The Martian Sphinx
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By the twenty-first century the world was drowning in its own population. A solution had to be found quickly - and it was, in 'gravi-power'. Wonderful, unending source of power - only the scientists knew that its use was reducing the Earth's distance from the sun at a dangerous rate. But if another planet's gravi-power could harnessed . . .
An expedition was launched to Mars, known to be uninhabited - except that a woman was wandering around its surface who claimed she had come from another galaxy to warn Earth of a terrible menace, and there was a huge poly-hedron of metal emanting a force very much like that of gravipower.
Someone else had discovered it! A thousand years ago, or now? Friend, or enemy?
(First published 1965)
John Brunner
John Brunner started his career as a productive writer of Ace Double Science Fiction novels, sometimes writing both sides of the same double. He produced a wide variety of entertaining and well-conceived science fiction adventures before testing his ambitions with more and more complex and stylistically sophisticated novels. Among his triumphs are Stand on Zanzibar (Hugo winner for Best Novel), The Jagged Orbit, The Sheep Look Up, The Shockwave Rider, and A Maze of Stars. Although he wrote relatively little fantasy, he was widely acclaimed for a series of short stories collected as The Compleat Traveller in Black. Brunner also wrote mysteries, thrillers, and several well-regarded historical novels.
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