Search Worlds Without End

In the near future, a signal is detected coming from the Alpha Centauri system. Mysterious, unintelligible data streams in for ten years. Heather Davis, a professor in the University of Toronto psychology department, has devoted her career to deciphering the message. Her estranged husband, Kyle, is working on the development of artificial intelligence systems and new computer technology utilizing quantum effects to produce a near-infinite number of calculations simultaneously.

When Heather achieves a breakthrough, the message reveals a startling new technology that rips the barriers of space and time, holding the promise of a new stage of human evolution. In concert with Kyle's discoveries of the nature of consciousness, the key to limitless exploration -- or the end of the human race -- appears close at hand.

Sawyer has created a gripping thriller, a pulse-pounding tour of the farthest reaches of technology.

This short story originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2007. It can also be found in the anthology Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition, edited by Rich Horton.

Divide... and Conquer!

Lady Lucinda, secret sorceress of the Old Gods, has split the One Faith into bitter factions. With the help of the Duke of Torinia, she launches a war to overthrow the King of Valdur and bring back the old ways. Brother Acquel Galenus, now Magister of the High Temple of Livorna, knows he must stop her, but doubts his own faith and abilities. With powerful demons seeking to re-enter the world through Lucinda, he must find allies, but how?

Julianus Strykar, now a coronel of the mercenary company of the Black Rose, finds himself thrust into the maelstrom of civil war, but false pride leads him into a battle he may not be able to win. He soon faces old enemies and ghosts from his past.

Captain Nicolo Danamis may have regained his fleet, but the return of his long-lost father and lord, Valerian, has complicated his love affair with mer princess Citala. When the Queen of Valdur demands his help, he and Citala find themselves at the centre of palace intrigue. As they try to avert an 'alliance' with the Silk Empire that will turn Valdur into a puppet kingdom, Nicolo learns that the crown prince may be his bastard son.

Friendships, loves, and the future of Valdur all hang by a thread...

An earthman arrives accidentally on a planet where the people are marsupial and changes the lives and fortunes of a family group living there.

With the help of two refugees from a penal colony, three earthmen, separated from a fourth on the planet Torin, elude capture by the Great Elder and gain cooperation for their mission.

Having been absorbed into the traditional life of the Moruia, four Earth people live peacefully on the planet Torin until an unscrupulous diviner tries to seize power.