Search Worlds Without End

This novella was first published in Clarkesworld Magazine, November and December 2023.

Read the full story for free at the publisher's website here: Part 1 | Part 2

This novelette was first published in Clarkesworld, Issue 161, February 2020.

Read or listen to this story for free at Clarkesworld.

This short story originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, #75 December 2012. It can also be found in the anthology Clarkesworld: Year Seven (2015), edited by Sean Wallace and Neil Clarke.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

An unexpected encounter with a mysterious life form turns a simple trip to Mercury into a historic event. Both for ship Captain Victory Citrus and human civilisation as we know it.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com

At the highest level of a giant forest, thirteen kingdoms fit seamlessly together to form the great city of Canopy. Thirteen goddesses and gods rule this realm and are continuously reincarnated into human bodies. Canopy's position in the sun, however, is not without its dark side. The nation's opulence comes from the labor of slaves, and below its fruitful boughs are two other realms: Understorey and Floor, whose deprived citizens yearn for Canopy's splendor.

Unar, a determined but destitute young woman, escapes her parents' plot to sell her into slavery by being selected to serve in the Garden under the goddess Audblayin, ruler of growth and fertility. As a Gardener, she wishes to become Audblayin's next Bodyguard while also growing sympathetic towards Canopy's slaves.

When Audblayin dies, Unar sees her opportunity for glory--at the risk of descending into the unknown dangers of Understorey to look for a newborn god. In its depths, she discovers new forms of magic, lost family connections, and murmurs of a revolution that could cost Unar her chance... or grant it by destroying the home she loves.

Return to the mythical rainforest ruled by reincarnated gods in the quest fantasy Echoes of Understorey, the heart-pounding sequel to Thoraiya Dyer's Crossroads of Canopy.

Great deeds are expected of Imeris.

Raised by accomplished warriors and skilled healers, and being the sister to a goddess, Imeris always felt pressured to be the best fighter in Understorey. Yet during a mission to capture the body-snatching sorceress Kirrik, Imeris fails disastrously. With death on her conscience and in hiding from her peers, Imeris climbs up to the sun-kissed world of Canopy to learn new ways to defeat Kirrik. What she doesn't expect is to be recruited in a Hunt for the Ages, against a terrifying divine monster that will take all of her skills to stop.

Courtier, explorer, thief: Leaper is a man of many skills, but none of his talents satisfy the yearning in his heart for the Queen of Airakland, the ruler of a thunder-clashed kingdom.

Their affair is cut too short, however, when she is murdered. But who was the assassin? A political rival? The jealous king? Or, perhaps, the god of thunder who oversees them all?

Distraught, Leaper vows revenge, but little does he realize that his mission will lead him away from his forest home, across the vast floodplains, and to the edges of time and myth itself.

An Australian Air Force base patrolled by werewolves. A planet where wages are paid in luck. A future where copies are made of criminals to interpret their dark dreams. A medieval cavalry of mothers who are only permitted to take as many lives as they have created.

In every world, an imbalance of power. Something terribly askew between women and men, humans and wolves, citizens and constructs, light and dark.

In every world, asymmetry.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Nancy Kress
• After Hours
• Zadie, Scythe of the West
• Wish Me Luck
• Seven Days in Paris