The alien Dracon and the Man face each other; crash-landed - both stranded on the barely habitable barren rock of a planet that they have fought over in space not an hour before. They decide to try to survive the planet together rather than kill each other bare-handed. They learn each other's language, rather entertainingly, and share cultures. The alien, being hermaphrodite and pregnant, gives birth and dies, leaving the unfortunate man to guess how to bring it up. Of course they are rescued - but with the war over, how will the Man and the young Drac fare? Have the two species truly learnt from each other, and is there hope for their peaceful co-existence?

Simon Kress, a wealthy playboy, loves to collect dangerous, exotic animals. Tiring of his current menagerie, he buys the eggs of insect-like hive creatures called "sandkings" from a shop run by Wo, a girl, and the mysterious Shade.

After installing them in an unused aquarium, he sees them begin to grow, build castles (with his face on the front) and fight wars with each other. As time goes on, and he becomes a more callous master, things begin to change. His visage on the castles becomes more sinister. He takes delight in putting on (and betting on) private war-games and matches against other exotic life-forms in the tank for his friends.

Eventually, his old girlfriend, outraged by the violent shows he puts on, smashes the tank. The sandkings escape and take over his home. After his residence has been rendered uninhabitable, he contacts Wo and learns the truth: the sandkings will eventually turn into human-sized bipeds; Shade himself is a sandking. Fleeing into the desert, he loses his way before finding a cabin. Thinking himself safe, he runs towards it, only to discover that it is inhabited by escaped sandkings - and that all of them have his face.

The residents of Tiamat are split into two clans: "Winters" who advocate technological progress and trade with offworlders, and "Summers" who depend on their folk traditions and rigid social distinctions to survive on this marginal planet. Every 150 years, the sun's orbit around the black hole dramatically impacts the planetary ecology and to keep the uneasy peace, the government switches from Winter rule to Summer rule under a matriarchal monarch. Interstellar travel between Tiamat and the Hegemony is only possible during the 150 years of Winter rule, and a single woman rules the entire planet: a "Snow Queen" in Winter, a "Summer Queen" in Summer.

The reason for the Hegemony's interest in Tiamat has to do with the "mers," sentient sea-dwelling creatures whose blood provides the "water of life," a substance that totally inhibits physical aging. The most valuable substance in the galaxy, mer hunts go on as frequently as possible during the Winter years, to the point of extinction. This also allows the Snow Queen to reign for the entire 150-year season, and it is with the Snow Queen, Arienrhod, that the story begins. She has secretly implanted several Summer women with embryos, clones of herself, in the hopes of extending her rule past her ritual execution at the end of Winter.

The novel follows the only one of these clones, Moon, to survive to adolescence. She and her cousin Sparks are lovers, both sharing the distinctive status of being "merry-begots", children conceived during the planetary festivals held every 20 years to remind Tiamat of the cycle of power. Moon becomes a sibyl, a position of high status among the Summer people, since they are keepers of knowledge freely available to anyone who asks. Sibyls enter a trance and by mysterious means, can answer questions. Sparks, unable to join her among the sibyl mystics and curious about his offworld heritage, travels to Carbuncle, Tiamat's capital, where he is immediately caught up by Arienrhod and eventually becomes the "Starbuck," her lover—a position that not only requires him to do away with the previous Starbuck (Herne) but orchestrates the mer hunts, a capital crime in the summer islands.

Moon manages to secure transport to Carbuncle, where sibyls are proscribed, and is eventually smuggled off-world, a one-way trip for a Tiamatan citizen, as the Hegemony forbids Tiamat full access to their worlds. She is taken to the capital planet, Kharemough, and discovers that the prejudice against sibyls is a political tool used by the Hegemony to keep the balance of power on Tiamat skewed in their favor. Sibyls are also highly respected throughout the eight planets of the Hegemony, only on Tiamat, due to a careful reinforcement of superstitions during the reign of Winter, are they considered dangerous and mentally unstable. Eventually, despite the waning window of safe travel offered by Tiamat's orbit, she negotiates a return after finding out from a trance that Sparks is in danger.

After being derailed by a crash landing and short sojourn as a captive by an outback tribe of Winter fugitives in the north, Moon returns to Carbuncle and confronts Arienrhod for the fate of her beloved Sparks. Here she discovers the truth of her heritage and that Arienrhod considers her a failure; she wanted a clone in spirit, not just in body, a clone who would keep the Summers from throwing all the technical advances offworld trade brings to Tiamat into the sea during The Change. Moon proves her wrong by participating in the ritual competition for the Summer Throne, and winning. The Change will proceed, and Winter will end—but with an enlightened queen, preparing Tiamat to face the Hegemony as a peer when the 150 years of summer end and interstellar travel is again possible through the black hole.

