Search Worlds Without End

In this haunting, richly woven novel of modern life in Japan, the author of the acclaimed debut One for Sorrow explores the ties that bind humanity across the deepest divides. Here is a Murakamiesque jewel box of intertwined narratives in which the lives of several strangers are gently linked through love, loss, and fate.

On a train filled with quietly sleeping passengers, a young man's life is forever altered when he is miraculously seen by a blind man. In a quiet town an American teacher who has lost her Japanese lover to death begins to lose her own self. On a remote road amid fallow rice fields, four young friends carefully take their own lives-and in that moment they become almost as one. In a small village a disaffected American teenager stranded in a strange land discovers compassion after an encounter with an enigmatic red fox, and in Tokyo a girl named Love learns the deepest lessons about its true meaning from a coma patient lost in dreams of an affair gone wrong.

From the neon colors of Tokyo, with its game centers and karaoke bars, to the bamboo groves and hidden shrines of the countryside, these souls and others mingle, revealing a profound tale of connection-uncovering the love we share without knowing.

Exquisitely perceptive and deeply affecting, Barzak's artful storytelling deftly illuminates the inner lives of those attempting to find-or lose-themselves in an often incomprehensible world.

It's 2012. Do you know where your androids are? In the near future, the world will grow complacent and a brilliant, if misguided, mind will seek to capitalize on that complacency by providing the common man and royalty alike with just the convenience he needs to aid him in his day to day labors. But what if suddenly those companions were to turn on their masters, sowing the seeds of destruction and death across the land? What if man's helper became his killer, and no one knew why or how to stop it? The Growing is the story of such a post-apocalyptic vision, and of the brave men and women who give everything they have to save the world from its eventual destruction. It is also the story of two lonely hearts, bitter enemies at first, who learn to trust and to love again in a world falling down all around them. Koda Rivers is a Lakota veterinarian and shaman whose roots run deep in her culture and in the soil of her native Black Hills. Kirsten King, Ph.D., is a brilliant cyberscientist and the sole surviving member of President Hillary Clinton's Cabinet. Each drawn by her own mission to destroy the androids, they meet in fire and blood at the North Dakota facility where the insurgent machines are manufactured. The Growing has all the bells and whistles of a classical epic: sweeping battles, a heroic love story, Amazon warriors, a blind bard, the gods of the land and a monster or two. The challenges present are met by our two heroes and their companions. These include Dakota's remarkable father and her warrior brother, Tacoma; Maggie Allen, USAF Colonel and crack pilot; an extraordinary German Shepherd named Asimov; and the spirits of the land in their various forms.

Imagine a world in which Teddy Roosevelt is elected to a third term and leads America directly into World War I.A world in which the consequent terms of the Versailles Treaty propose a much gentler reconciliation between Allied and Central powers. A world in which neither World War II-nor the Holocaust-ever occurs, though European skirmishes abound. It's into this world, present millennium, where Martin Gidron has placed both Janusz, who's fled Poland to avoid a Russian draft, and his lover Irena, daughter of a famous composer. When Irena travels to Greece for her father's funeral, things start unravelling for Janusz: people and business establishments having Jewish connections disappear, literally without a trace or even memory, from New York City where Janusz has illegally emigrated. Then the Jewish daily newspaper where Janusz works switches overnight from Yiddish to English. And what are these strange letters that Janusz receives at his apartment, offering a "credit card, " whatever that might be? The discovery that Janusz is cast into by the novel's end is as harrowing in its particularity as it is in its universality.

In this prequel to Tin Star, we meet Heckleck, the Hort alien who befriends Tula Bane on the space station Yertina Feray in her fight for survival. In his modest beginnings, Heckleck is raised to understand that breeding and propagating his own kind is the sole reason for living. When he is called upon to settle on a new planet, he meets the daughter of a politician, Goglu, with whom he falls helplessly in love, and is determined to win over. But nothing is easy in love and space exploration, and when his plans become thwarted, he must find a new way of life.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology Polyphony: Volume 4 (2004), edited by Deborah Layne and Jay Lake. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens: First Annual Collection (2005), edited by Jane Yolen and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy (2010), edited by Sean Wallace and Rachel Swirsky. It is included in the collection In the Forest of Forgetting (2006).

Expanded from a story published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1944.

