The Creatures of Man

NOT ONLY STRANGER THAN YOU IMAGINE, STRANGER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE

In a distant future when humans no longer need spaceships, but hurtle between the stars faster than light, propelled and protected by implants in their bodies, the galaxy has been divided between two battling factions who contend for dominance by economic maneuvering. Each side is determined to overwhelm the other, and is likely to abandon the "Econo-War" for a genuine shooting war if it thinks that defeat is imminent. Only one thing can avert the looming disaster: a talisman of great, almost supernatural power which has been lost for millennia on a minor world called Earth.

Here, The Econo-War is collected in one continuous novel-length narrative for the first time, along with other dazzling visions of future worlds: A planet where well-meaning busybodies from Earth try to "cure" the inhabitants of their craving for the exotic drug chocolate ... another planet where insects dimly recall myths of the humans who gave them intelligence before departing for the stars, and wonder if the strange creatures will ever return ... a brilliant concert pianist whose twin is the target of an inexplicable assassination plot which he must foil--because he and his "twin" share the same brain ... an intelligent weapon which was instructed billions of years ago to obliterate a race, but whose mission was frustrated by a slight malfunction--until now . . . and much more by a unique