Search Worlds Without End

Gene Wolfe's Return to the Whorl is the third volume, after On Blue's Waters and In Green's Jungles, of his ambitious SF trilogy The Book of the Short Sun . . . It is again narrated by Horn, who has embarked on a quest in search of the heroic leader Patera Silk. Horn has traveled from his home on the planet Blue, reached the mysterious planet Green, and visited the great starship, the Whorl and even, somehow, the distant planet Urth. But Horn's identity has become ambiguous, a complex question embedded in the story, whose telling is itself complex, shifting from place to place, present to past. Perhaps Horn and Silk are now one being. Return to the Whorl brings Wolfe's major new fiction, The Book of the Short Sun, to a strange and seductive climax.

"Dazzlement and enchantment are Bester's methods. His stories never stand still a moment."
--Damon Knight, author of Why Do Birds

Alfred Bester took science fiction into hyperdrive, endowing it with a wit, speed, and narrative inventiveness that have inspired two generations of writers. And nowhere is Bester funnier, speedier, or more audacious than in these seventeen short stories--two of them previously unpublished--that have now been brought together in a single volume for the first time.

Read about the sweet-natured young man whose phenomenal good luck turns out to be disastrous for the rest of humanity. Find out why tourists are flocking to a hellish little town in a post-nuclear Kansas. Meet a warlock who practices on Park Avenue and whose potions comply with the Pure Food and Drug Act. Make a deal with the Devil--but not without calling your agent. Dazzling, effervescent, sexy, and sardonic, Virtual Unrealities is a historic collection from one of science fiction's true pathbreakers.

"Alfred Bester was one of the handful of writers who invented modern science fiction."
--Harry Harrison

Contents:

• ix - Introduction (Virtual Unrealities) - (1996) - essay by Robert Silverberg
• 3 - Disappearing Act - (1953) - short story
• 22 - Oddy and Id - (1950) - short story
• 38 - Star Light, Star Bright - (1953) - short story
• 56 - 5,271,009 - (1954) - novelette
• 91 - Fondly Fahrenheit - (1954) - novelette
• 112 - Hobson's Choice - (1952) - short story
• 127 - Of Time and Third Avenue - (1951) - short story
• 136 - Time Is the Traitor - (1953) - novelette
• 159 - The Men Who Murdered Mohammed - (1958) - short story
• 173 - The Pi Man - (1959) - short story
• 191 - They Don't Make Life Like They Used To - (1963) - novelette
• 225 - Will You Wait? - (1959) - short story
• 233 - The Flowered Thundermug - (1964) - novelette
• 273 - Adam and No Eve - (1941) - short story
• 287 - And 3½ to Go - short story
• 292 - Galatea Galante - (1979) - novelette (variant of Galatea Galante, The Perfect Popsy)
• 334 - The Devil Without Glasses - novelette

Morgaine must meet her greatest challenge--Gault, who is both human and alien, and also seeks control of the world and its Gate. She will meet the true Gatemaster--a mysterious lord with power as great, or greater, than her own.

Entered by a thousand unsuspected gateways -- built by a race lost in the clouds of time -- the planet its dwellers called the Well World turned beings of every kind into something else. There spacefarer Nathan Brazil found himself companioned by a batman, an amorous female centaur and a mermaid -- all once as human as he.

Yet Nathan Brazil's metamorphosis was more terrifying than any of those...and his memory was coming back, bringing with it the secret of the Well World.

For at the heart of the bizarre planet lay the goal of every being that had ever lived -- and Nathan Brazil and his comrades were...lucky?...enough to find it!

Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time, after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wondrous ways, in a time when our present culture is no longer even a memory. Severian, the central character, is a torturer, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his victims, and journeying to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner's sword, Terminus Est.

Contents:

• 5 - The Shadow of the Torturer - [Book of The New Sun - 1] - 1980
• 249 - The Claw of the Conciliator - [Book of The New Sun - 2] - 1981
• 483 - The Sword of the Lictor - [Book of The New Sun - 3] - 1982
• 715 - The Citadel of the Autarch - [Book of The New Sun - 4] - 1983

Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time, after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wondrous ways, in a time when our present culture is no longer even a memory.

Severian, the central character, is a torturer, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his victims, and journeying to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner's sword, Terminus Est.