IT WASN'T A BIRD - BUT IT COULDN'T BE A MAN! Lt. William Kenlon had watched the incredible creature circling the submarine Sea Serpent in the darkness of the night, and he could barely believe what he saw.The giant winged monster was human-and it was intent on some purpose that involved the sub and its crew. Then the creature landed-and suddenly, impossibly, the Sea Serpent was in another world. A world of the far future; where the land was uninhabitable and humanity as Kenlon knew it had died out. A world in which the strange bird-men of the air warred with the even stranger denizens of the sea for domination. And in that bizarre battle for survival, the men from the 20th century were the vital factor!

Of woman he was born to the royal house of Tum-Barlum, and of woman he was cursed with the crippled limb of a swan. Feared warrior, insatiable lover, seeker after mysterious powers--they called him Prince Witherwing.

This short story originally appeared in the collection Heart of Stone, Dear and Other Stories (1983). It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection (1985), edited by Gardner Dozois.

The Kendrick family have been making world-famous dolls since the early 1800s. But their dolls aren't coveted for the craftmanship alone. Each one has a specific emotion laid on it by its creator. A magic that can make you feel bucolic bliss or consuming paranoia at a single touch. Though founded by sisters, now only men may know the secrets of the workshop.

Persephone Kendrick longs to break tradition and learn the family craft, and when a handsome stranger arrives claiming doll-making talent and a blood tie to the Kendricks, she sees a chance to grasp all she desires.

But then, one night, the family's most valuable doll is stolen. Only someone with knowledge of magic could have taken her. Only a Kendrick could have committed this crime...

Zenya was a teenager when she ran away from home to join the mechanically-modified warrior sect. She was determined to earn mechanized wings and protect the people and city she loved. Under the strict tutelage of a mercurial, charismatic leader, Zenya became Winged Zemolai.

But after twenty-six years of service, Zemolai is disillusioned with her role as an enforcer in an increasingly fascist state. After one tragic act of mercy, she is cast out and loses everything she worked for. As Zemolai fights for her life, she begins to understand the true nature of her sect, her leader, and the gods themselves.

What does the famous Herzwesten beer have to do with saving the entire western world from the invading Turkish armies? Brian Duffy, aging soldier of fortune, is the only man who can rescue the world from evil--if only he can figure out why the beer was so important to a mysterious old man called the Fisher King, and why his dreams are plagued with images of a sword and an arm rising from a lake . . .

Now anyone can have a baby. With FullLife's safe and affordable healthcare plan, the brave new world is here.

Without the pouch, Eva might not have been born. And yet she has sacrificed her career, and maybe even her relationship, campaigning against FullLife's biotech baby pouches. Despite her efforts, everyone prefers a world where women are liberated from danger and constraint and all can share the joy of childbearing. Perhaps FullLife has helped transform society for the better? But just as Eva decides to accept this, she discovers that something strange is happening at FullLife.

Piotr hasn't seen Eva in years. Not since their life together dissolved in tragedy. But Piotr's a journalist who has also uncovered something sinister about FullLife. What drove him and Eva apart may just bring them back together, as they search for the truth behind FullLife's closed doors, and face a truth of their own.

Baird College's Mendenhall echoes with the footsteps of the last home-bound students heading off for Thanksgiving break, and Robin Stone swears she can feel the creepy, hundred-year-old residence hall breathe a sigh of relief for its long-awaited solitude. Or perhaps it's only gathering itself for the coming weekend.

As a massive storm dumps rain on the isolated campus, four other lonely students reveal Patrick, a handsome jock; Lisa, a manipulative tease; Cain, a brooding musician; and finally Martin, a scholarly eccentric. Each has forsaken a long weekend at home for their own secret reasons.

The five unlikely companions establish a tentative rapport, but they soon become aware of a sixth presence disturbing the ominous silence that pervades the building. Are they the victims of a simple college prank taken way too far, or is the unusual energy evidence of something genuine---and intent on using the five students for its own terrifying ends? It's only Thursday afternoon, and they have three long days and dark nights before the rest of the world returns to find out what's become of them. But for now it's just the darkness keeping company with five students nobody wants and no one will miss.

Going through a messy mid-life crisis, forty-year-old wife and mother Larque Harootunian gets carried away with her latest doppelganger--herself at age ten--who helps transform her into a young, strong, courageous, and gay man.

