Search Worlds Without End

Fifty years after nuclear Armageddon, Sparrow, a trader of pre-war CDs and videotapes, unwittingly possesses the secret to the Earth's destruction, and is soon drawn into the mystery of the Horsemen, the Pentagon's telepathicall trained soldiers.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm (2004), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, July 2014. It can also be found in the anthology Magic City: Recent Spells (2014), edited by Paula Guran.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This is a collection of thirteen pieces of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by Boskone 31's Guests of Honor, Emma Bull and Will Shetterly. Among the works assembled here are a set of six individually-authored short stories for their own shared world, Liavek, as well as a collaboratively-written novelette set in the Borderlands shared world, three additional works by Emma Bull, and two additional works by Will Shetterly.

The introduction is by Boskone 31 guests Patrick Nielsen Hayden, a professional editor, and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, the author of Making Book. The book also contains brief biographies of Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, including a list of their published work.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (1994) essay by Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Teresa Nielsen Hayden
• Visionary (1994) essay by Emma Bull
• Why I Write Fantasy (1990) essay by Emma Bull
• Captured Moments (1994) short story by Will Shetterly
• The Rending Dark (1984) novelette by Emma Bull
• Bound Things [Liavek] (1985) short story by Will Shetterly
• Badu's Luck [Liavek] (1985) novelette by Emma Bull
• A Happy Birthday [Liavek] (1986) short story by Will Shetterly
• The Well-Made Plan [Liavek] (1986) novelette by Emma Bull
• Six Days Outside the Year [Liavek] (1990) novelette by Will Shetterly
• A Bird That Whistles (1989) short story by Emma Bull
• Time Travel, the Artifact, and a Famous Historical Personage (1993) short story by Will Shetterly
• Danceland Blood [Chronicles of the Borderlands] (1994) novella by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly
• Wonders of the Invisible World (1994) essay by Emma Bull

Welcome to Bordertown. A hybrid community of misfits, oddballs and runaways. Where humans, elves and halflings co-exist. Where magic and the brutal realities of survival clash and mix. For Orient and Tick-Tick, it's just home.

Death and dark magic hang ov er the city. A seductive new drug lures young runaways to their destruction. A mysterious plague spreads through the streets. And beneath the clock tower on High Street, Bonnie Prince Charlie lies slain by an unseen hand. A cop named Sunny Rico exploits Orient's talent for finding objects to track the killer and leads both herself and him into the darker secrets of Elflands' immigrant citizens.

It is 1849. Across Europe, the high tide of revolution has crested, leaving recrimination and betrayal in its wake. From the high councils of Prussia to the corridors of Parliament, the powers-that-be breathe sighs of relief. But the powers-that-be are hardly unified among themselves. Far from it...

On the south coast of England, London man-about-town James Cobham comes to himself in a country inn, with no idea how he got there. Corresponding with his cousin, he discovers himself to have been presumed drowned in a boating accident. Together they decide that he should stay put for the moment, while they investigate what may have transpired. For James Cobham is a wanted man--wanted by conspiring factions of the government and the Chartists alike, and also the target of a magical conspiracy inside his own family.

And so the adventure begins...leading the reader through every corner of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, from the parlors of the elite to the dens of the underclass. Not since Wilkie Collins or Conan Doyle has there been such a profusion of guns, swordfights, family intrigues, women disguised as men, occult societies, philosophical discussions, and, of course, passionate romance.

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology After the King: Stories in Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien (1992), edited by Martin H. Greenberg. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixth Annual Collection (1993), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. The story was reprinted in Fantasy Magazine, October 2014.

Wyatt Earp. Doc Holliday. Ike Clanton.

You think you know the story. You don't.

Tombstone, Arizona in 1881 is the site of one of the richest mineral strikes in American history, where veins of silver run like ley lines under the earth, a network of power that belongs to anyone who knows how to claim and defend it.

Above the ground, power is also about allegiances. A magician can drain his friends' strength to strengthen himself, and can place them between him and danger. The one with the most friends stands to win the territory.

Jesse Fox left his Eastern college education to travel West, where he's made some decidedly odd friends, like the physician Chow Lung, who insists that Jesse has a talent for magic. In Tombstone, Jesse meets the tubercular Doc Holliday, whose inner magic is as suppressed as his own, but whose power is enough to attract the sorcerous attention of Wyatt Earp.

Mildred Benjamin is a young widow making her living as a newspaper typesetter, and -- unbeknownst to the other ladies of Tombstone -- selling tales of Western derring-do to the magazines back East. Like Jesse, Mildred has episodes of seeing things that can't possibly be there.

When a failed stage holdup results in two dead, Tombstone explodes with speculation about who attempted the robbery. The truth could destroy Earp's plans for wealth and glory, and he'll do anything to bury it. Meanwhile, outlaw leader John Ringo wants the same turf as Earp. Each courts Jesse as an ally, and tries to isolate him by endangering his friends, as they struggle for magical dominance of the territory.

Events are building toward the shootout of which you may have heard. But you haven't heard the whole, secret story until you've read Emma Bull's unique take on an American legend, in which absolutely nothing is as it seems...

When his home planet is besieged by agents of the Central Worlds Concorde, star-pilot Niki Falcon resumes taking the deadly drug that is the source of his power and must choose between saving his planet and destroying himself.

