Search Worlds Without End

This short story originally appeared in Foundation, #100 Summer 2007, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld, September 2015. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (2008), edited by Gardner Dozois.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

She was a warrior of words.

As a journalist she exposed corruption across the Interstellar Commonwealth, shifting public opinion and destroying careers in the process.

Long-since retired, she travels back to the planet of her childhood, partly through a sense of nostalgia, partly to avoid running from humanity's newest -- and self-created -- enemy, the jenjer.

Because the enemy is coming, and nothing can stand in its way.

This volume of essays continues the establishment of Lois McMaster Bujold as an important author of contemporary science fiction and fantasy. It argues persuasively that Bujold's corpus spans the distance between two full arcs of US feminism, and has anticipated or responded to several of its current concerns in ways that invite or even require theoretical exploration.

The fourteen essays collected here provide wide-ranging scholarly analyses of Bujold's work and worlds so far, covering not only the science fiction and fantasy series, but taking into account the wealth of ancillary material inspired by her works, such as fan fiction and role-playing games. Examining the major series through a range of perspectives, including feminist readings, queer theory, and disability studies, this volume aims to establish beyond doubt the seriousness of intent behind Bujold's various artistic projects and provide a set of rich readings of this engaging, experimental, playful, and popular author.

'They called it Enamour. It turned minds, sold merchandise, and swayed elections. And it did its job far too well...'

In the city-state of Geath, the King lives in a golden hall, and the people want for nothing. Everyone is happy and everyone is rich. Or so it seems. When the Doctor, Amy and Rory look beneath the surface, they discover a city of secrets. In dark corners, strange creatures are stirring. At the heart of the hall, a great metal dragon oozes gold.

Then the Herald appears, demanding the return of her treasure... And next come the gunships. The battle for possession of the treasure has begun, and only the Doctor and his friends can save the people of the city from being destroyed in the crossfire of an ancient civil war. But will the King surrender his new-found wealth? Or will he fight to keep it...?

'As long as people have lived here, they've gone out of their way to avoid the woods...'

Two teenage girls disappear into an ancient wood, a foreboding and malevolent presence both now and in the past. The modern motorway bends to avoid it, as did the old Roman road. In 1917 the Doctor and Amy are desperate to find out what's happened to Rory, who's vanished too.

But something is waiting for them in the woods. Something that's been there for thousands of years. Something that is now waking up.

"The Grail is a story, a myth! It didn't exist on your world! It can't exist here!"

The city-state of Varuz is failing. Duke Aurelian is the last of his line, his capital is crumbling, and the armies of his enemy, Duke Conrad, are poised beyond the mountains to invade. Aurelian is preparing to gamble everything on one last battle. So when a holy man, the Doctor, comes to Varuz from beyond the mountains, Aurelian asks for his blessing in the war.

But all is not what it seems in Varuz. The city-guard have lasers for swords, and the halls are lit by electric candlelight. Aurelian's beloved wife, Guena, and his most trusted knight, Bernhardt, seem to be plotting to overthrow their Duke, and Clara finds herself drawn into their intrigue...

Will the Doctor stop Aurelian from going to war? Will Clara's involvement in the plot against the Duke be discovered? Why is Conrad's ambassador so nervous? And who are the ancient and weary knights who arrive in Varuz claiming to be on a quest for the Holy Grail...?

A heist by the Serenity crew goes badly wrong in a captivating original Firefly tie-in novel from the award-winning series by Titan Books.

City of sin
Neapolis: a desert city on planet Bethel where all manner of entertainment can be found: high-stakes gambling, luxurious hotels, exclusive clubs and any form of diversion imaginable may be had for a price. It's the eve of the annual carnival: three days of decadent revelry, and Serenity arrives to take a security job, guarding a costly shipment.

An unattainable ransom
Tragedy strikes: the shipment is stolen, and the wealthy owner kidnaps Zoë and Book, holding them to ransom for the lost shipment's value. If Mal can't find the enormous sum of five hundred platinum by the next evening, both of them will be killed.

A race against time
As the carnival begins the crew must attempt the impossible, calling on contacts, calling in favours, and revealing hidden talents to save their crewmates' lives. Meanwhile, the hostages have their own plans...

