Search Worlds Without End

Abe's best short works to date are presented here in this well-crafted collection of fiction which explores many of modern man's dilemmas in an insightful, yet highly surrealistic style. Called by The New York Times, 'The best Japanese novelist [since] Mishima and Kawabata...', Abe is one of the most highly regarded writers in Japan today.

Partial Table of Contents:

An Irrelevant Death
The Dream Soldier
Dendrocalia
The Special Envoy
The Crime of S. Karma

BEYOND THE BEYOND

Tomorrow--and the day after. When men are scattered like dust between the galaxies...

In these six full-length novellas, never before published in book form, Hugo Award-winner Poul Anderson creates all the chilling terror and distant hope of man's last frontier--the bast wilderness between the stars!

MEMORY: They peeled his mind from his body and sent him to enslave the planet of his own people...

DAY OF BURNING: An interplanetary Mafia is chosen to save a strange civilization from a Supernova...

BRAKE: Only one thing could stop the ship at such a speed. But wtih the Solar System in upheaval, who would try?

THE SENSITIVE MAN: A world balances on the brink of a new dasw--or a new Dark Age. And one man can push it wither way...

THE MOONRAKERS: The were space pirates with dreams of Empire--nomads from the far edge of the system who must be stopped.

STARFOG: the ship was trapped in a corner of space so crowded with stars that nothing could penetrate the deadly, glowing fog...

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Memory - (1957) - novelette
• 43 - Brake - [Psychotechnic League] - (1957) - novelette
• 78 - Day of Burning - [David Falkayn] - (1967) - novelette (variant of Supernova)
• 120 - The Sensitive Man - [Psychotechnic League] - (1954) - novella
• 174 - The Moonrakers - (1966) - novelette
• 207 - Starfog - [Technic History] - (1967) - novella

Enter into the world of the future where human potential is fulfilled to hitherto unexpected and unexplored dimensions.

Here are nine fantastic stories that run the gamut of ultimate imagination: A young woman whose mental condition makes her think the world is all wonderful; a time when space travelers from Earth are all female and cloned; the decision to destroy Ana; a fairy tale of tomorrow, of the Sidhe, beyond death under the waters of the lake.

Also included are marvelous tales of the dynamic directions that "thought experiments" have taken; the discovery of a new home for the human race--after the holocaust, a time when electronic secrets must be traded for food; the search for the beginning of the world; and a society where test-tube babies have three mothers who can be female or male.

Contributors include Raccoona Sheldon, James Tiptree, Jr., Dave Skal, Mildred Downey Broxon, Ursule K. Le Guin, Joanna Russ, P. J. Plauger, Craig Strete, and Marge Piercy.

Table of Contents:

• Feminism and Science Fiction: Beyond BEMs and Boobs - essay by Susan Janice Anderson
• Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light! - short story by Raccoona Sheldon
• Houston, Houston, Do You Read? - novella by James Tiptree, Jr.
• The Mothers, the Mothers, How Eerily It Sounds - short story by David J. Skal
• The Antrim Hills - novelette by Mildred Downey Broxon
• Is Gender Necessary? - essay by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Corruption - short story by Joanna Russ
• Here Be Dragons - short story by P. J. Plauger
• Why Has the Virgin Mary Never Entered the Wigwam of Standing Bear? - short story by Craig Strete
• Woman on the Edge of Time - novelette by Marge Piercy
• Other Works of Interest - essay
• About the Authors - essay

Yoshio Kawashita is a great warrior until aliens whisk him away during World War II. They put him on a desolate planet far from his home, where he is destined to remain forever, leaving him alone in his new hell. Then Anna Nestor appears. This empress does not see planets as homes for their inhabitants; she sees exploitable real estate. Anna Nestor views Kawashita as a sideshow attraction until they fall in love. But the two lovebirds cannot be free until they find out who kidnapped Kawashita and why.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, January 2016.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword: Losing One's Virginity (Bell, Book & Beyond: An Anthology of Witchy Tales) - essay by S. P. Somtow
• Introduction: Something Wiccan This Way Comes (Bell, Book & Beyond: An Anthology of Witchy Tales) - essay by P. D. Cacek
• 1 - The Child's Tale - short story by Carole Nomarhas
• 10 - The Power Lunch - short story by Janet L. Hetherington
• 27 - Six Guns & Six Spells - short story by Paul Victor Wargelin
• 47 - A Dichotomy of Belief - short story by Michael Oliveri
• 57 - Spiders Grace All of Me - short story by Michelle Scalise
• 68 - As Promised - short story by Walt Jarvis
• 80 - Madly, Deeply - short story by Greg Kishbaugh
• 97 - Le Bête Est Morte - short story by Nicholas Kaufmann
• 115 - That Old Black Magic - short story by John R. Platt
• 125 - Stadium Square - short story by Eric Gregg
• 142 - Elena - short story by David A. DeFalco
• 149 - Hattie's Head - short story by Kelli Campbell
• 163 - Her Place - short story by Joel Ross
• 176 - Endemoniada - short story by William O'Donnell
• 191 - The Nice House - short story by L. H. Maynard and M. P. N. Sims
• 208 - Heavy Sybil - short story by Bob Beideman
• 221 - Harm None - short story by Dean H. Wild
• 235 - The Island - short story by Whitt Pond
• 253 - Trailertrash Annie - short story by Peter N. Dudar
• 263 - The Power Doctor - short story by Ward Parker
• 275 - Celia - short story by R. Michael Burns

Table of Contents:

• 11 - Introduction (Weird Shadows from Beyond) - essay by John Carnell
• 13 - Danse Macabre - (1963) - short story by Mervyn Peake
• 23 - Blood Offering - (1961) - short story by John Kippax
• 39 - Same Time, Same Place - (1963) - short story by Mervyn Peake
• 49 - Master of Chaos - [The Elric Saga] - (1964) - short story by Michael Moorcock
• 63 - Wednesday's Child - [Child's Play - 2] - (1956) - short story by William Tenn
• 83 - Dial 'O' for Operator - (1958) - novelette by Robert Presslie
• 101 - The Flowers of the Forest - (1957) - short story by Brian W. Aldiss (variant of Flowers of the Forest)
• 111 - Fresh Guy - (1958) - short story by E. C. Tubb
• 127 - The Garden of Paris - short story by Eric C. Williams [as by Eric Williams]
• 145 - The Graveyard Reader - (1958) - short story by Theodore Sturgeon

Professor Pritchard Leigh had been considered a brilliant scientist until his ill-fated attempt to conquer the speed of light had resulted in a fatal rocket launching. He was then shunned by the scientific community at large. But two elderly world-renowned scholars, Martin and Martha Madison, still had faith in him. Together, at a secret mountain laboratory called “Meteor Mountain,” the three of them undertook a project to discover the secret of eternal youth. The plan involved Martha and Martin traveling in a spaceship past Saturn and back again. Their speeds would be in excess of the speed of light.

But to correct the problems of his earlier failure, Professor Leigh had to employ the help of a cranky old scientist named Burgess Wood—a man who still pined for the lost love of his youth—Martha Madison herself. And as the countdown commenced, Burgess Wood knew that the woman he still loved might be moments away from eternal youth, or a rocket ride to death…

Table of Contents:

• 9 - Beyond Infinity - novella by Robert S. Carr
• 89 - Morning Star - (1947) - novelette by Robert S. Carr
• 135 - Those Men from Mars - novelette by Robert S. Carr (variant of Easter Eggs 1949)
• 219 - Mutation - short story by Robert S. Carr

Table of Contents:

• A Sort of Introduction, Called Here, and Back Again - (1969) - essay
• Masters of the Metropolis - (1956) - shortstory by Randall Garrett and Lin Carter
• Owlstone - (1969) - shortstory
• Keru - (1969) - shortstory
• The Hand of Nergal - (1967) - novelette by Robert E. Howard and Lin Carter
• Harvey Hodges, Veebelfetzer - (1969) - novelette
• Uncollected Works - (1965) - shortstory
• The Mantichore - (1969) - shortstory
• A Few Last Words - (1969) - essay

Connor is a food crafter just getting back into the business after his mother's death. To cope with his grief, Connor spends day after day recreating her potstickers, but they are never quite what he remembers. To move on with his life, he will have to confront his past.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Is the entire universe just one of the atoms of some even greater cosmos? Such was the conception of one scientist - and his effort to prove this theory was to take a party of Americans on an expdition to a place that was literally "Beyond the Stars".

Some super-science is developed which will make a spaceship far exceed the speed of light, and expand at the same time, and at a fantastic rate. The goal is to find the next level UP, wherein our universe is composed of their atoms.

Consider the possibilities when the mind and body are things of the past.

These cutting-edge techno-tales by Poul Anderson, Greg Egan, Michael Swanwick, and other masters explore the infinite ways that new technology will free humankind from the boundaries of the flesh.

Table of Contents:

• Preface - (2002) - essay by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann
• Call Me Joe - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• Learning to Be Me - (1990) - shortstory by Greg Egan
• Pretty Boy Crossover - (1986) - shortstory by Pat Cadigan
• Ancient Engines - (1999) - shortstory by Michael Swanwick
• Winemaster - (1999) - novelette by Robert Reed
• More Adventures on Other Planets - (2001) - novelette by Michael Cassutt
• Nevermore - (1997) - novelette by Ian R. MacLeod
• Approaching Perimelasma - (1998) - novelette by Geoffrey A. Landis
• The Gravity Mine - (2000) - shortstory by Stephen Baxter
• Reef - (2000) - novelette by Paul J. McAuley

The future isn't through with you yet.

Featuring stellar contributions from some of today's most masterful practitioners of speculative fiction, Beyond Singularity presents fourteen visions of a tomorrow where rapid technological and genetic breakthroughs have rendered humanity obsolete.

Table of Contents:

• Preface - essay by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
• Old Hundredth - (1960) - short story by Brian W. Aldiss
• Border Guards - (1999) - novelette by Greg Egan
• Rogue Farm - (2003) - short story by Charles Stross
• All Tomorrow's Parties - (1997) - short story by Paul J. McAuley
• Naturals - (2003) - novelette by Gregory Benford
• Osmund Considers - (2002) - short story by Timons Esaias
• Coelacanths - (2002) - novelette by Robert Reed
• The Dog Said Bow-Wow - (2001) - short story by Michael Swanwick
• Barry Westphall Crashes the Singularity - (2002) - short fiction by James Patrick Kelly
• Flowers from Alice - (2003) - novelette by Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow
• Tracker - (2004) - novelette by Mary Rosenblum
• Steps Along the Way - (1999) - short story by Eric Brown
• The Millennium Party - (2002) - short fiction by Walter Jon Williams
• The Voluntary State - (2004) - novelette by Christopher Rowe

Marta, a graduate student researching indigenous life on isolationist Dray's Planet, discovers an animal that can't be indigenous, but which can't have come from anywhere else. The puzzle convinces the Children of the Second Revelation to bring two Unbelievers into their closed society. As the rival offworld scientists trek into the harsh desert to determine the creature's origins, Marta stumbles onto another mystery: why do folk tales speak of roarings and screechings from the planet's second continent, the uninhabitable Land Beyond the Gates? And why are the Faithful forbidden to set foot there?

Religious leaders will not sanction a trip to the uncharted land they deem uninhabitable. Marta must keep her expedition from coming to their attention, while keeping her difficult offworlders on task. After that, uncovering the secrets of the prohibited place ought to be the easy part. But they still have to live to tell the tale...

Where is the border between life and non-life, between living organism and lifeless rock? This is the story if a man and a woman--both scientists, both dedicated to peace--who first discovered the living Water and knew they had found the great and terrible secret of the source of all life...

...Great because their discovery opened out into a future of opportunity and abundance.

...Terrible because the living Water intensified men's inherent tendencies for good or for evil. As individuals, they were free to drink the living Water...if they dared. As scientists they faced a graver problem. What would the world make of their discovery: another Hell...

...or another Eden?

Contents:

• vii - Introduction (The Mists from Beyond) - essay by Stefan Dziemianowicz
• 11 - The Trial for Murder - (1929) - short story by Charles Dickens (variant of To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt 1865)
• 23 - The Middle Toe of the Right Foot - (1890) - short story by Ambrose Bierce
• 32 - The Judge's House - (1891) - short story by Bram Stoker
• 50 - Afterward - (1910) - novelette by Edith Wharton
• 80 - Smoke Ghost - (1941) - short story by Fritz Leiber
• 96 - The Crowd - (1943) - short story by Ray Bradbury
• 110 - A Little Place Off the Edgware Road - (1939) - short story by Graham Greene
• 116 - The Daemon Lover - (1949) - short story by Shirley Jackson
• 132 - The Man Who Collected Poe - (1951) - short story by Robert Bloch
• 147 - Poor Little Saturday - (1956) - short story by Madeleine L'Engle
• 163 - The Indian - (1963) - short story by John Updike
• 170 - The Legend of Joe Lee - (1964) - short story by John D. MacDonald
• 182 - Cry Havoc - (1976) - short story by Davis Grubb
• 193 - Night-Side - (1977) - novelette by Joyce Carol Oates
• 219 - This Is Death - (1977) - short story by Donald E. Westlake (variant of In at the Death)
• 233 - The Making of Revelation, Part I - (1980) - novelette by Philip José Farmer?
• 249 - But at My Back I Will Always Hear - (1990) - short story by David Morrell (variant of But at My Back I Always Hear 1983)
• 265 - Laugh Track - (1984) - short story by Harlan Ellison
• 285 - Confession of a (Pornographer's) Shroud - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker
• 319 - The Ghost Village - [Blue Rose (Peter Straub)] - (1992) - novelette by Peter Straub

Why should New Morning School, in the year 2004, suddenly attract so much attention? Surely, by this time the Intensive Therapy theory upon which the school has been built has proved to be successful in turning out well-adjusted graduates to help augment the government's growing powers. And since the founder and guiding spirit is in his eighties, the whole program is bound to die a natural death soon anyway.

