Search Worlds Without End

Trapped behind walls of towering ice, First City was a prison from which no one ever escaped. The Trysts ruled with an iron fist: violent death was a common sight on the streets. Morag MacKenzie was a mind-prostitute who gave erotic thought stimulation, without giving her body. Those who yearned for other escapes visited the Timesmiths, within those hands time could be moulded like clay as they spun dream-visions. But Morag has her own dreams, of a world outside the ice walls, a world of space and freedom, and she is determined to find it.

On Cloudrock the penalty for imperfection is death: death by the long fall into the void, through the poisonous mists and gases that rise from the deadlands far, far below.

The two tribes who survive on the Rock, the tribes of Day and Night, keep their families tight, their bloodlines pure and true, by incest, by cannibalism and by murder. Parcelling out their tiny world in measures of light and time, they wrap themselves in ritual and taboo, each family denying the presence of the other. Then came the Shadow.

Born to the matriarch Catrunner, the Shadow is deformed - a neuter dwarf - a natural candidate for instant death. But for this mutant, fate intervenes. The Shadow may live - on the condition that none acknowledge its presence: one word, one glance, and the Shadow will join its luckless kin in the long death-flight.

Surviving on the outskirts of the family, the Shadow's very existence creates an unspoken question that challenges the ties that bind. This is the Shadow's tale...

A collection of ten tales from the Otherworld. These stories present a wide range of mystical and fantastical creatures, from the cunning ways of man revealed in "Dogfaerie" and "Changelings" to "The Hungry Ghosts" where the spirits from the underworld are free to roam for a day.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Dogfaerie
• 17 - Dark Hills, Hollow Clocks
• 29 - The Dragon Slayer
• 42 - The Goblin Jag
• 54 - Warrior Wizards
• 66 - The Sleeping Giants
• 74 - The Hungry Ghosts
• 81 - Changelings
• 90 - The Orkney Trows
• 103 - Scarecrows

The human race is in decline. Soon its numbers on Earth will drop below survival Level.

Then New Carthage, a world inhabited by strange, cheetah-like creatures, is discovered. Could contact with these aliens provide a lifeline for mankid?

Using the twins, On Lo and Ti, experiments are started to create a human empathetic telemetry system between the two worlds. But the encouragement of the cloeseness factor between the twins provides a catalyst for a far mroe fantastic event...

WFA nominated short story. It originally appeared in the anthology Other Edens (1987), edited by Robert Holdstock and Christopher Evans. The story can also be found in the anthologies Strange Dreams (1993), edited by Stephen R. Donaldson, Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias (1994), edited by Kim Stanley Robinson, and The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (2011), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. It is included in the collection Hogfoot Right and Bird-Hands (1993).

An alien race of winged conquerors rules the Earth. Humans are kept in rigid isolation from each other, except for controlled mating. Only two dare to join forces in an illicit bond of love and revolt. Cave--the last Earthman in Brytan, banished from the crytal-walled city to the desolate mudflats of Hess, where each tide drives the solitary exiles to the refuge of transparent needle-towers.

Stella--the beautiful, determined revolutionary, sworn to overthrow Earth's tyrannical, bird-like oppressors, even as she carried a bold and startling secret. Together they flee to the exotic South Seas Islands, where they defy their extraterrestrial masters and explore seductive new worlds of passion. Then, from the stars, from which had come their subjugation, falls hope of rescue--and a brutal, unexpected choice.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Introduction (In the Country of Tattooed Men)
• 9 - Truman Capote's Trilby: The Facts
• 19 - In the Country of Tattooed Men
• 35 - Surfing Spanish Style
• 43 - Triptych: The Black Wedding; Murderers Walk; Hogfoot Right and Bird-Hands
• 61 - The Men's Room
• 77 - Dop*elgan*er
• 90 - 1948
• 103 - Usurper
• 111 - Networks
• 123 - Hobblythick Lane
• 130 - Giant
• 138 - Beyond Byzantium
• 144 - Spiral Sands
• 161 - On the Watchtower at Plataea
• 183 - The Wall
• 187 - Memories of the Flying Ball Bike Shop
• 208 - X-Calibre
• 215 - Bronze Casket for a Mummified Shrew-Mouse

Somewhere, deep in the mighty rainforest, is the Kingdom of the Sun Bear. And there, legend has it, are the seven ancient heads of the Punan - and the secret of untold riches.

To find and possess the heads, a man must brave not only the terrifying creatures of the forest, but must also risk the displeasure of the gods and spirits that inhabit it.

Yet, two groups set off in a ferocious rivalry in pursuit of the legend. They disturb the equilibrium of the forest and risk awful consequences. For, it seems, only one creature can benefit from such a quest - Shadow-hawk, the eater of men's souls.

Archaeologist Paul Levan's use of the Wiederhaus Repeater, a machine capable of rendering holographic images of prehistory, has unexpected repercussions when his son, Richard, is catapulted back through time into the body of a boy who lived 33,000 years ago.

After roving through space for centuries, a starship unburdens its cargo of human embryos on a harsh new world. They quickly grow to maturity in the ship's artificial womb. A lifetime of Earth memories is programmed into their dreams.

But before their indoctrination is complete, an alien intruder infiltrates and destroys the system, and the reason for the odyssey is never learned.

Now, on a verdant island surrounded by quicksand, Othman, wanderer, dreamer, and self-proclaimed leader of the Earthling band, builds a mighty bridge to span the ocean of molten mud that keeps them from the world beyond.

He has yet to face the deadly toll his quest will take on the delicate ecology of the planet - or the revolt of his beautiful, strong-willed wife, Silandi. And he has yet to discover the hidden knowledge locked deep within their hearts.

WFA and BSFA winning novellette. It originally appeared in the anthology A Whisper of Blood (1991), edited by Ellen Datlow. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifth Annual Collection (1992), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It is included in the collection The Ragthorn (2015).

"There Can Be Only One"

The battle rages across the centuries, from the wind-scoured Sahara to the wild Russian steppes to the rocky crags of Scotland. And only one Immortal can survive.

MacLeod is the Highlander. A Scottish clan warrior from the 16th century, he was taught the deadly arts by an ancient mentor, who then suffered the only wound that can end an Immortal's life: decapitation.

Now, seven lifetimes later, MacLeod faces the final test. The Kurgan, his ancient adversary, has tracked him all the way to the streets of New York City.

The fight will be the same: blade to blade. Only the outcome is in doubt. Will the Highlander win? Or will the Kurgan's scimitar stop him with a blow that will plunge the earth itself into an era of darkness and chaos?