This edition contains the second two volumes of this four volume novel, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch.

This book has recently been re-printed as part of the SF Masterworks series - see the new image below.

On Blue's Waters is the start of a major new work by Gene Wolfe, the first of three volumes that comprise The Book of the Short Sun, which takes place in the years after Wolfe's four-volume Book of the Long Sun. Horn, the narrator of the earlier work, now tells his own story.

Though life is hard on the newly settled planet of Blue, Horn and his family have made a decent life for themselves. But Horn is the only one who can locate the great leader Silk, and convince him to return to Blue and lead them all to prosperity. So Horn sets sail in a small boat, on a long and difficult quest across the planet Blue in search of the now legendary Patera Silk.

The story continues in In Green's Jungles and Return to the Whorl.

'Tis done.

The world is a most confused and unsteady place -- especially London, center of finance, innovation, and conspiracy -- in the year 1714, when Daniel Waterhouse makes his less-than-triumphant return to England's shores. Aging Puritan and Natural Philosopher, confidant of the high and mighty and contemporary of the most brilliant minds of the age, he has braved the merciless sea and an assault by the infamous pirate Blackbeard to help mend the rift between two adversarial geniuses at a princess's behest. But while much has changed outwardly, the duplicity and danger that once drove Daniel to the American Colonies is still coin of the British realm.

No sooner has Daniel set foot on his homeland when he is embroiled in a dark conflict that has been raging in the shadows for decades. It is a secret war between the brilliant, enigmatic Master of the Mint and closet alchemist Isaac Newton and his archnemesis, the insidious counterfeiter Jack the Coiner, a.k.a. Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds. Hostilities are suddenly moving to a new and more volatile level, as Half-Cocked Jack plots a daring assault on the Tower itself, aiming for nothing less than the total corruption of Britain's newborn monetary system.

Unbeknownst to all, it is love that set the Coiner on his traitorous course; the desperate need to protect the woman of his heart -- the remarkable Eliza, Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm -- from those who would destroy her should he fail. Meanwhile, Daniel Waterhouse and his Clubb of unlikely cronies comb city and country for clues to the identity of the blackguard who is attempting to blow up Natural Philosophers with Infernal Devices -- as political factions jockey for position while awaiting the impending death of the ailing queen; as the "holy grail" of alchemy, the key to life eternal, tantalizes and continues to elude Isaac Newton, yet is closer than he ever imagined; as the greatest technological innovation in history slowly takes shape in Waterhouse's manufactory.

Everything that was will be changed forever...

The System of the World is the concluding volume in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, begun with Quicksilver and continued in The Confusion.

In a future of near-instantaneous global travel, of abundant provision for the needs of all, a future in which no one living can remember an actual war... a long era of stability threatens to come to an abrupt end. For known only to a few, the leaders of the great Hives, nations without fixed location, have long conspired to keep the world stable, at the cost of just a little blood. A few secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction can ever dominate, and the balance holds.

And yet the balance is beginning to give way. Mycroft Canner, convict, sentenced to wander the globe in service to all, knows more about this conspiracy the than he can ever admit. Carlyle Foster, counselor, sensayer, has secrets as well, and they burden Carlyle beyond description. And both Mycroft and Carlyle are privy to the greatest secret of all: Bridger, the child who can bring inanimate objects to life.

Ogres are bigger than you.
Ogres are stronger than you.
Ogres rule the world.

It's always idyllic in the village until the landlord comes to call.

Because the landlord is an Ogre. And Ogres rule the world, with their size and strength and appetites. It's always been that way. It's the natural order of the world. And they only eat people sometimes.

But when the headman's son, Torquell, dares lift his hand against the landlord's son, he sets in motion a chain of events which let him learn about the dark sciences that ensured his masters' domination, the monstrous lies behind everything he knows, and the even worse truths about the Ogres, and the people they rule.

Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time, after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wondrous ways, in a time when our present culture is no longer even a memory. Severian, the central character, is a torturer, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his victims, and journeying to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner's sword, Terminus Est.

This edition contains the first two volumes of this four volume novel, The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator.

Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time, after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wondrous ways, in a time when our present culture is no longer even a memory.

Severian, the central character, is a torturer, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his victims, and journeying to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner's sword, Terminus Est.