But somewhere there's trouble, and it centers around a strange mutant named August. Just entering his teens, he seems to be coming into possession of ominous powers... in particular, an ability that allows him to fuse himself physically with other human beings. They, as a result, can see with his eyes and feel with his senses -- enabling them to understand, and come to love, each other.

But August's ability to facilitate human understanding and cooperation is not universally welcomed, and his potential as a superweapon makes him a threat...

Contents:

• 7 - Introduction (Of Worlds Beyond) - essay by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach
• 9 - On the Writing of Speculative Fiction - essay by Robert A. Heinlein
• 18 - Writing a Science Novel - essay by John Taine
• 34 - The Logic of Fantasy - essay by Jack Williamson
• 47 - Complication in the Science Fiction Story - essay by A. E. van Vogt
• 63 - Humor in Science Fiction - essay by L. Sprague de Camp
• 73 - The Epic of Space - essay by Edward E. Smith
• 84 - The Science of Science Fiction Writing - essay by John W. Campbell, Jr.

Three times Alan MacDougall had passed through the strange Gates in the ruined Scottish tower to find himself in the worlds of Lucifer, where the demon-gods lived on. There, unknown to them, Ahriman ruled as lieutenant to the Prince of Evil--and sought to entrap Alan into serving his Master's foul plots of conquest.

Now the fourth Gate waited. Alan's only friend in Lucifer's twisted lands, the Bard Taliesin, had already passed it. But Alan lingered beside his beloved Elspeth. Then he stepped through.

This time, as he and Taliesin made their way through the realms of the fourth land, the dark magics of forbidden mysteries were shown Alan, but nothing he could use against Ahriman's determined effort to force Alan to lead Lucifer's legion to universal domination.

When Alan sought to flee back through the Gate, he found that it had vanished. For him and Taliesin, there was now no escape!

This short story originally appeared in Fantastic Adventures, March 1952. It has been collected and anthologized several times.

It was the basis for episode 25 (1960) of The Twilight Zone.

A Desperate Mission

One hundred and fifty earth years had passed since Norman Grey first plunged his terran starship into the infinity of outer space. His mission: to find a new world for the people of the doomed earth before mankind was blown to bits.

He had visited many strange and cruel worlds during his endless journey. He had seen creatures more horrible and weird than any human mind could imagine. Still he hadn't found a new home for the human race. And time was running out.

Table of Contents:

• ix - Introduction (Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time) - essay by Theodore Sturgeon
• xiii - Editor's Preface (Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time) - essay by Judith Merril
• 3 - Wolf Pack - short story by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• 19 - No One Believed Me - short story by Will Thompson
• 35 - Perforce to Dream - short story by John Wyndham
• 49 - The Laocoön Complex - short story by J. C. Furnas
• 61 - Crazy Joey - short story by Alex Apostolides and Mark Clifton
• 79 - The Golden Man - novelette by Philip K. Dick
• 111 - Malice Aforethought - short story by Donald A. Wollheim
• 117 - The Last Séance - short story by Agatha Christie
• 131 - Medicine Dancer - short story by Bill Brown
• 137 - Behold It Was a Dream - short story by Rhoda Broughton
• 153 - Belief - novelette by Isaac Asimov
• 185 - The Veldt - short story by Ray Bradbury
• 199 - Mr. Kinkaid's Pasts - short story by John R. Pierce
• 209 - The Warning - short story by Peter Phillips
• 215 - The Ghost of Me - short story by Anthony Boucher
• 231 - The Wall Around the World - novelette by Theodore R. Cogswell
• 257 - Operating Instructions - short story by Robert Sheckley
• 275 - Interpretation of a Dream - short story by John Collier
• 283 - Defense Mechanism - short story by Katherine MacLean
• 291 - Bibliography (Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time) - essay by Judith Merril

However fantastic it may seem, the society so elaborately described in this story has its seeds in ours. Just check the data...

This novella is contained in the collections:

• Living Way Out, By Wyman Guinn, 1967 ** There is a variant title of this called "Beyond Bedlam" not to be confused with this Novella
• Spectrum II, By Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest, 1963
• Beyond Bedlam, by Wyman Guin (1973)
• The Arbor House Treasury of Great Science Fiction Short Novels, By Martin H. Greenberg and Robert Silverberg, 1980

Table of Contents:

• A Man of the Renaissance - (1964) - novelette
• My Darling Hecate - (1953) - short story
• The Delegate from Guapanga - (1964) - novelette
• The Root and the Ring
• Trigger Tide - (1950) - short story
• Volpla - (1956) - novelette
• Beyond Bedlam - (1951) - novella
• The Evidence for Whooping Cranes - short story

Once upon a time, the stories that came to be known as "fairy tales" were cultivated to entertain adults more than children; it was only later that they were tamed and pruned into less thorny versions intended for youngsters. But in truth, they have continued to prick the imaginations of readers at all ages.

Over the years, authors have often borrowed bits and pieces from these stories, grafting them into their own writing, creating literature with both new meaning and age-old significance. In the last few decades or so, they've also intentionally retold and reinvented the tales in a variety of ways--delightful or dark, wistful or wicked, sweet or satirical--that forge new trails through the forests of fantastic fiction.

This new anthology compiles some of the best modern fairy-tale retellings and reinventions from award-winning and bestselling authors, acclaimed storytellers, and exciting new talents, into an enchanting collection. Explore magical new realms by traveling with us, Beyond the Woods...

Table of Contents:

• Tanith Lee - "Red as Blood" (Nebula Award nomination, 1980)
• Gene Wolfe - "In the House of Gingerbread" (World Fantasy Award nomination, 1988)
• Angela Slatter - "The Bone Mother"
• Elizabeth Bear - "Follow Me Light"
• Yoon Ha Lee - "Coin of Hearts Desire"
• Nalo Hopkinson - "The Glass Bottle Trick"
• Catherynne M. Valente - "The Maiden Tree"
• Holly Black - "Coat of Stars"
• Caitlín R. Kiernan - "Road of Needles"
• Kelly Link - "Travels with the Snow Queen" (World Fantasy Award nomination, 1999)
• Karen Joy Fowler - "Halfway People"
• Margo Lanagan - "Catastrophic Disruption of the Head"
• Shveta Thakrar - "Lavanya and Deepika"
• Theodora Goss - "Princess Lucinda and the Hound of the Moon"
• Gardner Dozois - "Fairy Tale"
• Peter S. Beagle - "The Queen Who Could Not Walk"
• Priya Sharma - "Lebkuchen"
• Neil Gaiman - "Diamonds and Pearls: A Fairy Tale"
• Richard Bowes - "The Queen and the Cambion"
• Octavia Cade - "The Mussel Eater"
• Jane Yolen - "Memoirs of a Bottle Djinn"
• Steve Duffy - "Bears: A Fairy Tale of 1958"
• Charles de Lint -"The Moon Is Drowning While I Sleep" (World Fantasy Award nomination, 1994)
• Veronica Schanoes - "Rats"
• Rachel Swirsky - "Beyond the Naked Eye"
• Ken Liu - "Good Hunting"
• Kirstyn McDermott - "The Moon's Good Grace"
• Peter Straub - "The Juniper Tree"
• Jeff VanderMeer - "Greensleeves"
• Tanith Lee - "Beauty

The millions of fans of Lazarus Long—probably Heinlein's most beloved character—will flock to this new tale, which continues adventures of the characters of The Cat Who Walked Through Walls. From the author of Stranger in a Strange Land and Time Enough for Love.

Firsten Guide is a tough, wise-cracking rebel leader who's light years ahead of his time--and about to lead his crew into a battle that's Beyond All Weapons.

He and his fellow colonizers of Mars have faced a brutal crackdown engineered by Earth's tyrannical government. But the resourceful Firsten has developed an extraordinary new fuel that enables him and his hardy band to escape into space--and time.

Escape, however, is not enough. Firsten wants revenge. But the universe is full of unexpected twists and turns. Just as Prometheus flew too close to the sun, Firsten will soon discover that when you attempt to break the laws of physics, you can get burned.

Also includes the science fiction adventures "Strain," the story of a space war's brutality and one man's struggle to keep a secret under the pain of torture; and "The Invaders," in which the distant crystal mines are under attack until a technician crystallizes a unique strategy to undermine the attackers.

Contents:

• Beyond All Weapons - (1950) - short story
• Strain - (1942) - short story
• The Invaders - (1942) - novelette

In Ashtown, a rough-and-tumble desert community, the Emperor rules with poisoned claws and an iron fist. He can't show any sign of weakness, as the neighboring Wiley City has spent lifetimes beating down the people of Ashtown and would love nothing more than its downfall. There's only one person in the desert the Emperor can fully trust -- and her name is Scales.

Scales is the best at what she does: keeping everyone and everything in line. As a skilled mechanic--and an even more skilled fighter, when she needs to be--Scales is a respected member of the Emperor's crew, who's able to keep things running smoothly. But the fragile peace Scales helps to maintain is fractured when a woman is mangled and killed before her eyes. Even more incomprehensible: There doesn't seem to be a murderer.

When more bodies start to turn up, both in Ashtown and in the wealthier, walled-off Wiley City, Scales is tasked with finding the cause -- and putting an end to it by any means necessary. To protect the people she loves, she teams up with a frustratingly by-the-books partner from Ashtown and a brusque-but-brilliant scientist from the City, delving into both worlds to track down an invisible killer.

But the answers Scales finds are bigger than she ever could have imagined, leading her into the brutal heart beneath Wiley City's pristine façade and dredging up secrets from her own past that she would rather keep hidden. If she wants to save the world from the earth-shattering truths she uncovers, she can no longer remain silent -- even if speaking up costs her everything.

Beyond the Barrier tells the story of a physics professor in 1980 who begins to doubt that he is a human being. He imagines that he may have been sent from another world to rescue Earth; or perhaps to destroy it. Solving the mystery takes him far into the future.

Table of Contents:

• Everybody Knows Joe - (1953) - shortstory
• Kazam Collects - (1941) - shortstory
• Make Mine Mars - (1952) - novelette
• Passion Pills - shortstory
• Shark Ship - novelette (variant of Reap the Dark Tide)
• The Adventurer - (1953) - shortstory
• The Events Leading Down to the Tragedy - (1958) - shortstory
• The Last Man Left in the Bar - (1957) - shortstory
• The Little Black Bag - (1950) - novelette
• The Meddlers - (1953) - shortstory
• The Slave - (1957) - novelette
• The Words of Guru - (1941) - shortstory
• Time Bum - (1953) - shortstory
• Two Dooms - (1958) - novella
• Virginia - (1958) - shortstory

Like a great, lethal snake, plague creeps through the galaxies. No conscious entity can halt its progress, and life is slowly draining from planet after planet. Only one super-intelligence is capable of preventing cataclysm. To do it, he must penetrate far beyond infinity-to the formless, deathless creature out to kill the universe. Cosmic terror strikes as a messenger of death sweeps through the universe.

Table of Contents:

