Recreates the legend of the demi-god Sumerian king Gilgamesh, slayer of monsters and master of unsurpassed treasures, who searches for the key to immortality.

Tales of the discovery of ancient civilization.

Science fiction legend Robert Silverberg reflects on some of his earliest, least-reprinted tales in this new Planet Stories collection! Between 1956 and 1958, Silverberg contributed dozens of short stories and novellas to the digest pulps, each written in the bombastic, high-adventure style of the original Planet Stories magazine. Since then, those tales have re-appeared only rarely (and sometimes never again) in long out-of-print paperback anthologies. This volume, the first of three to come this year, features seven hard-to-find classic Silverberg novellas: Slaves of the Star Giants, Spawn of the Deadly Sea , The Flame and the Hammer , Valley Beyond Time , Hunt the Space-Witch! , The Silent Invaders , and Spacerogue.

Silverberg, winner of four Hugos and five Nebulas, presents a riveting tale of an epic voyage of survival in a hostile environment. On the watery world of Hydros, humans live on artificial islands and keep an uneasy peace with the native race of amphibians. When a group of humans angers their alien hosts, they are exiled--set adrift on the planet's vast and violent sea.

One of the most persistent legends in the annals of New World exploration is that of the Land of Gold. This mythical site was located over vast areas of South America (and later, North America); the search for it drove some men mad with greed and, as often as not, to their untimely deaths. In this history of quest and adventure, Robert Silverberg traces the fate of Old World explorers lured westward by the myth of El Dorado. From the German conquistadores licensed by the Spanish king to operate out of Venezuela, to the journeys of Gonzalo Pizarro in the Amazon basin, and to the nearly miraculous voyage of Francisco Orellana to the mouth of the Amazon River, encountering the warlike women who gave the river its name, violence and bloodshed accompanied the determined adventurers. Sir Walter Raleigh and a host of other explorers spent small fortunes and many lives trying to locate Manoa, a city that was rumored to be El Dorado—City of Gold. Celebrated science fiction author Robert Silverberg recreates these legendary quests in The Golden Dream: Seekers of El Dorado.

In The Planet Killers , the Security Computers of Earth Central determine that the frontier world of Lurion will launch an all-out attack on Earth in 67 years, sending Agent Roy Gardner to the rough-and-tumble planet to ensure that doesn't happen -- even if it means blowing Lurion to interstellar dust! In The Plot Against Earth , agent Lloyd Catton must work with skeptical, suspicious alien agents to bust a hypnojewel racket, unveiling a multi-planet conspiracy threatening the Earth itself! In One of Our Asteroids is Missing , independent miner John Storm discovers an impossible asteroid rich with fabulously valuable metals and minerals, only to find his claim stolen, along with all computer records indicating that he had ever existed! Never before reprinted since their original appearances and with a new introduction by the author, these three novels of science fiction adventure blaze back onto the scene, revealing early masterworks of one of the genre's most gifted and celebrated storytellers!