Search Worlds Without End

Three astronauts plunge recklessly into a black hole, hoping that the attendant wormhole will lead them to another part of the galaxy, where they intend to search for a fourth astronaut who just happens to be a former lover of the captain, Patrick Mahaffey.

What responsibilities do we have to isolate ourselves from the bacteria, viruses, and other life of another world, and to prevent any of that alien biome from being brought back to Earth?

What happens when a group of humans are stranded for centuries on another world with no choice but to expose themselves to that world? After such long exposure, are they still Homo sapiens or have they become another species entirely?

These questions are at the heart of this intriguing novel, explored through the complicated lives and the viewpoints of the people who have come to rescue the stranded colony, the members of that colony, and the sentient alien life that dwells on the planet. Difficult life and death choices will be made by all involved.

In the near future, humankind has founded colonies on Mars and the inner planets as well as under the oceans, populating them via by direct genetic manipulation, changing us to suit the environment. The haves are those who are "ecomods" (genetically modified) or "surgenmods" (surgically modified); the have-nots are the "typics"--those who haven't undergone modification. The typics are forced to live in walled-off, filthy, and run-down areas, held away from the wealthier surgenmods, while the ecomods have formed communities based around their own archetypes-insular societies all, each with their own particular customs.

There's a greater wall, as well. Someone or something has put a sphere of exclusion around the inner solar system, an unseen barrier that allows no living being to pass beyond AU 3.0. For all humankind knows, this SunWall has existed for only the last half century, when the first manned expeditions attempted to reach Jupiter, or perhaps it existed for aeons, long before humans ever dreamed of flight.

Sofia is an ecomod, but not from a standard 'race' that anyone recognizes. She claims to have pierced the SunWall and lived. Against increasingly stubborn resistance, Sofia and the group of misfits who gather around her attempt to uncover the secret of the SunWall and release humankind from its imprisonment.

An immortal Muse whose very survival depends on the creativity she nurtures within her lovers...

Another immortal who feeds not on artistry but on pain and torment...

A chase through time from 1300s Paris to contemporary New York, with two people bound together in enmity and fury...

When magic and science are melded together, an array of the famous and infamous--from Bernini to Vivaldi, from Lavoisier and Robespierre to William Blake, from Gustav Klimt to Charlotte Salomon--will be caught up unawares in this ages-long battle...

Carlos Theopelli had been dead for years, and no one cared about his life's work: the so-called "Destiny Matrices." As far as most people were concerned, Theopelli was just another crackpot scientist, and pretty much a jerk, to boot.

But not to Angela. And not to the mage-dwarf Caleb Mundo and his pet mindbeast Alice. To them, Theopelli's notebook -- and his corpse -- might be the key to survival. Everything swirled around the confused mind of Joan the Flower Man, who had used pages from the notebook to wrap the flowers she sold on the NYC streets.

Add into the mix Dirk, a former history professor turned rock singer, as well as Ecclesiastes Mitsumishi, an eccentric mortician, and Abel Henderson, a preacher with a pet prophet, and you're ready for a wild romp through multiple realities, as well as world-saving heroics.

Expect the unexpected at the ABRAXAS MARVEL CIRCUS!

It is 2558. We have reached the stars, thanks to the technology of the Stekoni, an alien race. But in the veils between the stars, the voice of the Stekoni god calls, and that threatens humankind's ruling Zakkaist Church, a blending of the three great monotheistic religions. A scarred man with a ruined face might be the Sartius Exori, the "black beginning" who will be the messiah of the Stekoni god. Is he a pretender, a fool, a tool of the Church, or is he truly the messenger of a new era?

The Crow of Connemara is a contemporary Celtic fantasy set primarily in Ireland. Picking up threads from ancient Irish mythology and folktales, this story is fantasy, drama, and tragic romance all at once, a tale caught in the dark places where the world of ancient myth intersects our own, where old ways and old beliefs struggle not to be overwhelmed by the modern world.

Colin Doyle is young Irish-American musician from Chicago, whose interest is traditional Irish music. Maeve Gallagher is an Oileánach, an "Islander" from Ireland's west coast. Islanders are outcasts treated with suspicion by the locals, who think them responsible for wild and strange happenings in the area. Colin soon discovers that he's connected to Maeve in ways he never could have imagined.

It is now 2170, but decades ago, the Great Bust wrecked Earth's economies and trapped humankind in their own solar system. Then the T'Raijek came, flaunting their power and their stardrive, and inflaming those who were determined to obtain the T'Raijek's advanced technology at any cost. Any cost at all...