• By Way of Introduction (Beyond the Wall of Sleep) - essay by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei
• Autobiography: Some Notes on a Nonentity - essay by H. P. Lovecraft
• The Commonplace Book - (1938) - essay by H. P. Lovecraft (variant of Commonplace Book)
• History and Chronology of the Necronomicon - short fiction (variant of History of the Necronomicon 1938)
• Memory - (1923) - poem
• What the Moon Brings -(1922) - poem
• Nyarlathotep - (1920) - poem
• Ex Oblivione - (1921) - poem
• The Tree - (1921) - short story
• The Other Gods - (1933) - short story
• The Quest of Iranon - (1935) - short story
• The Doom That Came to Sarnath - (1920) - short story
• The White Ship - (1919) - short story
• From Beyond - (1934) - short story
• Beyond the Wall of Sleep - (1919) - short story
• The Unnamable - (1925) - short story
• The Hound - (1924) - short story
• The Moon-Bog - (1926) - short story
• The Evil Clergyman - (1939) - short story
• Herbert West--Reanimator - (1922) - novelette (variant of Herbert West: Reanimator)
• The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath - novella
• The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - novel
• The Crawling Chaos - (1921) - short story by Winifred V. Jackson and H. P. Lovecraft [as by H. P. Lovecraft and Elizabeth Berkeley ]
• The Green Meadow - (1918) - short story by Winifred V. Jackson and H. P. Lovecraft [as by H. P. Lovecraft and Elizabeth Berkeley ]
• The Curse of Yig - short story by H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop [as by Zealia Brown-Reed ]
• The Horror in the Museum - (1933) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald [as by Hazel Heald ]
• Out of the Eons - (1935) - novelette by Hazel Heald and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Hazel Heald ]
• The Mound - novella by H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop [as by Zealia Brown-Reed ]
• The Diary of Alonzo Typer - (1938) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft and William Lumley [as by William Lumley ]
• The Challenge from Beyond - (1935) - short story by H. P. Lovecraft and C. L. Moore and A. Merritt and Robert E. Howard and Frank Belknap Long [as by H. P. Lovecraft and C. L. Moore and A. Merritt and Robert E. Howard and Frank Belknap Long, Jr. ]
• In the Walls of Eryx - (1939) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling
• Ibid - (1938) - short story
• Sweet Ermengarde - short story
• Providence - (1924) - poem
• On a Grecian Colonnade in a Park - (1920) - poem
• Old Christmas - (1918) - poem
• New England Fallen - poem
• On a New England Village Seen by Moonlight - (1915) - poem
• Astrophobos - (1918) - poem
• Sunset - (1917) - poem
• A Year Off - poem
• A Summer Sunset and Evening - (1937) - poem
• To Mistress Sophia Simple, Queen of the Cinema - (1919) - poem
• The Ancient Track - (1930) - poem
• The Eidolon - (1918) - poem
• The Nightmare Lake - (1919) - poem
• The Outpost - (1930) - poem
• The Rutted Road - (1917) - poem
• The Wood - (1929) - poem
• Hallowe'en in a Suburb - (1926) - poem
• Primavera - (1925) - poem
• October - (1920) - poem
• To a Dreamer - (1921) - poem
• Despair - (1919) - poem
• Nemesis - (1918) - poem
• Psychopompos - (1919) - poem
• The Book - (1934) - poem
• Pursuit - (1934) - poem
• The Key - (1935) - poem
• Recognition - (1936) - poem
• Homecoming - (1935) - poem
• The Lamp - (1931) - poem
• Zaman's Hill - (1934) - poem
• The Port - (1930) - poem
• The Courtyard - (1930) - poem
• The Pigeon-Flyers - poem
• The Well - (1930) - poem
• The Howler - (1932) - poem
• Hesperia - (1930) - poem
• Star-Winds - (1930) - poem
• Antarktos - (1930) - poem
• The Window - (1931) - poem
• A Memory - poem
• The Gardens of Yin - (1932) - poem
• The Bells - (1930) - poem
• Night-Gaunts - (1936) - poem
• Nyarlathotep - (1931) - poem
• Azathoth - (1931) - poem
• Mirage - (1931) - poem
• The Canal - (1932) - poem
• The Familiars - (1930) - poem
• The Elder Pharos - (1931) - poem
• Expectancy - poem
• Nostalgia - (1930) - poem
• Background - (1930) - poem
• The Dweller - (1930) - poem
• Alienation - (1931) - poem
• Harbour Whistles - (1930) - poem
• Recapture - (1930) - poem
• Evening Star - poem
• Continuity - (1936) - poem
• Yule Horror - (1926) - poem (variant of Festival 1925)
• 408 - To Mr. Finlay, Upon His Drawing for Mr. Bloch's Tale, "The Faceless God" - (1937) - poem (variant of To Virgil Finlay: Upon His Drawing for Robert Bloch's Tale, "The Faceless God")
• To Clark Ashton Smith, Esq., Upon His Phantastick Tales, Verses, Pictures, and Sculptures - (1938) - poem (variant of To Clark Ashton Smith)
• Where Once Poe Walked - (1937) - poem
• Christmas Greeting to Mrs. Phillips Gamwell--1925 - (1925) - poem
• Brick Row - (1930) - poem
• The Messenger - (1938) - poem
• The Cthulhu Mythology: A Glossary - (1942) - essay by Francis T. Laney
• An Appreciation of H. P. Lovecraft - essay by W. Paul Cook

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2011. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection (2012), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Frost on Glass (2015).

Speculative fiction is the literature of questions, of challenges and imagination, and what better to question than the ways in which gender and sexuality have been rigidly defined, partitioned off, put in little boxes? These seventeen stories explore the ways in which identity can go beyond binary from space colonies to small college towns, from angels to androids, and from a magical past to other worlds entirely, the authors in this collection have brought to life wonderful tales starring people who proudly define (and redefine) their own genders, sexualities, identities, and so much else in between.

Contents:

• Sea of Cortez - Sandra McDonald
• Eye of the Storm - Kelley Eskridge
• Pirate Solutions - Katherine Sparrow
• "A Wild and a Wicked Youth" - Ellen Kushner
• Prosperine When It Sizzles - Tansy Rayner Roberts
• The Faerie Cony-Catcher - Delia Sherman
• Palimpsest - Catherynne M. Valente
• Another Coming - Sonya Taaffe
• Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot - Claire Humphrey
• The Ghost Party - Richard Larson
• Bonehouse - Keffy R. M. Kehrli
• Sex with Ghosts - Sarah Kanning
• Spoiling Veena - Keyan Bowes
• Self-Reflection - Tobi Hill-Meyer
• The Metamorphosis Bud - Liu Wen Zhuang
• Shrödinger's Pussy - Terra LeMay

Colette and Alison are unlikely cohorts: one a shy, drab beanpole of an assistant, the other a charismatic, corpulent psychic whose connection to the spiritual world torments her. When they meet at a fair, Alison invites Colette at once to join her on the road as her personal assistant and companion. Troubles spiral out of control when the pair moves to a suburban wasteland in what was once the English countryside. It is not long before the place beyond black threatens to uproot their lives forever. This is Hilary Mantel at her finest--insightful, darkly comic, unorthodox, and thrilling to read.

It's two hundred thousand years in the future. Humanity is extinct, the ruins of its cities fossilised beneath sediments deposited by rising oceans. After a civilisation of intelligent bears collapsed when a plague turned them into crazed killers, their former slaves, descendants of racoons who call themselves the people and worship Mother Earth, have driven the last of the former masters northward and built a new civilisation.

Peaceful and emphasising harmony with nature and cooperation between its tribes, but with strict divisions between the roles of men and women, it spans the American continent and is beginning to explore the rest of the world. But now, sightings of mysterious visitors are being reported. Are they bears which escaped the plague, a remnant population of human beings, or an unknown intelligent species? Where are they from, and what do they want?

A wide-ranging and entertaining collection of comics with queer characters, in which readers meet intentional and found families, dragon slayers, adventurers of all stripes, and robots deciding who they are going to be.

Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time is a collection of indigenous science fiction and urban fantasy focusing on LGBT and two-spirit characters. These stories range from a transgender woman undergoing an experimental transition process to young lovers separated through decades and meeting in their own far future. These are stories of machines and magic, love and self-love.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Letter from the Editor (Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time) - essay by Hope Nicholson
• 9 - Beyond the Grim Dust of What Was to a Radiant Possibility of What Could Be: Two-Spirit Survivance Stories - essay by Grace L. Dillon
• 12 - Returning to Ourselves: Two Spirit Futures and the Now - essay by Niigaan Sinclair
• 20 - Aliens - short story by Richard Van Camp
• 31 - Legends Are Made, Not Born - short story by Cherie Dimaline
• 38 - Perfectly You - short story by David A. Robertson
• 54 - The Boys Who Became the Hummingbirds - short story by Daniel Heath Justice
• 60 - Né Le!? - short story by Darcie Little Badger
• 77 - Transitions - short story by Gwen Benaway
• 87 - Imposter Syndrome - short story by Mari Kurisato
• 103 - Valediction at the Star View Motel - short story by Nathan Adler
• 116 - Parallax - poem by Cleo Keahna

A classic collection of William F. Nolan's best short stories. "In things beyond midnight the best of William F. Nolan's shock stories have been handsomely gathered and delightfully introduced by Richard Christian Matheson. Nolan delivers dread terror, macabre fun and taut suspense, reflecting keep observation and real knack for knowing what form each story should take. There isn't a loser in the lot." J. N. Willamson

Table of Contents:

• Things Beyond Midnight - interior artwork by J. K. Potter
• Introduction - essay by Richard Christian Matheson
• Author's Preface - essay
• Saturday's Shadow (1979) - novelette
• The Pool (1981) - short story
• Starblood (1972) - short story
• Into the Lion's Den (1956) - non-genre short story
• A Real Nice Guy (1980) - short story
• Death Decision (1981) - short fiction
• Fair Trade (1982) - short story
• He Kilt It with a Stick (1968) - short story
• Violation (1973) - short story
• The Partnership (1980) - short story
• Dead Call (1976) - short story
• The Underdweller (1957) - short story (variant of Small World)
• Something Nasty (1983) - short story
• Lonely Train A'Comin' (1981) - short story (variant of The Train)
• The Zurich Solution (1982) - short story
• One of Those Days (1962) - short story
• Dark Winner (1976) - short story
• Kelly, Fredric Michael: 1928-1990 (1973) - short story
• Coincidence (1974) - short story
• The Party (teleplay) - short fiction

This novella was first published in Clarkesworld Magazine, May 2023.

Read the full story for free at the publisher's website here.

Traces the influences of science-fiction writing on western culture's conception of humankind, writings of such authors as Jules Verne and Robert Heinlein.

The man from outer space. Who was Jon Wood? Jon himself did not know. He was a space orphan, found as an infant abandoned in the outer galaxy.

He grew up an Earthling, with only his mysterious psychic powers to set him apart - until the strange and beautiful creature named Venus Trine gasped out his true identity... and his fearful mission.

Now he knew. And the non-stop adventure and danger began - as Jon hunted and was hunted by the monstrous being, Trog, juggling time and space, leaping the stars and the centuries. For Jon alone could stand up to this evil beyond man's wildest imaginings...

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Constellations: The Best of New British SF (2005), edited by Peter Crowther. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection (2006), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Year's Best SF 11 (2006), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Kramer. The story is included in the collections Zima Blue and Other Stories (2006) and Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds (2016).

This is an amazing collection of some of the best short fiction ever written in the SF genre, by an author acclaimed as 'the mastersinger of space opera' THE TIMES.

With an introduction by noted SF critic Johnathan Strahan, this collection of twenty short stories, novellettes and novellas includes MINLA'S FLOWERS, SIGNAL TO NOISE, TROIKA, and seven previous uncollected stories, including TRAUMA POD, THE WATER THIEF and IN BABELSBERG.

Alastair Reynolds has won the Sidewise Award and been nominated for The Hugo Awards for his short fiction. One of the most thought-provoking and accomplished short-fiction writers of our time, this collection is a delight for all SF readers.

Table of Contents:

• "Great Wall of Mars"
• "Weather"
• "Beyond the Aquila Rift"
• "Minla's Flowers"
• "Zima Blue"
• "Fury"
• "The Star Surgeon's Apprentice"
• "The Sledge-Maker's Daughter"
• "Diamond Dogs"
• "Thousandth Night"
• "Troika"
• "Sleepover"
• "Vainglory"
• "Trauma Pod"
• "The Last Log of the Lachrymosa"
• "The Water Thief"
• "The Old Man and the Martian Sea"
• "In Babelsberg"
• Story notes

Humankind is spread across three thousand light years in a myriad of worlds and habitats known as the Human Entelechy. Linked by a network of wormholes with Earth at its center, it is the world Captain RJ Stone awakens to after a twelve-thousand-year cryogenic suspension.

Stone soon finds himself commanding the maiden voyage of the first spacecraft to break the light speed barrier: the FTL Further. In search of extraterrestrial intelligence, the landing party explores a distant pulsar only to be taken prisoner by the bloodthirsty Iron Mass, a religious sect exiled from the Entelechy millennia before. Now Stone and his crew must escape while they try to solve the riddle of the planet's network of stone towers that may be proof of the intelligence they've come to find.

The first in critically acclaimed author Chris Roberson's scintillating new series, Further: Beyond the Threshold is a fascinating ride to the farthest reaches of the imagination.

For 2,000 years, the starship Astron has search the galaxy for alien life - without success. Now, just as the ship is falling apart, the only direction left to explore is across the Dark, a 100-generation journey through empty space.The ship's captain - immortal, obessed - refuses to abandon the quest. He will cross the Dark, or destroy the ship trying.

Only Sparrow, a young crewman uncertain of his own past, can stand against the captain, and against the lure and challenge of the dark beyond the stars....

Hugo Award nominated short story. It first appeared at Strange Horizons where it can still be read for free. Later anthologized in Rich Horton's Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition (2007), Jonathan Strahan's The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume One (2007) and Gardner Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection. Collected in Ant King and Other Stories (2008).

A challenging, mesmerising young adult novel that brings role-playing dice games, the nuclear nightmare, a phantom graffiti artist and a curious alien anthropologist together in a remote beachside town. A Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year for Older Readers, Beyond the Labyrinth is a devastating exploration of chance, fate, and love.

Life is difficult enough for Brenton. He can't get on with his parents, his younger brother is overtaking him in every way and now twelve-year-old Victoria must come and live with them too. Together they meet a stranger on the beach, speaking an unknown language and carrying bewildering technology. This turbulent, powerful novel follows Brenton as he loses himself in his beloved role playing games where the fantasy dangerously shadows real life.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Rage of the Behemoth (2009) edited by Jason M. Waltz. It was reprinted in Lightspeed, October 2012.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Each of these four brand new stories from Alan Peter Ryan -- the acclaimed author of The Kill, The Bone Wizard, and Amazonas -- feature men who are haunted by different demons in different places and different times...

In Brazil, there are signs that say "Sexual Exploration Is a Crime," and Jerry Crenshaw has traveled to the country in search of a girlfriend. He finds one and he has never known a girl like Renata. She is friendly and vivacious. She stands very close to him and looks up straight into his eyes and keeps one hand resting lightly on his arm. But Jerry's going to find a lot more in Brazil than he bargained for, including something in a bag that will change his world forever....