This edition contains the second two volumes of this four volume novel, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch.

The Reign of the Galactic Empire has reached the Outer Rim planet of Jelucan, where aristocratic Thane Kyrell and rural villager Ciena Ree bond over their love of flying. Enrolling at the Imperial Academy is nothing less than a dream come true for both of them. But Thane sours on the dream when he sees firsthand the horrific tactics that the Empire uses to maintain its ironclad rule.

Bitter and disillusioned, he joins the fledging Rebellion--putting Ciena in an unbearable position between her loyality to the Empire and her love for the man she's known since childhood.

Now on opposite sides of the war, will these friends turned foes ever find a way to be together, or will duty tear them--and the galaxy--apart?

Exodus from the Long Sun concludes Gene Wolfe's masterful sci-fi epic series, the Book of the Long Sun

It is the far future, and the giant spaceship, The Whorl, has traveled for forgotten generations toward its destination.

Lit inside by the artificial Long Sun, The Whorl is so huge that whole cities can be seen in the sky. And the gods of The Whorl have begun to intervene in human affairs. An entirely unexpected future awaits as Patera Silk and the other inhabitants are confronted with the world of an alien race.

Wolfe's great work is complete, with the mysterious fullness of life itself.

Gene Wolfe's In Green's Jungles is the second volume, after On Blue's Waters, of his ambitious SF trilogy, The Book of the Short Sun.

It is again narrated by Horn, who has embarked on a quest from his home on the planet Blue in search of the heroic leader Patera Silk. Now Horn's identity has become ambiguous, a complex question embedded in the story, whose telling is itself complex, shifting from place to place, present to past. Horn recalls visiting the Whorl, the enormous spacecraft in orbit that brought the settlers from Urth, and going thence to the planet Green, home of the blood-drinking alien inhumi. There, he led a band of mercenary soldiers, answered to the name of Rajan, and later became the ruler of a city state. He has also encountered the mysterious aliens, the Neighbors, who once inhabited both Blue and Green. He remembers a visit to Nessus, on Urth. At some point, he died. His personality now seemingly inhabits a different body, so that even his sons do not recognize him. And people mistake him for Silk, to whom he now bears a remarkable resemblance.

In Green's Jungles is Wolfe's major new fiction, The Book of the Short Sun, building toward a strange and seductive climax.

Wolfe, whose tetralogy The Book of the New Sun was the most acclaimed science fiction work of the 1980s, offered his second collection of short fiction in 1990 to universal acclaim. This is a hefty volume of over 30 unforgettable stories in a variety of genres-- SF, fantasy, horror, mainstream-many of them offering variations on themes and situations found in folklore and fairy tales, and including two stories, "The Cat" and "The Map," which are set in the universe of his New Sun novels. Wolfe's deconstructions/reconstructions are provocative, multilayered, and resonant. This embarrassment of literary riches is a must for all Gene Wolfe fans, and anyone who loves a good tale beautifully told.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1989) - essay
• A Cabin on the Coast - (1984) - shortstory
• The Map - (1984) - shortstory
• Kevin Malone - (1980) - shortstory
• The Dark of the June - (1974) - shortstory
• The Death of Hyle - (1974) - shortstory
• From the Notebook of Doctor Stein - (1974) - shortstory
• Thag - (1975) - shortstory
• The Nebraskan and the Nereid - (1985) - shortstory
• In the House of Gingerbread - (1987) - shortstory
• The Headless Man - (1972) - shortstory
• The Last Thrilling Wonder Story - (1982) - novelette
• House of Ancestors - (1968) - novelette
• Our Neighbour by David Copperfield - (1978) - shortstory
• When I Was Ming the Merciless - (1976) - shortstory
• The God and His Man - (1980) - shortstory
• The Cat - (1983) - shortstory
• The War Beneath the Tree - (1979) - shortstory
• Eyebem - (1970) - shortstory
• The HORARS of War - (1970) - shortstory
• The Detective of Dreams - (1980) - shortstory
• Peritonitis - (1973) - shortstory
• The Woman Who Loved the Centaur Pholus - (1979) - shortstory
• The Woman the Unicorn Loved - (1981) - novelette
• The Peace Spy - (1987) - shortstory
• All the Hues of Hell - (1987) - shortstory
• Procreation - (1983) - shortstory
• Lukora - (1988) - shortstory
• Suzanne Delage - (1980) - shortstory
• Sweet Forest Maid - (1971) - shortstory
• My Book - (1982) - shortstory
• The Other Dead Man - (1988) - shortstory
• The Most Beautiful Woman on the World - (1987) - shortstory
• The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale (And What Came of It) - (1988) - novelette
• Silhouette - (1975) - novella

