Search Worlds Without End

The year is 1999. CIA agent Larry Fox has stumbled into the most frightening espionage plot in U.S. history. The president of the United States is a Soviet agent - and no one but Fox, running for his life in Istanbul, can take the truth to Washington.

Fox realizes that what he has discovered makes terrifying sense. Around the world U.S. forces are abandoning allies while Soviet power and influence reaches new heights. The nascent U.S. Space Command leads the retreat from space. Whites enroll their children in neo-Nazi organizations and turn their communities into armed camps while blacks demand outright ownership south of the Mason-Dixon line. Fox is America's only hope, and Fox doesn't have any hope at all...

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Janet Morris
• Hero's Welcome - short story by Janet Morris
• Going After Arviq - novelette by Michael Armstrong
• To the Storming Gulf - (1985) - novella by Gregory Benford
• Flamestones - novelette by Stephen Leigh
• The Phoenix Garden - novelette by Diana L. Paxson
• Primary - short story by Esther M. Friesner
• When Idaho Dived - short story by Ian Watson
• Bar and Grill - short story by Craig Shaw Gardner
• Pots - novelette by C. J. Cherryh
• Notes for a Newer Testament - short story by David Langford
• The Guardroom - novelette by David Drake

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE

In West Berlin. Amy Brecker, an American intelligence officer, takes a chance on a walk-in informant who says the Soviets are going to cripple America's spacebased defense program.

Fram a Soviet silo on the Sea of Japan, a single missle rises. A hotline communique from Moscoe insists that a mistake has been made; the Soviets are doing everything in their power to abort the "test" flight.

Deep inside Cheyenne Mountain at the Aerospace Defense Command Center, all eyes watch its trajectory: a collision course with America's manned space lab.

If the U.S. choses to intercept and destroy the Russian missile, the attempt must not end in failure... the future of America's entire space-based defense hangs in the balance. Only one U.S. anti-satellite weapon can foil the opening gambit of what might be a Soviet Furst Strike - and only my Brecker and her "hot stick" pilot have enough of the Roght Stuff to use MEDUSA.

Sgt. "Det" Cox has just spent three years under psych observation on Earth; now that he's out-system, he isn't about to tell anyone he's seeing aliens again. Paige Barnett has lost everything, even her name, because she knows too much about the rebellion spreading throughout the Earth-Space mining colonies.

Together Cox and Barnett stumble upon the mystery at the revolution's heart and learn why the rebels are willing to die for it.

Is their discovery mankind's worst threat or greatest gift? The authorities are willing to destroy whole planets to keep the revolution's secret from reaching Earth... What's to stop them from destroying two people?

A terrorist attack and incompetency at the highest levels of the US government spark a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia. When the US falls silent, only Marc Beck of the State Department's intelligence service has a workable plan to help his country. With Israeli counter-terrorism experts and Christine Patrick, an American foreign correspondent posted to Tel Aviv, Beck begins a desperate mission to get anti-radiation serum to the US survivors and take one last, wild chance that could save America from the consequences of The Forty-Minute War.

Plunging into a new covert war between America and the Soviet Union for control of space, Trace Rand and Kate Brittany, members of an elite CIA task force assigned to warlord, search for the killer of former warlord operatives.

A desperate plot to destroy the United States - a desperate race to save it!

The 52,000 Year War

In the twenty-third year of LBJ's martial rule, the war for Nam has spread to Central China, and rogue generals with nuclear weapons are poised to blast America into oblivion.

Reactionary twenty-third century conspirators have changed history... or will, unless the elite Anti-Revision Command, the ARC Riders, aided by Nam vet Major Rebecca Carnes, can find the terrorists. In a manhunt that ranges from Southeast Asia to Washington, D.C., from the twenty-sixth century to 50,000 B.C., the ARC Riders must stop the killing before they lose their one slender chance to untie the fatal knots in Time.

Elite 26th-century commandos, the ARC Riders patrol time to protect all human history...