"The Winter's Tale" tells the story of a man who lives by a churchyard that is widely and firmly reputed to be the haunt of sprites and goblins. The man cares not for such tales, but he should have paid heed to the warnings because he's about to find out the hard way that he is not alone in the cold winter night...

In "Starvation Valley," a man and his son are on a cross country drive that is not going according to plan when they end up at a place called Janey's, which may or may not be real. It certainly feels real while they're there, but when the man goes back to find it again, he learns that some places in the world, once visited and then left behind, seem never to have existed at all...

In "Mountain Man," there's an old man named Hiram Fuller whose hands are thin and gray with dirt, the nails long and broken, each with a black crescent of dirt. He reeks to high heaven, not just of old sweat but of something thick and suffocating like the smell of a savage animal unwillingly caged... and when you meet him on the old trail he says he "ate his horse," and he "might just have to eat you as well..."

Journey with Alan Peter Ryan into the darkness that resides within all of these men... but don't travel too far off the path because you might not find your way home again.

Table of Contents:

• Sexual Exploration Is a Crime - novelette
• The Winter's Tale - novelette
• Starvation Valley - novelette
• Mountain Man - novella

A star-flung empire the prize - in a deadly war of succession.

Once man had ruled Earth. His intelligence and skill had multiplied his power a billion times. He was supreme..........

But that was long ago, before technology had become master of its creator. Now a monstruous tyranny had risen, its shadow falling over every moment of every life..........

How could Jones hope to defeat this overwhelming force? What chance had one lone man against the vast tidal wave of unreason about to swallow up all mankind?

JOURNEY BEYOND TOMORROW, tells the tale of a Picaresque journey through an imagined future taken by a naive and innocent man unprepared for the wonders and oddities he encounters. Sheckley examines the present through the distorting lens of a future wonderfully skewed from and yet darkly, hilariously similar to our own world.

Also published under the title The Journey of Joenes.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1986) - essay
• Capricorn Games - (1974) - novelette
• The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov IV - (1974) - shortstory
• Ishmael in Love - (1970) - shortstory
• Trips - (1974) - novelette
• Schwartz Between the Galaxies - (1974) - novelette
• Many Mansions - (1973) - novelette
• Good News from the Vatican - (1971) - shortstory
• In the Group - (1973) - shortstory
• The Feast of St. Dionysus - (1973) - novella
• Caught in the Organ Draft - (1972) - shortstory
• {Now + n, Now - n} - (1972) - novelette
• Caliban - (1972) - shortstory
• Getting Across - (1973) - novelette
• Breckenridge and the Continuum - (1973) - novelette
• In the House of Double Minds - (1974) - novelette
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame - (1973) - shortstory
• The Wind and the Rain - (1973) - shortstory
• A Sea of Faces - (1974) - shortstory
• What We Learned from This Morning's Newspaper - (1972) - shortstory
• Ship-Sister, Star-Sister - (1973) - novelette
• When We Went to See the End of the World - (1972) - shortstory
• Push No More - (1972) - novelette
• Some Notes on the Pre-Dynastic Epoch - (1973) - shortstory
• In Entropy's Jaws - (1971) - novelette
• Ms. Found in an Abandoned Time Machine - (1973) - shortstory
• The Mutant Season - (1973) - shortstory
• This Is the Road - (1973) - novella

Table of Contents:

• About Robert Silverberg - essay by Isaac Asimov
• Introduction - essay by Robert Silverberg
• The Old Man - (1957) - shortstory
• New Men for Mars - (1957) - novelette
• Collecting Team - (1956) - shortstory
• Double Dare - (1956) - shortstory
• The Overlord's Thumb - (1958) - novelette
• Ozymandias - (1958) - shortstory
• Certainty - (1959) - shortstory
• Mind for Business - (1956) - shortstory
• Misfit - (1957) - shortstory

Valley Beyond Time- Four shattering excursions out of this worls, into the future and beyond the furthest reaches of imagination. -where men are but flies to gods unknown, where weapons that don't exist cand kill, where honor can be the deadliest of virtues and where man lives in terror of ever-encouching youth.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1973) - essay
• Valley Beyond Time - (1957) - novella
• The Flame and the Hammer - (1957) - novella
• The Wages of Death - (1958) - novelette
• Spacerogue - (1958) - novelette

This story originally appeared in the anthology Ruins Extraterrestrial (2007), edited by Eric T. Reynolds. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (2008), edited by Gardner Dozois.

This collection, including the famous "Abreaction" and "Like Young", shows Sturgeon at the peak of his mastery of mind and heart expanding story telling.

Table of Contents:

• Need - (1960)
• Abreaction - (1948)
• Nightmare Island - (1941)
• Largo - (1947)
• The Bones - (1943)
• Like Young - (1960)

An agent, sent to a distant planet where those with telepathic powers are banished, and ordered to find the person with the ability to move objects by thought, discovers to his horror that he is telepathic.

Mission: Delivery of the first permanent station to the moon and putting it into operation. It should have been Go all the way. Lift-off was perfect. Moon orbit a-ok. But then Chuck Logan got sick from the weightlessness and Apollo 2 had to get back to earth fast, Big Lander, the space station was swinging in yaw, cartwheeling in the horizontal plane. A hundred million dollars' worth of complex equipment functioned perfectly, then a fifty-cent part failed. Would they have to abort? Tension mount s as Martin Clay, command pilot of Apollo 1, has to make some quick and startling decisions.

Contains:

• Vault of the Beast
• The Great Engine
• The Great Judge
• Secret Unattainable
• The Harmonizer
• Heir Unapparent
• The Second Solution
• Film Library
• Asylum

WFA winning novella. It originally appeared in Whispers #15-16, March 1982. The story can also be found in the anthologies Whispers V (1985), edited by Stuart David Schiff, The Mammoth Book of Vampires (1992), edited by Stephen Jones, A Taste for Blood (1992), edited by Martin H. Greenberg, and The Vampire Hunters' Casebook (1996), edited by Peter Haining. It is included in the collections In a Lonely Place (1983), Karl Edward Wagner: Masters of the Weird Tale (2011) and Where the Summer Ends (2012).

Like his physician father, Garth Baxtor is gifted with The Touch. By laying his hands upon a person, Garth can sense what dwells within: pain, illness, joy, or sorrow. It is through the application of The Touch that the gifted minister helps the sick of Escator by diagnosing ills and promoting healing.

By decree of the royal treasury, for a period of three weeks each year, physicians of Escator - in lieu of taxes - are required to attend to the needs of the criminals who labor endlessly in the Veins, the labyrinth of mines carved deep into the earth and from which they harvest the gloam-a priceless commodity upon which the fortunes of Escator depend.

It is during one such period of mandatory service that Joseph Baxtor decides his son is old enough to accompany him to the Veins as his apprentice. Garth is delighted. It's a chance to escape the dull and dreary surroundings of his quiet village for the delights of the capital city of Ruen. Joseph has been ordered to attend King Cavor himself. Garth will actually meet the king in person!

As he discovers all too soon, however, the task at hand is a grim one. Descending into the mines for the first time, Garth could hardly be less prepared for what he encounters: thousands of men laboring like animals in dreadful conditions deep below the earth's surface.

Applying his hands to the wound of one prisoner known only as Lot No. 859, Garth is stunned by what he discovers. This man is no common criminal. But then, who is he? Could it be? After all these years?

Prince Maximillian?

The answer to the riddle will involve Garth in a harrowing journey out of the Veins and into the Land of Dreams as he tries to resolve the question of the identity of Lot No 859. In the process, Garth will solve a centuries-old mystery-a mystery that will pit one king against another and shake the Kingdom of Escator to its foundations.

Skillfully combining complex science with finely executed prose, these edgy, award-winning tales explore the always-shifting border between the known and the alien.

The beauty and peril of technology and the passion and penalties of conviction merge in stories that are by turns dark, satiric, bold, and introspective. A seemingly humanized monster from John Carpenter's The Thing reveals the true villains in an Antarctic showdown. An artificial intelligence shields a biologically-enhanced prodigy from her overwhelmed parents. A deep-sea diver discovers that her true nature lies not within the confines of her mission but in the depths of her psyche. A court psychologist analyzes a psychotic graduate student who has learned to reprogram reality itself. A father tries to hold his broken family together in the wake of an ongoing assault by sentient rainstorms.

Gorgeously saturnine and exceptionally powerful, these collected fictions are both intensely thought-provoking and impossible to forget.

Table of Contents:

• The Things - (2010) - shortstory
• The Island - (2009) - novelette
• The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald - (1998) - novelette
• A Word for Heathens - (2004) - novelette
• Home - (1999) - shortstory
• The Eyes of God - (2008) - shortstory
• Flesh Made Word - (1994) - shortstory
• Nimbus - (1994) - shortstory
• Mayfly - (2005) - shortstory by Peter Watts and Derryl Murphy
• Ambassador - (2001) - shortstory by Peter Watts
• Hillcrest v. Velikovsky - (2008) - shortstory
• Repeating the Past - (2007) - shortstory
• A Niche - (1990) - novelette
• Outtro: En Route to Dystopia with the Angry Optimist - (2013) - essay

Talinn Reaze and Bee serve as "Breezy," part of the United Colonial Force's elite Artificial Intelligence Troops. Trained for full integration since before Talinn's birth, they exceeded expectations and became one of the premier heavy tanks, leading assaults on several fronts of the long war against the Interstellar Defense Corps.

When they're thrown to a backwater base without cause, boredom becomes their main enemy--until the world falls out from under their treads and they begin to question everything they've ever known.

As they orient to their new reality, they have a decision to make: Uphold the status quo, or risk burning civilization to the ground?

Talinn and Bee always did have a fondness for fire.

Beyond the Silver Sky

Keston Ochiltree's visit home had been short and disastrous. His newborn nephew had proved to be one of the Hopeless Ones and had only served to remind him of the present plight of mankind. Keston knew that the decision he was being called on to make might mean a new start for humanity or the end of their underwater civilization.

Each day found more Hopeless Ones being born: pitiful creatures with webbed hands and feet. More important, the inhuman Zammu were pressing their attack in a fierce struggle between species. Most important, the silver sky was lowering. The shimmering sky-level would soon shrink until they had all burned in the gaseous beyond.

So Keston's decision might mean everything. Should he stay in the Emperor's shark-cavalry to fight the Zammu? Or should he join Professor Lansing in an illegal attempt to find what lay beyond the silver sky?

Meeting at Infinity

Allyn Vage was once a beautiful woman, but due to an accident - which may have been a murder attempt - she was now a hopeless cripple, burned and disfigured and without the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. When they brought her to Jome Knard, that noted physician had no choice but to employ a certain apparently miraculous device, incomprehensible even to him, to keep her immobile body alive and to restore and regulate her sensory perception.

This strange machine had been imported from a seemingly primitive people on the world of Akkilmar. They had allowed it to be exported, but there was something about it they couldn't - or wouldn't - explain.

Little did either the doctor or his patient realize that between them they had now become the lever that could topple a world!

Fugitive of the Stars

Doom cruise of the starship Vega Queen.

Wanted: One outlawed space pilot!
Horne, the spaceship's pilot , had been warned."Don't forget the meteor swarm." And Horne's directional calculations for the Vega Queen's course took that advice into account; the spaceship would go fifteen thousand miles out of its way to avoid those deadly celestial rocks

But when Horne went off duty, he felt himself numbed by a curious druglike leadenness. And the next thing he knew, he was in a lifeboat, speeding away from the floating wreckage of the Vega Queen.

Eighteen survivors out of one hundred and fifty-three passengers. And each one in the tiny space shell believed Horne responsible... deliberate negligence, calculated destruction...

Someone had drugged Horne, he knew; someone had tampered with the ship to alter its course. But who? And for what cosmic purpose?

Land Beyond the Map

Take this route to... Oblivion.

Expressway to an uncharted sphere.
"They're about!" the woman whispered, and Crane abruptly saw a strange light shining through the heavy black curtains that shrouded the house. He crossed to the window and before anyone could stop him he drew the curtain back.

At first he did not understand what he saw: a round gleaming, color-running orb stared unwinkingly back into his face. It was... an eye. An immense sad eye staring at him through the chink of the curtains, an eye surrounded by a living whorl of flame that he had last seen engulfing poor Barney in the parking lot.

At least three others had disappeared into the strange world from which those aliens had come, and a girl had been driven insane by them. And before Crane's quest to unravel the secret of the Map Country was complete, the fate of two worlds would hang in the balance.

Beyond the Vanishing Point

THEY OPENED THE PANDORA'S BOX OF ATOMIC TRAVEL

When George Randolph first caught sight of Orena, he was astounded by its gleaming perfection. Here were hills and valleys, lakes and streams, glowing with the light of the most precious of metals. And, more astonishing than that, it was a world of miniature perfection--an infinitely tiny universe within a golden atom!

But for Randolph it was also a world aglow with danger. Somewhere in its tiny vastness were the friends he had to rescue. Captives of a madman, they had been reduced to native Orena size; to return to Earth, they needed the growth capsules Randolph was bringing them. It was up to Randolph to find them--and quickly--for the longer they stayed tiny, the closer they came to passing BEYOND THE VANISHING POINT!

The Secret of Zi

For something like two hundred and fifty years Earth had been dominated by humanoid aliens from the star world of Alishang. But man's spirit refused to be conquered. There was a world-wide underground planning for the day of final liberation. And there were four leaders who knew the secret that would guarantee victory - the secret of Zi.