The Serenity crew land on the remote moon of Abel for a lucrative job but becomes embroiled in a young woman's quest for vengeance and a starving frontier town's fight for survival. Join Mal and the gang in this enthralling original tie-in novel from the award-winning series.

The Serenity crew head to Yell City, one of the settlements on Abel, a moon in the Rim. Their job: track down the killers of a local lawyer shot dead in the streets by a local gang. Their client is Annie Roberts, the eighteen year old daughter of the murdered man.

Lucky for them, Annie Roberts is more than capable of handling herself. Unlucky for them, the job is lot more complicated than they first think. Annie's father is not just the victim of local gang violence, but the target of some powerful men.

Taking down a local gang is one thing, but cleaning up a whole city? That's not a job for the Serenity crew. But when their ship is impounded, and Mal and the crew find themselves trapped in Yell City, they realise they are already in deeper than they could have ever imagined...

Cardassia Prime is home to a prideful people who, for centuries, forged alliances with those they believed would strengthen them and their place in the Alpha Quadrant, and expanded their empire at great cost to other worlds. For generations, dissenting voices were silenced by either fear or an early grave. When their wartime ally, the Dominion, suddenly turned on them, seeking to transform Cardassia into a tomb for every last member of their race, their old adversary--the United Federation of Planets-- put an end to the carnage, and even now works to help rebuild Cardassia Prime.

To celebrate this alliance, the Castellan of the Cardassian Union is to welcome the Federation president to Cardassia Prime. As a symbol of this deepening friendship, the U.S.S. Enterprise-E is tasked to carry the Cardassian ambassador to the Federation back home. For his part, Ambassador Elim Garak is working with Captain Jean-Luc Picard to oversee the diplomatic reception that will commemorate the last of Starfleet's personnel finally leaving the homeworld. However, there are malevolent forces at work, who even now strive to "restore Cardassia to its proper place and glory," and are willing to do anything to achieve their goal....

The Venette Convention has always remained independent, but it is about to become the flashpoint for a tense military standoff between the two power blocs now dominating interstellar space--the United Federation of Planets and the recently formed Typhon Pact. The Venetan government turns to the Typhon Pact's Tzenkethi Coalition for protection in the new order, and has agreed to allow three of their supply bases for Tzenkethi use.

But these bases--if militarized--would put Tzenkethi weapons unacceptably close to Federation, Cardassian, and Ferengi space. While Captain Ezri Dax and the crew of the U.S.S. Aventine are sent to investigate exactly what is happening at one of the Venette bases, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the U.S.S. Enterprise are assigned to a diplomatic mission sent to the Venette homeworld in order to broker a mutually acceptable resolution. But the Cardassian delegates don't seem particularly keen on using diplomacy to resolve the situation, which soon spirals out of control toward all-out war....

Elim Garak has ascended to Castellan of the Cardassian Union...but despite his soaring popularity, the imminent publication of a report exposing his people's war crimes during the occupation on Bajor looks likely to set the military against him. Into this tense situation come Dr. Katherine Pulaski--visiting Cardassia Prime to accept an award on behalf of the team that solved the Andorian genetic crisis--and Dr. Peter Alden, formerly of Starfleet Intelligence. The two soon find themselves at odds with Garak and embroiled in the politics of the prestigious University of the Union, where a new head is about to be appointed. Among the front-runners is one of Cardassia's most respected public figures: Professor Natima Lang. But the discovery of a hidden archive from the last years before the Dominion War could destroy Lang's reputation. As Pulaski and Alden become drawn into a deadly game to exonerate Lang, their confrontation escalates with Castellan Garak--a conflicted leader treading a fine line between the bright hopes for Cardassia's future and the dark secrets still buried in its past...

At the turning point of the Dominion War, Captain Benjamin Sisko, facing certain defeat by the overwhelming and relentless forces of the Dominion, initiated a secret plan to secure the aid of the Romulans, the Federation's longtime adversaries. What began as a desperate attempt to save lives became a descent into an abyss of deception, moral compromise and outright criminal acts, as Sisko became compelled to sacrifice every ideal he believed in -- in order to preserve those same ideals.