As the USSR crumbles, Russian hardliners jump from 1991 to AD 9, when their modern weapons can warp the course of the Roman Empire and create a world ruled by the Kremlin - using time technology that doesn't exist in the 20th century... or the 26th!

To solve the mystery, the Riders must split into teams separated by millennia. And while three Riders are trapped between the Roman legions and a blood-maddened barbarian horde, their comrades are at war on the Moscow streets. And fighting an inconceivable enemy.

History's leading figures, including Caesar and Cleopatra, Alexander of Macedon, and Judah Macabee, Che Guevara, and Yuri Andropov, meet the devil in a strange shared universe.

Contents:

• Son of the Morning - (1986) - short story by Chris Morris
• Newton Sleep - (1986) - novelette by Gregory Benford
• The Prince - (1986) - novella by C. J. Cherryh
• A Walk in the Park - (1986) - novelette by Nancy Asire
• The Hand of Providence - (1986) - novelette by David Drake
• Basileus - (1985) - novelette by C. J. Cherryh and Janet Morris
• To Reign in Hell - (1986) - novelette by Janet Morris
• The Gates of Hell (excerpt) - (1986) - short fiction by C. J. Cherryh and Janet Morris
• The Frankenstein Papers (excerpt) - (1986) - short fiction by Fred Saberhagen

Alexander of Macedon, Julius Caesar, the Pharaohs Hatshepsut and Cleopatra, Niccolo Machiavelli, Judah Macabee, and other damned adventurers brave the River of Fire and the River of Forgetfulness on a daring journey back to the land of the living.

All of Hell is in revolt as Gilgamesh, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and the other damned, turn rebel, in this collection of stories by such science fiction masters as Robert Silverberg, Janet Morris, C.J. Cherryh, David Drake, Martin Caidin, and Bill Kerby.

Contents:

• Undercover Angel - short fiction by Chris Morris
• Hell's Gate - short fiction by Bill Kerby
• Gilgamesh in the Outback - [Gilgamesh] - novella by Robert Silverberg
• Marking Time - novelette by C. J. Cherryh
• Table with a View - novelette by Nancy Asire
• There Are No Fighter Pilots Down in Hell - novella by Martin Caidin
• 'Cause I Served My Time in Hell - short story by David Drake
• Monday Morning - short story by C. J. Cherryh
• Graveyard Shift - short fiction by Janet Morris

As the Second Trojan War begins, history's greatest champions and villains, including Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Hatshepsut, Cleopatra, Brutus, and Machiavelli, fight the Battle of the Ages.

Contents:

• The Nature of Hell - short fiction by Chris Morris and Janet Morris
• Gilgamesh Redux - short fiction by Janet Morris
• Crusaders in Love - short fiction by Bill Kerby
• Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea - novelette by Michael Armstrong
• Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth - novelette by C. J. Cherryh
• By Invitation Only - novelette by Nancy Asire
• The Gods of the Gaps - novella by Gregory Benford
• Springs Eternal - novelette by David Drake
• Snowballs in Hell - short fiction by Chris Morris

Altos, Hell's only Unfallen Angel, tours the nether regions and observes as Genghis Khan teaches a military historian a lesson, Marilyn Monroe kisses the Devil, Stalin rewrites the Bible, and Napoleon's lover ponders an offer to enter Heaven.

Contents:

• Handmaids in Hell - short story by Chris Morris
• The Fascination of the Abomination - [Gilgamesh] - (1987) - novella by Robert Silverberg
• The Price of an Egg - novelette by Alexandra Sokolov
• Reaching for Paradise - novelette by Brad Miner
• The Ex-Khan - short story by Robert Asprin [as by Robert L. Asprin]
• The Conscience of the King - novella by Nancy Asire and C. J. Cherryh
• Learning Curve - novelette by David Drake
• Sea of Stiffs - novelette by Janet Morris

Nine stories describe the experiences of Jeb Stuart, Copernicus, Richard Burton, Napoleon, Yuri Andropov, and Augustus try to adapt to the alternate world known as Hell.