Rupert Clinton, intelligence man for this underground, was not one of those four; yet somewhere deep in the recesses of his subconscious mind, he knew Zi's secret.

Electric Sword Swallowers

Delilah was beautiful. Delilah was sexy. And Delilah was to blame for all of Ferdie Foxlee's problems. She had let him down at the crucial moment by falling apart. Literally. And in pieces.

Her right eye popped, dangling on multicoloured cables. Her right breast spun around and flew off into the distance. As her fuses blew, her smile melted in a blaze of sparks.

As an expert in ectoplasmic electronic creations, Ferdie had clearly failed. But eepee experts - even one like Ferdie - are in very high demand. So when he panicked and ran, he ran into the waiting arms of the underworld...

Beyond Capella

They gave him an expendable ship, a screwball crew, and an enemy nobody could locate.

Beyond the Galactic Rim

Contents:

• Forbidden Planet (1959)
  
• Wet Paint (1959)
  
• The Man Who Could Not Stop (1959)
  
• The Key (1959)
  

The Ship From Outside

The reward for rescuing Thermopylae is finally paid, and Calver and his shipmates from Lorn Lady purchase a ship and rename her The Outsider. Two years are spent as a charter to Rim Runners, then six months tramping, before Sonya Verrill reappears and engineers a charter from the Federation Survey Service to look for an alien derelict. She accompanies Outsider, but proves very disruptive to Jane Calver.

Hamilton Felix, the result of generations of genetic selection, finds his life as the ultimate man boring, until a gang of revolutionaries tries to enlist him in their cause.

A tidal wave came, as high as the stars and hissing, and it washed away bathers, buildings, all civilization. Paul Sant survived by clinging to a surf mat. Eventually he found land-but unlike land he had ever know. Combining an allegory of good and evil with adventure that takes us through nightmare to salvation-including knights in armor, fish people called Gugs, and an ominous yelloe Volkswagon-R.E. Klein creates a world that is strange beyond our imagination yet familiar to the heart, a world where things may not be real, but they are true. In the History of Our World Beyond the Wave, Klein imagines a world washed clean of materialism, cynicism, of the emptiness of modern life, a world where the metaphysical and the magical are again possible.

En route to the Center of the Galaxy for the Interstellar Olympic Games, the HELLAS, carrying Earth's team, intercepts a mysterious space ship, apparently derelict. Steve Frazer, champion spacesuit racer, volunteers to investigate.

Once aboard, he discovers astonishing evidence of an intelligent nonhuman race that can speak by telepathy and disappear at will - a race superior in some ways to human beings. Stunned, Steve returns to the HELLAS to find that no one believes his startling story.

His attempts to prove that he is telling the truth plunge Steve quickly into the midst of interstellar conflict and intrigue. Disqualified from the Games on a trumped-up charge, Steve soon realizes that someone very powerful thinks he knows too much.

Tightly written and intensely dramatic, the story sweeps to the outermost reaches of the galaxy. Its picture of the Games with their brilliant color and keen competition is entirely new to the pages of science fiction.

Beyond Earth's Gates

THE LOVELIEST GIRL IN TWO WORLDS - AND THE DEADLIEST!

Under Eddie Burton's management the ambitious starlet Lorna Maxwell seemed headed for the top of Broadway's glamorous world of make-believe. And then she vanished - through a wall where there was no door. Eddie found himself plunging after her into a city beyond reality.

In that weird twin city to New York, Eddie became a hunted fugitive while his girl friend turned up as an ever-present face and all-pervading voice that awed and mystified the inhabitants. And Eddie learned that between him and return to his natural home stood her new manager, a mysterious figure who ruled by a tyrannical combination of super-scientific miracle and brute force.

Daybreak--2250 A.D

Two centuries after an atomic war on earth, a silver-haired mutant sets out on a dangerous search for a lost city of the ruined civilization.

Invaders from Earth

Earth's colony on Ganymede is under attack. The people of Earth demand reprisal, and the United Nations must take action to protect the interests of the people.

But Ted Kennedy is worried. He has been to Ganymede and seen the "people"; and knows a truth too terrifying to reveal. Only he can convince the leaders of Earth that they are victims of a hoax. His life may be forfeit, but he is determined to live long enough to stop the INVADERS FROM EARTH

To Worlds Beyond

Collection containing:

• The Old Man - (1957) - shortstory
• New Men for Mars - (1957) - novelette
• Collecting Team - (1956) - shortstory
• Double Dare - (1956) - shortstory
• The Overlord's Thumb - (1958) - novelette
• Ozymandias - (1958) - shortstory
• Certainty - (1959) - shortstory
• Mind for Business - (1956) - shortstory
• Misfit - (1957) - shortstory

The Void Beyond and Other Stories

Contents:

• The Void Beyond
• Refuge for Tonight
• The Challenge
• The Weapon
• The Stubborn Men
• The Final Frontier

The Blue Atom

Who controls it, controls all.

The long-imprisoned jinn are on the attack, wreaking bloody havoc in villages and cities alike. But for the Nightbringer, vengeance on his human foes is just the beginning.

By his side, Commandant Keris Veturia declares herself Empress, and calls for the heads of any and all who defy her rule. At the top of the list? The Blood Shrike and her remaining family.

Laia of Serra, now allied with the Blood Shrike, struggles to recover from the loss of the two people most important to her. Determined to stop the approaching apocalypse, she throws herself into the destruction of the Nightbringer. In the process, she awakens an ancient power that could lead her to victory--or to an unimaginable doom.

And deep in the Waiting Place, the Soul Catcher seeks only to forget the life--and love--he left behind. Yet doing so means ignoring the trail of murder left by the Nightbringer and his jinn. To uphold his oath and protect the human world from the supernatural, the Soul Catcher must look beyond the borders of his own land. He must take on a mission that could save--or destroy--all that he knows.

Traveling back in time to Arthur's Camelot to intercept a bloodthirsty plot, intelligence agent Peter Smythe lands in the body of Lancelot, whose will battles Smythe's for domination, while the quest hangs in the balance.

When the wife of Golden Walter betrays him for another man, he leaves home on a trading voyage to avoid the necessity of a feud with her family. His efforts are fruitless, as word comes to him en route that his wife's clan has killed his father. As a storm then carries him to a faraway country, the effect of this news is merely to sunder his last ties to his homeland. Walter comes to the castle of an enchantress, from which he rescues a captive maiden in a harrowing adventure (or rather, she rescues him). They flee through a region inhabited by mini-giants, eventually reaching a city whose custom is to take as ruler when the throne is vacant the next foreigner to arrive. The late king having died, Walter and his new love are hailed as the new monarchs, and presumably live happily ever after.

Hibbert, an imprisoned innocent, is caught up in the jailbreak of his cellmate Scarlatti, engineered with the assistance of another man, Burks. Forcing Hibbert to accompany them, Scarlatti and Burks make for the Florida Everglades, picking up Scarlatti's girlfriend Carlotta on the way.

In the Everglades the four encounter a miraculous golden stairway extending into the sky. Ascending, they find a pool defended by a blue flamingo, which is killed by Burks. Another stairway leads them to the land of Khoire, a strange and mysterious paradise. There a man named Patur exposes the true nature of each by means of a crystal mask. He warns them that they will be transformed in accordance with those natures within a day, and must leave Khoire.

Scarlatti and Carlotta's alteration is horrible, and they are consumed by a huge beast; Burks agrees to become a blue flamingo, taking the place of the guardian of the pool, in the hope of some day being readmitted to Khoire. Hibbert is little changed. Returning to the mundane world, he undertakes to find certain persons who can help him gain his own readmittance to Khoire, having fallen in love with one of its denizens, Mareth of the Watchers.

Beyond the fields we know, in the Lands of Dream, lies the Valley of the Yann where the mighty river of that name, rising in the Hills of Hap, idling its way by massive dream-evoking amethyst cliffs, orchid-laden forests, and ancient mysterious cities, comes to the Gates of Yann and passes to the sea.

Table of Contents:

• About Beyond the Fields We Know and Lord Dunsany: Return to the World's Edge - essay by Lin Carter
• The Gods of Pegana - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of Skarl the Drummer - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of the Making of the Worlds - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of the Game of the Gods - [Pegana] - (1905)
• The Chaunt of the Gods - [Pegana] - (1905)
• The Sayings of Kib - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Concerning Sish - [Pegana] - (1905)
• The Sayings of Slid - [Pegana] - (1905)
• The Deeds of Mung - [Pegana] - (1905)
• The Chaunt of the Priests - [Pegana] - (1905)
• The Sayings of Limpang-Tung - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of Yoharneth-Lahai - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of Roon, the God of Going - [Pegana] - (1905)
• The Revolt of the Home Gods - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of Dorozhand - [Pegana] - (1905)
• The Eye in the Waste - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of the Thing That Is Neither God Nor Beast - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Yonath the Prophet - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Yug the Prophet - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Alhireth-Hotep the Prophet - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Kabok the Prophet - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of the Calamity That Befel Yun-Ilara by the Sea - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of How the Gods Whelmed Sidith - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of How Imbaun Became High Prophet in Aradec - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of How Imbaun Met Zodrak - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Pegana - [Pegana] - (1905)
• The Sayings of Imbaun - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of How Imbaun Spake of Death to the King - [Pegana] - (1905)
• Of Ood - [Pegana] - (1905)
• The River - [Pegana] - (1905)
• The Bird of Doom and the End - [Pegana] - (1905)
• How Slid Made War Against the Gods - [Pegana] - (1906)
• The Vengeance of Men - [Pegana] - (1906)
• When the Gods Slept - [Pegana] - (1906)
• For the Honour of the Gods - [Pegana] - (1906)
• The Wisdom of Ord - [Pegana] - (1972)
• Night and Morning - [Pegana] - (1906)
• The Secret of the Gods - [Pegana] - (1906)
• The Relenting of Sarnidac - [Pegana] - (1906)
• The Jest of the Gods - [Pegana] - (1906)
• The Dreams of a Prophet - [Pegana] - (1906)
• King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior - (1911) - play
• In the Sahara - (1929) - poem
• Songs From an Evil Wood - (1917) - poem
• The Riders - (1928) - poem
• The Watchers - (1929) - poem
• The Enchanted People - (1928) - poem
• The Happy Isles - (1929) - poem
• A Word in Season - (1929) - poem
• The Quest - (1929) - poem
• The Kith of the Elf-Folk - (1908)
• The Sword of Welleran - (1908)
• The Madness of Andelsprutz - (1908)
• The Sword and the Idol - (1909)
• Miss Cubbidge and the Dragon of Romance - (1911)
• Chu-Bu and Sheemish - (1911)
• How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles - (1911)
• A Story of Land and Sea - (1914)
• The Naming of Names: Notes on Lord Dunsany's Influence on Modern Fantasy Writers - essay by Lin Carter

THIS IS YOUR SOUL ON DRUGS

After the events chronicled in Bedlam's Bard, world-saving bard and magician Eric Banyon moves into his new New York apartment hoping to settle down to the quiet life. No such luck: his building is a safe-house for a group of occultist Guardians protecting the city from supernatural evil. And there's a new evil for them to guard against....

When unethical drug researchers discover that they can induce amazing mental powers using psychotropic drugs, they begin planning to raise a drug-enslaved army of mercenaries and grow very, very rich. But this gets the attention of Aerune mac Audelaine, lord of the dark Unseleighe Sidney, who hopes to use the drugs to break through to the human world and feed on the suffering there. Both plans will bring terror to the world-and both are threatened by the very existence of Eric Banyan.

With his possibly loyal companions-a beautiful elven half-breed and a gargoyle Eric heads for a three-way battle of wizardry that will determine Gotham's fate-and his own.

A man wakes up in a different body, a woman's body, through illegal mind implantation. He strives to find his own body in this space sci-fi novel.

In Beyond Humanity, the protagonist deals with the claims to personhood of both apes and computers.

In Beyond Gravity, Leiber's protagonist discovers that earth has long been studied by alien "anthropologists," who write articles about humans which appear in a journal whose title might be translated into humanese as "Primitivity Review."

Darwen Arkwright's world is turned upside down when he is forced to move from a small English town to Atlanta in the United States of America. Feeling out of place and struggling to fit in at school, Darwen seeks solace in a mysterious shop full of mirrors. It's there that he discovers the ability to step through mirrors in to different worlds - worlds beyond his wildest imagination. Darwen befriends creatures including Moth, a tiny being with mechanical wings, but he soon learns that there is a terrible darkness threatening this new world... and only he can save it.

The problem with doors is that they open both ways. There are monsters inside, and some of them are trying to get out

Eleven-year-old Darwen Arkwright's ordinary life changed forever when he was given a magical mirror, a portal to the wonderful world of Silbrica. Darwen defeated the terrible monsters released from the mirror once. Now, an even more terrifying beast has escaped through the mirror.

Darwen and his friends, Rik and Alexandra, must journey to Costa Rica to save the world from a giant tentacled creature that leaves destruction in its wake. This time, old allies can't be trusted, and the danger runs deeper than Darwen could have ever imagined.

The problem with doors is that they open both ways. There are monsters inside, and some of them are trying to get out ...

The problem with doors is that they open both ways. There are monsters inside, and some of them are trying to get out...

