What would happen to the precarious balance of power if scientists could extend life for centuries? If one power bloc had biological protection against radiation & the other did not? Whose thumb would press the button first? When Lyle Taney took leave from her teaching job to live high in the mountains, researching the ways of eagles, she was just planning to write her next book. Lasater was an unscrupulous, skilled operative who thought he could maneuver her as he pleased. He believed women were incapable of making ethical or moral decisions. He was wrong. When the obscure government agent from an anonymous department tried to force Lyle to spy on her mysterious neighbors, she resisted. But the first step had been taken, involving her in a life-&-death struggle.

Bonjour, Chaos

This book contains four striking novellas, and the author's own philosophy of fiction writing expressed in her speech as a guest of honour at the 38th World Science Fiction Convention.
"The Winter Beach" turns what might be a spy story into suspense of a far different order.
"Julian" begins when its youthful hero trains his telescope on nearby earth rather than the stars and sees a woman who rules the rest of his life.
"With Thimbles, with Forks and Hope" seems to be the dramatic story of a holiday fishing trip, but once on the ocean we are gripped by a different reality.
"Moongate", set in the mountains of the Northwest, takes its two men and one woman through many dimensions in time and space.
"The Uncertain Edge of Reality" casts a new light on Kate Wilhelm's many books and short stories. "This is my subject matter when I write," she says. "I am asking, What actually do we mean by reality, and are we stuck with the one we have? This is what I mean by reality fiction, and usually it is also called science fiction...We are more than simple animals using sophisticated tools in our search for food, security and mates. We are something new on the earth...We can change reality."
Kate Wilhelm's writing always has meaning on many levels. Listen, Listen provides a feasts for fans and new readers alike.

Listen, Listen

In dire need of a job, Todd Fielding accepts the offer to work at The Brindle Times-even if she has to move to the lackluster town of Brindle.

 As she settles into her new home, Todd is fully prepared to adapt to the boredom of small-town life, but her preconceptions of Brindle are completely shattered when a local girl disappears. Even more shocking to Todd is the town's sheer indifference to the incident. No one-not even the police-appears particularly concerned.

 When Todd looks deeper into the story, she discovers that five other girls have "run away" from Brindle under strange circumstances over the past twenty years. As she sets out to uncover the history of a town that has cloaked itself in secrecy for far too long, evidence of manipulation and cold-blooded murder begin to unravel. And Todd may be the next victim to pay the deadly price of silence.

The Price Of Silence

En 1970, Kate Wilhelm imagine une époque où l'amour de la nature est synonyme de folie. Dans un monde surpeuplé, ravagé par la pollution et où les ressources s'épuisent, des expéditions scientifiques sont organisées pour trouver des territoires à exploiter, non pas dans des contrées lointaines mais à d'autres époques. Lorin et Jan, un couple de biologiste et bactériologiste, font partie d'une de ces expéditions et découvrent un futur vierge de traces humaines, où aucune espèce animale n'a survécu et où les séquoias géants ont remplacé les chênes, hêtres et bouleaux. Tandis que Jan est prise de panique face au silence qui règne dans la forêt et semble impatiente de retrouver son quotidien au 62e étage de sa tour, son compagnon Lorin y voit la promesse d'une vie paisible, reconnectée avec la nature et décide de tout mettre en place pour ne plus repartir... Cette nouvelle de 1970 révèle, à travers les visions dissonantes d'un couple pourtant uni, des préoccupations écologiques précoces.

Demain le silence

Dans le petit village de Somerset, Janet participe à des expériences sur les rêves, où le passé s'empare des mémoires et réveille chez les habitants la pulsion de mort...
Tandis que le jeu cruel retransmis en direct à la télévision permet à Lottie et Butcher de transférer leurs instincts violents sur les protagonistes sans quitter leur fauteuil..
Quant aux deux magnifiques chiens qui escortent inlassablement Rose Ellen, ne sont-ils pas là pour lui rappeler son père ? En les éliminant, n'est-ce pas son oedipe qu'elle tente de tuer ? Huit nouvelles surréalistes, où l'insolite est purement psychologique.
Huit contes troublants, où le quotidien fait frémir, dans un climat envoûtant que Kate Wilhelm a déjà si bien sur créer dans Hier les Oiseaux et dans Le Village.

