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In the time of the Anasazi, a group of parasitic aliens arrives in the Southwestern US, searching for hosts....

The Users had a problem: the candidate host form, though bipedal and tool-using, was rather too large for optimal parasitization, until the stock had been bred down to proper size, the Users would have to make do with immature forms. And since this would mean discarding mounts every few years, inconveniently large breeding ranches would have to be maintained.

Still, the inconvenience was minor, especially considering that the brain case of a human child was of a perfect size to hold its host, once most of the brain had been eaten....

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, January 1978. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction of the Year #8 (1979), edited by Terry Carr and Visions of Wonder (1996) edited by David G. Hartwell and Milton T. Wolf. It is included in the collection Anasazi (1980).

This novelette originally appeared in Omni, March 1979. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction of the Year #9 (1980), edited by Terry Carr, Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year: Ninth Annual Collection (1980), edited by Gardner Dozois, The Endless Frontier, Vol. II (1982), edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr, and The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF (1994), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Kramer. The story is included in the collection High Tension (1982).

What was the secret of San Raphael? It held too many faces from the past. Alex Germain recognized a former lover... then a noted intellectual... and a handsome, courtly Italian. All as young, as vital, as when Alex had first met them--decades earlier. Alex demanded the truth..but he had nothing to do with the murders that began to strike San Raphael. Suddenly the little Mexican village crackled with violence. Battle had been joined. To the losers: nothing but death. To the winners: eternity

Island One, the U.S.'s first space colony and symbol of an American Renaissance, is in trouble. Low morale, shoddy workmanship, unexplained malfunctions and avoidable accidents have become a way of life. Is it the Russians? Home-grown anti-technologists? Arabs afraid of cheap solar power from Space--or something even more sinister? When the President ordered secret agent Peter Kapitz to find out what was going on, Peter's first discovery is that the Soviets are indeed involved. His second is that they are not alone.

He will probably not live to make a third.

Carroll Locklear was up to his ears in Kzinti. He hadn't planned it tht way; what sane human would want to be trapped cheek by furry jowl with a bunch of homicidal bearcats? But when he was taken prisoner, somehow the subject of Locklear's likes and dislikes never came up, and now he finds himself stranded on a planet of prehistoric Kzinti. To survive, he must find common cause, if not with the males, then with the females of that antique species...

Table of Contents:

• Cathouse - (1988) - novella by Dean Ing
• Briar Patch - (1989) - novella by Dean Ing

Two complete novels of the top-selling Man-Kzin Wars in one hugh volume: The Children's Hour by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling: As the war rages on between the mighty felinoid warriors from the planet Kzin and the wimpy leaf-eating monkey-boys from Earth, one Kzin commander has decided to learn from the monkeys and cooperate to conquer. But the humans know how to get the rivals of an enemy to cooperate, too. Cathouse by Dean Ing: In another corner of the galaxy, Carroll Locklear is stranded on a planet with a group of prehistoric Kzinti. To survive, he must find common cause, if not with the males, then with the females of that antiques species...

Table of Contents:

• Cathouse - (1988) - novella by Dean Ing
• Briar Patch - (1989) - novella by Dean Ing
• The Children's Hour - (1991) - novel by Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Stirling

You've been tempted by short stories about them, and mention of them as something in the distant past in novels like Ringworld. Now, here's the first a series of collected stories by various authors on the Man-Kzin Wars!

All of them.

This book opens with a short story by Larry Niven about the very first encounter of peaceful humans with the warlike kzinti - and how even peaceful people can create a weapon.

The second novella-length story is by master SF wordsmith Poul Anderson, who lends his unmistakeable style to a story about what happens when the kzinti get hyperdrive.

Dean Ings finishes the collection with another novella about what happens when a human gets hunted by armed kzinti in a wilderness - and it's not what you expect.

Contents:

• 1 - Introduction (The Man-Kzin Wars) - essay by Larry Niven
• 5 - The Warriors - [Known Space] - (1966) - shortstory by Larry Niven
• 27 - Iron - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Poul Anderson
• 179 - Cathouse - [Man-Kzin Wars] - (1988) - novella by Dean Ing

Born and bred to hunting, they had never encountered a species they couldn't treat as prey - until they met the canny pseudo-pacifists from Planet Earth. They nearly overwhelmed humanity on first contact, but fast as you can say "Ghengis Khan" or "Alexander the Great" the seemingly harmless monkey boys were all over the pussycats like ugly on an ape, with space fleets and strategic thinking that left the Warrior Race quite dazzled.

But that was then and this is now.

The pain of lost battles has faded and the Kzinti are back, spoiling for a fight, Larry Niven's Known Space is again aflame with war.

Contents:

• vii - Introduction (The Man-Kzin Wars II) - essay by Larry Niven
• 3 - Briar Patch - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Dean Ing
• 136 - The Children's Hour - [Man-Kzin Wars] - novella by Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Stirling

The acclaimed author of The Ransom of Black Stealth One offers the first book in the Quantrill trilogy--a thriller set in the near future. As the Soviet menace collapses, China and India join forces and launch a devastating nuclear attack on America. And in the lawless anarchy that follows, one young man learns the hard way that the man most likely to survive is the one who learns to kill....

The exciting sequel to Systemic Shock from the bestselling author of The Ransom of Black Stealth One. The nuclear war against China and India has left America victorious, but devastated, and a strong and survival-minded government has seized control of what's left.

Ted Quantrill is a human weapon. He has been a soldier, a commando, and, finally a hit man for the United States government.

But a man can grow tired of killing, and Quantrill has turned his back on the past. Here in the rugged wilderness of the Southwest, he plans to make a new life for himself and the woman he hopes to marry.

But yesterday won't let him alone. To preserve his life, he'll have to kill again. And his target is a good friend, as well-trained and deadly as he is...

Silent Thunder:

A techno thriller. A unique mix of Sci-Fi and historic fiction. It's said to resonate with political events of the 1991 timeframe.

Universe:

This novelette was combined with its sequel, "Common Sense", to form "Orphans of the Sky" in 1963.

The gigantic, cylindrical generation ship Vanguard, originally destined for "Far Centaurus", is cruising without guidance through the interstellar medium as a result of a long-ago mutiny that killed most of the officers. Over time, the descendants of the surviving loyal crew have forgotten the purpose and nature of their ship and lapsed into a pre-technological culture marked by superstition. They come to believe the "Ship" is the entire universe, so that "To move the ship" is considered an oxymoron, and references to the Ship's "voyage" are interpreted as religious metaphor. They are ruled by an oligarchy of "officers" and "scientists". Most crew members are simple illiterate farmers, seldom or never venturing to the "upper decks" where the "muties" (an abbreviation of "mutants" or "mutineers") dwell. Among the crew, all identifiable mutants are killed at birth.