A stellar communications repairman is sent to repair a beacon on a planet, and discovers that its presence had a profound influence on the planet in question. Needing to deal with a locally evolved sentience and a bizarre ritual, the repairman needs to use his best plan to complete his mission and end up alive and whole too.
Hunted and hated in two worlds, Hradzka dreamed of a monomaniac's glory, stranded in the past with his knowledge of the future. But he didn't know the past quite well enough....
When a man has a great deal of knowledge, it becomes extremely easy for him to confuse "knowledge" with "wisdom". and forget that the antonym of "wisdom" is not "ignorance" but "folly."
A Playboy is someone with power, too much time on his hands, and too little sense of a goal worth achieving. And if the Playboy happens to belong to a highly advanced culture....
The People of the Black Circle is a collection of fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard featuring his seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. Hill chieftan Conan heads into the Himelian mountains to rescue the Vendhyan queen, as Turanians, Afghulis, and Irakzais are caught in the machinations of demonic sorcerors of the Black Circle.