Contents:

• The Ransom of Hellcat - novelette by Chris Morris
• Take Two - novelette by Bill Kerby
• Hellbike - short story by George Foy
• Houseguests - novelette by Nancy Asire
• Spitting in the Wind - novelette by Lynn Abbey
• God's Eyes - novelette by Michael Armstrong
• Bargain - novelette by David Drake
• Pawn in Play - novelette by C. J. Cherryh
• Sea Change - novelette by Janet Morris

In an alternate world that appears to be Hell, Homer, the ancient Greek poet, is commanded by the Devil to write a chronicle of Hell.

Contents:

• [...] Is Hell - short story by Janet Morris
• Wisdom - short story by David Drake
• Fallout - novelette by Nancy Asire
• Gilgamesh in Uruk - [Gilgamesh] - (1988) - novella by Robert Silverberg
• An Appropriate Hell - novelette by Diana L. Paxson
• The Man in the Black Cape Turns - novelette by Michael Armstrong
• Giving Hell a Shot - novelette by Bill Kerby
• Rook's Move - novelette by C. J. Cherryh
• Sign On - short story by Chris Morris

When all that is not false is chaos, how can there be prophets in Hell? In the Domain of Darkness, Chaos wars with Good and Evil until even the Father of Lies cannot distinguish between honest deceit, malicious truthtelling, and mere vituperative gibberish--so what's a poor devil to do?

Contents:

• Eye of a Needle - short story by Chris Morris
• Exile - novelette by David Drake
• The Garden of Blood Narcissus - novella by Brad Miner
• Death Freaks - (1989) - novella by Robert Sheckley
• Profits in Hell - short story by Bill Kerby
• Terminal - novelette by George Alec Effinger
• I, Hermes Trismegistus - poem by Richard Groller
• Fast Food - novelette by Nancy Asire
• The Sibylline Affair - novelette by C. J. Cherryh
• Moving Day - novelette by Janet Morris

A multitude of histories finest (and worst) explorers find plenty to do in the new Hell novel.

Heaven lays down the law and Hell gets more hellish as the greatest shared universe of all time makes its malevolent return. Souls you hate to love and souls you love to hate reunite for Lawyers in Hell, in twenty-two infernal tales from the underworlds, where Injustice must be served.

Contents:

• Interview with the Devil - short fiction by Chris Morris and Janet Morris
• Tribe of Hell - novelette by Janet Morris
• The Rapture Elevator - short story by Michael H. Hanson [as by Michael Hanson]
• Out of Court Settlement - novelette by C. J. Cherryh
• Revolutionary Justice - novelette by Leo Champion
• Tale of a Tail - novelette by Nancy Asire
• And Injustice for All - short story by Jason Cordova
• Measure of a Man - novelette by Deborah Koren
• The Adjudication of Hetty Green - short story by Allan Gilbreath
• Plains of Hell - novelette by Bruce Durham
• The Register - short story by Michael H. Hanson
• Island out of Time - novella by Richard Groller
• Appellate Angel - short story by Edward McKeown
• With Enemies Like These - novelette by David L. Burkhead
• The Dark Arts - short story by Kimberly Richardson
• Heads You Lose - novelette by Michael Z. Williamson
• Check and Mate - short story by Bradley H. Sinor
• Disclaimer - novelette by John Manning
• Orientation Day - short story by Sarah Hulcy
• Remember, Remember, Hell in November - novelette by Larry Atchley, Jr.
• Theo Khthonios - novelette by Scott Oden
• Erra and the Seven - short story by Chris Morris

ROGUES IN HELL... The war heats up, Satan antes up, and rogues go adventuring as Hell's landlord faces off with Heaven's auditors.

