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Contains Nebula Award-winning Novella "The Spacetime Pool" and Nebula-nominated Novella "Aurora in Four Voices"

• Introduction - essay by Kate Dolan
• Aurora in Four Voices - (1998) - novella
• Ave de Paso - (2001) - shortstory
• The Spacetime Pool - (2008) - novella
• Light and Shadow - (1994) - novelette
• The City of Cries - (2005) - novella
• A Poetry of Angles and Dreams - essay
• Afterword - essay by Aly Parsons
• Bibliography - essay by Steven H Silver

The Nebula-winning Novella "The Spacetime Pool" can be read online here:

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8

"A Poetry of Angles and Dreams" can be read online here

Megan O'Flannery, an expert in robotics and Artificial Intelligence, is hired by a secret military-funded project that has created four self-aware androids. Only one of these androids has survived, and Megan finds herself in danger almost immediately, as she begins her work with the remaining android. Ander, as this android now calls himself, has the capabilities of a high-speed computer, superhuman reflexes and strength, the looks of an Adonis, and behaves like an angry, unpredictable adolescent. When an internationally renowned robotics genius, Raj Sundaram, is also hired for this project, Megan finds herself attracted to him but afraid that Raj may have a deadly agenda of his own. Added to her troubles is Ander's fierce animosity towards Raj.

Kidnappings and pursuits by mercenaries ensue, and all three – Ander, Megan, the mysterious Raj – must fight for their survival, while Megan struggles to comprehend the nature and motives of her strange companions.

This exciting collection includes Asaro's Nebula Award-winning novella "The Spacetime Pool," her Skolian Empire story "Light and Shadow", and the author's essay "A Poetry of Angles and Dreams", with new Introductions to the fiction works.

"The Spacetime Pool" begins as Janelle, a brilliant young MIT graduate, is pulled against her will into an alternate world of medieval-level warfare but with advanced mathematics, harems, breathtakingly beautiful Moorish architecture... and two ruling brothers locked in a deadly power struggle to which Janelle holds the key to victory.

Asaro's story "Light and Shadow" proves mathematics can be stranger than most fiction, as Kelric Valdoria, a young pilot recovering from a great personal loss, flies a sentient aircraft with a new starship drive - against his commander's orders - up to and surpassing the speed of light. Kelric returns (at least, most of him does!) with a new lust for life.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (The Spacetime Pool) - essay
• The Spacetime Pool - (2008) - novella
• Introduction (Light and Shadow) - essay
• Light and Shadow - (1994) - novelette
• A Poetry of Angles and Dreams - essay

The first 3 chapters of the Nebula-winning Novella "The Spacetime Pool" can be read online here:

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3

"A Poetry of Angles and Dreams" can be read online here

Nebula Award winning novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March 2008. The story can also be found in the anthology Nebula Awards Showcase 2010, edited by Bill Fawcett. It is included in the collection The Spacetime Pool (2012).

The first 3 chapters of this story can be read on the author's blog (01, 02, 03).

Winner of the Homer Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.

Ballerina Lucia del Mar has two great passions: dance, which consumes most of her waking hours, and the World Wide Web, which brings the outside world into her tightly regimented life. Lucia's two passions collide when a White House performance and reception leads to an encounter with handsome Moroccan businessman Rashid al-Jazari, creator of a brilliant technology that has set the Internet rumor mill afire.

A second, seemingly chance meeting with Rashid will plunge Lucia into a deadly world of desire and intrigue. For although his work has implications she cannot foresee, there are those who do understand and would turn its great power to their own destructive purposes. As she is drawn deeper and deeper into Rashid's life and work, cut off from the outside world, she finds herself becoming more attracted to him. But is her seclusion within Rashid's well-guarded Moroccan home intended to ensure her safety...or her silence? And is it already too late to stop the terrible consequences his new technology could unleash?

The Nebula Awards Showcase volumes have been published annually since 1966, reprinting the winning and nominated stories in the Nebula Awards, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America(R). The editor selected by SFWA's anthology committee (chaired by Mike Resnick) is two-time Nebula winner, Catherine Asaro. This year's volume includes stories and excerpts by Connie Willis, Jo Walton, Kij Johnson, Geoff Ryman, John Clute, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Ferrett Steinmetz, Ken Liu, Nancy Fulda, Delia Sherman, Amal El-Mohtar, C. S. E. Cooney, David Goldman, Katherine Sparrow, E. Lily Yu, and Brad R. Torgersen.

