Search Worlds Without End

A chilling, ingenious brain-teaser by two masters of the psychological thriller. Nicholas Augustine was a rancher and a railroad enthusiast, a popular maverick whose meteoric rise to the Presidency dumbfounded every self-styled expert in Washington. But scandal threatens when someone is murdered in the White House. Loyal secret service agent Christopher Justice will do anything to protect the President. A masterful thriller of murder in the White House.

They had all died screaming. She had seen them in her psychic visions. And she saw herself.

On Account of Darkness and Other Stories brings together for the first time every science fiction story that Bill and Barry wrote together during their long careers, featuring a brand-new introduction. These short, sharp stories, each a paradigm of the craft of science fiction, are prime examples of two authors working at the height of their collaborative powers, resulting in a collection of truly speculative fiction.

Contents:

• On Account of Darkness (1977) by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
• A Clone at Last (1978) by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
• "Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?" (1982) by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
• On the Nature of Time (1981) by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
• Night Rider (1977) by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
• Opening a Vein (1980) by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
• Reading Day (1979) by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
• Fascination (1980) by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
• The Lyran Case (1980) by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
• Whither Thou, Ghost (1981) by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
• Vanishing Point (1982) by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
• Out of Quarantine (1978) by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
• Shakespeare MCMLXXXV (1982) by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
• In Our Image (1981) by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
• Another Burnt-Out Case (1978) by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
• Inaugural (1976) by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
• The Last One Left (1980) by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
• Coming Again (1975) by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
• Multiples (1976) by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
• Prose Bowl (1979) by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg
• Final War (1968) by Barry N. Malzberg
• Epitaph (1983) by Bill Pronzini
• Toy (1985) by Bill Pronzini
• The Rec Field (1980) by Bill Pronzini
• The Hungarian Cinch (1976) by Bill Pronzini

As we follow Rex Sackett ("The Metaphor Kid") on his way to the top in that great spectator sport of the future, hack-writing, we realize that this a fast-moving, ribald parody of the writing profession. From the moment the Head Editor waves his red flag to the second the typewriting stops and a victor is chosen, every reader will be cheering at the sidelines of Prose Bowl.

THEY ARE DEAD. THEY ARE HIDEOUSLY DEAD. FIVE WOMEN ARE DEAD. A HOMICIDAL MANIAC HAS KILLED FIVE WOMEN. Three down when Ferrara, a psychiatrist, and Valerie Broome, New York feature writer, arrive in the Adirondacks to see when the local Jack the Ripper will kill again. Fatalities and failed assaults ensue. Is it Steven Hook, failed actor, alcoholic, track loser? Or Jack Cross, local newspaperman, with too much mother and a girl who's pregnant? They have their reasons to rage against women...

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Stephen King
• Hop Frog - (1849) - shortstory by Edgar Allan Poe
• Rappaccini's Daughter - (1844) - novelette by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Squire Toby's Will - (1868) - novelette by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
• The Squaw - (1893) - shortstory by Bram Stoker
• The Jolly Corner - (1908) - novelette by Henry James
• "Man Overboard!" - (1899) - shortstory by Winston Churchill
• The Hand - (1919) - shortstory by Theodore Dreiser
• The Valley of Spiders - (1903) - shortstory by H. G. Wells
• The Middle Toe of the Right Foot - (1890) - shortstory by Ambrose Bierce
• Pickman's Model - (1927) - shortstory by H. P. Lovecraft
• Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper - (1943) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• The Screaming Laugh - (1938) - novelette by Cornell Woolrich
• A Rose for Emily - (1930) - shortstory by William Faulkner
• Bianca's Hands - (1947) - shortstory by Theodore Sturgeon
• The Girl with the Hungry Eyes - (1949) - shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• Shut a Final Door - (1947) - shortstory by Truman Capote
• Come and Go Mad - (1949) - novelette by Fredric Brown
• The Scarlet King - (1954) - shortstory by Evan Hunter
• Sticks - (1974) - novelette by Karl Edward Wagner
• Sardonicus - (1961) - novelette by Ray Russell
• A Teacher's Rewards - (1970) - shortstory by Robert S. Phillips
• The Roaches - (1965) - shortstory by Thomas M. Disch
• The Jam - (1958) - shortstory by Henry Slesar
• Black Wind - (1979) - shortstory by Bill Pronzini
• The Road to Mictlantecutli - (1965) - shortstory by Adobe James
• Passengers - (1968) - shortstory by Robert Silverberg
• The Explosives Expert - (1967) - shortstory by John Lutz
• Call First - (1975) - shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
• The Fly - (1952) - shortstory by Arthur Porges
• Namesake - shortstory by Rosalind M. Greenberg
• Camps - (1979) - novelette by Jack Dann
• You Know Willie - (1957) - shortstory by Theodore R. Cogswell
• The Mindworm - (1950) - shortstory by C. M. Kornbluth
• Warm - (1953) - shortstory by Robert Sheckley
• Transfer - (1975) - shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg
• The Doll - (1980) - novelette by Joyce Carol Oates
• If Damon Comes - (1978) - shortstory by Charles L. Grant
• Mass Without Voices - (1979) - shortfiction by Arthur L. Samuels
• The Oblong Room - (1967) - shortstory by Edward D. Hoch
• The Party - (1967) - shortstory by William F. Nolan
• The Crate - (1979) - novelette by Stephen King