Search Worlds Without End

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1996, and was reprinted on infinity plus, October 1998. The story can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fourteenth Annual Collection (1997), edited by Gardner Dozois
• The Good New Stuff: Adventure SF in the Grand Tradition (1999), edited by Gardner Dozois
• Future War (1999), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
• Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction (2005), edited by Gardner Dozois
• As Time Goes By (2015), edited by Hank Davis

The story is included in the collection The Robot's Twilight Companion (1999).

Read the full story for free at infinity plus.

Orf is an intelligent drilling machine, designed to probe to the very center of the Earth. What he finds deep under the Earth's crust is a living force so radically unexpected that our life on the surface is altered by its discovery.

But as the world around him changes, and the Pacific Northwest is transformed by cataclysmic earthquakes and social upheavals, Orf must change as well, becoming both myth and monster, savior and sage to future generations of humanity.

Invasion, defection—and a last stand to save Earth.

Dissident alien commander Arid Ricimer and his human allies, Captain Jim Coalbridge and Lieutenant Commander Griff Leher, are the courageous and very mortal heroes who must face down the forces of a tyrannical star empire.

Captain Arid Ricimer, an alien starship commander with integrity and a clever plan, attempts to defect to Earth with his officers and entire spaceship—a vessel that mounts a superweapon of almost unimaginable power. He's pursued by his former fleet, a force that has already devastated Earth once and is poised to wipe humanity from existence forever. In a thriller filled with echoes of The Hunt for Red October and cool hard science fiction technology, it's a desperate gambit for the alien captain and for humanity, as well. Yet after years of battling back from the brink of destruction, the U.S. space navy has the wartested heroes to rise to the challenge, among them attack ship captain Jim Coalbridge and alien analyst, Griff Leher.

The players are in motion and the greatest confrontation this sector of the galaxy has ever witnessed is at hand. All depends on the courage of an honorable alien warrior and the intelligence and daring of his human counterparts and would-be compatriots.

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, April 1995, was reprinted in infinity plus, August 1998, and was reprinted again in Lightspeed, July 2015. The story is included in the collection The Robot's Twilight Companion (1999).

Read the full story for free at infinity plus or Lightspeed.

Sturgeon Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, March 1998. The story is included in the collection The Robot's Twilight Companion (1999).

Table of Contents:

• 3 - Introduction (Star Destroyers) - essay by Tony Daniel and Christopher Ruocchio
• 7 - Superweapon - short story by David Drake
• 19 - A Sudden Stop - short story by Steve White
• 35 - Another Solution - short story by Mark L. Van Name
• 49 - The Magnolia Incident - novelette by Mike Kupari
• 75 - A Helping Hand - short story by Jody Lynn Nye
• 107 - Boomers - short story by J. R. Dunn
• 127 - Hate in the Darkness - novelette by Michael Z. Williamson
• 161 - The Stars Are Silent - short story by Gray Rinehart
• 181 - Excerpts from Two Lives - [Liaden Universe] - novelette by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
• 209 - Icebreaker - short story by Dave Bara
• 225 - Try Not to Kill Us All - short story by Joelle Presby
• 243 - Skipjack - novelette by Susan R. Matthews
• 269 - Homecoming - novelette by Robert Buettner
• 293 - Not Made for Us - short story by Christopher Ruocchio
• 313 - A Tale of the Great Trek War Aboard the Starship Persistence - short story by Brendan DuBois

This collection of award-winning science fiction includes a story that was a finalist for the Hugo Awards and one that was voted one of the 10 greatest science fiction stories to appear during the 1990s. In the title piece, a geologist has downloaded the memories of his deceased mentor into a robot's electronic brain. Together, they bore through the crust and mantle to the very core of the planet Earth. Their work is complicated by a mysterious intelligence deep within the Earth and by the robot's own emergent humanity. The remaining stories comprise a variety of tales including a story about climbing in the Chilean Andes in which the protagonist is haunted by a ghost, and a tale about a battle-weary veteran who returns from a high-tech future to face his most sinister challenge at home.

Table of Contents:

• Life on the Moon - (1995) - shortstory
• A Dry, Quiet War - (1996) - novelette
• Radio Praha - (1998) - shortstory
• Aconcagua - (1993) - novelette
• Black Canoes - (1997) - shortstory
• Death of Reason - (1992) - novella
• Mystery Box - (1999) - novelette
• Grist - (1998) - novella
• The Robot's Twilight Companion - (1996) - novella

This novella originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, August 1996. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fourteenth Annual Collection (1997), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Robots (2005), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection The Robot's Twilight Companion (1999).