The story details a cometary impact on Earth, the end of civilization, and the battle for the future. It encompasses the discovery of the comet, the LA social scene, and a cast of diverse characters whom fate seems to smile upon and allow to survive the massive cataclysm and the resulting tsunamis, plagues, famines and battles amongst scavengers and cannibals.

When the wealthy amateur astronomer Tim Hamner discovers a new comet, dubbed Hamner-Brown, it comes to the attention of documentary producer Harvey Randall, who does a television series on the subject. Political lobbying by California Senator Arthur Jellison eventually gets a joint Apollo-Soyuz (docking with the second flight worthy Skylab) mission into space to study the comet, dubbed "The Hammer" by popular media, which is expected to pass close to the earth. Despite assurances by the scientific community that a collision with Earth is extremely unlikely, the public, fueled with religious fervor by the evangelist Henry Armitage, begins to hoard food and supplies in anticipation.

Eventually, to the shock of scientists at JPL in Pasadena who could not track the trajectory accurately enough due to the comet's constant outgassing, the Hammer does fall, breaking up into several smaller comets that strike around the world with devastating results, striking parts of Europe, Africa, the Gulf of Mexico, and both the Pacific and Atlantic. The strikes cause volcanoes and earthquakes along all major fault-lines in California, including the San Andreas fault, heavily damaging the region. Several of the fragments land in the ocean and further damage is caused by the resulting tsunamis, which destroy several major coastal cities around the world, including Los Angeles. As the survivors contend with weeks of non-stop rain, flooding destroys practically every dam and levee, leaving a search for food a top survival priority. Civilization crumbles as people use the few remaining weapons to protect themselves from each other.

After "Hammerfall," Hamner goes from being a meek, affluent astronomer to a determined survivor with his new wife Eileen. Randall shows true leadership abilities under fire, while Jellison and other land owners, farmers and ranchers become lords over their fiefdoms and the serfs they employ to provide labor, skills and security. Jellison forms the 'centerpost' of these fiefs, dubbed "the stronghold", where he presides over a small population of survivors who wish to retain civilization. The tone of life after "Hammerfall" is one where those who do not have valuable professions for a world without power or civilization are relegated to "laborers", regardless of their socio-economic status or profession before the Fall. For example, while doctors are still valuable, lawyers are unneeded. Soldiers and police are diminished and provide security alongside gang members and bikers, both within the Stronghold and within the New Brotherhood Army, the legions of Reverend Henry Armitage, who indoctrinates his followers into cannibalism to secure their loyalty. Jellison's stronghold is located slightly east or northeast of Springville, California, where the North Fork and the Middle Fork of the Tule River meet. West of this stronghold, the city of Porterville has been destroyed by the collapse of the dam at Lake Success. Indeed, the collapse of dams throughout California has turned the former San Joaquin Valley into a swampy lake. Other small enclaves of civilization exist in this area, until a band of cannibalistic zealots led by Reverend Armitage and an army of heavily armed soldiers begin a rampage through the area, culminating in a series of battles with the inhabitants of Jellison's stronghold.

Emperor Shaddam IV has come to fear House Atreides, partly because of the growing popularity of Duke Leto Atreides, and also because the talent of Leto's fighting force is beginning to rival the effectiveness of the Emperor's own dreaded Imperial Sardaukar guard. Shaddam decides that House Atreides must be destroyed, but cannot risk an overt attack on a single House, which would by necessity unite the rest of the Landsraad against him. The Emperor instead uses the centuries-old feud between House Atreides and House Harkonnen to disguise his assault, enlisting the brilliant and power-hungry Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in his plan to trap and eliminate the Atreides. Shaddam forces Leto to accept the lucrative fief of the desert planet Arrakis, previously controlled by the Harkonnens and the only known source of the spice melange.

Complicating the political intrigue is the fact that the Duke's son Paul Atreides is an essential part of the Bene Gesserit's secret, centuries-old breeding program to create a superhuman called the Kwisatz Haderach. Leto's concubine, the Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica, had been ordered by the Sisterhood to bear him a daughter who would then herself wed the Harkonnen heir, sealing the breach between the two Houses, and bear the Kwisatz Haderach. Jessica had defied these orders and has instead borne her lover the son he desired, but Jessica recognizes signs in young Paul that he might actually be the Kwisatz Haderach, born one generation earlier than expected.