Contents:

• Babe in Hell - short story by Chris Morris and Janet Morris
• Which Way I Fly is Hell - novelette by Janet Morris
• Downtown Run - novelette by Nancy Asire
• Madly Meeting Logically - novelette by Michael Armstrong
• Library Redux - short story by Sarah Hulcy
• A Hatful of Dynamite - novelette by Deborah Koren
• Colony - short story by Bruce Durham
• Searcher - novelette by Edward McKeown
• The Miraculous Roadside Attraction - short story by Jack William Finley
• BDA - novelette by Richard Groller
• Hell Road Truckers - novelette by Michael H. Hanson
• If Necessary - short story by Bradley H. Sinor
• Pursued by the Tauwu - short story by Shirley Meier
• Ragnarok & Roll - novelette by Larry Atchley, Jr.
• Scent of a Weapon - novelette by Bill Snider
• Showdown at Brimstone Arsenal - novelette by John Manning
• The Place of Fear - novelette by David L. Burkhead
• Chasing the Key - short story by H. David Blalock
• A Hard Day at the Office - short story by Michael Z. Williamson
• An Unholy Grail - novelette by Julie Cochrane
• Battle of Tartaros - novelette by Chris Morris

Seven million years on the New Hell Sinday Times bestseller list... The damned are revolting! The underworld explodes with excitement as Satan himself rebels against forces from on high. Or does he? Dreams are dashed and strongholds topple as the greatest shared universe of all times convulses with mystery and mayhem.

Shakespeare and Marlowe begin a new play to please the Devil.... Satan and Samael plot to expose the unrepentant damned... Before Napoleon's eyes, Caesar's villa explodes in chaos... Goethe finds out that hell is all around him... Isadora Duncan forgets that dreams can be hell... Hell's librarian throws a bash and the damned party down... and down... and down... All over the netherworlds, worse comes to worst as Hell's Most Unwanted try assaulting heaven's gates and raise more hell than they bargained for....

Contents:

• Fools in Hell - short story by Chris Morris and Janet Morris
• Alms for Oblivion - short story by Janet Morris
• The Unholy Hole - novelette by Nancy Asire
• Essence Helliance - novelette by Yelle Hughes
• Barefoot, on Brimstone - short story by Sara M. Harvey
• Ophie and the Undertaker - short story by Shebat Legion
• Just Dessert - novelette by John Manning
• Hell, I Must Be Going - short story by Michael A. Ventrella
• Blood and Ash - short story by Thomas Barczak [as by Tom Barczak]
• Hellexandria the Great - short story by Sarah Hulcy
• The Knife-Edged Bridge - novelette by David L. Burkhead
• The Wager - short story by Deborah Koren
• More Light! - novelette by Bettina S. Meister
• In the Shadow of Paradise - novelette by Jason Cordova
• Zero Sum Game - novelette by Richard Groller
• And the Truth Shall Set You Free - short story by Jack William Finley
• The ITTT - short story by Michael H. Hanson
• Siegfried's Blade - [Die Nibelungen] - short story by Petra Jorns
• Stairway to Heaven - novelette by Edward McKeown [as by Ed McKeown]
• Knocking on Heaven's Gates - novelette by Larry Atchley, Jr.
• Hell Bent - short story by Janet Morris

The best, the worst, and ugliest bards in perdition vie for Satan's favor as poets slam one another, Satan's Fallen Angels smirk up their sleeves, and the illiterati have their day. Find out why the damned deserve their fates as Hell's hacks sink to new poetical depths!

Shakespeare and Marlowe write a new play for Satan and find out that in hell you can't always save your skin. The first Bible writer drafts a deal with the Devil. Attila the Hun learns his punishment's just begun. Mary Shelley and Victor Frankenstein make a monstrous mistake. Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp get their unjust deserts. Hell's Undertaker goes on holiday. The Damned Poets Society slams away. A nameless soul shows Dorothy Parker that fame is a bitch.

In the underworlds, injustice always reigns: Join us and our damnedest poets for the crookedest poetry festival in perdition where language comes to die and no rhyme goes unpunished.