"Two there should be; no more, no less.
One to embody the power, the other to crave it."
- Darth Bane, Dark Lord of the Sith

On the run from vengeful Republic forces, Dessel, a cortosis miner, vanishes into the ranks of the Sith army and ships out to join the bloody war against the Republic and its Jedi champions. There, Dessel's brutality, cunning, and exceptional command of the Force swiftly win him renown as a warrior. But in the eyes of his watchful masters, a far greater destiny awaits him.

As an acolyte in the Sith academy, studying the secrets and skills of the dark side, Dessel embraces his new identity: Bane. But the true test is yet to come. In order to gain acceptance into the Brotherhood of Darkness, he must defy the most sacred traditions and reject all he has been taught. It is a trial by fire in which he must surrender fully to the dark side - and forge from the ashes a new era of absolute power.

Severian the Torturer continues his epic journey across the lands of Urth, carrying with him the Claw of the Conciliator and the great sword, Terminus Est. All his travels are leading towards a destiny that he dare not refuse.

Banished for the sin of mercy, Severian, one of the ancient guild of Torturers, flees from exile.

In a mountain wilderness Severian, the disgraced apprentice torturer, has reached his place of exile - Thrax, the city of Windowless Rooms, where he must take up his post as Lictor, executioner and torturer. However, he flees the city and heads into the mountains. There he meets the Alzabo, in whom those eaten seem to live on, adopts a son only to lose him in battle and discharges an old debt to vengeance. As his exile takes stranger and stranger turns, he encounters fanged aliens who hide behind masks of beauty, and meets the mysterious Dr Talos . . .

One of Jack Vances enduring classics is his 1964 novel, The Dying Earth, and its sequelsa fascinating tale set on a far-future Earth, under a giant red sun that is soon to go out forever. This volume comprises all four books in the series, The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugels Saga and Rialto the Magnificent.

Lake of the Long Sun is the second volume in the Book of the Long Sun series from science fiction and fantasy master Gene Wolfe

It is the far future, and the giant spaceship, The Whorl, has traveled for forgotten generation towards its destination. Lit inside by the artificial Long Sun, The Whorl is so huge that you can see whole cities in the sky. And now the gods of The Whorl begin to intervene in human affairs. A god speaks to Patera Silk, a clergyman at work in the schoolyard of his church. Silk must go on a quest to save his church and his people.

This collection of short stories by H. G. Wells is the most comprehensive yet, and showcases the hugely fertile imagination of the great author, whose ideas and storylines remain hugely relevant to this day.

Table of Contents:

• 3 - The Stolen Bacillus - (1894) - short story
• 9 - The Flowering of the Strange Orchid - (1894) - short story
• 16 - In the Avu Observatory - (1894) - short story
• 22 - The Triumphs of a Taxidermist - (1894) - short story
• 26 - A Deal in Ostriches - (1894) - short story
• 30 - Through a Window - (1894) - short story
• 37 - The Temptation of Harringay - (1895) - short story
• 42 - The Flying Man - (1895) - short story
• 48 - The Diamond Maker - (1894) - short story
• 55 - Aepyornis Island - (1894) - short story (variant of Æpyornis Island)
• 65 - The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes - (1895) - short story
• 74 - The Lord of the Dynamos - non-genre - (1894) - short story
• 82 - The Hammerpond Park Burglary - (1894) - short story
• 89 - The Moth - (1895) - short story
• 98 - The Treasure in the Forest - (1894) - short story
• 107 - The Plattner Story - (1896) - short story
• 124 - The Argonauts of the Air - (1895) - short story
• 135 - The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham - (1896) - short story (variant of The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham)
• 150 - In the Abyss - (1896) - short story
• 164 - The Apple - (1896) - short story
• 171 - Under the Knife - (1896) - short story
• 183 - The Sea Raiders - (1896) - short story (variant of The Sea-Raiders)
• 192 - Pollock and the Porroh Man - (1895) - short story
• 206 - The Red Room - (1896) - short story
• 214 - The Cone - non-genre - (1895) - short story
• 224 - The Purple Pileus - (1896) - short story
• 234 - The Jilting of Jane - (1894) - short story
• 241 - In the Modern Vein: An Unsympathetic Love Story - (1894) - short story
• 250 - A Catastrophe - (1895) - short story
• 258 - The Lost Inheritance - (1896) - short story
• 264 - The Sad Story of a Dramatic Critic - (1895) - short story
• 272 - A Slip Under the Microscope - (1896) - short story
• 291 - The Crystal Egg - (1897) - short story
• 306 - The Star - (1897) - short story
• 316 - A Story of the Stone Age - (1897) - novella
• 363 - A Story of the Days to Come - (1899) - novella
• 436 - The Man Who Could Work Miracles - (1898) - short story
• 453 - Filmer - (1901) - short story
• 468 - The Magic Shop - (1903) - short story
• 478 - The Valley of Spiders - (1903) - short story
• 488 - The Truth About Pyecraft - (1903) - short story
• 497 - Mr Skelmersdale in Fairyland - (1903) - short story
• 509 - The Inexperienced Ghost - (1902) - short story
• 520 - Jimmy Goggles the God - (1898) - short story
• 531 - The New Accelerator - (1901) - short story
• 543 - Mr Ledbetter's Vacation - (1898) - short fiction (variant of Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation)
• 558 - The Stolen Body - (1898) - short story
• 572 - Mr Brisher's Treasure - (1899) - short fiction (variant of Mr. Brisher's Treasure)
• 581 - Miss Winchelsea's Heart - (1898) - short story
• 596 - A Dream of Armageddon - (1901) - short story
• 621 - The Door in the Wall - (1906) - short story
• 636 - The Empire of the Ants - (1905) - short story
• 650 - A Vision of Judgment - (1899) - short story (variant of A Vision of Judgement)
• 656 - The Land Ironclads - (1903) - novelette
• 675 - The Beautiful Suit - non-genre - (1909) - short story
• 679 - The Pearl of Love - (1925) - short story
• 683 - The Country of the Blind - (1904) - novelette
• 704 - The Reconciliation - (1895) - short story
• 710 - My First Aeroplane - [Little Mother - 1] - (1910) - short story
• 720 - Little Mother Up the Mörderberg - [Little Mother - 2] - (1910) - short story
• 730 - The Story of the Last Trump - (1915) - short story
• 743 - The Grisly Folk - (1921) - essay
• 757 - A Tale of the Twentieth Century: For Advanced Thinkers - (1887) - short fiction (variant of A Tale of the Twentieth Century)
• 762 - Walcote - (1898) - short story
• 769 - The Devotee of Art - (1888) - short fiction
• 779 - The Man with a Nose - (1894) - short fiction
• 783 - A Perfect Gentleman on Wheels - (1897) - short fiction
• 793 - Wayde's Essence - (1895) - short fiction
• 802 - A Misunderstood Artist - (1894) - short fiction
• 806 - Le Mari Terrible - (1895) - short story
• 810 - The Rajah's Treasure - (1896) - short story
• 821 - The Presence by the Fire - (1897) - short story
• 827 - Mr Marshall's Doppelganger - (1897) - short fiction (variant of Mr. Marshall's Doppelganger)
• 837 - The Thing in No. 7 - (1894) - short story
• 843 - The Thumbmark - (1894) - short story
• 850 - A Family Elopement - (1894) - short fiction
• 855 - Our Little Neighbour - (1895) - short fiction
• 863 - How Gabriel Became Thompson - (1894) - short fiction
• 872 - How Pingwill Was Routed - (1895) - short fiction
• 876 - The Loyalty of Esau Common: A Fragment - (1902) - short fiction (variant of The Loyalty of Esau Common)
• 891 - The Wild Asses of the Devil - (1915) - short story
• 901 - Answer to Prayer - (1937) - short story
• 904 - The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper - (1932) - short story
• 921 - The Country of the Blind (Revised Version) - (1939) - short fiction (variant of The Country of the Blind (revised))
• 951 - Introduction to The Country of the Blind and Other Stories - (1911) - essay (variant of Introduction (The Country of the Blind and Other Stories))
• 956 - Introduction to Revised Version of "The Country of the Blind" - (1939) - essay (variant of Introduction (The Country of the Blind))

Everybody's getting one.