Mr. Peregrine has been kidnapped! Now it's up to Darwen, Rik, and Alexandra to rescue him. They'll embark upon a journey that will take them deeper into Silbrica than they've ever gone before, and there, on the other side of the mirror, they'll find the strangest sight of all: an exact replica of Hillside Academy. This is only the first of many connections that Darwen and his friends are about to discover between the human world and the world of Silbrica. And as the connections begin piling up, they'll be forced to confront the most horrifying realisation of all: they've been lied to this entire time.

Time travel has long been a staple of science fiction. Removing the bonds of time on a story allows for many interesting possibilities, but it also presents complicated problems and paradoxes.

In this collection, featuring stories from the 1880s to the 1960s, we are taken to the remote future and back to the distant past. We are trapped in an eternal loop and met with visitors and objects from the future. We come face to face with our past selves, and experience the chaos of living out of sync with everyone else in the universe.

These are just some of the thrilling narratives to discover as we unwind the constraints of time.

Contents:

• Introduction (Beyond Time: Classic Tales of Time Unwound) - (2019) - essay by Mike Ashley
• The Clock That Went Backward - (1881) - short story by Edward Page Mitchell
• The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper - (1932) - short story by H. G. Wells
• Omega - (1932) - short story by Amelia Reynolds Long
• The Book of Worlds - (1929) - short story by Miles J. Breuer, M.D.
• The Branches of Time - (1935) - short story by David R. Daniels
• The Reign of the Reptiles - (1935) - novelette by Alan Connell
• Friday, the Nineteenth - (1950) - short story by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
• Look After the Strange Girl - (1953) - short story by J. B. Priestley
• Manna - (1949) - novelette by Peter Phillips
• Tenth Time Around - (1959) - novelette by J. T. McIntosh (variant of Tenth Time Round)
• The Shadow People - (1958) - short story by Arthur Sellings
• Thirty-Seven Times - (1957) - short story by E. C. Tubb
• Dial 'O' for Operator - (1958) - novelette by Robert Presslie
• Story Sources (Beyond Time: Classic Tales of Time Unwound) - (2019) - essay by Mike Ashley

Ride with Curt Newton, The World's Greatest Space Farer, and the Futuremen as They Leave the Known Star Trails to Penetrate the Source of Cosmic Rays, the Very Core of the Universe!...

This novel was originally published in Fall 1941 edition of Captain Future Magazine.

This novel is included in "The Collected Captain Future: Volume Three"

A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one. He's the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there's the island's sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home - one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from - Arthur knows they're at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur's story.

Ben arrives in the Concrete Grove to research a book about the Northumbrian Poltergeist, an infamous paranormal incident from the early 1970s. A set of twins were haunted by a spirit they nicknamed Captain Clickety, and the media of the time were split between derision and hysteria.

As Ben teases out the supressed details of the story, he finds himself drawn to an emotionally damaged woman whose young daughter went missing years ago during a period of similar child abductions.

Then the scarecrows appear, their heads plastered with photographs of the missing and the dead. House pets are found slaughtered, their bodies built into bloody totems. Hummingbirds flock to certain areas of the estate, as if awaiting the arrival of something…

A door has been opened and a presence is about to step through. The Hummingbird Twins, beset by strange visions, might know the secret, but they aren’t talking. It is up to Ben to put the ghosts to rest and unravel fact from fiction. He is about to discover that the story he seeks is in fact his own story, and only he can plot the ending.

1000 Years After Our World Died - A Man and a Woman With the Future of Humanity in Their Hands - The distant future - New York is a jungle in more ways than one. Exotic flora and fauna thrive - savage tribes of cannibalistic sub-humans fight for dominance. It's a place of little hope The last vestiges of humanity set out across America's devastated landscape in search of their dream. Led by hope that dies and is reborn again at every turn - enticed onward by a mysterious and vast black chasm 500 miles deep - does the future threaten extinction for mankind? - or offer one last chance of redemption?

Twenty years ago, five master criminals known as the Demon Princes raided Mount Pleasant to enslave thousands of inhabitants in the lawless Beyond. Now Morwen Sabine, a daughter of captives, has escaped her cruel master and returns to Mount Pleasant to recover the hidden treasure she hopes will buy her parents' freedom.

But Mount Pleasant has changed. Morwen must cope with mystic cultists, murderous drug-smugglers, undercover "weasels" of the Interplanetary Police Coordinating Company, and the henchmen of the vicious pirate lord who owns her parents and wants Morwen returned. So he can kill her slowly...

Set in Jack Vance's Demon Princes universe, at around the time of Kirth Gersen's hunt for Attel Malagate and Kokor Hekkus, Barbarians of the Beyond is a return to "Jack Vance Space" and space-opera derring-do that follows in the science fiction Grandmaster's footsteps.

Once the mighty fortress had stood strong, defended by the mightiest of all Drenai heroes, Druss, the Legend. But now a tyrannical, mad emperor had seized control of the fortress, and his twisted will was carried throughout the land by the Joinings --- abominations that were half-man, half-beast. Tenaka Khan was a half-breed himself, hated by the Drenai for his Nadir blood and despised by the Nadir for his Drenai ancestry. But he alone had a plan to destroy the emperor. The last heroes of the Drenai joined with him in a desperate gamble to bring down the emperor -- even at the cost of their own destruction.

Thousands of years ago the elves were enslaved by the Wytch Lords.

Murdered in their thousands, worked to death in slave gangs and divided against themselves, the wounds inflicted by man run deep - and elves have very long memories.

Two of them - Auum and Takaar - led the rise against their enslavers, and united their people against men in order to free their nation.

Now Calaius is at peace... but that doesn't mean their nation is safe. Men need their help.

The Wytch Lords have rallied, men's magic has grown more powerful, and their politics have become altogether more dangerous.

Especially now: one of the mages has created a spell, called Dawnthief, which has the potential to destroy all living things on the planet. All four magical colleges are fighting to seize it and, in the background, the Lords have schemes of their own. Schemes which involve crushing the elven nation for good.

Whoever seizes the spell, it places the elves in tremendous danger. But can Auum and Takaar overcome their differences and work together to save Calaius?

And even if they can, is it not already too late...?

The Spark is no more.

Separated from her companions, Calene Alpenwood resolves to finish her task and bring an end to the bloodshed drowning Haltveldt. But violence breeds violence, and a corrupting darkness spreads where the Spark once lived in Calene's soul.

Saved from death from a mind-spinning source, the elf Brina al'Loria is tasked with the 'simple' mission of uniting the warring factions of Haltveldt. Reeling from staggering truths, Brina must navigate a hostile world ruled by humans and succeed in her undertaking before disaster strikes and faith is lost.

Kade Besem faces a reality born from his nightmares. Alone with the Banished, the former politician pieces together the plans of a seemingly unknowable mind, and discovers plots and treachery millennia in the making.

Haltveldt edges closer to the brink of ruin. With events in motion that cannot be stopped, Calene, Brina and Kade find unlikely allies and face new enemies as they fight for a future they might never see. With the odds stacked against them from the beginning, but faint embers of hope still remain as an ancient threat shows its hand at last.

The seer Alaundo prophesied that seven scourges would sweep Cormyr way in ruin. For centuries the royal family has stood watch against that day and devoted their lives to the protection of the realm.

But in a time when their ancient guardians slumber and their most loyal servants disappear, when a terrible evil prepares to sweep down upon their home --

Who will protect the royal family?

By the year 2137 Europe has become a largely forgotten, savage wilderness. Fierce bands of hunters rove the crumbling ruins of once mighty, war-ravaged cities. On the other side of the Atlantic a prosperous Pan-American Federation has emerged, claiming all lands and seas between the 30th and 175th longitudes and forbidding contact with the rest of the world. All who cross beyond thirty are sentenced to death.

Beyond Thirty is the story of Captain Jefferson Turck and the crew of his aero-submarine, who through accident and sabotage are forced beyond the thirtieth longitude and embark on an epic quest to rediscover the legendary lands of the Old World. Their adventures stand as one of Edgar Rice Burroughs's most imaginative and subtly crafted tales. Burroughs wrote the story in 1915 in reaction to the growing horrors of the First World War, and his devastating vision of its consequences provides a haunting and enduring warning for the twenty-first century.

Has also been published as The Lost Continent.

Meet the operatives of the Carnacki Institute—JC Chance: the team leader, brave, charming, and almost unbearably arrogant; Melody Chambers: the science geek who keeps the antisupernatural equipment running; and Happy Jack Palmer: the terminally gloomy telepath. Their mission: Do Something About Ghosts. Lay them to rest, send them packing, or just kick their nasty ectoplasmic arses...

Their latest assignment takes JC and the team to a small country village, site of a famously haunted inn. At first, JC thinks that the spirits in the King's Arms are more the stuff of urban legend than anything that needs the Ghost Finders' expertise. Then one story rings true: the tale of a traveler trapped by an unusual thunderstorm who retired to her room for the night—and vanished.

Trapped by an unusual thunderstorm—like the one that begins raging outside shortly after they arrive...

As the team investigates, they are forced, one by one, to face some hard truths about themselves, their relationships, and the haunting itself—truths that may push Happy Jack over the edge into the madness that he has always feared...

Meet the operatives of the Carnacki Institute—JC Chance: the team leader, brave, charming, and almost unbearably arrogant; Melody Chambers: the science geek who keeps the antisupernatural equipment running; and Happy Jack Palmer: the terminally gloomy telepath. Their mission: Do Something About Ghosts. Lay them to rest, send them packing, or just kick their nasty ectoplasmic arses...

In a quiet London suburb, four university students participating in an experiment inside a reputed haunted house hold a séance that goes terribly wrong. What—or who—ever they summoned has taken their minds away, leaving them empty shells.

Enter the Ghost Finders, ready to confront an enraged poltergeist for the students' very souls.

All in a day's work—except the team doesn't know that in another part of the city, a different entity has also breached the threshold between worlds. And this time what is at stake is not four lives—but the very existence of all humanity.

Meet the operatives of the Carnacki Institute--JC Chance: the team leader, brave, charming, and almost unbearably arrogant; Melody Chambers: the science geek who keeps the antisupernatural equipment running; and Happy Jack Palmer: the terminally gloomy telepath. Their mission: Do Something About Ghosts. Lay them to rest, send them packing, or just kick their nasty ectoplasmic arses...

A threat to Humanity rests on the bottom of the North Sea: the interdimensional entity known as the Flesh Undying. It is a monstrous being of unimaginable power, way out of the Ghost Finders' league, so the team has no choice but to accept an alliance with their evil counterpart, Project Crowley.

Only the creature has already turned its eye upon the Ghost Finders--and dispatched an assassin with a deadly vendetta against them...

Gunrunner-turned-Empress Hail Bristol was dragged back to her home planet to take her rightful place in the palace. Her sisters and parents have been murdered, and the Indranan Empire is reeling from both treasonous plots and foreign invasion.

Now, on the run from enemies on all fronts, Hail prepares to fight a full-scale war for her throne and her people, even as she struggles with the immense weight of the legacy thrust upon her. With the aid of a motley crew of allies old and new, she must return home to face off with the same powerful enemies who killed her family and aim to destroy everything and everyone she loves. Untangling a legacy of lies and restoring peace to Indrana will require an empress's wrath and a gunrunner's justice.

Contains:

• Assignment in Nowhere
• The Other Side of Time

Professor Amelia Harsh is obsessed with finding the lost civilization of Camlantis, a legendary city from pre-history that is said to have conquered hunger, war, and disease with the creation of the perfect pacifist society. Without official funding, Amelia is forced to accept an offer of patronage from Abraham Quest, the man she blames for her father's bankruptcy and suicide. She hates him, but he has something that Amelia desperately wants--evidence that proves that Camlantis existed and that the Camlantean ruins are buried under one of the sea-like lakes that dot the murderous jungles of Liongeli.

Amelia will blackmail her old friend Commodore Black into ferrying her along a huge river on his ancient U-boat. With an untrusty crew of freed convicts, Quest's force of fearsome female mercenaries on board, and a lunatic steamman acting as their guide, Amelia's luck seems to be going from bad to worse. Her quest for the perfect society has a good chance of bringing her own world to the brink of destruction...

The Kingdom Beyond The Waves is Stephen Hunt's third novel, set in the same universe as The Court of the Air. Amelia Harsh is a female Indiana Jones if there ever was one, and this novel is a rollicking steampunk adventure that will hook readers for one dynamite ride.

Faith shapes the landscape, defines the laws of physics, and makes a mockery of truth. Common knowledge isn't an axiom, it's a force of nature. What the masses believe is. But insanity is a weapon, conviction a shield. Delusions give birth to foul new gods.

Violent and dark, the world is filled with the Geisteskranken--men and women whose delusions manifest, twisting reality. High Priest Konig seeks to create order from chaos. He defines the beliefs of his followers, leading their faith to one end: a young boy, Morgen, must Ascend to become a god. A god they can control.

But there are many who would see this would-be-god in their thrall, including the High Priest's own Doppels, and a Slaver no one can resist. Three reprobates--The Greatest Swordsman in the World, a murderous Kleptic, and possibly the only sane man left--have their own nefarious plans for the young god.

As these forces converge on the boy, there's one more obstacle: time is running out. When one's delusions become more powerful, they become harder to control. The fate of the Geisteskranken is to inevitably find oneself in the Afterdeath.

The question, then, is: Who will rule there?

A two-man mission to Venus fails and is aborted. When it returns, the Captain is missing and the other astronaut, Harry M. Evans, is unable to explain what has happened. Or, conversely, he has too many explications. His journal of the expedition -- compiled in the mental institution to which NASA has embarrassedly committed him -- offers contradictory stories: he murdered the Captain, mad Venusian invaders murdered the Captain, the Captain vanished, no one was murdered and the Captain has returned in Evans' guise....