Free Trader Jemi Charidilis knows little of these tensions. She is simply trying to wrest a living by hauling cargo from Earth to the few outposts in near space. But unexpectedly her ship is attacked and disabled. When she is rescued, Jemi finds that two years of her memories have been stolen from her, including the death of her son Kenis. Who had done this, and why? The answer is bound up in the very fate of mankind as Jemi risks her life to uncover the truth.

First contact was never supposed to be like this. A sudden rift appears in near-earth space, causing electronic components to permanently fail and cause total chaos. As Earth's fragile technological society disintegrates, no one can answer the obvious question - what is the rift, and who or what has created it.

A new generation comes to age attempting to answer these questions, and Taria Spears, an anthropologist, is selected as part of the crew on the exploratory ship Lightbringer. Lightbringer's mission is to investigate the worm-hole like Rift and, if possible, to pass through it to find out what lies on the other side, and to seek some answers.

But what if all they find is an alien culture where sound, not sight is the primary sense?

There is a certain magic growing up with life-long friends. The charmed existence became almost dream-like with two young boys growing up in a small neighborhood surrounded by an old, dense forest.

But what happens when fantasies start becoming all too real? Grotesque and bloody rites give rise to a fey and magical girl who threatens to destroy the last remnants of the boys' idyllic childhood existence...whose mere presence may set the jealous boys at each other's throats.

Hidden among the trees they know so well, Rob and Mark confront a grim, violent solution to their problems. This is a story of choices, a tale where the wild, romanticized dream-scape of youth intersects the gray world beyond, where fantasy collides and merges with reality.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology I, Alien (2005), edited by Mike Resnick. It can also be found in the anthology Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition, edited by Rich Horton.

BEYOND ROBOT CITY AWAITS A BRAVE NEW GALAXY OF ROBOTS AND ALIENS

A man without a memory, tied by blood to a city of robots. At his side, a mysterious woman whose life and memory he saved, whose love he has won for a second time.

His name is Derec. Now he must answer the call of a besieged city on an alien planet. His new challenge is to protect a fantastic metropolis of robots from wolf-like beings who stalk the perimeters and threaten its destruction!

For the first time in his distinguished career, Isaac Asimov has opened up his world of robots to challenge today's hottest new science fiction talents. The traps Asimov has set for them will astound you. In a mystery governed by the Laws of Robotics, the finest minds in science fiction enter the most futuristic landscape in robot history!

Welcome to Robot city.

Struggling with rising infertility and infant mortality, repopulation is essential for a group of humans on a distant planet. Anais, a brilliant female doctor with inexplicable physical abnormalities, is scorned because she has no children. When Anais discovers abnormalities identical to her own in the preserved corpse of a member of the planet's long-extinct race, she must find the link between the mysteries of the planet's past and the plight of the humans in order for her society to survive.

Returning to the enigmatic planet first introduced in his compelling Dark Water's Embrace, Stephen Leigh thoughtfully examines issues of prejudice and race relations among the descendants of the world's marroned human survivors and its native inhabitants.On the faraway planet Mictlan, a tiny human society has had to sruggle with severe and often disturbing complications to adapt to their desolate surroundings. There were physical mutations and birth defects among them, then an uneasy coexistence with the Miccail, an indigenous tri-gendered intelligent species. Most startling of all was the evolution of a third human sex: the Sa, or midmale.

Now the fragile peace that governs the humans and the Miccail is shattered after a young human Sa child is kidnapped, igniting all the half-buried animosities smoldering between the two groups, as savagery and violence break out across the planet. The answer may lie in an imposing carved monolith--the Speaking Stone that contains the secrets of the ancient Miccail religion. Facing annhilation at the hands of its warring civilizations, the planet's only chance for survival hinges on deciphering the stone's cryptic hierloglyphs.

Stephen Leigh's epic trilogy of vast empires and dangerous politics, compiled in one thrilling volume

Neweden is a world whose gods are death and fate, and it's here that the Hoorka have arisen: a guild of assassins, whose single law is that the victim must always retain a tiny but finite chance of escape. If the victim can survive until dawn, they may go free.

But the rich and powerful don't care to have their will thwarted, and so the Hoorka must deal with the consequences of their own ethics. Gyll, the leader of the Hoorka, also has dreams of taking the guild offworld into the growing society of the Alliance, which is trying to reconstruct a shattered, worlds-spanning empire. Is that dream a genuine possibility, or will exposure to other cultures doom the Hoorka entirely?

Gyll must confront internal struggles within his own people, the dangerous politics of Neweden, and the twinned threat and promise of the Alliance. The Hag of Death dances around them, mockingly. Can the Hoorka survive to see the dawn of their own success, an Assassins' Dawn?

