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Book List
Series is Gap Cycle
Gap Cycle:

A series of science fiction novels written by Stephen R Donaldson.
#Year1st ReadTitleAuthor(s)My Rating 
1 1991 1991 (1) Gap into Conflict: The Real Story
Cover Blurb
Stephen R Donaldson  Rated 3Rated 3Rated 3Rated 3Rated 3
I read thisIn my library
Book Cover
Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is one of the most acclaimed fantasy series of our time, with penetrating insight into the darkest secrets of the human soul.  Now Donaldson turns his storytelling mastery to an intense new five-volume series of the far future, beginning with...
THE GAP INTO CONFLICT:
THE REAL STORY

Angus Thermopyle was an ore pirate and a murderer; even the most disreputable asteroid pilots of Delta Sector stayed out of his way.  They muttered that everyone who had ever gotten close to Thermopyle had ended up dead - or in the lockup.  But when he arrived at Mallorys Bar & Sleep with a gorgeous woman by his side, the regulars had to take notice.  She was too beautiful, to obviously from a different class.  Her name was Morn Hyland, and she had been a police officer - until she showed up with Thermopyle.

One person in Mallorys Bar wasn't frightened.  Nick Succorso had his own ship, a sleek frigate fitted for deep space.  He had a reputation as a bold pirate, but not a bloodthirsty one.  And he had the kind of charisma that made men follow him and women want him.  Only the scars beneath his eyes - brutal knife cuts that darkened when his blood rose - indicated that he'd ever known defeat.  You could almost feel the tension when he first saw Morn Hyland.

Everyone knew that Thermopyle and Succorso were on a collision course.  What nobody suspected was how quickly it would all be over - or how decisive the victory would be.  It was a common enough example of rivalry and revenge - or so everyone thought.  But the real story was something entirely different... something none of them would have believed.  Here is that story, as told by one of the modern giants of imaginative fiction.

The Real Story takes us to a remarkably detailed world of faster-than-light travel (known as "crossing the Gap"), politics and betrayal, extraordinary technological development, and a shadowy presence just outside our view.  It confirms Stephen R. Donaldson's deep awareness of the wellsprings of the human condition and the implacable conflict of good and evil within each of us.  It begins the fiercest, most profound story that he has ever written.

Includes a special afterward from the author.

STEPHEN R. DONALDSON was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947, and as the son of an American missionary spent his early years in India.  After serving as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, he attended Kent State University, where he earned a master's degree in English.  Donaldson made his writing debut in 1977; the series quickly became an international bestseller.  He was awarded the prestigious John W. Campbell Award as Best New Writer in 1979.  He currently lives in New Mexico, where he is working on the next book in the Gap series.
2 1991 1991 (2) Gap into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge
Cover Blurb
Stephen R Donaldson  Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4
I read thisIn my library
Book Cover
First Stephen R. Donaldson gave us The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the critically acclaimed and wildly popular fantasy series that established this master storyteller as one of today's most insightful novelists.  Then came The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story, the suspenseful beginning of a brand-new science fiction series.  Now the story continues in an even more powerful tale of dark passions, perilous alliances, and dubious heroism.

THE GAP INTO VISION:
FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE

Morn Hyland, United Mining Companies police officer, is beautiful, brilliant, dedicated, and dangerous.  Two ruthless men think they can possess her, but Morn is no one's victim, no one's pawn.

Charismatic ore-pirate Nick Succorso, for example, sees Morn as booty wrested from his vicious colleague, Angus Thermopyle.  But he soon finds himself engaged in a deadly power struggle with the supposedly helpless captive, as she strives to retain her identity, her integrity, and ultimately her life.  Angus Thermopyle, too, once made the mistake of underestimating Morn, and he is about to pay the ultimate price - by falling prey to the twisted aims of the very authorities he has battled since boyhood.

And beyond them all, within the borders of Forbidden Space, wait the Amnion, an alien race embodying all that humanity knows of horror, a race capable of transforming humans into mutated, unrecognizable forms.  The Amnion want something from the human race - and will go to unthinkable lengths to get it.

In Forbidden Knowledge Stephen R. Donaldson spins a galaxywide web of intrigue that entangles Morn, Nick, Angus, the UMCP, and even the Amnion in loops of deception and betrayal that none of them can escape - and that tightens with inexorable strength around characters and readers alike.

