Search Worlds Without End

When humans set out to explore the universe, they found a number of planets suitable for colonizing. The one thing they didn't find was intelligent life. And so the terraforming of worlds began, with eager immigrant families temporarily housed in space stations till their new home planets were ready. But the technicians made one all-important mistake by introducing the alien Quill to worlds where they did not belong. The Quill were supposed to be destroyed when the crews finished their work, but some survived, multipled, and mutated till they were no longer harmless. They were deadly.

Suddenly mankind was in retreat, leaving colonists stranded in space. In the ensuing chaos many stations failed. For the surviviors, the only hope lay in finding a way to wipe out the Quill. Earth scientist, Dr. Gail Smith, thought one special human, Aaron Pardell, might hold the answer. Found as a baby and raised by a stationer in the "Outsider" settlement that clung to Thromberg Station, Aaron may have survived Quill contact. Still, finding Aaron and winning his help might be the least of Dr. Smith's problems....

When it comes to magic, skipping the directions, changing the ingredients, or garbling the words of a spell can lead to unusual consequences-sometimes dire, sometimes comical. Included in these stories are just a few of the possible results: a cybermancer has her spell disk corrupted by some unexpected input; two students brewing up spells outside the curriculum forgo a critical ingredient; a young woman orders a fairy-tale life, but forgets to read the fine print. Now they're really spellbound...

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Introduction (Misspelled) - essay by Julie E. Czerneda
• 3 - Trippingly Off the Tongue - short story by Lesley D. Livingston
• 19 - 8 rms, full bsmt - novelette by Kristine Smith
• 42 - Eye of the Beholder - short story by Kevin G. Maclean
• 61 - Cybermancer - novelette by Janet Elizabeth Chase
• 82 - Eye of Newt - short story by Marc Mackay
• 94 - Chafing the Bogey Man - novelette by Kristen Britain
• 120 - A Perfect Circle - short story by Kent Pollard
• 137 - Reading, Writing, Plagues - short story by Kell Brown
• 157 - Totally Devoted 2 U - short story by John Zakour
• 169 - The Mysterious Case of Spell Zero - novelette by Rob St. Martin
• 190 - Crosscut - short story by S. W. Mayse
• 207 - Bitch Bewitched - short story by Doranna Durgin
• 226 - The Witch of Westmoreland Avenue - short story by Morgan S. Brilliant
• 241 - A Spell of Quality - short story by Kate Paulk
• 259 - Demon in the Cupboard - short story by Nathan Azinger
• 270 - Untrained Melody - short story by Jim C. Hines
• 288 - Yours for Only $19.99 - short story by Shannan Palma

What does the future hold for humankind? When we finally break free of this planet to launch ourselves into space on a more permanent basis, what will the classifieds of tomorrow read like? What will be the hottest jobs? Which positions will offer the chance for adventure, advancement, discovery, travel to distant worlds, and the accumulation of wealth?

Here are fourteen stories that answer these questions, tales of the challenges, perils, and responsibilities that workers of the future may have to face - from a librarian who could determine the fate of an alien race... to a pair of space mechanics assigned a repair job for a species that despises humankind... to a ballet instructor who must find a way to tailor human dance forms for multilimbed sentient beings.

Table of Contents:

• 9 - Introduction (Space Inc.) - essay by Julie E. Czerneda
• 11 - The Eightfold Career Path; or Invisible Duties - short story by James Alan Gardner
• 23 - Porter's Progress - short story by Isaac Szpindel
• 43 - Catalog of Woe - short story by Mindy L. Klasky
• 63 - Ferret and Red - short story by Josepha Sherman
• 82 - A Man's Place - novelette by Eric Choi
• 108 - Dancing in the Dark - novelette by Nancy Kress
• 130 - The Siren Stone - novelette by Derwin Mak
• 154 - Feef's House - novelette by Doranna Durgin
• 179 - Attached Please Find My Novel - novelette by Sean P. Fodera
• 202 - Field Trip - novelette by Janet Stirling and S. M. Stirling
• 236 - Come All Ye Faithful - short story by Robert J. Sawyer
• 252 - Riggers - short story by Michael E. Picray
• 272 - Suspended Lives - novelette by Alison Sinclair
• 297 - I Knew a Guy Once - novelette by Tanya Huff
• 320 - Editor's Bio (Space Inc.) - essay by Julie E. Czerneda

Only in Tananen do people worship a single deity: the Deathless Goddess. Only in this small, forbidden realm are there those haunted by words of no language known to woman or man. The words are Her Gift, and they summon magic.