Contents:

• Words - short story by Chris Morris
• Seven Against Hell - short story by Chris Morris and Janet Morris
• Reunion - novelette by Nancy Asire
• Hell-hounds - short story by Bruce Durham
• The Kid with No Name - short story by Jack William Finley
• All Hell to Pay - short story by Deborah Koren
• Poetic Injustice - short story by Larry Atchley, Jr.
• When You Gaze Into An Abyss - short story by Matthew Kirshenblatt
• Pride and Penance - short story by Thomas Barczak [as by Tom Barczak]
• Grand Slam - novelette by pdmac
• Undertaker's Holiday - short story by Joe Bonadonna and Shebat Legion
• Red Tail's Corner - short story by Yelle Hughes
• Faust III - short story by Richard Groller
• Tapestry of Sorrows and Sighs - short story by Bill Snider
• Haiku d'Etat - short story by Beth W. Patterson
• A Mother's Heart - short story by Bill Barnhill
• We the Furious - novelette by Joe Bonadonna
• Damned Poets Society - short story by Michael H. Hanson
• All We Need of Hell - short story by Michael Armstrong [as by Michael A. Armstrong]
• Dress Rehearsal - short story by Janet Morris

Damned souls wail as plagues wreak havoc, doctors up their fees, snake-oil salesmen make a killing, and Satan turns his hit-man loose. Be there when Erra, the Babylonian plague god, and his seven personified weapons, spread terror throughout the underverse! Rookie authors write prescriptions for perdition, while veteran hellions diagnose the damned: Deborah Koren, Andrew P. Weston, Janet Morris, Joe Bonadonna, Matthew Kirshenblatt, Chris Morris, Michael H. Hanson, Rob Hinkle, Jack William Finley, Bill Snider, Richard Groller, Paul Freeman, Nancy Asire.

Victor Frankenstein and Quasimodo develop a vaccine -- with diabolical results... Satan looses Daemon Grim, the Devil's personal hit man, and damned souls cower... Bat Masterson finds himself caught between plague victims and Wyatt Earp... Judas learns you can't teach an old dog new sins... Calamity Jane and her Sinchester carbine defend hell's last uninfected outpost... Nietzsche and Lilith, Adam's first wife, face the Beast and come to fiendish accord... Doc Holliday tries one last gambit, and unleashes all hell's fury... And there's worse to come, even an excerpt from bestselling author Andrew P. Weston's forthcoming Heroes in Hell novel! If you think life is tough, try the afterlife, where the doctor is always wrong, sinners never win, misery runs amok, and all hell's damned get their just deserts -- eternally.

Contents:

• The Wager - short fiction by Chris Morris and Janet Morris
• The Cure - short fiction by Chris Morris
• Grim - short fiction by Andrew P. Weston
• The Right Man for the Job - short fiction by Deborah Koren
• Memory - short fiction by Nancy Asire
• What Price Oblivion? - short fiction by R. E. Hinkle
• In the Shadowlands - short fiction by Richard Groller
• Let Us Kill the Spirit of Gravity - short fiction by Matthew Kirshenblatt
• Pavlovian Slip - short fiction by Bill Snider
• Hell On a Technicality - short fiction by Joe Bonadonna
• Convalescence - short fiction by Michael H. Hanson
• Hell Noon - short fiction by Paul Freeman
• The Judas Book - short fiction by Jack William Finley
• Writer's Block - short fiction by Janet Morris
• A Moment of Clarity - short fiction by Andrew P. Weston

Avast, ye readers! Here be Pyrates! Feast yer eyes on the cursed treasures before you! Hoist the skull 'n' crossbones! Walk the plank with hell's sorest losers! Join the damnedest buccaneers and privateers ever to sail infernal seas. The depths of hell chill the boldest sinner as damned souls learn why the deeper in hell you go, the colder it gets.

Table of Contents:

• Bitter Business - Janet Morris and Chris Morris
• Pieces of Hate - Andrew P. Weston
• Evil Angel - Janet Morris and Chris Morris
• Who's a Pirate Now? - Nancy Asire
• Curse of the Pharaohs - S.E. Lindberg
• Lir's Children - Paul Freeman
• Unholiest Grail - Larry Atchley, Jr.
• The Bitter Taste of Hell's Injustice - Jack William Finley
• Serial Recall and Beautiful Tortures - Michael H. Hanson
• Drink and the Devil - Rob Hinkle
• The Pirates of Penance - Joe Bonadonna
• Muse of Fire - Janet Morris and Chris Morris
• Hell Hounds (excerpt) - Andrew P. Weston