STEPHEN R. DONALDSON was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947, and as the son of an American missionary spent his early years in India.  After serving as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, he attended Kent State University, where he earned a master's degree in English.  Donaldson made his writing debut in 1977; the series quickly became an international bestseller.  He was awarded the prestigious John W. Campbell Award as Best New Writer in 1979.  His newest work is a five-volume cycle of novels that began in early 1991 with Bantam Spectra's publication of The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story.  He currently lives in New Mexico, where he is working on the next book in the Gap series.
3 1992 1992 (3) Gap into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises
Cover Blurb
Stephen R Donaldson  Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4
I read thisIn my library
Book Cover
A master storyteller, Stephen R. Donaldson established himself worldwide with his unforgettable bestselling fantasy series The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.  Then, with The Real World and Forbidden Knowledge, he launched a thrilling new science fiction cycle.  Now the galactic epic continues as humanity struggles against the forces of ultimate evil - and its own dark nature.

THE GAP INTO POWER:
A DARK AND HUNGRY GOD ARISES

Billingate: illegal shipyard, haven for pirates and brigands, where every vice flourishes and every appetite can be sated... gateway to the alien realm of the Amnion and clearinghouse for all they require to fulfill their mutagenic plans against humanity.

It is here that beautiful UMCP cop Morn Hyland is about to be traded to the Amnion by the buccaneer Nick Succorso - an act of profiteering and revenge that pushes his crew to mutiny.  Now Nick's survival depends on retrieving Morn's sixteen-year-old son "force-grown" by the Amnion, a boy struggling to gain his identity.  To accomplish the rescue, Nick must turn to his mortal enemy, Angus Thermopyle.  Irrevocably altered, programmed for an unknown purpose, Thermopyle has apparently escaped captivity and fled to Billingate with the infamous double-dealer, Milos Taverner.  Together they will mount a raid against a man called the Bill, illegal spaceport owner and traitor to the human race - and into the center of the most heavily defended shipyard in the universe.

At Billingate the stage is set for confrontation, when the fate of Morn Hyland is to be decided in a kaleidoscopic whirl of plot and counterplot, treachery and betrayal.

In A Dark and Hungry God Arises, nothing is as it seems.  As schemes unravel to reveal yet deeper schemes, the lives of Morn, Nick, and Angus may all be forfeit as pawns in the titanic game played out between Warden Dios, dedicated director of the UMC Police, and the Dragon, greed-driven ruler of the UMC.  Here, the future of humankind hangs on the uncertain fortune of Morn Hyland in a daring novel of epic power and suspense, relentlessly gripping from first page to last.

STEPHEN R. DONALDSON was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947, and as the son of an American missionary spent his early years in India.  After serving as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, he attended Kent State University, where he earned a master's degree in English.  Donaldson made his writing debut with the first Thomas Covenant books in 1977; the series quickly became an international bestseller.  He was awarded the prestigious John W. Campbell Award as Best New Writer in 1979.  He currently lives in New Mexico, where he is working on the next book in the Gap series.
4 1994 1994 (4) Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order
Cover Blurb
Stephen R Donaldson  Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4
I read thisIn my library
Book Cover
Stephen R. Donaldson has earned a worldwide reputation as one of the bestselling imaginative authors of all time.  His thrilling science fiction cycle - The Real Story, Forbidden Knowledge, and A Dark and Hungry God Arises - has introduced us to an adventure as vast as the galaxy and as unpredictable as the human heart.  Now the adventure continues in the next to last chapter of one of the most powerful science fiction epics ever told...

THE GAP INTO MADNESS:
CHAOS AND ORDER

As the planetoid Thanatos Minor explodes into atoms, a specially fitted cruiser escapes the mass destruction and hurtles into space only a step ahead of hostile pursuit.  On board Trumpet. is a handful of bedraggled fugitives from an outlaw world, old enemies suddenly and violently thrown together in a desperate bid for survival.

Among this unlikely crew allies are Morn Hyland, once a UMCP cop, now a prisoner to the electrodes implanted in her brain; her son Davies, "force-grown" to adulthood by the alien Amnion and struggling to understand his true identity; the amoral space buccaneer Nick Succorso, whose most daring act of piracy could be his last; and Angus Thermopyle, unstoppable cyborg struggling to wrest control of his own mind from his UMCP programmers.