Table of Contents:

• A Harmony of Thoughts - (2013) - essay by Catherine Asaro
• The Paper Menagerie - (2011) - shortstory by Ken Liu
• The Ice Owl - (2011) - novella by Carolyn Ives Gilman
• Ado - (1988) - shortstory by Connie Willis
• The Migratory Pattern of Dancers - (2011) - novelette by Katherine Sparrow
• Peach-Creamed Honey - (2010) - poem by Amal El-Mohtar
• The Axiom of Choice - (2011) - shortstory by David W. Goldman
• Club Story - (2011) - essay by John Clute
• What We Found - (2011) - novelette by Geoff Ryman
• Among Others (excerpt) - (2011) - shortfiction by Jo Walton
• Movement - (2011) - shortstory by Nancy Fulda
• Sauerkraut Station - (2011) - novelette by Ferrett Steinmetz
• The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees - (2011) - shortstory by E. Lily Yu
• Ray of Light - (2011) - novelette by Brad R. Torgersen
• The Freedom Maze (excerpt) - (2011) - shortfiction by Delia Sherman
• The Sea King's Second Bride - (2010) - poem by C. S. E. Cooney
• The Man Who Bridged the Mist - (2011) - novella by Kij Johnson
• 2012 Nebula Awards Winners, Nominees, and Honorees - essay by uncredited
• Past Nebula Awards Winners - essay by uncredited

SHE WAS RUNNING FROM A RUTHLESS CRIMINAL
ACCOMPANIED BY SOMEONE MORE THAN HUMAN...

When the shipwrecked stranger washed up, nearly drowned, on the beach near research scientist Samantha Bryton's home, she was unaware that he was something more than human: an experiment conducted by Charon, a notorious criminal and practitioner of illegal robotics and android research. The man said his name was Turner Pascal--but Pascal was dead, killed in a car wreck. Then she found that Charon was experimenting with copying the minds of humans into android brains, implanted in human bodies to escape detection, planning to make his own army of slaves that will follow his orders without question.

Samantha and Turner quickly found themselves on the run across the country, pursued by the most ruthless criminal of the twenty-first century. In desperation, Samantha decided to seek help from Sunrise Alley, an underground organization of AIs that had gone rogue. But these cybernetic outlaws were rumored to have their own hidden agenda, not necessarily congruent with humanity's welfare, and Samantha feared that her only hope would prove forlorn....

Charon is dead.

Long live Charon!

The creator of a proscribed network of rogue AIs and androids has been destroyed, his multiple copies deleted. Except for one. Alpha: a female android who seems to possess a conscience--so much so that her execution is delayed. Big mistake. Now on the run, and with her former captor as hostage, Alpha moves to activate a long dormant master-plan -- a plan that may well include the end of humanity and the violent transformation of the world as we know it!

Hugo and Nebula Award nominted novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July-August 2000. There are no other known publications available at this time.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 1998. The story can also be found in the anthology The Space Opera Renaissance (2006), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. It is included in the collection Aurora in Four Voices (2011).

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology The Mammoth Book of SF Wars (2012), edited by Ian Whates and Ian Watson.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, April 2003. There are no other known publications available at this time.

The Skolian Empire, with its well-trained Jagernauts, rules a third of the civilized galaxy through its mastery of faster-than-light communication maintained by members of its Ruby Dynasty. But war with the rival Eubian Empire of the Traders, which thrives on slavery and whose elites are known for their cruelty, seems imminent. Such a war can only lead to slavery for the Skolians, or the destruction of both sides. Destructive skirmishes have already occurred. A desperate attempt must be made to avert total disaster.

Soz Valdoria, a Jagernaut and member of the Ruby Dynasty, is attracted to her supposed "enemy" Jabriol, the son of the ruler of the Eubian empire, or Traders. With hostile forces seeking their capture or death, Soz and Jabriol must work out their own - and hopefully their empires' - salvation.

Called by Booklist "one of the best SF first novels in years", Kirkus Reviews praised Primary Inversion: "An imaginative debut that takes off at a frantic pace, with dazzling technology, stirring battles and mental hijinks... plenty of energy and invention."

The eBook version of Primary Inversion is rewritten from the original and is considered the best version.

