Search Worlds Without End

This short story originally appeared in the anthology The Universe (1987), edited by Byron Preiss and was reprinted in Lightspeed, September 2011. The story is included in the collection Otherness (1994).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

A starship named Destiny, a fantastic multi-national crew, and the woman known as - Starfawn!

The strikingly original and memorable illustrations of Leo and Diane Dillon have delighted and amazed us for more than forty years. Now this magnificent volume collects many of their best works for the first time and provides a magical tour into the studio and the imagination of America's most popular illustrator team.

The creators of fabulous science fiction and fantasy scenes based on the stories of Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, and others, the Dillons have won numerous prestigious awards for their book-jacket illustration in the fields of history, children's fantasy, classic literature, folk tales, and contemporary fiction. Their exceptional range of style and technique and their versatility in the use of watercolors, acrylic, pencil, ink, pastels, woodcuts, and stained glass are celebrated here in forty-eight full-color plates and over sixty-five black and white illustrations. With illuminating text by Byron Preiss and commentary by the Dillons themselves, this book will be welcomed and enjoyed by readers and art lovers alike.

Over one hundred and twenty illustrations, including forty-eight color plates, are included, with an introduction by Harlan Ellison.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (The Art of Leo & Diane Dillon) - essay by Harlan Ellison
• The Art of Leo & Diane Dillon - essay by Byron Preiss
• Is Christmas - (1959) - interior artwork
• Lotte Lenya Reads Kafka - (1962) - interior artwork
• The Sea and the Jungle - (1964) - interior artwork
• African Kingdoms, Great Ages of Man - (1966) - interior artwork
• The Wizard of Oz - (1976) - interior artwork
• Queen Zixi of Ix - (1977) - interior artwork
• The Untold Tale - (1970) - interior artwork
• Boy at the Window - (1977) - interior artwork
• Red Dog - (1975) - interior artwork
• The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain - (1964) - interior artwork
• Kim - (1976) - interior artwork
• Mystic in Love - (1977) - interior artwork
• Owl Woman - (1978) - interior artwork
• Cricket Woman - (1978) - interior artwork
• Nobody Knows My Name - (1978) - interior artwork
• The Member of the Wedding - (1965) - interior artwork
• Till We Have Faces - (1963) - interior artwork
• Isle of the Dead (original art) - (1968) - interior artwork
• The Left Hand of Darkness (original art) - (1968) - interior artwork
• One Million Tomorrows (original art) - (1970) - interior artwork
• 900 Grandmothers (original art) - (1969) - interior artwork
• The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman - (1974) - interior artwork
• The American Experience: Poetry, Fiction and Non-Fiction - (1974) - interior artwork
• Native Son - (1973) - interior artwork
• I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (original art) - (1967) - interior artwork
• Different - (1974) - interior artwork
• Child of the Morning (original art) - (1977) - interior artwork
• The Eagle and the Raven (original art) - (1978) - interior artwork
• The Tempest - (1965) - interior artwork
• Henry V - (1966) - interior artwork
• All's Well That Ends Well - (1965) - interior artwork
• As You Like It - (1965) - interior artwork
• The Tempest - (1975) - interior artwork
• Edith Jackson - (1978) - interior artwork
• Ground Zero - (1969) - interior artwork
• No Doors, No Windows (original art) - (1975) - interior artwork
• The Other Glass Teat (original art) - (1975) - interior artwork
• Shatterday (original art) - (1978) - interior artwork (variant of Cover: Shatterday 1980)
• The Illustrated Man, The Veldt, and Marionettes, Inc. - (1975) - interior artwork
• Dying Inside - (1979) - interior artwork
• Animal Magnetism - (1979) - interior artwork
• A Swiftly Tilting Planet (original art) - (1978) - interior artwork
• A Wrinkle in time (original art) - (1979) - interior artwork
• Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears - (1975) - interior artwork
• Ashanti to Zulu - (1976) - interior artwork
• James and the Giant Peach - (1978) - interior artwork

Beyond our illusion of solid surface is a strange reality of miniscule cells; of antimatter, quarks, and leptons; an invisible world of forces yet to be fully understood by mankind. A collaboration among some of the world's foremost physicists and authors of speculative fiction journeys into a world inhabited by microorganisms, miniscule cells, and subatomic particles, in a study of current knowledge and vision of microscopic world.

Table of Contents:

• We Are Not Alone - essay by Byron Preiss
• Introduction - essay by William R. Alschuler
• The Invisible World - essay by Linn W. Hobbs and Jean Paul Revel
• The Ommatidium Miniatures - shortstory by Michael Bishop
• Cell Ecology - essay by Marcel Bessis
• Too Bad! - shortstory by Isaac Asimov
• The Genetic Code - essay by William A. Haseltine
• Samson in the Temple of Science - shortstory by Harry Harrison
• The World of Molecules - essay by William M. Gelbart
• Death Wish - shortstory by Poul Anderson
• The Nuclear World - essay by Philip Morrison
• Half-Life - shortstory by Paul Preuss
• The Electron - essay by Gerald Feinberg
• Chip Runner - shortstory by Robert Silverberg
• An Experiment in High-Energy Physics - essay by Leon M. Lederman
• A Matter Most Strange - shortstory by Robert L. Forward
• At the Rialto - (1989) - novelette by Connie Willis
• Quarks and Beyond - essay by Alvaro De Rújula
• Ambiguity - shortstory by David Brin
• The Forces of Nature - essay by Sheldon Lee Glashow
• Mozart on Morphine - (1989) - shortstory by Gregory Benford
• Inner Space / Outer Space - essay by Edward W. Kolb
• As Above, So Below - shortstory by Rudy Rucker