Val and Julie just want what's best for their kids, David and Sophie. So when teenage son David comes home one day asking for a Pilot, a new brain implant to help with school, they reluctantly agree. This is the future, after all.

Soon, Julie feels mounting pressure at work to get a Pilot to keep pace with her colleagues, leaving Val and Sophie part of the shrinking minority of people without the device.

Before long, the implications are clear, for the family and society: get a Pilot or get left behind. With government subsidies and no downside, why would anyone refuse? And how do you stop a technology once it's everywhere? Those are the questions Sophie and her anti-Pilot movement rise up to answer, even if it puts them up against the Pilot's powerful manufacturer and pits Sophie against the people she loves most.

Marooned in outer space after an attack on his ship, Nomad, Gulliver Foyle lives to obsessively pursue the crew of a rescue vessel which had ignored his distress calls and left him to die.

When it comes to pop culture, Alfred Bester (1913-1987) is something of an unsung hero. He wrote radio scripts, screenplays, and comic books (in which capacity he created the original Green Lantern Oath). But Bester is best known for his science-fiction novels, and The Stars My Destination may be his finest creation. With its sly potshotting at corporate skullduggery, The Stars My Destination seems utterly contemporary, and has maintained its status as an underground classic for fifty years. (Bester fans should also note that iPicturebooks has reprinted The Demolished Man, which won the very first Hugo Award in 1953.)

Alfred Bester was among the first important authors of contemporary science fiction. His passionate novels of worldly adventure, high intellect, and tremendous verve, The Stars My Destination and the Hugo Award winning The Demolished Man, established Bester as a s.f. grandmaster, a reputation that was ratified by the Science Fiction Writers of America shortly before his death. Bester also was an acclaimed journalist for Holiday magazine, a reviewer for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and even a writer for Superman.

Philip K. Dick's searing metaphysical comedy of death and salvation is a tour de force of panoramic menace and unfettered slapstick, in which the departed give business advice, shop for their next incarnation, and run the continual risk of dying yet again.

Many thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works.

This collection includes all of the writer's earliest short and medium-length fiction (including some previously unpublished stories) covering the years 1952-1955. These fascinating stories include We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, The Cookie Lady, The World She Wanted, and many others.

Also published as The Little Black Box.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (The Little Black Box) - (1987) - essay by Thomas M. Disch
• The Little Black Box - (1964) - novelette
• The War With the Fnools - (1964) - short story
• A Game of Unchance - (1964) - novelette
• Precious Artifact - (1964) - short story
• Retreat Syndrome - (1965) - novelette
• A Terran Odyssey - (1987) - novelette
• Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday - (1966) - novelette
• Holy Quarrel - (1966) - novelette
• We Can Remember It for You Wholesale - (1966) - novelette
• Not by Its Cover - (1968) - short story
• Return Match - (1967) - short story
• Faith of Our Fathers - (1967) - novelette
• The Story to End All Stories for Harlan Ellison's Anthology Dangerous Visions - (1968) - short story
• The Electric Ant - (1969) - short story
• Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked - (1987) - short story
• A Little Something for Us Tempunauts - (1974) - novelette
• The Pre-Persons - (1974) - novelette
• The Eye of the Sibyl - (1987) - short story
• The Day Mr. Computer Fell Out of Its Tree - (1987) - short story
• The Exit Door Leads In - (1979) - short story
• Chains of Air, Web of Aether - (1980) - novelette
• Strange Memories of Death - (1984) - short story
• I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon - (1980) - short story (variant of Frozen Journey)
• Rautavaara's Case - (1980) - short story
• The Alien Mind - (1981) - short story
• Notes (The Little Black Box) - (1987) - essay

The second volume of "The Book of the New Sun". The torturer Severian continues his journey of exile to the city Thrax, carrying with him the ancient executioner's sword and the Claw of the Conciliator, a gem of extraterrestrial power and beauty which no one man is meant to possess.