Quand Somerset rêvait

Before becoming one of today's most intriguing and innovative mystery writers, Kate Wilhelm was a leading writer of science fiction, acclaimed for classics like The Infinity Box and The Clewiston Test.Now one of her most famous novels returns to print, the spellbinding story of an isolated post-holocaust community determined to preserve itself, through a perilous experiment in cloning. Sweeping, dramatic, rich with humanity, and rigorous in its science, Where Later the Sweet Birds Sang is widely regarded as a high point of both humanistic and "hard" SF, and won SF's Hugo Award and Locus Award on its first publication. It is as compelling today as it was then.

Hier, Les Oiseaux

Who knew that being a Good Samaritan would lead Barbara Holloway to face her biggest challenge ever: being named prime suspect in a high-profile kidnapping?

 Barbara's peace at her retreat on the Oregon coast is shattered when a terrified young boy leads her to a cabin in the woods where his battered mother has clearly been left for dead. Barbara runs for help, but by the time she returns both mother and son are gone.

 The puzzle deepens when Barbara learns the boy she met is the grandson of a prominent family.and they have accused her of aiding his disappearance.

 With the help of her father, Frank, she delves into the mystery, only to realize the kidnapping is a ruse for a more sinister plan-one that pits the meaning of family against cold hard cash.

 Troubling obstacles thwart Barbara's every move-from the justice system that employs her to the false identities of those around her. Yet none will compare with the shocking murder scene that awaits her.

A Wrongful Death

Juniper Time is a 1st-rate sf novel. Kate Wilhelm has done her usual excellent job of weaving an intricate plot & sympathetically portraying believable & complex characters in settings that are described with force & clarity. This '79 novel is set in the not-too-distant future, when a devastating drought in the American West & much of the rest of the world has caused economic & social collapse. The story alternates between the viewpoints of Cluny, a scientist dedicated to the construction & operation of a space station, & Jean, who was Cluny's childhood friend but has now gone her separate way & become a linguist, naturalist & photographer. Wilhelm's most powerful & engrossing writing, it seems to me, is in her descriptions of the natural world & of the vastly different ways that people relate to it. Jean's experiences on the Oregon coast are beautifully described, as is her life on the high desert of Oregon with the Wasco Indians. (Wilhelm & husband Damon Knight live in Bend) Jean gradually comes to understand the way of life of the Wasco people & her spiritual growth is described very effectively. Cluny & Jean are reunited when they become part of a project intended to discover if contact with an alien civilization has occurred. Their decision may determine whether a nuclear war between the USA & the USSR can be avoided. The climax of the novel is unexpected but believable. I recommend this book very highly.--Michael J. Keyes

Le temps des genévriers

Riches propriétaires terriens, les Sumner, pressentant que la pollution et la guerre vont tout ravager autour d'eux, ont construit dans leur domaine de Virginie un centre de recherches scientifiques qui leur permet de survivre en économie fermée.Et quand, au lendemain du cataclysme, on s'aperçoit qu'hommes et femmes sont devenus stériles, la solution est là, toute prête : produire des bébés par cloning. Mais à mesure que les générations se succèdent, une question se pose, terrifiante : ces clones sont-ils encore des hommes ?Interrogation angoissée sur les capacités de survie de l'espèce humaine, ce roman d'une grande force dramatique offre une vision déchirante d'un avenir possible.-Prix Hugo, roman, 1977-Prix Locus, roman, 1977