This novella originally appreared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, January 1992. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection (1993), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Where or When (2006).

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Black Thorn, White Rose (1994), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twelth Annual Collection (1995), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Happily Ever After (2011), edited by John Klima. The story is included in the collection Going Home Again (1997) and Things Will Never Be the Same: Selected Short Fiction, 1980 - 2005 (2007).

There's a harpy with bronze wings living in the dumpster behind Desiree's building. She's ugly and she eats garbage, but she has a little kingdom back there. Desiree wants something of her own, too -- something all hers. Can that foul old thing possibly help her?

This story can be found in the anthology New York Fantastic (2017), edited by Paula Guran.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

The Snows of Ganymede

When the Order of Planetary Engineers sent Hall Davenant to Ganymede for a terraforming survey, they knew that the job on the airless, frigid Jovian moon would be tough. Changing it to resemble Earth - with fertile land, water and good air - was the biggest and most important planet conversion job ever attempted by the Engineers. But they hadn't counted on the already too Earthlike behaviour of the Ganymede colonists, who had never altered the ancient Earth-born habits of intrigue, bigotry and double-dyed treachery!

War of the Wing-Men

Three Terrans crash on a planet whose food is poison to them. They have to get to the other side of the planet where a Terran base camp can feed them. Unfortunately they get embroiled in a war between rival tribes of wing-men. van Rijn uses his wits to manipulate the situation to his own benefit and brings about a truce.

In this intriguing tale of the clash of two worlds and cultures, Miquita, one of the forty-two daughters of Commander Hritrar, is sent to the Ruburuii after their defeat at her father's hands. Hampered by diplomatic etiquette and a thoroughly alien culture, Miquita struggles to understand the destruction her father has leveled against the cities and orchards that depend on a failing artificial intelligence. Can she help repair the terrible damage her father's forces have inflicted? Perhaps more importantly: should she?

Multi-award winning author Aliette de Bodard, brings her story of the War in Heaven to Paris, igniting the City of Light in a fantasy of divine power and deep conspiracy...

In the late Twentieth Century, the streets of Paris are lined with haunted ruins. The Great Magicians' War left a trail of devastation in its wake. The Grand Magasins have been reduced to piles of debris, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine has turned black with ashes and rubble and the remnants of the spells that tore the city apart. But those that survived still retain their irrepressible appetite for novelty and distraction, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over France's once grand capital.

Once the most powerful and formidable, House Silverspires now lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls.

Within the House, three very different people must come together: a naive but powerful Fallen angel; an alchemist with a self-destructive addiction; and a resentful young man wielding spells of unknown origin. They may be Silverspires' salvation--or the architects of its last, irreversible fall. And if Silverspires falls, so may the city itself.

Presents the story of the black dragon of Xak Tsaroth, ruins that lie in the heart of a murky and dangerous swamp, detailing the origins of the creature and its role as a minion of the Dark Queen. Original.

When Prince Krishna is called away, he leaves behind some strict instructions for the Hall children about one of the openings in the mysterious summerhouse: Keep Out! As Eddy and Eleanor swing through each of the other openings, they refuse to break the rule, even as their temptation grows. But when Oliver and little Georgie disappear through the forbidden archway, Eleanor and Eddy know that they must either break their promise or risk never seeing their friends again.

After nearly five decades (and, indeed, the same number of volumes), one might think they were well-acquainted with the Lady Isabella Trent--dragon naturalist, scandalous explorer, and perhaps as infamous for her company and feats of daring as she is famous for her discoveries and additions to the scientific field.

And yet--after her initial adventure in the mountains of Vystrana, and her exploits in the depths of war-torn Eriga, to the high seas aboard The Basilisk, and then to the inhospitable deserts of Akhia--the Lady Trent has captivated hearts along with fierce minds. This concluding volume will finally reveal the truths behind her most notorious adventure--scaling the tallest peak in the world, buried behind the territory of Scirland's enemies--and what she discovered there, within the Sanctuary of Wings.