Only fools fall in love, and hell is filled with fools. Our damned lovers include: Christopher Marlowe and Will Shakespeare, Napoleon and Wellington, Orpheus and Eurydice, Hatshepsut and Senenmut, Abelard and Heloise, Helen and Penelope, Saint Teresa and Satan's Reaper, Madge Kendall and the Elephant Man, and more... -- all of whom pay a hellish price for indulging their affections. Shakespeare said "To be wise and love exceeds man's might," and in Lovers in Hell, the damned in hell exceed all bounds as they search for their true loves, punish the perfidious, and avoid getting caught up in Satan's snares. In ten stories of misery and madness, hell's most loveless seek to slake the thirst that can never be quenched, and find true love amid the lies of ages.

Contents:

• Love in the Afterlife, Part I; or, Never Doubt I Love - serial by Chris Morris and Janet Morris (book publication as Love in the Afterlife)
• Love Interrupted - novelette by Nancy Asire
• Lovers Sans Phalli - novelette by S. E. Lindberg
• Love in the Afterlife, Part II; or, Fume of Sighs - serial by Chris Morris and Janet Morris (book publication as Love in the Afterlife)
• Calamity - novelette by Michael E. Dellert
• Love Triangle - novelette by Michael H. Hanson
• A Hand of Four Queens - novelette by A. L. Butcher
• The Devil's Trull - novelette by Andrew P. Weston
• Withering Blights - novelette by Joe Bonadonna
• Love in the Afterlife, Part III; or, Wrath of Love - serial by Chris Morris and Janet Morris (book publication as Love in the Afterlife)
• Hell Gate (excerpt) - short fiction by Andrew P. Weston

Shebat came to the empire of the Kerrions from nowhere, brought by a renegade son into that vast family regime and its endless territorial possessions. Now she stood to inherit the majesty and riches which lay before her, stretching enticingly deep into the infinities of space. Magical seductress of men , passionate in her lust for power, she moved among those who controlled the destinies of millions, for whom treachery and betrayal were as easy as murder.

The Kerrion consuls - from their luxurious headquarters on Draconis they reign over a great merchant empire.

This book is the climax to the three part saga of the Kerrion Empire. It is up to Shebot a young woman challenging the Universe's greatest power, in order to save its most magnificent creation the intelligent space-fearing cruisers.

THE ULTIMATE TERRORIST ACT...

Though Man reaches to the stars, he has not forgotten how to hate. Now the lunar headquarters of the United Nations has become the target of a secret terrorist group.

The plague has already been unleashed into the closed lunar complex. A new strain of bioengineered virus, it carefully choses its victims, mercelessly wiping out entire bloodlines.

Only one man can stop it. His name is Sam Yates. A member of the lunar security force, he's seen his share of action in Earth wars. But he's never seen anything like the slaughter that has now begun...

REFUGEE FROM ARMAGEDDON

San Yate's job- Commissioner of Security for United Nations lunar headquarters- was a pretty boring one... until mankind's first extrsterrestrial visitor arrived on the moon asking for political asylum.

Now, everyone wants a piece of the action; scientists, soldiers, and spiesfrom both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. are determined to study the alien. But the petty conflicts of humanity are the least of Yates' worries...

The hunters are coming! Warlike, inhuman, light-years beyond us in science and technology, they will destroy anything that comes between them and the alien prey.

Including Earth itself...

"We are all bound," is the great truth of Silistra: Bound by biological necessity and genetics, the men and women of Silistra struggle to sort Nature from Nurture--where Nature always wins.

Welcome to Silistra, a glimpse of a far distant future wherein a civilization proclaims the greatest feat an individual can perform is to produce one child, yet distrusts the sciences that brought them to the verge of extinction. Here women and men coexist uneasily in a society ravaged by war, technology, and infertility, each vying for power, seeking dominion over one another.

Be warned, if your tastes run to simplistic plots, throbbing organs, swooning damsels or kick-boxing women in men's armor, Silistra may be too challenging. Misogynists, misanthropes, misandrists, or fans of political diatribe, this is not the book for you.