Hier, les oiseaux

Qui était Stanley Huysman, brillant généticien couronné par le prix Nobel pour ses travaux sur le clonage des plantes ? Une figure médiatique trop vite promue au vedettariat par ses recherches sur l'intelligence des chimpanzés et les pouvoirs extra-sensoriels des jumeaux ? L'instrument d'un pouvoir politique fascisant séduit par ses articles sur l'eugénisme ? Un utopiste ? Toujours est-il que son héritage, la mystérieuse Couvée Huysman, va bouleverser l'existence du journaliste chargé d'écrire sa biographie, d'un agent des services secrets, d'un faussaire à la retraite, d'un jeune couple au chômage, d'un sénateur aux dents longues et, peut-être, de l'humanité tout entière...

Couvée Huysman

Abyss Anyone?
Enter Kate Wilhelm's realm of extrasensory perception, alternate universes, alien monsters, and something else, something much more strange...the abyss that lurks near each of us, ready to destroy us...or set us free.

Abyss: Two Novellas

L'ornithologie peut s'avérer une spécialité pleine d'embûches et de surprises : partie à la recherche du dernier site de nidification des aigles circaètes en bordure du Pacifique, Lyle Taney se retrouve prise en filature par deux agents de la C.I.A. eux-mêmes sur la piste de Saul Werther : un généticien allemand qui a découvert le sérum d'immortalité et qui, entouré de quelques scientifiques partageant son secret, tente de faire passer à l'Ouest son homologue soviétique lors d'un congrès international de biologie. Pourquoi cette solidarité ? Entre quelles mains risque de tomber ce passeport pour l'éternité ? Celles d'un gouvernement ? d'un chef religieux ? d'une élite scientifique ? des militaires ? Et que deviendraient les quatre milliards d'êtres humains qui peuplent la planète s'il leur était distribué demain ?

Bonjour chaos

Kate Wilhelm has a reputation as one of the 20th century's finest SF writers. Winner of the Hugo Award for Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, she has produced an impressive body of work in the fields of SF and crime, and - along with her late husband, Damon Knight - has had a profound influence beyond her writing, through the Milford and Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshops. This omnibus contains novels The Clewiston Test and Welcome, Chaos and story collection The Infinity Box.
THE CLEWISTON TEST: Anne Clewiston would soon be hailed as a miracle worker. She had almost perfected the formula for a drug which would banish all pain from the world. The Lab tests went on; the caged apes were thriving, all the results positive. The next step - humans. Then, one night, a chimpanzee went berserk...
THE INFINITY BOX: A man's eerie ability to enter - and control - the mind of a vulnerable young woman turns into a sexual nightmare...A hack writer with fading skills finds his soap operas foretelling the future...His retirement present, a watch, takes a man back into his own past...American soldiers attack the wrong country - their own!
WELCOME, CHAOS: Lyle is asked to spy on Saul Werther, who is thought to be a drug dealer. She finds him charming but realises she has been set up...Saul has developed a major breakthrough in the medical world which he is keeping secret, and Lyle has been sent there to uncover his secrets...

Kate Wilhelm SF Gateway Omnibus

Why is Lauren Steele being followed around by a mysterious red-haired ghost? Why is the Pentagon after her? And why doesn't anyone believe her?
As a psychologist at the Waycross Clinic in Seattle, she has enough problems. Her clients never seem to listen to anything she says, and her co-workers could use extensive counseling themselves. The last thing she needs is an obnoxious figment of her own imagination showing up at the least opportune moments.
But Daniel ("Corky") Corcoran is actually the victim of a fault experimental laser, having been accidentally "dispersed" when the device misfired during a demonstration. He has literally gathered his wits about him by focusing on the last person he saw - Lauren. The trouble is, Corky's attempts at communication only convince Lauren that she is going crazy.
Add to this one paranoid colonel from the Pentagon who is convinced that both Corky and Lauren are Soviet spies, and you have a mix of zany and colourful characters caught up in a plot that is quintessential Wilhelm.

Livres