Mage scribes learn to write Her words as intentions: spells to make beasts or plants, designed to any purpose. If an intention is flawed, what the mage creates is a gossamer: a magical creature as wild and free as it is costly for the mage.

For Her Gift comes at a steep price. Each successful intention ages a mage until they dare no more. But her magic demands to be used; the Deathless Goddess will take her fee, and mages will die.

To end this terrible toll, the greatest mage in Tananen vows to find and destroy Her. He has yet to learn She is all that protects Tananen from what waits outside. And all that keeps magic alive.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Treachery and Treason (2000), edited by Laura Anne Gilman and Jennifer Heddle, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, February 2011. The story can also be found in the anthology Lightspeed: Year One (2011), edited by John Joseph Adams.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

A trio of Humans must work with their mysterious alien allies to rescue any descendants they can find on those worlds. Something is out there, determined to claim the cosmos for itself, and only on Earth will Humans be safe.

Or will they?

The challenge isn't just to communicate with your own kind after generations have passed. It's to understand what isn't your kind at all.

And how far will trust take you, when the truth depends on what you are?

The Nebula Awards Showcase volumes have been published annually since 1966, reprinting the winning and nominated stories of the Nebula Awards, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

This year's editor, selected by SFWA's anthology Committee (chaired by Mike Resnick), is Canadian science fiction and fantasy writer and editor Julie Czerneda. This year's Nebula Award winners are Naomi Novik, Nnedi Okorafor, Sarah Pinsker, and Alyssa Wong, with Fran Wilde winning the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book. Also included in this volume are works by N. K. Jemisin and Ann Leckie.

Table of Contents

• Introduction - essay by Julie E. Czerneda
• About the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America - essay by uncredited
• Kevin O'Donnell, Jr., Service to SFWA Award Recipient: Lawrence M. Schoen - essay by uncredited
• About the Nebula Awards - essay by uncredited
• 2015 Nebula Awards Ballot - essay by uncredited
• Madeleine - (2015) - short story by Amal El-Mohtar
• Cat Pictures Please - (2015) - short story by Naomi Kritzer
• Damage - (2015) - short story by David D. Levine
• When Your Child Strays From God - (2015) - short story by Sam J. Miller
• Today I Am Paul - (2015) - short story by Martin L. Shoemaker
• Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers - (2015) - short story by Alyssa Wong
• About the Rhysling and Dwarf Stars Awards - essay by uncredited
• Shutdown - (2014) - poem by Marge Simon
• Abandoned Nursing Home - (2014) - poem by Greg Schwartz
• Our Lady of the Open Road - (2015) - novelette by Sarah Pinsker
• Binti - (2015) - novella by Nnedi Okorafor
• Excerpt from Raising Caine - (2015) - short fiction by Charles E. Gannon
• Excerpt from The Fifth Season - (2015) - short fiction by N. K. Jemisin
• Excerpt from Ancillary Mercy - (2015) - short fiction by Ann Leckie
• Excerpt from The Grace of Kings - (2015) - short fiction by Ken Liu
• Excerpt from Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard - (2015) - short fiction by Lawrence M. Schoen
• Excerpt from Uprooted - (2015) - short fiction by Naomi Novik
• 100 Reasons to Have Sex with an Alien - (2014) - poem by F. J. Bergmann
• About the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation - essay by uncredited
• A Remarkable Win - essay by Mark Askwith
• About the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy - essay by uncredited
• Excerpt from Updraft - (2015) - short fiction by Fran Wilde
• About the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award - essay by uncredited
• I Have Read Them All, Now - essay by Michelle West
• About the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award - essay by uncredited
• Damon Knight Grand Master: C. J. Cherryh - essay by Elizabeth R. Wollheim
• Excerpt from Pride of Chanur - (1982) - short fiction by C. J. Cherryh
• Excerpt from Foreigner - (1994) - short fiction by C. J. Cherryh
• Past Nebula Award Winners - essay by uncredited