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology The New Space Opera (2007), edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Two (2008), edited by Jonathan Strahan.

In the far future the bulk of humanity has spread to the stars - only to discover that the American Indians got there first!

Long before Columbus, a tribe of Mississippi Indians discovered the metaphysical Effect that makes space travel possible and paddled their birchbark canoes to distant worlds light-years from Earth. Now an interstellar Indian nation, armed with spears and guided missiles, comes into conflict with colonists from a technological civilization so advanced that even their homes and newspapers possess artificial intelligences. History seems poised to repeat itself, but on a galactic scale.

Will James is a reporter on the icy planet Candle. He is also a five hundred year old transmission from Earth's distant past. Reborn into a future that amazes him, Will is torn between his ties to the settlers, his friendship with an Indian Wanderer, and his feelings for a strange young woman who may not be entirely human. But, in the end, he may be the only person who stands between the universe and an endless... Warpath.

Combining stunning science fiction concepts with powerful human drama, Warpath is an engrossing novel of extraordinary richness.

This novella originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, December 1998. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual Collection (1999), edited by Gardner Dozois, Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future (2002), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Space Opera Renaissance (2006), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Kramer. The story is included in the collection The Robot's Twilight Companion (1999).

The human race has extended itself into the far reaches of our solar system -- and, in doing so, has developed into something remarkable and diverse and perhaps transcendent. The inner system of the Met -- with its worlds connected by a vast living network of cables -- is supported by the repression and enslavement of humanity's progeny, nanotechnological artificial intelligences -- beings whom the tyrant Amés has declared non-human. There is tolerance and sanctuary in the outer system beyond the Jovian frontier. Yet few of the oppressed ever make it post the dictator's well-patrolled boundaries.

But the longing for freedom cannot be denied, whatever the risk.A priest of the mystical religion called the Greentree Way senses catastrophe approaching. A vision foretells that the future of our bitterly divided solar system rests in the hands of a mysterious man of destiny and doom who has vanished into the backwater of the Met in search of his lost love. But the priest is not the only one who grasps this man's importance. The despot Am$eacute;s is after the some quarry -- and until now there has been no power in the inner solar system willing to oppose Amés and his fearsome minions.

But now a line has been drawn of Neptune's moon Triton. Roger Sherman, a retired military commander from Earth's West Point and a Greentree ally, will not let Amés prevail. Though dwarfed by the strength and wealth of the Met, the cosmos under Sherman's jurisdiction will remain free at all cost -- though defiance will ensure the unspeakable onslaught of the dictator Amés's wrath -- a rage that will soon ravage the solar system. A rage that will plunge all of humankind into the fury of total war.

With Metaplanetary, author Tony Daniel fulfills the great promise of his critically acclaimed earlier works. A new master has reached for the stars, with a stunning speculative masterwork of enormous scope and conceptual daring -- an adventure of grand victories and horrific villainy, both human and meta-human alike.

The future is at war for the soul of humankind ...

It is a time when civilization has extended itself far into the outer reaches of the solar system, and in doing so has developed into something remarkable. But humanity's progeny -- the nanotechnological artificial intelligences called "free converts" -- face extermination at the hands of the tyrant Amés and his invincible armies, and once the Napoleonesque Director develops superluminal flight, his "Final Solution" will be all but assured.

But hope remains alive in the outer system. From the fleeing refugees of a dozen moons and asteroids, General Roger Sherman has amassed an effective and adaptable military force, already forged into a formidable weapon in the fires of battle.

However, time is a commodity the courageous Federal Army lacks, as total war erupts between the vast cloudships of the outer system and the deadly armada of the Met, a glorious and terrible conflict that will rage among the stars... and within the hearts and minds of every human being.

An all-new Original Series adventure about a Federation mining colony on the verge of destruction and the unlikely solution that could save them from extinction.

Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise are sent to evacuate the Omega sector frontier colony Vesbius -- a pioneer settlement that is on the brink of an extinction-level event threatening not only all of the colonists, but biological products that are vital to Starfleet. However, rescue efforts are being thwarted by the colonists themselves, who refuse to abandon Vesbius, claiming that their lives depend upon staying, while giving no reason why. It is after these irrational decisions that First Officer Spock makes a radical suggestion: Perhaps an unexpected ally could aid the colony and help complete the mission...