High Couch of Silistra, first of the notorious Silistra Quartet, brings us to a realm where thought alters probability, where creativity is inextricably linked to the urge to own and dominate, and where the universe itself is amenable to a focused mind. Rooted deeply in humanity's mythic past yet unaware of the planet Earth, High Couch of Silistra begins one woman's quest for self-knowledge--with surprising results.

The battle of the sexes is never over...

Biology rules reality...

She had the power to create planets. The sixty carved bones of the Yris-tera foretold her ancient fate. Her heritage of power took her beyond time and space and stole from her the one man she loved.

Enslaved on the planet Silistra tomorrow's most beautiful courtesan unleashes the powers of the gods.

ON A PLANET DESPERATE FOR POPULATION, WOMEN HOLD THE KEYS TO POWER. But power brings enemies. Estri, holder of Silistra's highest office, never suspected the intrigues moving against her... until her rivals attacked. Her betrayal toppled more than a single well-Keepress. Estri's enemies threatened all of Silistra. Their plan: to reveal the planet's precious secret secret of extending life in exchange for off-world technology -- the technology which decimated Silistra's population long ago.

Epic fantasy, social science fiction, heroic fantasy. allegorical fantasy.Wind from the Abyss is the third volume in Janet Morris' classic Silistra Quartet, continuing one woman's quest for self-realization in a distant tomorrow.

Estri is a daughter of light. Chayin is a son of darkness.Sereth is 'hase-enor,' son of all flesh.Lovers and friends, could they be the prophesied three who would wield the Sword of Severance, Se'Keroth, and bring light out of darkness?

If you like stories of bold brave knights employed in meritorious duty, or tales of ladies delicate and fair, be warned. Beyond Sanctuary, set at the foot of notorious Wizardwall, may be too much for your sensibilities. There wizards, bards, and maidens mingle with murderers and thieves, and the fight breaking out at the next table may be the one that ends your life.

The hero is Tempus, leader of mercenaries and warrior-servant of Vashanka, god of storm and war. With Niko, Cime, and the Froth Daughter Jihan, Tempus faces the archmage Datan and his unholy followers - in a battle for the Rankan Empire's survival and that of his very soul.

When a Rankan messenger is killed in Tyse, Randal, the Stepsons' pet wizard, must read the dead man's mind. What Randal learns brings Niko back from the Misty Isles of Bandara and forces Tempus and his Stepsons into an alliance unholy even by Tysian standards--with Cime the mage killer; Aškelon, lord of dreams; and the Rankan Third Commando, a fighting unit so cruel it gives even the Stepsons pause. Together with Tempus' long-lost daughter, and his elemental lover, Jihan, they must venture beyond accursed Wizardwall itself to battle the Mygdonian Alliance and Roxane's Nisibisi witchcraft.

The intrepid Band (whose central core is Tempus' beloved Stepsons) must figure out who among the Tysian locals, Rankan soldiers, and Mygdonian defectors they can trust--before it's too late. But in a world where a witch can turn a warrior into a flea, where gemstone frogs can rain from the sky, where no one is ever what he seems, where loyalties and ensured by curses, wizardry, and the favor of warring gods... only the immortal Tempus can guarantee an army's success. And not even Tempus can tell the good guys from the bad in Tyse, where everyone plays both ends against the middle--or if the price of victory against Mygdonia will be his Stepsons' souls in their battle

Beyond Wizardwall the northern adventures of Tempus and his Stepsons come to their apocalyptic conclusion at the Festival of Man, where the games are not the scheduled ones of prowess at swordplay or chariot-racing, but games of assassination and treachery, with the Rankan emperor's life and the honor of the Sacred Band at stake.

When Niko quits the Stepsons, he finds that his troubles are just beginning: not only has Death's Queen marshaled new forces to entrap him, but Rankan interests desirous of a change in emperors have singled him out as the perfect assassin. Randal, the Stepsons' pet mage and Niko's former partner, must unite Tempus, the Stepsons, and hellish aid from magical quarters in a desperate attempt to save the defenseless Niko from Death's Queen--and himself.