The Atreides suspect foul play, and are able to thwart initial Harkonnen traps and complications while simultaneously building trust with the local population of Fremen, with whom they hope to ally. However, the Atreides are ultimately unable to withstand a devastating Harkonnen attack, supported by Imperial Sardaukar disguised as Harkonnen troops and aided by a traitor within House Atreides itself — the Suk doctor Wellington Yueh. House Atreides is scattered. Of its important retainers, the Mentat Thufir Hawat is taken by the Baron and eventually convinced to work for his captors; the troubador-soldier Gurney Halleck escapes with the aid of smugglers, whom he also joins; and Duncan Idaho is killed defending Paul and Jessica. Per his bargain, Yueh delivers a captive Leto to the Baron, but double-crosses Harkonnen by ensuring Paul and Jessica's escape. He also provides Leto with a poison-gas capsule with which he can simultaneously commit suicide and assassinate the Baron Harkonnen. The Baron kills Yueh, and Leto dies in a failed attempt on the Baron's life, though the Baron's twisted Mentat Piter De Vries dies with him. Paul and Jessica, aided variously by Duncan, Yueh and the Fremen leader Liet-Kynes, escape their captors and flee into the deep desert.

Jessica's Bene Gesserit abilities and Paul's developing skills help them join a band of Fremen. Paul and his mother quickly learn their ways while teaching the Fremen the weirding way, a Bene Gesserit method of fighting. Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother, swallowing the poisonous Water of Life while pregnant with her second child; her unborn daughter Alia is subjected to the same ordeal, dangerously acquiring the full abilities of a Reverend Mother before even being born. Paul takes a Fremen lover, Chani, with whom he fathers a son. Years pass, and Paul increasingly recognizes the strength of the Fremen fighting force, and their potential to overtake even the Sardaukar and win back Arrakis. Living on the spice diet of the Fremen, Paul's prescience increases dramatically, enabling him to foresee future events and gaining him a religious respect from the Fremen, who regard him as their prophesied messiah. As Paul grows in influence, he begins a jihad against Harkonnen rule of the planet under his new Fremen name, Muad'Dib. However, Paul becomes aware through his prescience that, if he is not careful, the Fremen will extend that jihad against all the known universe, which Paul describes as a humanity-spanning subconscious effort to avoid genetic stagnation.

Both the Emperor and the Baron Harkonnen show increasing concern at the fervor of religious fanaticism shown on Arrakis for this "Muad'Dib," not guessing that this leader is the presumed-dead Paul. Harkonnen plots to send his nephew and heir Feyd Rautha as a replacement for his other and more brutish nephew Glossu Rabban — who is currently in charge of the planet — to gain the respect of the now-troublesome Fremen. Winning them over as a fighting force, he hopes, will give him enough power to overtake the Emperor himself. The Emperor, however, is highly suspicious of the Baron and sends spies to watch his movements. Hawat explains the Emperor's suspicions: the Sardaukar, nearly invincible in battle, are trained on the prison planet Salusa Secundus, whose inhospitable conditions allow only the best to survive. Arrakis serves as a similar crucible, and the Emperor fears that the Baron could recruit from it a fighting force to rival his Sardaukar. The Emperor's suspicions are not unfounded: during the joint Sardaukar/Harkonnen invasion that had deposed House Atreides, the Fremen had slain three Sardaukar for every man they had lost.

Paul is reunited with Gurney; completely loyal to the Atreides, he is convinced that Jessica is the traitor who caused the House's downfall. Gurney nearly kills her, but for Paul's last-minute intervention. Disturbed that his prescience had not predicted this possibility, Paul decides to take the Water of Life, an act that could kill him but, if he survives it, will confirm his status as the Kwisatz Haderach. After three weeks in a near-death state, Paul emerges with his powers refined and focused; he is able to see past, present and future at will. Looking into space, he sees that the Emperor and the Harkonnens have amassed a huge armada to invade the planet and regain control. Paul also realizes the way to control spice production on Arrakis: saturating spice fields with the water of life would cause a chain reaction that would destroy all spice on the planet.