Set after the Aurora Award-winning novel, A Play of Shadow, this novella explores the story of a young boy whose fanciful tales of dragons and dangers may prove to be more than just fiction.

Werfol returns to Vorkoun with his family to find their fortunes changed for the worse. His father is in disgrace and banished from court. Meanwhile, Vorkoun has been ceded to Asnor by the prince's treaty and no one knows what that will mean.

And to complicate matters further, Werfol is now a truthseer, able to discern if another is lying. His training has barely begun, but his mother refuses to send him back to his uncle in Marrowdell. Werfol, bored and heartsick, retreats to his imagination, secretly writing a story about a brave boy who befriends a young dragon. In their adventures, "Prince William" is always the hero but, in real life, Werfol grows angrier and more afraid every day.

It doesn't help that Werfol's brother Semyn, once his closest confidant, can't remember Marrowdell's magic. Then Semyn, worried about Werfol, finds his story and shows their parents. Their mother, plagued by dangerous dreams, fears her son may become a doorway to a threat far more dangerous than a treaty.

For Werfol wrote of a dragon the colour of a Sei, a being so potent its curiosity once tore apart worlds. Suddenly, no one, not even Werfol, can be sure where his imagination ends and the magical Verge begins.

Can a boy who sees the lies in others find the truth within himself?

The village of Marrowdell is an isolated pioneer community, but it is also the place where two worlds overlap, and at the turn of light--sunset--the world of magic known as the Verge can briefly be seen.

Jenn Nalynn belongs to both Verge and Marrowdell, but even she doesn't know how special she is--or that her invisible friend Wisp is actually a dragon sent to guard her... and keep her from leaving the valley. But Jenn longs to see the world, and thinking that a husband will help her reach this goal, she decides to create one using spells. Of course, everything goes awry, and suddenly her "invisible friend" has been transformed into a man. But he is not the only newcomer to Marrowdell, and far from the most dangerous of those who are suddenly finding their way to the valley.

What would you risk for family?

In the second installment of Night's Edge, Bannan Larmensu, the truthseer who won Jenn Nalynn's heart, learns his brother-in-law was sent as a peace envoy to Channen, capitol of the mysterious domain of Mellynne, and has disappeared. When Bannan's young nephews arrive in Marrowdell, he fears the worst, that his sister, the fiery Lila, has gone in search of her husband, leaving her sons in his care.

The law forbids Bannan from leaving Marrowdell and travelling to Mellynne to help his sister. In this world. As a turn-born, Jenn Nalynn has the power to cross into the magical realm of the Verge, and take Bannan with her. Once there, they could find a way into Mellynne.

If they survive. The Verge is wild and deadly, alive with strange magic. Dragons roar and kruar wait in ambush, and the powerful turn-born who care for their world do not care for Jenn Nalynn.

She's willing to try. Wisp and Scourge -- and the house toads -- offer their help.

But what none of them know is that magic is rife in Channen, magic that flows from the Verge itself. And not even a turn-born will be safe there.

Spring in Marrowdell is a time to celebrate. Life stirs, the air warms, and Jenn Nalynn and Bannan Larmensu couldn't be happier. But spring is also fraught with change, and nowhere is this truer than the edge, where the Verge, the magical realm of dragons and sei, touches that of snow and roads. The spring equinox marks the final turn before Marrowdell's sun starts to dominate the sky and Jenn, turn-born and sei, feels the pull to cross to the Verge.

Marrowdell's river floods, and Jenn knows she is needed at home, but deep within the Verge a perilous force is calling her away from all she loves. For the house toad's mighty queen has waited for the first equinox with the powers of a turn-born in the edge, and now she is ready to make her move against it.