Locked in lethal battle against one another for control of Trumpet, they also find themselves the target of Punisher, a police ship whose human captain, Min Donner, is torn between her duty and her sympathy for the outlaw crew she's been ordered to capture.  Yet as Min races to reach Trumpet in time, Warden Dios, the director of the UMC Police, receives a darker directive from the mysterious semi-immortal Dragon, ruler of the UMC: Kill everyone aboard Trumpet except for the one person whose blood carries the mutagenic key to ultimate Amnion triumph - the ability to appear perfectly human.

In a final titanic showdown in space amid uncharted comets, planets, and asteroid swarms, these forces will converge in a contest of skill and survival on which their future - and the future of the galaxy - depends.  In Chaos and Order Stephen R. Donaldson has created his most powerful and labyrinthine tale yet, peeling away layer upon layer of intrigue and double cross to lay bare the chilling plan for the conquest of humanity.

STEPHEN R. DONALDSON made his writing debut in 1977 with the first Thomas Covenant books; the series quickly became an international bestseller and earned him worldwide critical acclaim.  Stephen R. Donaldson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and currently lives in New Mexico, where he is working on the fifth and final novel in the Gap series.
5 1996 1996 (5) Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die
Cover Blurb
Stephen R Donaldson  Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4Rated 4
I read thisIn my library
Book Cover
Stephen R. Donaldson has won a worldwide reputation for his bestselling, critically acclaimed work of imaginative fiction.  In a stunning science fiction cycle, the Gap series, he has created a vast panorama of characters and events, an epic adventure of galactic struggle amid the uncertainties of human destiny.  Now this tumultuous saga comes to a shattering climax in its final, apocalyptic chapter...

THE GAP INTO RUIN:
THIS DAY ALL GODS DIE

As the crippled starship Trumpet drifts in space, its drives sabotaged from within by a crewman tainted with an alien mutagen, a deadly game is being played out on a satellite near Earth in the headquarters of the UMC Police.  In the wake of a suicide attack in the chambers of the Governing Council for Earth and Space, UMCP Director Warden Dios is preparing to expose the secret machinations of the Dragon, the corrupt head of the United Mining Companies.  But Dios's own dangerous actions are about to come to light and may precipitate all-out war with the Amnion, leaving Dios - and all humanity - to pay a terrible price for what could be termed treason.

Though dead in space, Trumpet broadcasts to any ship in range the formula of the mutagen's antidote - a drug the UMC has suppressed for its own sinister purposes.  A small band of battered survivors, these fugitives hold the key to Earth's future: Morn Hyland, a former UMC cop whose obsession with the Amnion has grown so fierce she is becoming something even her son doesn't recognize; Angus Thermopyle, cyborg tool of the UMCP, released from his cybernetic enslavement and now testing the boundaries of his new freedom; Ciro Vasaczk, tormented by the damage done him by the Amnion mutagen - and by the damage he himself has done Trumpet while in thrall to the drug.

Their escape from the Calm Horizons will prove to be only a temporary triumph if the alien combat craft survives its battle with the UMCP ship Punisher and returns to the Amnion with the antidote's formula - and the key to the destruction of all human life.  Morn Hyland can see just one way out of their situation.  As Min Donner and Punisher close in on the disabled Trumpet to arrest the fugitives, Morn prepares for a desperate gamble.  To commandeer the police craft by any means necessary... and take it back to Earth.

As Dios in Earth's orbit and Morn in deep space each make dire, far-reaching decisions, the Amnion act with swift fury, and suddenly Earth stands threatened with fiery destruction.  This Day All Gods Die is a thrilling tale of high adventure, powerful emotion, and labyrinthine intrigue, as humans and aliens collide in the cataclysmic showdown that will mean either the survival of all humankind... or its absorption and annihilation.

STEPHEN R. DONALDSON made his writing debut in 1977 with the first Thomas Covenant books; the series quickly became an international bestseller and earned him worldwide critical acclaim.  Stephen R. Donaldson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and currently lives in New Mexico.






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Presented: 28-Mar-2024 12:53:54

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