In the distant future, the Skolian empire rules one third of the human galaxy, and is the most powerful of all. For the ruling family has the power of telepathy, and through it, the ability to communicate faster than light across the interstellar space. but their most determined enemy, the traders, who thrive on human pain, need to interbreed with a Skolian to gain their powers. And now they have her.

Regarding the Kindle link above: The e-books Lightning Strike, Book I and Lightning Strike, Book II (not yet released) are the same story as told in Catch the Lightning, but substantially rewritten and expanded for the eBook form.

When Kelric, a scion of the imperial family of Skolia, crash-lands his fighter on the off-limits planet of Coba, he figures it will be only a short time before he makes his way home. But he fails to account for the powerful matriarchy of Coba, the mistresses of the great estates who do not want the Empire to know about their recent cultural advances.

First they take him prisoner.

Then, one by one, the most powerful women on the planet fall in love with him!

Living in exile on a deserted planet, Sauscony and Jaibriol, each the heir to an interstellar empire, become entangled in the machinations of the Skolian Empire. Interstellar war erupts, and Jaibriol is snatched away to be the unwilling ruler of the Highton Aristos. Sauscony must lead an invading space fleet to rescue him from his own Empire - without revealing that they are married. With much of interstellar civilization poised on the brink of destruction, it is the devotion of these two lovers, their sacrifices, and their heroism, that might just forge a new order.

Ascendant Sun is the direct sequel to The Last Hawk, in which Kelric, heir to the Skolian Empire, crash-landed his fighter on the Restricted planet of Coba. He was imprisoned by the powerful mistresses of the great estates - women who, over time, fell in love with him. After 18 years of living in their gilded cage, Kelric finally made his escape.

In Ascendant Sun, Kelric returns to Skolian space, only to find the Empire in control of the Allied forces of Earth. With little more than the clothes on his back, Kelric is forced to take work on a merchant vessel. But when that vessel enters Euban space, Kelric finds his worst nightmare realized: he becomes a slave to the cruel Aristos - humans who use torture and sex as the ultimate aphrodesiac.

A New Adventure in the Saga of the Skolian Empire.

Kamoj Argali is the young ruler of an impoverished province on a backward planet. To keep her people from starving, she has agreed to marry Jax Ironbridge, the boorish and brutal ruler of a prosperous province. But before Argali and Ironbridge are wed, a mysterious stranger from a distant planet sweeps in and forces Kamoj into marriage, throwing her world into utter chaos.

Separated for decades by circumstance and political machinations, the Ruby Dynasty, hereditary rulers of Skolia, struggle to bring together the tattered remnants of their family in the shadow of a disastrous interstellar war. Too many have died, others are presumed lost, yet Dyhianna, the Ruby Pharaoh, must move quickly if they are reassume their rightful place as rulers of the Skolian Empire.

At the age of seventeen the young nobleman named Jaibriol Qox became ruler of a vast galactic empire - and lost everything he had ever valued.

Born of a clandestine liaison between a renegade daughter of the Skolian Imperialate and a scion of the genetically engineered Eubian Traders, Jai Qox grew up in exile, unaware of the powers that coursed through his noble blood. In the waning days of the bloody Radiance War, which ravaged the galaxy, Jai was captured, and returned to the Traders to play a role as a puppet Emperor in their scheme to consolidate their domination of space.

Now Jai must walk a razor's edge, to seize the power that is his by birthright, without succumbing to its dark seduction, in order to avert a conflagration which threatens to engulf a thousand worlds.

The Birth of an Empire

Skyfall goes back to the very roots of Skolia, showing how a chance meeting on a backwater planet forges a vast interstellar empire. Eldrinson, a provincial ruler on a primitive planet, is plagued by inner demons. But when he meets Roca, a beautiful and mysterious woman from the stars, he whisks her away to his mountain retreat, inadvertently starting a great interstellar war, and birthing the next generation of rulers for the Skolian Empire.

In 2002, Catherine Asaro won the Nebula Award for The Quantum Rose, the sixth novel in her Saga of the Skolian Empire. This very same novel was also named Best SF Novel by the Romantic Times. Schism: Part One of Triad is the tenth novel in this multiple award-winning series, and represents an excellent entry point into the series.