Acclaimed by critics and readers on its first publication in 1987, winner of the Locus Award for Best First Novel, Emma Bull's War for the Oaks is one of the novels that has defined modern urban fantasy.

Eddi McCandry sings rock and roll. But her boyfriend just dumped her, her band just broke up, and life could hardly be worse. Then, walking home through downtown Minneapolis on a dark night, she finds herself drafted into an invisible war between the faerie folk. Now, more than her own survival is at risk—and her own preferences, musical and personal, are very much beside the point.

By turns tough and lyrical, fabulous and down-to-earth, War for the Oaks is a fantasy novel that's as much about this world as about the other one. It's about real love and loyalty, about real music and musicians, about false glamour and true art. It will change the way you hear and see your own daily life.

Contents:

• Liavek (map) - interior artwork by Jack Wickwire
• Badu's Luck - novelette by Emma Bull
• The Green Rabbit from S'Rian - short story by Gene Wolfe
• Ancient Curses - short story by Patricia C. Wrede
• Birth Luck - short story by Nancy Kress
• An Act of Contrition - short story by Steven Brust
• The Inn of the Demon Camel - short story by Jane Yolen
• The Hands of the Artist - short story by Kara Dalkey
• The Green Cat - novelette by Pamela Dean
• A Coincidence of Birth - novelette by Megan Lindholm
• Bound Things - short story by Will Shetterly
• The Fortune Maker - novella by Barry B. Longyear
• Appendix One: A Tourist's Guide to Liavek in the Year 3317 - uncredited essay
• Appendix Two: A Magician's Primer - uncredited essay
• Appendix Three: Liavek: A Creation Myth - uncredited essay

Contents:

• Liavek (map) - (1985) - interior artwork by Jack Wickwire
• A Happy Birthday - short story by Will Shetterly
• Before the Paint is Dry - novelette by Kara Dalkey
• The Rat's Alley Shuffle - short story by Charles de Lint
• Two Houses in Saltigos - novelette by Pamela Dean
• Rikiki and the Wizard - short story by Patricia C. Wrede
• Dry Well - short story by Nathan A. Bucklin
• Dry Well - poem by Alison Bucklin
• Choice of the Black Goddess - novelette by Gene Wolfe
• The Ballad of the Quick Levars - poem by Jane Yolen
• Pot Luck - novelette by Megan Lindholm
• Show of Faith - short story by Gregory Frost
• An Act of Trust - short story by Steven Brust
• Ishu's Gift - short story by Charles R. Saunders
• A Cup of Worrynot Tea - novella by John M. Ford
• The Well-Made Plan - novelette by Emma Bull

Contents:

• Liavek (map) - (1985) - interior artwork by Jack Wickwire
• An Act of Mercy - short story by Megan Lindholm and Steven Brust
• Green Is the Color - novella by John M. Ford
• Paint the Meadows With Delight - novelette by Pamela Dean
• The World in the Rock - story by Kara Dalkey
• Baker's Dozen - novelette by Bradley Denton
• Cenedwine Brocade - short story by Caroline Stevermer
• A Hypothetical Lizard - novelette by Alan Moore
• Training Ground - novelette by Nancy Kress
• City of Luck - poem by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple
• Appendix One: A Liavekan Songbook - essay by uncredited
• The Ballad of the Quick Levars (song) - poem by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple
• Eel Island Shoals - poem by John M. Ford
• Pot-boil Blues - poem by John M. Ford
• A Handbook for the Apprentice Magician - essay by Will Shetterly and Emma Bull

Contents:

• Spells of Binding (Map) - interior artwork by Jack Wickwire
• Riding the Hammer - (1988) - novelette by John M. Ford
• Portrait of Vengeance - (1988) - novelette by Kara Dalkey
• The Skin and Knife Game - (1988) - novelette by Charles de Lint and Lee Barwood
• Strings Attached - novelette by Nathan A. Bucklin
• The Last Part of the Tragical History of Acrilat - novelette by Pamela Dean
• Mad God - novelette by Patricia C. Wrede
• The Tale of the Stuffed Levar - short story by Jane Yolen/li>
• An Act of Love - novella by Steven Brust and Gregory Frost and Megan Lindholm
• Spells of Binding - (1988) - poem by Pamela Dean

Contents:

• Festival Week (maps) - interior artwork by Jack Wickwire
• Consequences - (1988) - novella by Walter Jon Williams
• As Bright as New Coppers - (1990) - novelette by Bradley Denton
• The Grand Festival: Sestina - (1990) - poem by John M. Ford
• Divination Day: Invocation - (1990) - poem by John M. Ford
• A Hot Night at Cheeky's - (1990) - short story by Steven Brust
• Birth Day: Sonnet - (1990) - poem by John M. Ford
• A Prudent Obedience - (1990) - novelette by Kara Dalkey
• Procession Day/Remembrance Night: Processional/Recessional - (1990) - poem by John M. Ford
• A Necessary End - (1990) - novella by Pamela Dean
• Bazaar Day: Ballad - (1990) - poem by John M. Ford
• The True Tale of Count Dashif's Demise - (1990) - short story by Jane Yolen
• Festival Day: Catechism - (1990) - poem by John M. Ford
• Six Days Outside the Year - (1990) - novelette by Will Shetterly
• The Levar's Night Out - (1988) - novelette by Patricia C. Wrede
• Restoration Day: Plainsong - (1990) - poem by John M. Ford