Search Worlds Without End

Award-winning science fiction author James Alan Gardner brings us Damon Runyon-esque tale of courteous guys, bullet-proof dolls, and the fedora-clad spacemen that bring them together.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Table of Contents:

• ix - Preface (Gravity Wells: Speculative Fiction Stories)
• 1 - Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large
• 18 - The Children of Crèche
• 52 - Kent State Descending the Gravity Well: An Analysis of the Observer
• 72 - Withered Gold, the Night, the Day
• 91 - The Last Day of the War, With Parrots
• 152 - A Changeable Market in Slaves
• 159 - Reaper
• 172 - Lesser Figures of the Greater Trumps
• 183 - Shadow Album
• 209 - Hardware Scenario G-49
• 224 - The Reckoning of Gifts
• 250 - The Young Person's Guide to the Organism
• 315 - Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream
• 341 - Sense of Wonder

Sturgeon Award winning and Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, February 20. The story can aslo be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection (2009), edtied by Gardner Dozois, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2009, edited by Rich Horton and The Hugo Award Showcase: 2010 Volume (2010) edited by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Prix Auroa winning and Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, February 1997. The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Awards 33 (1999), edited by Connie Willis, Aurora Awards: An Anthology of Prize-Winning Science Fiction & Fantasy (1999) edited by Edo van Belkom and Galileo's Children: Tales Of Science vs. Superstition (2005) edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Gravity Wells: Speculative Fiction Stories (2005).

Monsters are real.
But so are heroes.

Sparks are champions of weird science. Boasting capes and costumes and amazing super-powers that only make sense if you don't think about them too hard, they fight an eternal battle for truth and justice... mostly.

Darklings are creatures of myth and magic: ghosts, vampires, were-beasts, and the like. Their very presence warps reality. Doors creak at their approach. Cobwebs gather where they linger.

Kim Lam is an ordinary college student until a freak scientific accident (what else?) transforms Kim and three housemates into Sparks?and drafts them into the never-ending war between the Light and Dark. They struggle to master their new abilities?and (of course) to design cool costumes and come up with great hero-names.

Turns out that "accident" was just the first salvo in a Mad Genius's latest diabolical scheme. Now it's up to four newbie heroes to save the day, before they even have a chance to figure out what their team's name should be!

Award-winning author James Alan Gardner returns to the superheroic fantasy world of All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault with They Promised Me The Gun Wasn't Loaded.

Only days have passed since a freak accident granted four college students superhuman powers. Now Jools and her friends (who haven't even picked out a name for their superhero team yet) get caught up in the hunt for a Mad Genius's misplaced super-weapon.

But when Jools falls in with a modern-day Robin Hood and his band of super-powered Merry Men, she finds it hard to sort out the Good Guys from the Bad Guys--and to figure out which side she truly belongs on.

Especially since nobody knows exactly what the Gun does....

In Expendable, the first volume of the League of Peoples, Festina Ramos is assigned to escort an unstable admiral to planet Melaquin. Little is known about Melaquin, for every explorer who's landed there has disappeared. It's come to be known as the "planet of no return," and the High Council has made a habit of sending troublesome admirals there in an attempt to get rid of them. It's clear that this is intended to be Ramos's last mission, but she doesn't plan on dying, no matter how expendable she may be.

After most of Earth's population has left for other planets, life is simple in the isolated village of Tober Cove. Fullin, a twenty-year-old musician, lives well off of his craft. But soon he must make a life-changing decision that all residents of Tober Cove must make. Up until their twenty-first birthdays, the people of Tober Cove change gender every year. But at the age of twenty-one, they must commit to being male, female, or a Neut (essentially a hermaphrodite) for the rest of their lives. As Fullin nears the moment of decision, his faith becomes shaken when he uncovers secrets that distort his beliefs.

In the twenty-fifth century, under the leadership of the League of Peoples, war and crime are things of the past and life is held sacred. That is, as long as you are healthy and beautiful. But those who are deformed or flawed, or who appear to be misfits in any way, are destined--or is "doomed" a better word?--to become Explorers, crews assigned to probe worlds so hostile, the chances of returning are somewhere between slim and none.

In Vigilant, the third volume of the League of Peoples series, a deadly plague has struck planet Demoth, wiping out millions of the winged Ooloms. Humans, however, were left completely untouched. But before the Oolom population was utterly devastated, Dr. Henry Smallwood found a cure. He lived as a hero for only a year before dying in a mining accident. Having grown up without a father, Dr. Smallwood's daughter Faye attempts to escape her troubled past by joining the Vigil, a planetary organization that monitors the government. But on her first assignment, things go terribly awry and she and her team are targeted by android assassins. Uncovering a conspiracy that threatens the fate of Demoth, Faye turns to the only person she can trust--Festina Ramos.

In the fourth volume of the League of Peoples series, Alexander York is one of the High Council's most iron-fisted admirals. When his children, Samantha and Edward, were born, he paid top dollar to have their DNA altered to insure they grew up perfect physical and mental specimens. But when Edward ended up with a faulty brain, his father sentenced him to join the Expendables, a band of misfits and the deformed mandated to explore the most dangerous parts of the galaxy.

Accompanying his sister on a mission to Troyen, an anguished planet and home to the Mandasar, Edward finds himself in the middle of a civil war and is ultimately exiled. As violence escalates, Edward struggles to navigate a treacherous path with the assistance of none other than Festina Ramos--the greatest Explorer of all.

Four years after Festina Ramos left Melaquin, the "planet of no return," Uclodda Unorr arrives. Unorr is a hired smuggler tasked with gathering evidence of misconduct of the Technocracy's Outward Fleet. Much to his surprise he discovers that Oar, a resident of the planet and last of her kind, is still alive. Though Oar's glass-like body is indestructible, her mind grows weak and will soon fall victim to "apathetic hibernation." Along with her old friend Admiral Festina Ramos, Oar must reveal the true history of Melaquin and expose the ugly deeds of the Outward Fleet before her weary mind surrenders.

Life on Old Earth is simple. Under the rule of the Spark Lords, most chaos has been brought under control. Five unsatisfied teachers out for a night of drinking is nothing out of the ordinary... until they find one of their students has been murdered by an unknown alien organism. When it is discovered that the murdered student's boyfriend has gone missing, these misfits find themselves tangled in an unofficial homicide investigation that uncovers things they had never imagined. The hunt for a murderer unveils a horrifying conspiracy that may involve everyone from the Spark Lords to the League of Peoples... and a force more sinister than anything they could have imagined.

In the 25th century, under the leadership of the League of Peoples, war and crime are a thing of the past and life is held sacred. That is, as long as you're healthy and beautiful. But those who are deformed, flawed or misfit in any way are destined - or is "doomed" a better word? - to become Explorers, crews assigned to probe worlds so hostile, the chances of returning are somewhere between slim and none.

A qualified member of the expendable Explorer Corps due to her untreated facial blemish, Youn Suu sets out on a standard suicidal mission. Along with her partner, Tut, Youn is tasked with investigating a sudden infestation of the Balrog--a sentient red moss that can form parasitic, symbiotic relationship with its host--on the home world of the Cashlings.

The mission takes a turn for the worse when Suu is infected with the Balrog. But just before all is lost, Suu and Tut are rescued from the planet by legendary Expendable Admiral Festina Ramos. Aboard an Outward Fleet starship, they find that the Balrog is far more intelligent and sinister than they ever could have imagined. It is only then that the scope and danger of this nightmare is truly revealed.