For Schism harkens back to the early years of the Skolian Empire, back to the beginning of the war between Skolia and the Euban Traders. Twenty-three years have passed since the fateful vote in the Skolian Assembly that Roca missed in Skyfall. It created the first open hostility between Eube and Skolia, which has only deepened over the ensuing years.

Now, Eube senses an opportunity, for strife has riven the first family of the Skolian Empire. Sauscony, the daughter of Roca and Eldrinson, is ready to seek her fortune as an officer-in-training in the Skolian military. When her father forbids her to undertake such a dangerous path, a wedge is formed as Soz chooses duty over family. Eube hopes to make this permanent, a divide that will leave the Skolian Empire ripe for conquest. And they're willing to kill anyone to make it happen.

Catherine Asaro has won numerous awards for her Saga of the Skolian Empire novels, including the Nebula Award and two Romantic Times awards for Best SF Novel. Combining cutting edge scientific theory with grand romantic adventure, this series represents space opera at its finest.

The Final Key is the second half of the story arc known as Triad, which began in Schism. Schism ended with the Skolian Empire torn asunder by personal conflict within the royal family. With The Final Key, the Skolian Empire comes under all-out assault from its nemesis, the Euban Concord, who have undermined the Empire via subterfuge and assassination, leaving it ripe for conquest. The Skolian Empire's only hope? A young woman barely out of her teens who hasn't even complete her training as a cadet.

Two men, two empires. Jaibriol ruled the Eubian Concord: over two trillion people across more than a thousand worlds and habitats. Kelric ruled the Skolian Imperialate. War had come before - and it might come again, devastating vast swathes of the galaxy. Neither Jaibriol nor Kelric wanted war, but neither was complete master of his realm. And each hid a secret that, if revealed, might be his downfall.

Jaibriol was a secret psion, with telepathic abilities, and to be a psion in the Eubian Concord was to be a contemptible slave, eventually to be tortured for the pleasure of the slave's owner.

Kelric, years ago, had disappeared for nearly two decades. He had been a prisoner and slave on the planet Coba, part of neither empire, until he had managed to escape. And if the Skolian Imperialate knew of his captivity, there would be demands for vengeance, ravaging Coba - and killing the wife and children Kelric had left behind when he escaped.

Neither man knew how much longer he could keep his secret - nor how much longer they could hold back the threat of a war that could incinerate hundreds of inhabited worlds.

Del was a rock singer. He was also the renegade son of the Ruby Dynasty, which made his career choice less than respectable, and gave him more to worry about than getting gigs and not getting cheated by recording companies, club owners, or his agent. For one thing, the Ruby Dynasty ruled the Skolian Imperialate, an interstellar Empire, which had recently had a war with another empire, the Eubian Concord. For another, Del was singing on Earth, which was part of a third interstellar civilization, and one which had an uneasy relationship with the Imperialate.

Del undeniably had talent, and was rapidly rising from an unknown fringe artist to stardom. But, with his life entangled in the politics of three interstellar civilizations, whether he wanted that or not, talent might not be enough. And that factor might have much more effect than his music on the lives of trillions of people on the thousands of inhabited worlds across the galaxy.

Diamond Star was made into a rock opera in a collaboration between Asaro and the alternative rock band Point Valid. The rock opera's songs can be heard here, and are also available on audio CD and as mp3 downloads.

Diamond Star Track Listing

1. Diamond Star
2. Boxcar Madness
3. Breathing Underwater
4. Sapphire Clouds
5. Rubies
6. Etch-A-Sketch
7. Carnelians
8. Sound of Silence
9. Starlight Child
10. Emeralds
11. No Answers, with In Paradisum
12. Carnelians Finale
13. Bonus track: Carnelians Finale instrumental

Multiple Nebula-award-winning Catherine Asaro continues her brilliant and intricate Skolian space opera opus. Two galactic emperors attempt to end a multi-generation war of the stars without both getting assassinated in the process.

The leaders of the Eubian empire and Skolian Imperialate have survived political intrigue, military coups and murder attempts as they worked to forge a peace treaty between their two empires. Now comes the hard part--making the treaty a reality.

Assassins are poised on both sides. Their mission: eliminate the leaders for the "crime" of striving to end half a millennia of hatred between empires. And as the main players in the peace process attempt to navigate the Byzantine convolutions surrounding the negotiations, an explosive pop anthem, Carnelians Finale, sweeps across three civilizations, its message inflaming passions. The violence escalates and militaries on both sides are called forth. The hope: to keep both empires alive long enough so that their rulers might somehow achieve peace at last.