Caught up in plots they cannot understand, Jenn and Bannan find themselves separated, and to reunite they will have to outsmart the queen herself. But even if they can foil her plan, will Marrowdell still be there when they return?

First in a new science fiction trilogy, set in the same universe as the Clan Chronicles, by the Prix Aurora Award-winning Julie E. Czerneda.

To save their world, the most powerful of the Om'ray left their homes. They left behind all memory of their past. Calling themselves the Clan, they settled among Humanity, hiding in plain sight, using their ability to slip past normal space to travel where they wished, using their ability to control minds to ensure their place and security.

They are no longer hidden.

For the Clan face a crisis. Their reproduction is tied to individual power, and their latest generation of females, Choosers, are too strong to safely mate. Their attempt to force others to help failed until Sira di Sarc, their leader and the most powerful of their kind, successfully Joined with a human, Jason Morgan, starship captain and telepath. With Morgan, Sira forged the first peace between her kind and the Trade Pact.

But it is a peace about to shatter. Those the Clan have controlled all these years will rise against them. Her people dying around her, war about to consume the Trade Pact, Sira will be left with only one choice. She must find the way back. And take the Clan home.

Betrayed and attacked, the Clan fled the Trade Pact for Cersi, believing that world their long-lost home. With them went a lone alien, the Human named Jason Morgan, Chosen of their leader, Sira di Sarc. Tragically, their arrival upset the Balance between Cersi's three sentient species. And so the Clan, with their newfound kin, must flee again.

Their starship, powered by the M'hir, follows a course set long ago, for Clan abilities came from an experiment their ancestors--the Hoveny--conducted on themselves. But it's a perilous journey. The Clan must endure more than cramped conditions and inner turmoil.

Their dead are Calling.

Sira must keep her people from answering, for if they do, they die. Morgan searches the ship for answers, afraid the Hoveny's tech is beyond his grasp. Their only hope? To reach their destination.

Little do Sira and Morgan realize their destination holds the gravest threat of all....

Jason Morgan is a troubling mystery to friends and enemies alike: once a starship captain and trader, then Joined to the most powerful member of the Clan, Sira di Sarc, following her and her kind out of known space.

Only to return, alone and silent.

But he's returned to a Trade Pact under seige and desperate. The Assemblers continue to be a threat. Other species have sensed opportunity and threaten what stability remains, including those who dwell in the M'hir. What Morgan knows could save them all, or doom them.

For not all of the Clan followed Sira. And peace isn't what they seek.

When her Field Base is mysteriously attacked, Dr. Mackenzie Connor must flee for her life. Joining forces with an alien archaeologist, she escapes to his planet on a quest to find a defense against the unknown agressor before they launch a full-scale invasion of Earth.

Senior co-administrator of the Norcoast Salmon Research Facility, Dr. Mackenzie Connor was a biologist who studied the spawning habits of salmon. Then, last season, just as she and Dr. Emily Mamani were starting their research, they were interrupted by the arrival of Brymn, the first Dhryn to set foot on Earth.

And suddenly everything changed for Mac, Emily, Brymn, the human race, and all the member races of the Interspecies Union. Base was attacked, Em was kidnapped by the mysterious Ro, Mac nearly lost her life when she and Brymn escaped to the peaceful, isolationist Dhryn home world. But the Dhryn are in the process of abandoning it, hurtling out on an unfathomable path of destruction through civilized space.

As the enemy destroys life on planet after planet, the IU organizes a secret Gathering of every being with information on the Dhryn. With the data available there, Mac begins to suspect that the Dhryn's actions may be a response to something simpler and more deadly--the imperative to migrate. But even if Mac is right, can she and her team discover why this is happening and how to halt the Dhryn?

With the alien Dhryn cutting a pathway through the inhabited spaceways-bringing about the annihilation of many of the races who have the misfortune to lie along the star trail they are following-time is running out for all sentient life-forms. Can biologists Mackenzie Connor and Emily Mamami solve the riddle of the Dhryn before their part of the galaxy becomes as dead as the mysterious region known as the Chasm?