Winter's longest night is rapidly approaching as Merlin faces the most difficult challenge of his life: to unite all the people of Fincayra against an invasion by the evil Rhita Gawr. But how can one man, in two weeks' time, gather them all - the dwarves, the canyon eagles, the walking trees, the living stones, and more - when none of them will listen? And now comes the mysterious Swordarms, who is hunting down Fincayra's children. Only if Merlin can unite the battling forces within himself, can he save the children, unify the Fincayrans, and regain the long lost wings that will enable him, and his people, to choose their true destiny.

Four women, soldier, scholar, poet, and socialite, are caught up on different sides of a violent rebellion. As war erupts and their families are torn apart, they fear they may disappear into the unwritten pages of history. Using the sword and the pen, the body and the voice, they struggle not just to survive, but to make history.

The Star Ka'ats make an interplanetary journey to another ka'at colony where life forms have grown to monstrous proportions and nearly exterminated the ka'at colonists.

At the start of the twenty-first century, unconditional war swept across the Earth. A war that engulfed the great and the small, the rich and the poor, giving no quarter. Each side strove for unconditional victory, and as battle built upon battle, the living began to envy the dead. Chastised by the cataclysm that they had unleashed, the governments of Earth came together. Humanity vowed to put an end to war and to strive for the betterment of every living creature. A united Earth created Starfleet, an interstellar agency whose mission was to explore the cosmos, to come in peace for all mankind. It was a naïve wish that was battered by interstellar realities, yet man persists in the belief that peace is the way. Banding together with other powers to form a Coalition of Planets, humanity hopes that the strength each can offer the other will allow for peaceful exploration.

However, the rise of the Coalition strikes dread within the Romulan Star Empire. They feel its growing reach will cut them off from what is rightfully theirs. The Romulans know that the alliance is fragile, that the correct strategy could turn allies into foes. Perfecting a way of remotely controlling Coalition ships and using them as weapons against one another, the Romulans hope to drive a wedge of suspicion and mistrust between these new allies. One Starfleet captain uncovers this insidious plot: Jonathan Archer of the Enterprise.

Determined not to lose what they have gained, outmanned and outgunned, the captains of Starfleet stand tall, vowing to defend every inch of Coalition space until the tide begins to turn. The Romulans now plan to strike at what they see as the heart of their problem. With nothing left to lose, the Romulan Star Empire engages in all-out war against humanity, determined once and for all to stop the human menace from spreading across the galaxy.

Three Terrans crash on a planet whose food is poison to them. They have to get to the other side of the planet where a Terran base camp can feed them. Unfortunately they get embroiled in a war between rival tribes of wing-men. van Rijn uses his wits to manipulate the situation to his own benefit and brings about a truce.

A shorter version appeared in Ace Double D-303 in 1958. Slightly different versions have appeared as The Man Who Counts and The Earth Book of Stormgate 2.

When Timothy finally found work as a tester for a popular online MMORPG, his lifelong dream was fulfilled. And now, he earns money (and pretty good money, at that) just for doing what he loves - playing a beautiful and realistic computer game. But he isn't some typical run-of-the-mill player, like the millions of others. Timothy is truly capable and talented, and stands out from the crowd. In fact, the faceless masses consider him far too lucky and successful. Many players dislike him for his achievements and hunt him down ruthlessly just because they feel envious or because he looks different. So, what is he to do now when the whole world is against him, and his only allies are his beloved sister and a few trusted friends? Make peace? Sink down to their level? Or just fly ever higher on the wings of success? It's all up to Timothy!

The Man in Black is dead, and Roland is about to be hurled into 20th-century America, occupying the mind of a man running cocaine on the New York/Bermuda shuttle. A brilliant work of dark fantasy inspired by Browning's romantic poem, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came."

Pulling the Wings Off Angels is a madcap adventure brimming with the ethical quandaries and sardonic wit of The Good Place by World Fantasy Award-winning author K. J. Parker

Long ago, a wealthy man stole an angel and hid her in a chapel, where she remains imprisoned to this day.

That's the legend, anyway.

A clerical student who's racked up gambling debts to a local gangster is given an ultimatum--deliver the angel his grandfather kidnapped, or forfeit various body parts in payment.

And so begins a whirlwind theological paradox--with the student at its center--in which the stakes are the necessity of God, the existence of destiny--and the nature of angels.