A CITY DIVIDED - For centuries The City of Cries - one of the most desired locales in the Skolian Imperialate - has existed by the thinnest of threads. On the dying world of Raylicon, the "haves" live in great luxury in Cries while the "have-nots" scrape by, eking out a marginal existence in the notorious Undercity beneath the desert. Major Bhaajan, formerly of the Pharaoh's Army, knows both worlds. Born into the Undercity, she nevertheless has made a name for herself in the Imperialate. And now, she has the chance to help her people.

HOPE FOR RECONCILIATION - For the first time, a member of the Royal class wants to extend an olive branch to the Undercity. Hoping to build bridges, Colonel Lavinda Majda recruits Bhaaj and her Dust Knights to act as guides and bodyguards on a mission of goodwill to those who live below the surface of their parched world.

THE DOWN DEEP - But the problems of the Undercity run deeper than anyone knows. To help find peace, the Dust Knights must reach the most hidden rungs in that mysterious underground world, a place known only as the Down Deep, where the scars from centuries of distrust are greatest. There they will face an unseen enemy that may destroy the lives of everyone they know--and threaten interstellar civilization.

Major Bhaajan used to be a Skolian military officer with the Imperial Space Command. Retired from active service, she's become a private investigator, a fairly good one. When a mysterious client offers a lot of money for her services, she finds herself returning to Raylicon, the planet of her birth, where a cloistered young man of extremely good family has gone missing.

The Majdas are the second most influential family in the empire, even though the empire's ostensibly democratically ruled, and they're old-fashioned to boot: they keep their men in seclusion, in the tradition of old Skolian matriarchy. The young man who's just disappeared from their carefully-guarded household was in line to marry a member of the most influential family in the empire, and the Majdas are understandably eager to get him safely back home.

Bhaajan must sift through the shadows of dark and dangerous Undercity--the enormous capital of a vast star empire--to find the consort for the royal heir, before it's too late to stop a war.

Major Bhaajan achieved the impossible. Born to the Undercity, the slums below the City of Cries on the planet Raylicon, she broke free from crushing poverty and crime to become a military officer with Imperial Space Command. Now retired from military duty, she walks the mean streets of Undercity as a private investigator. And she is about to embark on her most challenging case yet.

Summoned by no less than the Ruby Pharaoh herself, Major Bhaajan is tasked with finding a killer. But this is no ordinary murderer. The Ruby Pharaoh witnessed a Jagernaut cut down Assembly Councilor Tap Benton--which shouldn't have been possible. The Jagernauts are the elite of the elite soldiers in the Imperial Space Command. What's more, the spinal node implanted in all Jagernauts should have prevented the murder. But the Ruby Pharaoh is sure of what she saw, and she has reason to believe that the Jagernaut will kill again.

Now, Major Bhaajan must hunt down a killer before it is too late. To do so, she must return to the one place on Raylicon she knows best: Undercity.

Bhaajan grew up in the Undercity, a community hidden in the ruins buried beneath the glittering City of Cries. Caught between the astonishing beauty and crushing poverty of that life, and caught by wanderlust, she enlisted in the military. Now retired, Major Bhaajan is a private investigator who solves cases for the House of Majda, a royal family centered in Cries. The powerful elite of the City of Cries are disappearing, and only Bhaajan, who grew up in the Undercity, can find them -- if she isn't murdered first.

Selei City is the capital of the Imperialate and one of the most desired locales in all of the Skolian Empire. But its thin veneer of civilization is cracked when a series of brutal crimes implicates those in political power in a vast conspiracy. Three prominent scientists have lost their lives to a serial killer--and notes at the scenes of the crimes lead to a connection to the Royalist political party.

Major Bhaajan, former military officer turned private detective, is called back to Selei City to solve the crime. Bhaaj and her crew of Undercity Dust Knights plunge into the Byzantine world of Imperial politics--a jigsaw world where none of the pieces seem to fit. As the assassination plot becomes more and more convoluted, Bhaaj is kidnapped and threatened with death and must fight for her life against the growing number of people threatened by her investigation. Bhaaj has faced all this and more, but now she must deal with something far deadlier--interstellar politics.