In HOLLOW MEN the aftermath of those events is explored as Sisko returns to Earth to answer for his actions. But to his surprise, no one intends to punish him. The course he took is viewed instead as a necessary and lesser evil which may yet prove to be the salvation of the Federation way of life. But Sisko's own conscience haunts him, and as he continues to seek some kind of penance for what he has done, opportunists within Starfleet itself set in motion a scheme which uses his actions as a springboard from which the Federation will emerge from the war as an imperial power.

An original novel set in the universe of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine--a direct sequel to the New York Times bestselling story arc, The Fall!

The entire sector is waiting to see what the newly reopened Bajoran wormhole will mean for the shifting political landscape in the Alpha Quadrant. On Deep Space 9, Captain Ro Laren is suddenly drawn into the affairs of the People of the Open Sky, who have come to the station in search of sanctuary. Despite the opposition of the station's security officer, Jefferson Blackmer, Ro Laren and Deep Space 9's new CMO, Doctor Beverly Crusher, offer the People aid. But when Dr. Crusher's highly secure files are accessed without permission--the same files that hold the secrets of the Shedai, a race whose powerful but half-understood scientific secrets solved the Andorian catastrophe--the People seem the likeliest suspects.

As tensions rise on the station, the science vessel Athene Donald arrives as part of its journey of exploration. The brainchild of Doctor Katherine Pulaski, this ship is crewed by different species from the Khitomer Accords and the Typhon Pact. Pulaski's hope is that science will do what diplomacy has not: help the great powers put aside their hostilities and work together. But when the Athene Donald is summarily stopped in her voyage by the powerful vessel of a hitherto unknown species, Pulaski begins to wonder--will this first contact bring her crew together or tear them all apart?

Continuing the post-television Deep Space Nine saga, this original novel shows the fall of the Cardassian empire as seen through the eyes of a young man with a foot in two worlds.

Rugal is an orphaned Cardassian who has been raised by the people his race once conquered, the Bajorans. Reluctantly repatriated to Cardassia as a teenager, Rugal becomes the living witness to the downfall of the proud people to whom he was born, first by the invading Klingons, then during the Cardassians' unholy pact with the Dominion--a partnership that culminated in a near-genocide. Through it all, Rugal's singular perspective illuminates the choices that brought the Cardassians to their ruin... even as he learns that the Cardassian soul is not as easy to understand as he imagined.

Within every federation and every empire, behind every hero and every villain, there are the worlds that define them. In the aftermath of Unity and in the daring tradition of Spock's World, The Final Reflection, and A Stitch in Time, the civilizations most closely tied to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine can now be experienced as never before...in tales both sweeping and intimate, reflective and prophetic, eerily familiar and utterly alien.

CARDASSIA: The Lotus Flower. The last world ravaged by the Dominion War is also the last on which Miles O'Brien ever imagined building a life. As he joins in the reconstruction of Cardassia's infrastructure, his wife Keiko spearheads the planet's difficult agricultural renewal. But Cardassia's struggle to remake itself -- from the fledgling democracy backed by Elim Garak to the people's rediscovery of their own spiritual past -- is not without opposition, as the outside efforts to help rebuild its civilization come under attack by those who reject any alien influence.

ANDOR: Paradigm. On the eve of a great celebration of their ancient past, the unusual and mysterious Andorians, a species with four sexes, must decide just how much they are willing to sacrifice in order to ensure their survival. Biological necessity clashes with personal ethics; cultural obligation vies with love -- and Ensign Thirishar ch'Thane returns home to the planet he forswore, to face not only the consequences of his choices, but a clandestine plan to alter the very nature of his kind.

An original novel based on the explosive new TV series Star Trek: Discovery!

Despite being an inexperienced Starfleet cadet, Sylvia Tilly became essential to the U.S.S. Discovery finding its way back home from the Mirror Universe. But how did she find that courage? From where did she get that steel? Who nurtured that spark of brilliance? The Way to the Stars recounts for fans everywhere the untold story of Tilly's past.

It's not easy being sixteen, especially when everyone expects great things from Tilly. It's even harder when her mother and father are Federation luminaries, not to mention pressing her to attend one of the best schools that the Federation has to offer. Tilly wants to achieve great things--even though she hasn't quite worked out how to do that or what it is she wants to do. But this year, everything will change for Tilly, as she about to embark upon the adventure of a lifetime--an adventure that will take her ever closer to the stars....