As the explanations pyramid and as the supervising psychiatrist's increasingly desperate efforts to get a straight story fail, it becomes apparent that Evans's madness and his inability to explain what happened are expressions of humanity's incompetence at the enormity of space exploration.

Beyond the Veil is the second volume in an annual, non-themed horror series of entirely original stories, showcasing the very best short fiction that the genre has to offer, and edited by Mark Morris. This new anthology contains 20 original horror stories, 16 of which have been commissioned from some of the top names in the genre, and 4 of which have been selected from the 100s of stories sent to Flame Tree during a 2-week open submissions window.

Contents:

• The God Bag - short fiction by Christopher Golden
• Caker's Man - short fiction by Matthew Holness
• The Beechfield Miracles - short fiction by Priya Sharma
• Clockwork - short fiction by Dan Coxon
• Soapstone - short fiction by Aliya Whiteley
• The Dark Bit - short fiction by Toby Litt
• Provenance Pond - short fiction by Josh Malerman
• For All the Dead - short fiction by Angeline Adams and Remco van Straten
• The Girl in the Pool - short fiction by Bracken MacLeod
• Nurse Varden - short fiction by Jeremy Dyson
• If, Then - short fiction by Lisa L. Hannett
• Aquarium Ward - short fiction by Karter Mycroft
• A Mystery for Julie Chu - short fiction by Stephen Gallagher
• Away Day - short fiction by Lisa Tuttle
• Polaroid and Seaweed - short fiction by Peter Harness
• Der Geisterbahnhof - short fiction by Lynda E. Rucker
• Arnie's Ashes - short fiction by John Everson
• A Brief Tour of the Night - short fiction by Nathan Ballingrud
• The Care and Feeding of Household Gods - short fiction by Frank J. Oreto
• Yellowback - short fiction by Gemma Files

DRAAKSBANE

Humans had named the planet Ver-draak after the huge reptiles they found there. Among the native Ni-lach people, special singers were trained to control the deadly predators. But humans had to depend on the Ni-lach for protection.

So when a group of human adventurers planned an expedition across the dreaded Draak's Teeth mountains, they needed a draak-singer to safeguard their journey.

Suddenly the Ni-lach Bhaldavin was thrust into a quest for the relics of a forgotten era--and his only hope for freedom lay with the very people who had enslaved him.

Count Hamnet Thyssen is a minor noble of the drowsy old Raumsdalian Empire. Its capital city, Nidaros, began as a mammoth hunters' camp at the edge of the great Glacier. But that was centuries ago, and as everyone knows, it's the nature of the great Glacier to withdraw a few feet every year. Now Nidaros is an old and many-spired city; and though they still feel the breath of the great Glacier in every winter's winds, the ice cap itself has retreated beyond the horizon.

Trasamund, a clan chief of the mammoth-herding Bizogots, the next tribe north, has come to town with strange news. A narrow gap has opened in what they'd always thought was an endless and impregnable wall of ice. The great Glacier does not go on forever--and on its other side are new lands, new animals, and possibly new people.

Ancient legend says that on the other side is the Golden Shrine, put there by the gods to guard the people of their world. Now, perhaps, the road to the legendary Golden Shrine is open. Who could resist the urge to go see?

For Count Hamnet and his several companions, the glacier has always been the boundary of the world. Now they'll be travelling beyond it into a world that's bigger than anyone knew. Adventures will surely be had...

Playing by the book? That's not good enough for Crown Prince Georg! In his attempt to delay his appearance at the Emperor's court, he triggers an alien invasion of his own star system. The whole of the Empire watches the live broadcast with bated breath as his fleet battles the awesome invaders. The Iseyeks - gigantic sentient praying mantises - are suitably impressed too, so they promptly remind the Crown Prince of his allied duties. The Sector Eight Fleet hurries to the Swarm's aid... but sadly disregards the insects' hive mentality.

Desperate to prolong their own existence for a few extra months, the insects unflinchingly sacrifice the human fleet. What is Georg supposed to do? He can't turn back - not with a doomed fleet in his wake! So he battles through armadas of alien starships, ignoring the "Victory impossible!" system messages and laying an elusive path to freedom across yet unexplored star systems. Georg is bent on breaking free - and no amount of enemy can stop him!

A critical study of the fantasy fiction of William Morris.

Contents:

• 3 - Worlds Beyond the World - essay
• 4 - Into the Unknown - essay
• 18 - The Dream of a Better World - essay
• 34 - Killing Time - essay
• 43 - Beyond the World - essay
• 61 - Some Closing Remarks (Worlds Beyond the World) - essay
• 63 - Selected Critical Sources (Worlds Beyond the World) - essay

In Beyond Horatio's Philosophy: The Fantasy of Peter S. Beagle, David Stevens examines the fantasy of American writer Peter S. Beagle.

He finds a consistent view of the world and an almost overpowering sense of humor, leading him to conclude that Beagle believes that love is the best thing we have and the only reason for living. His work will be read and enjoyed for generations to come, and Stevens tells you why. Beagle indulges in what Stevens terms "metaphysical speculations": a working-out of the possibilities of the world being different than it is.

He invites the reader to examine these speculations with him, and when we do, to come away from the experience as better men and women, believing in the transforming power of love and laughing at ourselves in the process.

No writer could ask for more, or succeed better. Beagle would have us believe, to paraphrase Shakespeare's Hamlet, that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. Complete with bibliography and index.

This short story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 1983. It can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Year's Best Science Fiction: First Annual Collection (1984), edited by Gardner Dozois
• The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 10 (1984), edited by Arthur W. Saha
• Masterpieces of Fantasy and Wonder (1989), edited by David G. Hartwell
• The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories (1994), edited by Tom Shippey
• A Century of Fantasy 1980-1989: The Greatest Stories of the Decade (1997), edited by Robert Silverberg

The story can also be found in the collection Tales of the Quintana Roo (1986).

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Fast Ships, Black Sails (2008), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three (2009), edited by Jonathan Strahan. The story is included in the collection Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: Three Adventures (2011).

Listen to the full story for free at PodCastle.

The greatest adventure in human history is about to begin! Meet the extraordinary men and women who are leaving Earth and everything they know and love to find their destiny among the stars.

Nathan: The tore away the woman he loved -- gave him a world to defend.

Shane: No alien enemy could match the horror she had witnessed as a child during the A.I. wars.

Cooper: the "tank" -- they said he wasn't human, until he turned rage into glory in the Space Marines.

VanessaL She reached up from the ghetto to grab at the stars -- and got them!

Tomorrow is here. the whole universe is only the beginning...

The young 58th squadron members receive their toughest assignment having to penetrate enemy shields and demolish their supply lines, a task that is complicated by a double agent, renegade deserters, and a beautiful fighter pilot.

Little did Teldin Moore know there was life beyond Krynn's moons... until a crashed spelljamming ship demolished his farm and changed his life! With a dying alien's magical cloak and cryptic words, Teldin quickly discovers that he's a popular fellow. He and his giff companion race to find Astinus of Palanthas and the gnomes of Mount Nevermind to learn why, before the monstrous neogi can find them!

Contents:

• 1 - One Giant Leap - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novelette by Susan Wright
• 43 - Exodus - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novelette by Diane Carey
• 83 - Horn and Ivory - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novella by Keith R. A. DeCandido
• 141 - In the Queue - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novelette by Christie Golden
• 181 - Death After Life - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novelette by Peter David
• 219 - The Other Side - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novella by Robert Greenberger
• 319 - The Pocket Books Star Trek Timeline - essay by The Timeline Gang

Contents:

• 1 - Far Beyond the Stars - (1998) - novel by Steven Barnes
• 263 - Author's Note: Why I decided To Write a Book in a Month; Or, How Star Trek Changed My Life - essay by Steven Barnes

Without warning, Benjamin Sisko is living another life. No longer a Starfleet captain, commander of space station Deep Space Nine, he is Benny Russell, a struggling science fiction writer living in 1950s Harlem. Benny has a dream, of a place called Deep Space Nine and a man named Ben Sisko, and a story he has to tell. But is the Earth of that era ready for a black science fiction hero?

Everyone tells him no, but Benny cannot abandon his dream. One way or another, he will tell the world about Captain Benjamin Sisko and Deep Space Nine.

Dr. Cherijo is living the perfect life--if you think that finding out you're a clone, then being declared "non-sentient" by your father/creator is your idea of perfect.

Things could be worse. But when the Human League comes after her, with bounty hunters of every race trying to bring her in, Cherijo figures it can't get any worse...

Until someone begins stalking her dreams.

An engineer with a fondness for weapons. A captain with no memory. An obsessive genemodder who loves to tinker. Meet the crew of Another Road.

Josune, Roystan, and Nika have escaped the company thugs trying to kill them. They've gotten a new spaceship to replace The Road (after it was blown up underneath them). And their new ship is armed to the teeth with dangerous weapons, courtesy of Josune. All that's left to do before they head out to find the legendary lode of transurides is to restore Roystan's memory. To do that, they need to collect the genemod machine Nika has ordered.

But first, they have to shake off the Justice Department agent and the Companies tracking them.

It should be easy. They've done it before. What could possibly go wrong?

The stars whispered: Die, Starwolf! Die!

Morgan Chane was an Earthman by parentage, but he had been born on the pirate-world Varna, whose heavy gravity had developed strength and incredibly quick reflexes in him. When he was old enough, he joined the raider-ships that looted the starworlds, and fought side by side with the dreaded Starwolves of Varna.

But then there was a fight among them. Chane killed their leader, and the other Starwolves turned on him. He barely got away alive – wounded near death, his Starwolf pursuers following him across the galaxy.

And there was nowhere he could seek refuge, for no world lift a hand to save one of the hated Starwolves.

This novel is contained in the Omnibus Starwolf

In this new tale, we find the loyal companions approaching the autumn of their lives, reflecting on their many escapades and preparing to hand over River Bank to the next generation. When the future of the home they know and love suddenly comes under threat, all of the creatures, young and old, must rally together.

On the deceptively utopian planet Seelzar, Alyssa Montoya struggles against a powerful, corrupt elite to save her brother, but her efforts bring her close to the heart of an ancient secret that would rather self-destruct than be discovered.

S. Fowler Wright's novel, The World Below, one of the classics of British scientific romance, was hailed as a masterpiece of science fiction when it was published in the U.S. Originally intended as a trilogy, the novel was cut short when Wright's business went bankrupt. Now Brian Stableford, with the permission of the author's estate, has penned the sequel that the master never had the chance to finish.

A Million years hence, life on Earth has undergone a radical transformation that has brough it under threat from extraterresteral trials. To settle its difficulties, a time-traveler from the twentieth century must attempt a further odyssey into the remote future time, which only he is qualified to undertake. But will he be able to bring back any intelligence from his voyage, if he manages to return at all-or will the possiblity that he might change history doom his quest from the outset?

Like it's predecessor, The World Beyond attemps to enxtend the literary imagination as far as it can be taken, in the context of our present scientific understanding of evolutionary processes. This is a first-rate adventure based on a work of creative genius.

In 1919 Cabell published Beyond Life, a kind of formalist credo in which he first launched his lifelong attack on literary realism.

It's an imagined conversation between John Charteris, a successful author, and a young editor. They sit in a library lined with books categorized as unwritten masterpieces or intended editions--a wry commentary on the business of publishing by one of America's overlooked masters. The two discuss writers and writing, especially those who published in the early 20th century and the demands of the market.

The wall of time has fallen and the Gods are free to ravage the world. The few that know of their escape into mortal lands are under the control of the malevolent Husk. Stella, a queen in hiding, makes a deal with the Undying Man even though she knows his agenda comes first. Noetos seeks revenge for the deaths of his loved ones, not yet realizing the enemy is closer than even he can imagine. And the unconventional cosmographer, Lenares, is the only one with the power to prevent the Gods from destroying the world - if only the others would believe her.

The queen, the fisherman, and the cosmographer must travel to Andratan to confront Husk. But whether they can break free of his hold on them, and defeat the Gods, is another matter entirely.

TO SAVE THEIR CIVILISATION HE MUST DESTROY IT...

When images of a lost civilization are 'dreamed' by a self-proclaimed prophet of the age, Nigel Sheldon, inventor of wormhole technology and creator of the Commonwealth society, is asked to investigate. Especially as the dreams seem to be coming from the Void - a mysterious area of living space monitored and controlled because of its hugely destructive capabilities. With it being the greatest threat to the known universe, Nigel is committed to finding out what really lies within the Void and if there's any truth to the visions they've received. Does human life really exist inside its boundary?

But when Nigel crash lands inside the Void, on a planet he didn't even know existed, he finds so much more than he expected. Bienvenido: a world populated by the ancestors of survivors from Commonwealth colony ships that disappeared centuries ago. Since then they've been fighting an increasingly desperate battle against the Fallers, a space-born predator artificially evolved to conquer worlds. Their sole purpose is to commit genocide against every species they encounter. With their powerful telepathic lure - that tempts any who stray across their path to a slow and painful death - they are by far the greatest threat to humanity's continued existence on this planet.

But Nigel soon realizes that the Fallers also hold the key to something he'd never hoped to find - the destruction of the Void itself. If only he can survive long enough to work out how to use it...

The first volume of the definitive five-book set of the complete collected stories of the twentieth century's greatest SF author. A matchless display of Philip K. Dick's quirky, humorous, idiosyncratically philosophical world view.