Evil times had come for rthe Deryni, the humans with strange, magical powers. The Regents of the boy-king Alroy sought their destruction. And now Bishop Alister Cullen was dead, depriving the Deryni of their greatest friend. But no one could be sure he was really dead. His body lay unchanged and incorruptible. As those questions remained unanswered, the effort to save Deryni had to continue. In the meanwhile, Camber's daughter Evaine pursued the most perilous quest of all--to find among ancient foribidden scrolls the spell that might release Camber. The price to fail--or to succeed--was unthinkable...

Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear returns to the epic fantasy world of the Lotus Kingdoms with The Red-Stained Wings, the sequel to The Stone in the Skull, taking the Gage into desert lands under a deadly sky to answer the riddle of the Stone in the Skull.

The Gage and the Dead Man brought a message from the greatest wizard of Messaline to the ruling queen of Sarathai, one of the Lotus Kingdoms. But the message was a riddle, and the Lotus Kingdoms are at war.

Many readers are attracted to science fiction for that singular moment when a story expands your imagination, enabling you to see something in a new light. Not all SF works this way! This volume collects the very best of it that does, with 25 of the finest examples of mind-expanding and awe-inspiring science fiction.

The storylines range from a discovery on the Moon that opens up vistas across all time to a moment in which distances across the Earth suddenly increase and people vanish. These are tales to take you from the other side of now to the very end of time - from today''s top-name contributors including Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Silverberg, Gregory Benford and Robert Reed.

Table of Contents:

• vii - Acknowledgments (The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF) - (2009) - essay by uncredited
• ix - Introduction: That Sense of Wonder - (2009) - essay by Mike Ashley
• 1 - Out of the Sun - (1958) - short story by Arthur C. Clarke
• 9 - The Pevatron Rats - (2009) - novelette by Stephen Baxter
• 30 - The Edge of the Map - [Susanna and Ivo] - (2006) - short story by Ian Creasey
• 47 - Cascade Point - (1983) - novella by Timothy Zahn
• 105 - A Dance to Strange Musics - (1998) - novelette by Gregory Benford
• 131 - Palindromic - (1997) - short story by Peter Crowther
• 156 - Castle in the Sky - (2009) - novelette by Robert Reed
• 191 - The Hole in the Hole - [Wilson Wu and Irving - 1] - (1994) - novelette by Terry Bisson
• 224 - Hotrider - (1991) - short story by Keith Brooke
• 237 - Mother Grasshopper - (1997) - short story by Michael Swanwick
• 255 - Waves and Smart Magma - (2009) - novelette by Paul Di Filippo
• 282 - The Black Hole Passes - [Eight Worlds] - (1975) - novelette by John Varley
• 309 - The Peacock King - (1965) - short story by Larry McCombs and Ted White
• 325 - Bridge - [Cities in Flight] - (1952) - novelette by James Blish
• 355 - Anhedonia - (2009) - novelette by Adam Roberts
• 380 - Tiger Burning - (2006) - novelette by Alastair Reynolds (variant of Tiger, Burning)
• 407 - The Width of the World - (1983) - short story by Ian Watson
• 421 - Our Lady of the Sauropods - (1980) - short story by Robert Silverberg
• 438 - Into the Miranda Rift - (1993) - novella by G. David Nordley
• 504 - The Rest Is Speculation - (2009) - short story by Eric Brown
• 524 - Vacuum States - (1988) - short story by Geoffrey A. Landis

A NOVEL IN THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD-WINNING MYTHAGO CYCLE

Ryhope Wood, Mythago Wood, is the great forest steeped in mystery, whose heart contains secrets that change all who come there.

Alex Bradley is a damaged and visionary child. Little does he know that the distorted creations of his mind are alive inside nearby Ryhope Wood. When the forest claims him, his father goes in pursuit, along with a scientific expedition looking for the secret of "mythago-genesis"...

But inside Ryhope, Alex has created a hundred forms of the Trickster-all of them seeking their maker, and all of them deadly.

In The Shadow of His Wings, a miner's son, Lukan Barra, joins forces with the beautiful and unpredictable Rui Ravenstone, his brother's former lover, in an attempt to be the first to reach the lair of the Erseiyr, the god and monster whose great wings shadow the future of the land, and whose fate becomes linked with Lukan's in a strange and wonderful bonding.