In an Imperial attack on a Fremen settlement, Paul and Chani's son Leto is killed, and Alia is captured by Sardaukar and brought to the planet's capital Arrakeen, where the Baron Harkonnen is nervously attempting to thwart the Fremen jihad under the close watch of the Emperor. The Emperor is surprised at four-year-old Alia's defiance of his power and her confidence in her brother, whom she reveals to be Paul Atreides. At that moment, under cover of a gigantic sandstorm, Paul and his army of Fremen attack the city; Alia kills the Baron during the confusion. Paul quickly overtakes the city's defenses and confronts the Emperor, threatening to destroy the spice, thereby ending space travel and crippling both the Imperial power and Bene Gesserit in one blow. Feyd-Rautha challenges Paul to a knife-duel in a final attempt to stop his overthrow, but is defeated despite an attempt at treachery. Realizing that Paul is capable of doing all he has threatened, the Emperor is forced to abdicate and to promise his daughter Princess Irulan in marriage to Paul. Paul ascends the throne, his control of Arrakis and the spice establishing a new kind of power over the Empire that will change the face of the known universe. However, despite being Emperor of the Known Universe, Paul realizes that he will not be able to stop the jihad he has seen in his visions, his legendary status among the Fremen having grown past the point where he can control it.

Chaplain's Assistant Billy Pilgrim, a disoriented, fatalistic, ill-trained American soldier, is captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge and taken to a prison in Dresden. The Germans put Billy and his fellow prisoners in a disused (although there are animal carcasses hanging in the underground shelter) slaughterhouse, known as "Slaughterhouse number 5". The POWs and German guards alike hide in a deep cellar; because of their safe hiding place, they are some of the few survivors of the city-destroying firestorm during the Bombing of Dresden in World War II.

Billy has come "unstuck in time" and experiences past and future events out of sequence and repetitively, following a nonlinear narrative. He is kidnapped by extraterrestrial aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. They exhibit him in a zoo with B-movie porn starlet Montana Wildhack as his mate. The Tralfamadorians, who can see in four dimensions, have already seen every instant of their lives. They believe in predestination. They say they cannot choose to change anything about their fates, but can choose to concentrate upon any moment in their lives, and Billy becomes convinced of the veracity of their theories.

As Billy travels—or believes he travels—forward and backward in time, he relives occasions of his life, real and fantasy. He spends time on Tralfamadore, in Dresden, in the War, walking in deep snow before his German capture, in his mundane post-war married life in the U.S.A. of the 1950s, and in the moment of his murder by Lazzaro.

Billy's death is the consequence of a string of events. Before the Germans capture Billy, he meets Roland Weary, a jingoist character who constantly chastises him for his lack of enthusiasm toward war. At their capture, the Germans confiscate everything Weary has, including his boots, giving him hinged, wooden clogs to wear; Weary eventually dies of gangrene caused by the clogs. On his deathbed, Weary manages to convince Paul Lazzaro that Billy is to blame; Paul vows to avenge Weary's death by killing Billy, because revenge is "the sweetest thing in life". Time-traveler Billy already knows where, when, and how he will be killed: he is shot with a laser gun after his speech on flying saucers and the true nature of time before a large audience in Chicago, in balkanized United States on February 13, 1976 (in future to the date of writing).

Captain Pausert, a well-intentioned, but inexperienced merchant traveler voyaging solo on the old pirate chaser Venture from the planet Nikkeldepain, is induced to purchase three young witches (Maleen, Goth, and the Leewit) who had been enslaved on the Imperial planet of Porlumma. The sisters were captured in a raid by Imperial slavers while visiting another planet on a jaunt of their own.

In getting clear of Porlumma, the Venture escapes belated pursuit with the use of the witches' psionic Sheewash drive, which enables far faster transit of distance than is possible with primary or secondary space drives available either in or outside the Empire. This draws the unwelcome attention of both the Imperium and other governments to both Captain Pausert and the elderly Venture.

After returning the witch sisters to their homeworld, Karres, Captain Pausert attempts to return to Nikkeldepain, but is arrested before he can obtain permission to land. The Captain is informed that he faces a barrage of criminal charges, many relating to his encounter with the witches and his brief stay on the prohibited planet of Karres.

And they want the Sheewash drive. Avidly.

Captain Pausert escapes the Nikkeldepain police and military with the help of the middle witch sister, Goth, who had stowed away on the ship. From that point, he and Goth find themselves becoming more and more embroiled in wild adventures involving interdimensional alien invaders, space pirates, many more of the Karres witches, and assorted other characters.

I don't really read much science fiction, barring a few notables. But, I really enjoyed The Chrysalids by John Wyndham.