. For the lovely form that he chanced to preserve was the sole carrier of a contagious venereal disease. A bug which would inhibit the aggressive instinct, rendering total placidity in all humans. At once Gabriel’s life has new meaning and purpose. To save mankind becomes his hardened ambition. But mankind seems far from hope.

Sixteen people, passengers on a jet aircraft from Stockholm to London, wake up in plastic coffins in the middle of a road that leads to nowhere. On one side of the road is an hotel— empty. On the other side is a supermarket—also empty. There are two cars on the road without batteries or engines. And all around there is nothing but forest and wilderness… So begins an adventure in which the appearance of medieval knights, Stone Age warriors and ‘fairies’ leads to an exciting denouement. For the abducted passengers and their new companions are not on Earth. They have been brought to an alien world for reasons which, at the end, are movingly explained by their captors.

“Michael had a good memory. He could remember things significant & insignificant. He remembered — if hazily — when he was young enough to be fed milk only. He remembered the odd child who disappeared from playschool & he remembered the other child who fell (or was pushed?) from the high window & lay all smashed & crumpled on the ground, but not bleeding & he remembered how he’d wanted to know about words, how you could keep them, how you could fix them — perhaps like a drawing — forever.”
“Time seems to have run amok. London is governed by Queen Victoria & Winston Churchill, populated by young people called ‘fragiles’ & others called ‘drybones’ because they don’t bleed. The young fragiles come to realize that they’re the last of their kind — whatever kind that might be.
Thus is established the setting for a brilliant novel of adventure that speaks to the largest questions facing young people everywhere — questions of identity, of purpose in life & of responsibility for themselves & their kind.”
— Book Club Edition

He was the subject of an experiment seventy light years away from Earth.

It lay in the grass, tiny and white and burning. He stooped, put out his fingers. And then there was nothing. Nothing but darkness and oblivion. A split second demolition of the world of Richard Avery.

From a damp February afternoon in Kensington Gardens, Avery is precipitated into a world of apparent unreason. A world in which his intelligence is tested by computer, and which he is finally left on a strange tropical island with three companions, and a strong human desire to survive.

But then the mystery deepens: for there are two moons in the sky, and the rabbits have six legs, and there is a physically satisfying reason for the entire situation.

Nel sottosuolo vicino a Londra viene scavato un immenso magazzino dove, grazie a opportuni accorgimenti, potranno essere conservati enormi quantitativi di generi alimentari. Lo scopo dell’impresa è quello di preservare le scorte di cibo da un inquinamento radioattivo, nel caso che si scateni una guerra atomica. Dei lavori si è interessato l’ingegnere John Markham. Così, quando viene segnalata una irregolarità negli impianti elettronici, è Markham a scendere nei sotterranei per un controllo. A un tratto, una scossa violentissima, seguita da altre, poi un crollo improvviso. L’ingegnere pensa a un terremoto o a un errore di costruzione. Comunque, lì vicino c’è una delle tante nicchie col telefono collegato all’esterno. Vi arriva scavalcando i detriti, ma l’apparecchio non funziona. Be’, si tratterà di aspettare un po’. Fuori si accorgeranno che è successo qualcosa e scenderanno a cercarlo. E deve proprio essere andata così perchè Markham, adesso, è in un lettino. Si sente un po’ debole ma è sano e salvo. Però ha freddo. Molto freddo. E quella donna che si china su di lui è Katy! No, non è lei. Ma Dio Santo come le assomiglia. E quello strano dottore che dice cose tanto strampalate... Insomma, affrettatevi a leggere questo romanzo per poter dire a John Markham dove esattamente si trova e cosa gli è successo.