In the first book of the Stratification series, set in an earlier time in Czerneda's Trade Pact Universe, the Clan has not yet learned how to manipulate the M'hir to travel between worlds. Instead, they are a people divided into small tribes, scattered over a fraction of their world, and prevented from advancing by two other powerful races who control both technology and terrain.

Aliens begin exploring the Clan's home planet, upsetting the delicate balance between the three intelligent races. It is a time, too, when one young woman is on the verge of mastering the forbidden power of the M'hir-a power that could prove to be the salvation or ruin of her entire species...

Continuing the story of the origins of the Clan and their discovery of how to travel through and draw upon the power of the M'hir, Riders of the Storm focuses on Om'ray Aryl Sac, who is gifted with this forbidden Talent. Aryl and her companions have found a new home in the mountains, but before long, their haven becomes a magnet for conflict.

While trying to rebuild the divided village of Sona, Aryl must also safeguard the secret of her Talent from other arriving Om'ray who seek to use her power. Aryl becomes Clan Speaker to negotiate the peace, but tensions escalate, blood is spilled, and her fate-as well as Sona's-hangs in the balance.

Despite good intentions, the Om-ray of Cersi can't resist moving through space using the M-hir dimension. To prevent the disruption of the Agreement and the destruction that it would unleash, the M-hiray, as they now call themselves, agree to leave Cersi forever to establish their own haven within the Trade Pact worlds-only to learn that not everybody wants peace.

This debut science fiction novel is the story of Sira--a woman on the run from the law, from her own people, and from an unknown figure determined to use her for his own ends. Her memory taken from her by a stasis block, she must stay free long enough to regain both her identity and the full use of her telepathic powers. The price of failure may not only be the loss of her own future, but that of her entire race.

Sira, the most powerful member of the alien Clan, has dared to challenge the will of her people--by allying herself with a human. But can she hope to carve a new life for herself when the Clan is determined to reclaim her genetic heritage...at any cost?

Julie E. Czerneda's 1997 debut, A Thousand Words for Stranger, was the first novel of the Trade Pact Universe-an instant best-seller, Science Fiction Book Club Editor's Choice and Locus Recommended First Novel. Book two, Ties of Power, further established the author's reputation as a master of vivid alien worlds-and had fans clamoring for the third book in the trilogy. Now comes the final chapter: To Trade the Stars.

The stage is set for a possibly cataclysmic confrontation in non-space-and the Speaker for the Clan Council and her human mate are about to find themselves in the heart of the conflict.

The first book in the Web Shifter's Library series returns to the adventures of Esen, a shapeshifting alien and member of an ancient yet endangered race, who must navigate the perils of a hostile universe.

Esen's back! And the dear little blob is in trouble, again.

Things began so well. She and her Human friend Paul Ragem are ready to celebrate the first anniversary of their greatest accomplishment, the All Species' Library of Linguistics and Culture, by welcoming his family back. He hopes. Having mourned his supposed death years ago, understandably, feelings are bent.

Instead, they've unexpected guests, starting with an old acquaintance. Paul's father has gone missing under dire circumstances.

Before he can convince Esen to help him search, a friend shows up to use the Library. A crisis on Dokeci Na is about to explode into violence. To stop it, Evan Gooseberry needs answers. Unfortunately, the artifact he brought in trade holds its own distracting secret. A touch of very familiar blue. Web-flesh.

The race is on. Paul, to find his father. Esen, to search for a mysterious legacy while helping Evan avert an extinction. What none of them realize is the price of success will be the most terrible choice of all.

Relationships get complicated when you don't know who--or what--you really are. Esen must find a way to rescue a hapless group of chimeras, beings who are a new and unique blend of species she knows, when she can't become one herself. When Evan Gooseberry tries to help, he is shattered to learn he himself isn't entirely Human and begins to suspect his new friend Esen isn't what she seems.

