Endless Shadow / The Arsenal of Miracles

The Arsenal of Miracles (Gardner F. Fox),156pp, cover art by Jack Gaughan When Earth's stellar empire was attacked by the Lyanir, a powerful race from the uncharted stars, it was Bran Magannon, High Admiral of Space, who met their battle-challenge. He saved the Empire, but he also fell in love with the beautiful young Lyarnin queen Peganna. To the people of Empire his name became that of traitor. Now he was a lone, brooding outcast among Earth's outpost worlds, called Bran the Wanderer. Then Peganna of the Silver hair returned and told him of a fabled cache of deadly weapons left aeons ago by the long-dead race of the Crenn Lir. She wanted those weapons for her people, to use against the Empire if need be. Endless Shadow (John Brunner),97pp, cover art by Ed Valigursky [rev. vt Manshape 1984] Two worlds in conflict: Azrael--Where pain was the only reality, & murder was not a crime but a ritual. Ipewell--Where motherhood was honored & manhood meant a life of servitude & fear. These two worlds were at the heart of a taut dangerous situation which threatened to explode. Jorgen Thorkild, director of the Bridge System that connected forty worlds among the stars, had to try to tame them. But Thorkild faced still another problem: the loss of his own sanity...