In imperial Ranke, Tempus finds himself torn between conflicting oaths and pitted against powers not even his immortal strength can vanquish--powers both mortal and immortal, magical and heavenly, so that, in the end, the god-ridden and accursed soldier must make pacts with his most hated enemies--not only Aškelon, the Lord of Dreams, but Death's Queen herself--in order to save the souls of those he loves and the empire he's served so long.

And this time, Tempus' own soul hangs in the balance, as primal forces and even Enlil, the most fearsome storm god of them all, haggle over his fate.

Tempus: Avatar of the war-god Vashanka, he carves his anti-magical philosophy in the bodies of the detestable mages and demons of a world he never made but is cursed to inhabit.

Niko: No godling he, just a warrior who has found the secret of his soul in the mysterious Western Isles--and so wields a pure and faithful power that makes him all too attractive to the gods and elementals of a world infested mainly with murderers and thieves.

Together: Needing time to recover from the spells of a witch who nearly ate his soul, Niko will recover his self-mastery by reliving in utterly vivid detail all the most violent and transforming moments of his past--and that of his rightside leader, Tempus.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Parts of this work have been published in substantially similar form in several volumes of the shared universe series, THIEVES' WORLD.

The Sacred Band of Stepsons is a fictional ancient cavalry unit created by Janet Morris and based on the historical Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite strike force of paired lovers and friends that flourished during the fourth century BCE in ancient Greece, where sexuality was a behavior, not an identity.

The Sacred Band of Stepsons series of fantasy novels and stories take place in a myth-like milieu that mixes historical places such as Nisibis, Mygdonia and Chaeronea; warriors such as Theagenes (commander of the Theban Sacred Band at Chaeronea); gods such as Enlil, Maat and Harmonia; philosophers such as Heraclitus and Thales; cavalry tactics and customs such as homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece with those that exist only in fantasy. The exploits of the Stepsons are chronicled in eleven short stories and eight novels (as of 2010). In a fantasy context, this series explores the difficulties facing war-fighters in personal relationships and the enduring questions surrounding the military's historical mixing of homosexuals and heterosexuals in combat.

Is this the Lemuria of antiquity, or of times to come? Once you've ridden the storm clouds of heaven from the edge of time, anything is possible.

Demonic hordes threaten to destroy the very fabric of time itself. The fate of all humanity rests on the shoulders of Tempus the Black, Favorite of the Storm God. But even this hero of legend will encounter a challenge he has never faced before... present-day New York City.

Tempus, immortal hero, avatar of the Storm God, ruler of the City at the Edge of Time, joins with his partner Nikko to reunite the Secret Band for a mission of vengeance that will takes them to the farthest reaches of time and space - and back home again.

Threshold is a space habitat between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter with a population of a quarter million. Run by a latter-day United Nations, one of its duties is to keep humans off of Earth, now a preserve.

Thousands of Muslim pilgrims from other systems are not pleased at being kept from Mecca. Their leader's daughter decides to experience Threshold's decadent (to her) society with the heir to a powerful exploration corporation, who is also smuggling illegal life forms into the habitat, thus threatening the stability of a conference on the rights of nonhuman races and ALIs - Artificial Living Individuals which the Muslims treat as they do their women: like property.

Captain Joseph South, on a test flight through interstellar spongespace, is translated 500 years into our future to arrive at Threshold just as all this is occurring. He has strange memories of a fly-by of system X-3, which match up with visions from an artifact brought to Threshold by a prospector.

This second novel of the Threshold trilogy has broken new ground - a military science fiction thriller on the high-tech cutting edge. Trust Territory returns to the grand hotel in space, where an alien force proposes an alliance to the humans.

In the grand conclusion to the high-tech Threshold trilogy, test pilot Joe South returns from a prolonged visit with The Unity - a wiser, older coalition of lifeforms. But the "benevolent" aliens have a perplexing request that will pit human political factions against each other.