Table of Contents:

• Diversity - essay by Byron Preiss
• The Solar System: An Introduction - essay by Andrew Fraknoi
• Writing of Two Sorts - essay by Isaac Asimov
• Space Flight: Imagination and Reality - essay by Arthur C. Clarke
• Earth: The Water Planet - essay by Ursula B. Marvin
• After the Storm - short story by Harry Harrison
• Earth's Moon: Doorway to the Solar System - essay by G. Jeffrey Taylor
• Handprints on the Moon - short story by William K. Hartmann
• Mars: The Red Planet - essay by Michael H. Carr
• The Love Affair - (1982) - short story by Ray Bradbury
• Jupiter's World: A Colossal Realm - essay by Joseph Ververka
• The Future of the Jovian System - short story by Gregory Benford
• Saturn: A Ringed World - essay by David Morrison
• Dreadsong - short story by Roger Zelazny
• Uranus: Distant Giant - essay by Dale P. Cruikshank
• Uranus or UFO Versus IRS - short story by Philip José Farmer
• Dies Irae - short story by Charles Sheffield
• Neptune: Farthest Giant - essay by Dale P. Cruikshank
• At the Human Limit - short story by Jack Williamson
• Pluto: Outermost - essay by Robert Silverberg
• Sunrise on Pluto - short story by Robert Silverberg
• Mercury: The Sun's Closest Companion - essay by Clark R. Chapman
• Transcript: Mercury Program - short story by Frank Herbert
• Venus: The Veiled Planet - essay by Lawrence Colin
• Big Dome - short story by Marta Randall
• Asteroids and Comets: The Billion Other Planets - essay by William K. Hartmann
• Halley's Comet - essay by William K. Hartmann
• Small Bodies - short story by Paul Preuss
• Further Reading About the Solar System - essay by Andrew Fraknoi

A beautifully illustrated, fascinating exploration of the mysteries of the cosmos and beyond, featuring original fiction by award-winning science fiction authors and essays by the leading scientists in the field. In this book, we gather together the scientists, the intellectuals, and the artists, to learn about and speculate upon the cosmos. The world right now desperately needs both the physicist and the dreamer. G-d has blessed us with the most magnificent world imaginable. We have barely made the first steps in seeing all the light in the darkness. Perhaps it is the dreamer who will find out the nature of dark matter; perhaps it is the scientist who will find solutions to needless hunger and mindless war. For them both, the bounty of the Earth and the cosmos is the currency of hope. Humanity must use what it has been blessed with to survive. Then, as in Paul Simon s phrase, we all might be dancing together with diamonds on the soles of our shoes. They will be the diamonds of the stars and it will be a dance of peace.

Table of Contents:

• Frontier - essay by Byron Preiss
• The Universe: An Introduction - essay by Andrew Fraknoi
• What is the Universe? - essay by Isaac Asimov
• What is the Universe? - interior artwork by Darrel Anderson
• Art and Science Fiction: Unbuilt Cities / Realized Dreams - essay by Ray Bradbury
• Art and Science Fiction: Unbuilt Cities / Realized Dreams - interior artwork by Moebius
• Our Galaxy - essay by Eric J. Chaisson
• Mandikini - shortstory by Gregory Benford
• Mandikini - interior artwork by B. E. Johnson
• Star Birth and Maturity - essay by Martin Cohen
• To Touch a Star - shortstory by Ben Bova
• To Touch a Star - interior artwork by Pat Rawlings
• Supernovae: Creative Catclysms in the Galaxy - essay by David J. Helfand
• The Iron Star - novelette by Robert Silverberg
• The Iron Star [I] - interior artwork by Bob Eggleton
• The Iron Star [II] - interior artwork by Bob Eggleton
• The Black Hole - essay by William J. Kaufmann
• Schwarzschild Radius - shortstory by Connie Willis
• Schwarzschild Radius - interior artwork by Jim Burns
• Galaxies and Clusters - essay by Hyron Spinrad
• Bubbles - shortstory by David Brin
• Bubbles - interior artwork by David A. Cherry
• Quasars and Active Galaxies - essay by Harding E. Smith
• For Thus Do I Remember Carthage - shortstory by Michael Bishop
• For Thus Do I Remember Carthage - interior artwork by John Collier (artist)
• The Intergalactic Medium - essay by Wallace Tucker
• The Man Who Was a Cosmic String - shortstory by Rudy Rucker
• The Man Who Was a Cosmic String - interior artwork by Ron Miller
• Cosmology: The Quest to Understand the Creation and Expansion of the Universe - essay by Allan Sandage
• Requiem for a Universe - shortstory by Poul Anderson
• Requiem for a Universe - interior artwork by John Harris
• The New Physics and the Universe - essay by James Trefil
• All the Hues of Hell - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• All the Hues of Hell - interior artwork by Kikuo Hayashi
• Who Will Speak for Earth? An Essay on Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Contact - essay by Donald Goldsmith
• The Dark Shadow - shortstory by Frederik Pohl
• The Dark Shadow - interior artwork by Lebbeus Woods