The Hoorka, a guild of skilled assassins, maintain their existence in the turbulent society of Neweden through strict obedience to a stern code of neutrality: Kill only when hired. Reveal your client only if successful. If the victim survives until dawn, he goes free. Through years of harsh training and iron discipline, the Thane of Hoorka Guild has molded a group of men and women without kinship, lassari outcasts, into a lethal force separate from the blood feuds and intricate alliances of other clans.

The Alliance of Worlds has been watching the Hoorka closely with an eye to allowing them to operate offworld. But now an important target has eluded the Hoorka's weapons--the leader of the opposition party. And the Rule of Neweden, maker of the contract, suspects them of treachery. Beset with suspicion and fear, and challenged by a young usurper within the Guild, the aging Thane faces a day of reckoning: He can abide by the code he created, or break it in the name of expediency. His fateful decision could mean a new future for the Hoorka--or its end for all time.

The Assassins' Code

On the bloodsoaked feudal world of Neweden, the Hoorka assassins' guild has survived by adherence to a strict code of honor. Lethal killers, shadowy black-robed agents of destruction, they are pledged to give Fate a chance to free their victims from the claws of Hag Death.

But now the Alliance has allowed Hoorka to operate offworld, the assassins' code is breaking down, and Ulthane Gyll. founder and former leader of the Hoorka, finds the deadly fighting force he created turning against him....

Gyll Hermond was spawned in the dark streets of Neweden, a world torn apart by intrigue and blood-feud. He'd molded a ragged band of kinless outcasts into a trained killing force -- the Hoorka Assassins' Guild -- only to be deposed as leader in a bitter struggle for power. Now Fate brings Gyll back to Neweden as military commander of a powerful Trading Family.

In this new paranormal fantasy series, a powerful woman who can see the dead must choose whether to forge a new path for herself and her family....

"The problem with ghosts is that they don't quite realize that they're dead."

Voada Paorach can see the dead. It is a family trait, but one that has had to remain hidden since the Mundoan Empire conquered her people's land three generations ago. But this ghost isn't the same as the others she has glimpsed, the lost souls she has helped to find their way to the land beyond life. This ghost demands that Voada follow a new path, one that will mean leaving behind everything and everyone she has known and loved.

Voada will come to understand the power that her people possess, but she will also learn the steep price that must be paid for such a gift.

Fast-moving and intense, A Fading Sun explores grief, sacrifice, ambition, and the forging of personality in the crucible of war.

The second novel in this gripping historical fantasy series, set in an alternate first-century Britain, follows Orla Paorach, freedom fighter and daughter of a Boudica-like warrior.

"Orla! Hurry, girl! You must come with me!"

Orla Paorach's life was overturned for the first time when her mother Voada was beaten senseless, and Orla was taken by Bakir, a minor Mundoan army officer, as his second wife. Now her world is shattered a second time: Bakir has died in battle, and so has her mother, now known as the Mad Draoi of the Cateni.

Orla flees northward to Onglse, the island home of the draoi that is the center of the Cateni rebellion against the Mundoa. She becomes quickly embroiled in battle as well as deceptions from both sides of the conflict, as everyone expects that she's come to take up her mother's mantle. Those who knew her mother offer their help, but can she trust any of them? Can she avoid becoming the Mad Draoi herself, lost in the magic her mother once tried to wield?

An intense, fast-paced novel, A Rising Moon explores trust, courage, and the deep seduction of power.

As the final battle between the Nats and Bloat rages on Ellis Island, the Turtle throws in the towel, Modular Man switches sides, Reflector faces defeat, and assassins reach Bloat's chamber.

Exposed by a reporter and her joker sidekick, the Cardshark Conspiracy plots to unleash the Black Trump, a biological weapon that destroys anyone with a wild card genetic structure, and time is running out for ace Mark Meadows.

In 1946, an alien virus that rewrites human DNA was accidentally unleashed in the skies over New York City. It killed ninety percent of those it infected. Nine percent survived to mutate into tragically deformed creatures. And one percent gained superpowers. The Wild Cards shared-universe series, created and edited since 1987 by New York Times #1 bestseller George R. R. Martin ("The American Tolkien"-Time magazine) along with Melinda Snodgrass, is the tale of the history of the world since then-and of the heroes among the one percent.

Ranging from New York and New England to ravaged Africa and New Orleans, encompassing war, devastation, and stubborn hope, Suicide Kings advances the story of the Wild Cards, and their struggle to be fully human in a world that fears and mistrusts them.

One act of terrorism changes the life of Michael "Drummer Boy" Vogali forever in Stephen Leigh's "The Atonement Tango." Now without his band, Joker Plague, Michael must figure out a way to re-build his life--and seek revenge.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.