In a desperate attempt to prevent the artificial intelligence known as Control from seizing crucial information that could destroy all sentient life, Commander Michael Burnham donned the "Red Angel" time-travel suit and guided the USS Discovery into the future and out of harm's way. But something has gone terribly wrong, and Burnham has somehow arrived in a place far different from anything she could have imagined--more than nine hundred years out of her time, with Discovery nowhere to be found, and where the mysterious and cataclysmic event known as "the Burn" has utterly decimated Starfleet and, with it, the United Federation of Planets.

How then can she possibly exist day-to-day in this strange place? What worlds are out there waiting to be discovered? Do any remnants of Starfleet and the Federation possibly endure? With more questions than answers, Burnham must nevertheless forge new friendships and new alliances if she hopes to survive this future long enough for the Discovery crew to find her....

A thrilling novel leading into the new CBS series, Una McCormack's The Last Best Hope introduces you to brand new characters featured in the life of beloved Star Trek captain Jean-Luc Picard--widely considered to be one of the most popular and recognizable characters in all of science fiction.

Following the explosive events seen in season one of Star Trek: Picard, Raffi Musiker finds herself torn between returning to her old life as a Starfleet Intelligence officer or something a little more tame--teaching at the Academy, perhaps. The decision is made for her though when a message from an old contact--a Romulan spy--is received, asking for immediate aid. With the help of Elnor and assistance from Jean-Luc Picard, Raffi decides to take on this critical mission--and quickly learns that past sins never stay buried. Finding the truth will be complicated, and deadly...

Captain Janeway of the USS Voyager tells the story of her life in Starfleet, for fans of Star Trek.

Kathryn Janeway reveals her career in Starfleet, from her first command to her epic journey through the Delta Quadrant leading to her rise to the top as vice-admiral in Starfleet Command. Discover the story of the woman who travelled further than any human ever had before, stranded decades from home, encountering new worlds and species.

Explore how she brought together Starfleet and the Maquis as part of her crew, forged new alliances with species across the galaxy and overcame one of Starfleet's greatest threats - the Borg - on their own remote and hostile territory. Get Janeway's personal take on key characters such as Seven of Nine, her trusted friend Tuvok, new arrivals like Neelix and her second-in-command, Chakotay.

New York Times' best-selling author Una McCormack delivers a breathless, stirring tale of bravery, love, passion, and the desire to be free, set against a strictly hierarchical Mars

Iss, a humble kitchen slave who likes to tell stories, finds herself caught up in perhaps the greatest story of them all. Little does she imagine when she stumbles on the small rebellion of Seffish, Crith, and the other dance-fighters she admires so much, how far that rebellion will spread. An ordinary soul caught up in extraordinary events, Iss soon finds herself at the heart of an uprising that threatens to overthrow the social order and reshape a world.

The growing threat of the dimension-invading Weird has driven the Expansion government to outright paranoia. Mandatory telepathic testing is introduced, and the colony Braun's World -- following reports of a new Weird portal opening -- is destroyed from orbit, at an unimaginable cost in lives.

Delia Walker, a senior analyst in the Expansion's intelligence bureau and a holdout of the pragmatic old guard, protests the oppressive new policies and is drummed out. Sure there's a better way, she charters the decrepit freighter the Baba Yaga and heads into the lawless "Satan's Reach," following rumours of a world where humans and the Weird live peacefully side by side.

Hunted by the Bureau, Walker, her pilot Yershov, and Failt -- a Vetch child stowaway, fleeing slavery -- will uncover secrets about both the Weird and the Expansion; secrets that could prevent catastrophic war...

"My name is Cassandra. My mother was the Walker."

The peace and stability of Stella Maris have been lost, perhaps forever. Weeks after Delia Walker found the remote world, trailing murderers and soldiers in her wake, more ships are coming. And now the impossible: a young woman claiming to be Walker's daughter has come out of the Weird portal, demanding passage off the planet.

For Cassandra, her mother's former young charge Failt, and the cynical, worldly-wise Yale, a desperate race begins to reach the very heart of the Expansion and avert a disaster.

On Stella Maris--the "star of the sea"--a fight has begun to preserve the refuge and its fragile harmony from those who would exploit it.