Complicating matters, a mysterious contagion has killed the crew of the ship that brought the chimeras--and Evan--to Botharis. Everyone's been quarantined inside the All Species' Library of Linguistics and Culture, including over a hundred disgruntled alien scholars.

The risks climb as Skalet and Lionel continue their quest to solve the disappearance of Paul's mother's ship, the Sidereal Pathfinder, only to find themselves caught in a tangle of loyalties as Skalet is betrayed by her own Kraal affiliates, who infiltrate the Library.

All of which would be quite enough for one Web-being's day, but Paul Ragem hopes to rekindle the romance of his first love. A shame Esen hasn't told him who's hiding in their greenhouse.

The third book in the Web Shifter's Library series returns to the adventures of Esen, a shapeshifting alien who must navigate the perils of a hostile universe.

Here Be Monsters

Something malevolent lurks in deep space, something able to pluck starships from their course and cause their crews to vanish.

It has a purpose: to use those ships to mark an unmistakable boundary. A warning.

It has an interest: Botharis, the planet where Esen and Paul have established the All Species' Library of Linguistics and Culture. Home to Veya Ragem, whose ship was the first to trespass.

Esen and Paul will need every resource, every friend and even foes, if they're to discover who--or what is behind this before more are lost. Once they do, Esen plans to use her abilities to comprehend and reason with this new species. What she doesn't know? There truly are monsters. And they wait for you in the dark.

Just ask Evan Gooseberry.

This exclusive e-novella, set shortly after the events in Hidden in Sight, features the first glimpse of the All Species' Library of Linguistics and Culture in the Web Shifters sci-fi series.

The Human Commonwealth has spread into a section of space well and truly claimed by others, a wealth of intelligent species who doubt we've much to offer. The only recourse? Diplomacy! At least that's what Evan Gooseberry, assigned to the Human embassy on Urgia Prime, firmly believes. Enough to fight his own deep terrors and remain where even a walk outside is an exhausting challenge.

But what happens when a species' misunderstood biology is its diplomacy?

The stakes are high; the situation desperate. Doubted by his superiors, Evan stands alone.

Unless he can accept help from the strangest alien of all: Esen-alit-Quar, Esen in a hurry, Es between friends. Having come to Urgia Prime with her friend Paul on their own mission, the remarkable Webshifter is willing to do whatever she can. There's only one problem.

Esen is everything Evan Gooseberry fears.

They are the last survivors of their race, beings who live on and communicate through energy, who are capable of assuming the shape of any other species. When their youngest member is assigned to a world considered safe to explore, she is captured by the natives. To escape, she must violate the most important rule of her kind, and reveal the existence of her species to a fellow prisoner - a human being.

Now her race is in danger of extinction, for even if the human does not betray her, the Enemy who has long searched for her people may finally discover their location...

Changing Vision continues the story of Esen, the last survivor of an alien race with the ability to assume the form of any creature. Now Esen must break her species' rule of non-interference - to keep interspecies tension from escalating into all-out war.

Picco's moon was where it all began for Esen-alit-Quar, Youngest of Ersh's Web. It was here where Ersh, the Oldest, had chosen to make her home; here, too, where Esen received her early training as a shapeshifter and member of the Web.

When Ersh's Web was destroyed, Esen and her human friend paul survived, and together they founded Esen's Web, a group composed initially of the two of them but one which expanded slowly to include a chosen few selected by Paul. For in their universe there were all too many species ready to destroy Esen, should they discover her true nature.

Still, despite the need for concealment, life had been good to Esen and Paul. They now had well-established identities, a thriving business, and numerous friends. It seemed as though they'd finally created a safe haven for themselves. At least until they receved word that someone was mining Picco's Moon, desecrating Ersh's Mountain.

Esen and Paul had no choice. They had to go to Picco's Moon and put a stop to the situation. But before they could even set out, they found themselves under attack on every front. Their carefully built haven gone, and loyal friends suddenly transformed into vengeful enemies, was there anywhere Esen and Paul could run, anyone they could to turn to for help, any way to defeat a foe they couldn't even identify?