The first book in the Six Kingdoms series, The Shadow of His Wings is set at the end of the first millennium in Myrcia. The novel opens with the estrangement of Lukan from his criminal brother, Vearus, who returns from exile with the secret of healing and transformation of the flesh that gains him power second only to Myrcia's despotic ruler, the Sanctor Grouin.

An invading army from Skarria is threatening the capitol city of Castlecliff and Lukan is press-ganged into military service, barely surviving the battle of Dawn Horse Hill which only temporarily halts the Skarrian onslaught.

Grouin declares the throne open to anyone who can secure the intervention of the fabled Erseiyr--the immortal winged creature worshipped and feared by Myrcians--who lives in a mountaintop cavern filled with tribute of ages past. Lukan, thrown unjustly into prison after the battle and then mysteriously released, resolves to claim the prize of the throne.

A dark, atmospheric tale of warring kingdoms, wild magic, female rage, and the choice between love and power in a world ruled by conquest...

"Death is come to take you home, death of blood and thorn and bone..."

Tilde has always heard the whispers of the kithwood, the voices of her ancestors speaking through the mysterious forest of her homeland. But now both the kithwood and her kingdom are in danger, for Tilde is the only surviving heir of a conquered land. To stop the bloodshed, she must marry the aging Swan King, Liran, and bear him a son.

But the king's court is dangerous. Liran's older sons will do whatever it takes to remove Tilde. And her presence stirs conflict in the heart of Liran's daughter, the princess Elise, who has only ever known loyalty to her family.

Yet none of them know that Tilde is a snake in their midst, with allies on her side and dark, forbidden power of her own. She wants her kingdom back, and she will sacrifice everything to claim it.

For the queen to rise, the swans must fall.

The Beating of his Wings by Paul Hoffman is the final instalment in his epic Cale and the Sanctuary of Redeemers series.

Thomas Cale has been running from the truth.

Since discovering that his brutal military training has been for one purpose - to destroy God's greatest mistake, mankind itself - Cale has been hunted by the very man who made him into the Angel of Death: Pope Redeemer Bosco.

Cale is a paradox: arrogant and innocent, generous and pitiless. Feared and revered by those created him, he has already used his breathtaking talent for destruction to bring down the most powerful civilisation in the world.

But Thomas Cale is weak. His soul is dying. As his body is wracked with convulsions he knows that the final judgment will not wait for a sick boy. As the day of reckoning draws close, Cale's sense of vengeance leads him back to the Sanctuary - and to confront the person he hates most in the world. Finally Cale must recognise that he is the incarnation of God's rage and decide if he will stand against the Sanctuary of the Redeemers and use his unique skill of laying waste to all things.

The fate of mankind rests on Cale's decision.

The Beating of his Wings is the third and final instalment in Paul Hoffman's epic Cale and the Sanctuary of the Redeemers trilogy, following The Left Hand of God and The Last Four Things. Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials meets Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose, and fans of epic heroic fiction will love this series.

The Last Castle:

For 700 years the Meks served without complaint; they were indispensable, for no gentleman would demean himself with toil. But now they turn against the strongholds of civilization--Castle Halcyon, then Sea Island, Morninglight, and Maraval--one by one the proud castles of Earth fall; last standing is Castle Hagedorn.

Winner Nebula Award 1966, Hugo award 1967.

Nightwings:

A fabulous tale of pilgrimage and hope, betrayal and transformation by one of science fiction's greatest writers. Only at night on the winds of darkness can she soar. And it was Avluela the Flier's ebony and scarlet wings that lead the Watcher to the seven hills of the ancient city from which, in a moment of weakness, the Watcher failed his vigil, leaving the skies and deep space unguarded. The invaders came and conquered. With Avluela lost in the turmoil of conquest, the Watcher set out alone for the Holy City home of the Rememberers, keepers of the past. This is where the secret of Earth's salvation lay hidden in antiquity. On his journey the Watcher hoped to recapture his youth and find the soaring, beautiful woman he loved. But Avluela held more for the Watcher - and Earth - than love. Her wonder stretched beyond flight, for she knew the riddle that would free all men.

The Wild Cards universe has been thrilling readers for over 25 years. In Carrie Vaughn's "The Thing about Growing Up in Jokertown," a group of teenage jokers yearn to explore outside the confines of their strange little neighborhood and get a real taste of the Big Apple.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.