The U.S.S. Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk is en route to the extreme edge of the Alpha Quadrant, and to a region known as the Vara Nebula. Its mission: to investigate why science outpost Zeta Gibraltar is not answering all Federation hailing messages. When the Enterprise arrives, a scan shows no life forms in the science station. Kirk leads a landing party and quickly discovers the reason for the strange silence--signs of a violent firefight are everywhere. Zeta Gibraltar has been completely raided. Yet there are no bodies and the entire roster of station personnel is missing...

ABEL DASHIAN'S WORLD DOESN'T NEED A HERO

Duisberg is one of thousands of planets plunged into darkness and chaos by the collapse of the galactic republic, but where other worlds have begun to rebuild a star-travelling culture, Duisberg remains in an uneasy balance between mud-brick civilization and bloodthirsty barbarism.

The people of Duisberg have a god: Zentrum, a supercomputer from the ancient past. Zentrum has decided avoid another collapse by preventing civilization from rising from where it is. And because even a supercomputer and the powerful religion which it founded cannot block all progress, Zentrum has another tool: every few centuries the barbarians sweep in from the desert, slaughtering the educated classes and cowing the peasants back into submission. These are the Blood Winds, and the Blood Winds are about to blow again.

This time, however, there's a difference: Abel Dashian, son of a military officer, has received into his mind the spirit of Raj Whitehall, the most successful general in the history of the planet Bellevue--and of Center, the supercomputer which enabled Raj to shatter his planet's barbarians and permit the return of civilization.

One hero can't stop the tide of barbarians unless he has his own culture supporting him. To save Duisberg, Abel must break the power of Zentrum.

With the help of Raj and Center, Abel Dashian must become... THE HERETIC!

Sequel to The Heretic, Book 10 in the nationally best-selling General series.

FROM HERETIC TO SAVIOR

Duisberg is one of thousands of planets plunged into darkness and chaos by the collapse of the galactic republic, but where other worlds have begun to rebuild a star-travelling culture, Duisberg remains in an uneasy balance between mud-brick civilization and bloodthirsty barbarism.

The people of Duisberg have a god: Zentrum, a supercomputer from the ancient past. Zentrum has decided avoid another collapse by preventing civilization from rising from where it is. This is known as the Stasis. And because even a supercomputer and the powerful religion which it founded cannot block all progress, Zentrum has another tool: every few centuries the barbarians sweep in from the desert, slaughtering the educated classes and cowing the peasants back into submission. These are the Blood Winds, and the Blood Winds are about to blow again.

This time, however, there's a difference: Abel Dashian, son of a military officer, has received into his mind the spirit of Raj Whitehall, the most successful general in the history of the planet Bellevue--and of Center, the supercomputer which enabled Raj to shatter his planet's barbarians and permit the return of civilization.

One hero can't stop the tide of barbarians unless he has his own culture supporting him. To save Duisberg, Abel must conquer the very land of his origin and attempt to destroy the computer A.I. "god" who has doomed his world to an everlasting Dark Age. Abel is a heretic, but now he must go beyond and become--THE SAVIOR.

WULF'S SAGA BEGINS

Evil from the dawn of time is on the verge of domination--but Wulf von Dunstig figured none of that mattered to him. What could he do about it? After all, he was basically nobody--the sixteen-year-old third son of a duke destined for an uneventful life as a ranger. But when destiny comes calling, it turns out there is only Wulf to answer. After a devastating invasion of his native land, Wulf must rally the peaceful valley of Shenandoah. He must free his family and his land from the grip of intruders controlled by vampiric evil.

It's time to grow up. It's time to fight for what is right. It's time to wield the Dragon Hammer.

Lord Wulf von Dunstig is in deep trouble. He is surrounded by invading enemies and kingdoms fallen into chaos. Along with dealing with the problems of a realm he never expected to rule, Wulf is in love with the elf maiden Saeunn Amberstone. Saeunn once saved his land. Now she has lost her star-soul and is dying.

Ursel Keiler wishes she could control her errant heart as easily as she can guide the flight of an arrow to a target. She tries to escapes into the woodlands she adores, only to be pulled back by a band of desperate and brave warriors who need her help. But aiding them will lead Ursel straight to Wulf von Dunstig, and to the heartache she is fleeing.

Yet evil cares nothing for human feelings. Now Wulf, Ursel and their friends must find a way to unite the land of Shenandoah against a powerful Roman inquisitor. He not only controls an Imperial Legion, he is also toying with magic that threatens the foundations of existence itself. Yet there is hope even in the deepest and darkest places of the world, and all may depend upon Wulf and Ursel forging a powerful weapon drawn from the heart of a dragon.