With one exception, all the stories here were written over a nine-month period between 1951 and 1952, when Dick was in his early twenties and making his first impact as a writer.

Table of Contents:

• Stability
• Roog
• The Little Movement
• Beyond Lies the Wub
• The Gun
• The Skull
• The Defenders
• Mr. Spaceship
• Piper in the Woods
• The Infinites
• The Preserving Machine
• Expendable
• The Variable Man
• The Indefatigable Frog
• The Crystal Crypt
• The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford
• The Builder
• Meddler
• Paycheck
• The Great C
• Out in the Garden
• The King of Elves
• Colony
• Prize Ship
• Nanny

7 remarkable stories, newly revised for this collection, showcase the award-winning talents of one of the 21st century's finest writers of speculative fiction

Whether penning science fiction (Moving Mars, Queen of Angels, War Dogs), alternate history (the Mongoliad series with Neal Stephenson), or fantasy (Sleepside, The Infinity Concerto), Greg Bear tells stories that engage the reader's intellect while gripping the imagination. His short fiction is no exception. Beyond the Farthest Suns takes readers to the far end of the universe and the borders of scientific understanding. The volume includes:

• "The Way of All Ghosts," set in the bestselling universe of Eon and Eternity;
• "The Venging," which takes a group of desperate fugitives fleeing alien dominance down into the awesome gateway of a black hole;
• "The Fall of the House of Escher," in which a world-famous illusionist is brought back from the dead for a terrifying command performance;
• "Hardfought," the critically acclaimed Nebula Award-winning story showcasing a far future in which a legendary female pilot and her alien captor are forced into a tapestry of echoing lives where they struggle to communicate and find the deepest secrets of their history.

These works, along with 3 additional entries, stunningly illustrate how Bear interweaves the rationality of science with remarkable characters whose thoughts and emotions reflect our own.

Hundreds of years after the events in Against the Fall of Night, Alvin and Seranis are working to repopulate the Earth with original species resurrected from a library of ancient genetic information. Among these resurrected beings is Cley, a Cro-Magnon and sole survivor of her tribe. Cley joins forces with Alvin and a large, intelligent rodent named Seeker to eliminate the threat from the Mad Mind once and for all-and clear the way for life in the Solar System to thrive.

Set more than a billion years from now, the novel begins with a young woman who yearns to escape the rigid, timeless Earth she knows. So she flees, in the company of an intelligent beast wise beyond recognition. But there are mysterious forces afoot among the planets that she never foresaw. Alien agencies have learned to span parallel universes, ones that lie only a millimeter away but are invisible to any device known to man. Soon these beings confront the travelers and a struggle beyond imagining begins...

This is a re-write of Benford's novel Beyond the Fall of Night (1990), a sequel to Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night.

These three novellas are set in an alternate world first created by Silverberg in his novel, The Gate of Worlds (TOR, 1984). The idea remains intriguing: the Black Plague decimates the European population to a degree that proves irrecoverable and the ensuing cultural, inventive, and technological vacuum is filled by the civilizations of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Silverberg and John Brunner contribute taut and tantalizing glimpses into the might-have-beens of Timbuctoo politics and would-be Eastern European assassins. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's contribution, set in the courts of the Incas, unfortunately bogs down in its strain to demonstrate just how exotic this setting is. Despite this reservation, the book is likely to be popular with fans of alternate-world dramas and of these well-known authors. In addition, it might prove a stimulating enrichment for world-history classes. -Cathy Chauvette, Fairfax County Pub. Lib., VA

Nix has spent her whole life journeying to places both real and imagined aboard her time-traveling father's ship. And now it's finally time for her to take the helm. Her future lies bright before her -- until she learns that she is destined to lose the one she loves.

Desperate to change her fate, Nix sails her crew to a mythical utopia to meet another Navigator who promises to teach her how to manipulate time. But everything in this utopia is constantly changing, and nothing is what it seems. Not even her relationship with Kash: best friend, thief, charmer extraordinaire.

When Gallen O'Day is hired as a bodyguard to escort a young woman through the woods to the forbidden ruins at Geata Na Chruinn, it seems like an ordinary job--but all too soon, he finds himself fleeing for his life from creatures that seem like escapees from a nightmare--the alien dronon, led by their golden queen. With his best friend, a genetically engineered talking bear named Orick, and his girlfriend Maggie, Gallen soon finds himself tangled in an interstellar war that he never knew existed, racing across a host of worlds, confronted by a future unlike any that he had ever imagined.

In Book Two of the Heechee Saga, Robinette Broadhead is on his way to making a fortune by bankrolling an expedition to the Food Factory--a Heechee spaceship that can graze the cometary cloud and transfor the basic elements of the universe into untold quantities of food. But even as he gambles on the breakthrough technology, he is wracked with the guilt of losing his wife, poised forever at the "event horizon" of a black hole where Robin had abaondoned her. As more and more information comes back from the expedition, Robin grows ever hopeful that he can rescue his beloved Gelle-Klara Moynlin. After three and a years, the factory is discovered to work, and a human is found aboard. Robin's suffering may be just about over....

When a brilliant scientist gets a letter from herself about faster-than-light travel, she doesn't know what to believe. The equations work, but her paper is discredited - and soon the criticism is more than scientific. Exiled by the establishment, she gets an offer to build her starship from an unlikely source. But in the heights of Venus and on a planet of another star, a secret is already being uncovered that will shake humanity to its foundations.

THE FERMI ARE AWAKE...

The invention of faster-than-light technology has brought great opportunity, but also great danger.

The Black Horizon conspiracy is broken up, but it still has deadly assets beyond the reach of Earth. As the great powers jostle for advantage, the alien minds known as the Fermi have their own ways of dealing with humans meddling in plans vaster and more ancient than anyone can suspect.

After the Venus catastrophe, John Grant's starship Fighting Chance and the Space Station have reached Apis--but not for long. They barely have time to mourn the dead before they're chased out of the system. The Station begins exploring the systems Black Horizon warned them against--with good reason, as they soon discover.

On Apis, Alliance agent Marcus Owen has a new mission: to communicate with the alien intelligences in the rocks, and to stop anyone else from getting to them first. Everyone knows he's a spy, but he's not going to let that cramp his style. But the scientists investigating the rock find that the Fermi may not be the only alien intelligence on Apis...

The Alliance woke Captain John "Black Jack" Geary from cryogenic sleep to take command of the fleet in the century-long conflict against the Syndicate Worlds. Now Fleet Admiral Geary's victory has earned him the adoration of the people-and the enmity of politicians convinced that a living hero can be a very inconvenient thing.

Geary knows that members of the military high command and the government question his loyalty to the Alliance and fear his staging a coup-so he can't help but wonder if the newly christened First Fleet is being deliberately sent to the far side of space on a suicide mission.

Admiral John “Black Jack” Geary earned his rank after being revived from cryogenic sleep to lead the Alliance to victory against the Syndicate Worlds. But his superiors question his loyalty to the regime. Now in command of the First Fleet, Geary is tasked with exploring the frontier beyond Syndic space, a mission he fears deliberately puts the fleet — and himself — in harm’s way.

Admiral Geary's First Fleet of the Alliance has survived the journey deep into unexplored interstellar space, a voyage that led to the discovery of new alien species, including a new enemy and a possible ally. Now Geary's mission is to ensure the safety of the Midway Star System, which has revolted against the Syndicate Worlds empire--an empire that is on the brink of collapse.

To complicate matters further, Geary also needs to return safely to Alliance space not only with representatives of the Dancers, an alien species, but also with Invincible, a captured warship that could possibly be the most valuable object in human history. Despite the peace treaty that Geary must adhere to at all costs, the Syndicate Worlds regime threatens to make the fleet's journey back grueling and perilous.

And even if Geary escorts Invincible and the Dancers' representatives safely unharmed, the Syndics' attempts to spread dissent and political unrest may have already sown the seeds of the Alliance's destruction...

Geary and the crew of the Dauntless have managed to safely escort important alien representatives to Earth. But before they can make tracks for home, two of Geary's key lieutenants vanish. The search for his missing men leads Geary on a far-flung chase, ultimately ending at the one spot in space from which all humans have been banned: the moon Europa. Any ship that lands there must stay or be destroyed--leaving Geary to face the most profound moral dilemma of his life.

To make matters worse, strains on the Alliance are growing as the Syndics continue to meddle. Geary is ordered to take a small force to the border of Syndic space. But what he finds there is a danger much greater than anyone expected: a mysterious threat that could finally force the Alliance to its knees.

As Geary spearheads a desperate battle to protect the Alliance against a shrewd and powerful enemy, he's left with just one question: Who are they?

Two Syndicate World star systems have fallen prey to a mysterious fleet of warships--a fleet controlled entirely by artificial intelligence--that is now targeting Alliance space. The warships are no mystery to Geary. They were developed by his government to ensure security, but malfunctioned. If the Syndics learn the truth, the war with the Alliance will resume with a vengeance.

As the government attempts to conceal the existence of the A.I. warships--and its role in their creation--Geary pursues them, treading a fine line between mutiny and obedience. But it soon becomes clear that his fleet is no match for the firepower of the machine-piloted armada.

With the help of the Dancer species of aliens, Geary has tracked the A.I. ships to their secret base in the supposedly mythical Unity Alternate star system where his fleet, the last hope of the Alliance's future, will end the conflict at any cost...

Logan Gyre is king of Cenaria, a country under siege, with a threadbare army and little hope. He has one chance - a desperate gamble, but one that could destroy his kingdom.

In the north, the new Godking has a plan. If it comes to fruition, no one will have the power to stop him.

Kylar Stern has no choice. To save his friends-and perhaps his enemies-he must accomplish the impossible: assassinate a goddess.

Succeeding in a pivotal battle for his Ranshai warrior race, demigod Colbey Calistinsson, the son of Thor, finds a new challenge when an unidentified enemy strikes down every eligible heir to the throne of human neutrality.

Nine years after the events of The Secret of Platform 13, The Island of Mist is under siege and Odge Gribble and Prince Ben are in hiding. Desperate to find out why the mist is disappearing, Odge travels through the gump to Vienna, to find a mistmaker expert.

But in yet another case of mistaken identity, Odge finds Lena, a nine-year-old girl looking for adventure. With the help of friends old and new, and some very interesting magic, Odge and Lena must find out why the mist is disappearing, before they lose their beloved island completely.

Nebula- and Locus-winning Novella

"Born With the Dead" by Robert Silverberg tells the story of a man whose wife is among the rekindled dead now. He's heard that she is on a plane to Zanzibar with five other rekindled dead. As a "warm", he is not really allowed to make contact with her. The dead like to stay in their cold-cities. But he'd loved her so much when she was alive, he just has to try! This novella was nominated for every major science fiction award when it was originally published in 1974, winning the Nebula and Locus awards.

"Quicken", a novella by Australian author Damien Broderick, uses Robert Silverberg's original novella as a starting point for a brilliant leap into the far future, widening the scope and tenor of the original story by revisiting some of its subtler implications.

Luke encounters rage, treachery, and revenge in the second book in the post-apocalyptic Sword of the Spirits trilogy from the author of The Tripods series.

As the Prince in Waiting, Luke has been protected by the High Seers since his father's murder and his half-brother's ascension to the throne of Winchester. But after hiding for months in the underground Sanctuary, Luke discovers a shocking secret: in a world where mechanical devices have been forbidden, the Seers themselves are secret technologists.

Now restless, Luke seizes the chance to explore the world around him. His quest leads him to unimaginable dangers and unexpected delights... but the most dangerous part of his journey awaits him at home.

Shunned by the village he saved and seeing no future in the ruins of the Well-Built City, the reformed physiognomist, Cley, ventures into the wilderness to seek forgiveness from a woman that he once hideously harmed. Wandering through this eerie land known as “The Beyond," he encounters ghosts, monsters, omnivorous trees, and more on his quest. Meanwhile, Cley’s demon friend pursues his own dangerous, drug-induced journey to seek out his own humanity. This is the conclusive leg in the bizarre life-journey of one of the most gripping and complex characters in the fantasy genre.

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.

The long-awaited founding of Valdemar comes to life in this new series from a New York Times bestselling author and beloved fantasist.

Within the Eastern Empire, Duke Kordas Valdemar rules a tiny, bucolic Duchy that focuses mostly on horse breeding. Anticipating the day when the Empire's exploitative and militant leaders would not be content to leave them alone, Korda's father set out to gather magicians in the hopes of one day finding a way to escape and protect the people of the Duchy from tyranny.

Kordas has lived his life looking over his shoulder. The signs in the Empire are increasingly dire. Under the direction of the Emperor, mages have begun to harness the power of dark magics, including blood magic, the powers of the Abyssal Planes, and the binding and "milking" of Elemental creatures.

But then one of the Duchy's mages has a breakthrough. There is a way to place a Gate at a distance so far from the Empire that it is unlikely the Emperor can find or follow them as they evacuate everyone that is willing to leave.

But time is running out, and Kordas has been summoned to the Emperor's Court.

Can his reputation as a country bumpkin and his acting skills buy him and his people the time they need to flee? Or will the Emperor lose patience, invade to strip Valdemar of everything of worth, and send its conscripted people into the front lines of the Imperial wars?

Witnessing a spacial manifestation that changes the view of the sky from a starry universe to a mirror image of the Earth, UFO researcher's son Cornell Novak begins a journey that takes him into an alien world.