The Shadow of the Torturer is the tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession -- showing mercy toward his victim.

Nightside the Long Sun is the beginning of the science fiction masterpiece from Gene Wolfe, Book of the Long Sun

Life on the Whorl, and the struggles and triumphs of Patera Silk to satisfy the demands of the gods, will captivate readers yearning for something new and different in science fiction, for the magic of the future.

Enormous in breadth and scope, Wolfe's ambitious new work opens out into a world of wonders, of gods and humans, aliens and machines, and mysterious adventures far out in space and deep inside the human spirit. It is set on a ship-world whose origins are shrouded in legend, ruled by strange gods who appear infrequently to their worshippers on large screens, and peopled by a human race changed by eons of time, yet familiar.

Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time, after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wondrous ways, in a time when our present culture is no longer even a memory. Severian, the central character, is a torturer, exiled from his guild after falling in love with one of his victims, and journeying to the distant city of Thrax, armed with his ancient executioner's sword, Terminus Est.

This edition contains the first two volumes of this four volume novel, The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator.

This book has recently been re-printed as part of the SF Masterworks series - see the new image below.

BSFA Award-nominated Novella and Prometheus Award-nominated series

Murderbot wasn't programmed to care. So, its decision to help the only human who ever showed it respect must be a system glitch, right?

Having traveled the width of the galaxy to unearth details of its own murderous transgressions, as well as those of the GrayCris Corporation, Murderbot is heading home to help Dr. Mensah--its former owner (protector? friend?)--submit evidence that could prevent GrayCris from destroying more colonists in its never-ending quest for profit.

But who's going to believe a SecUnit gone rogue?

And what will become of it when it's caught?

He was a riot of rockets and fountains and people, in such intricate detail and color that you could hear the voiced murmuring, small and muted, from the crowds that inhabited his body.

Ray Bradbury brings wonders alive. A peerless American storyteller, his oeuvre has been celebrated for decades--from The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 to Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

The Illustrated Man is classic Bradbury --a collection of tales that breathe and move, animated by sharp, intaken breath and flexing muscle. Here are eighteen startling visions of humankind's destiny, unfolding across a canvas of decorated skin--visions as keen as the tattooist's needle and as colorful as the inks that indelibly stain the body.

The images, ideas, sounds and scents that abound in this phantasmagoric sideshow are provocative and powerful: the mournful cries of celestial travelers cast out cruelly into a vast, empty space of stars and blackness ... the sight of gray dust settling over a forgotten outpost on a road that leads nowhere ... the pungent odor of Jupiter on a returning father's clothing. Here living cities take their vengeance, technology awakens the most primal natural instincts, Martian invasions are foiled by the good life and the glad hand, and dreams are carried aloft in junkyard rockets.

Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man is a kaleidoscopic blending of magic, imagination, and truth, widely believed to be one of the Grandmaster's premier accomplishments: as exhilarating as interplanetary travel, as maddening as a walk in a million-year rain, and as comforting as simple, familiar rituals on the last night of the world.

Twenty years have passed since Darth Bane, reigning Dark Lord of the Sith, demolished the ancient order devoted to the dark side and reinvented it as a circle of two: one Master to wield the power and pass on the wisdom, and one apprentice to learn, challenge, and ultimately usurp the Dark Lord in a duel to the death. But Bane's acolyte, Zannah, has yet to engage her Master in mortal combat and prove herself a worthy successor. Determined that the Sith dream of galactic domination will not die with him, Bane vows to learn the secret of a forgotten Dark Lord that will assure the Sith's immortality - and his own.

A perfect opportunity arises when a Jedi emissary is assassinated on the troubled mining planet Doan, giving Bane an excuse to dispatch his apprentice on a fact-finding mission - while he himself sets out in secret to capture the ancient holocron of Darth Andeddu and its precious knowledge. But Zannah is no fool. She knows that her ruthless Master has begun to doubt her, and she senses that he is hiding something crucial to her future. If she is going to claim the power she craves, she must take action now.

While Bane storms the remote stronghold of a fanatical Sith cult, Zannah prepares for her Master's downfall by choosing an apprentice of her own: a rogue Jedi cunning and cold-blooded enough to embrace the Sith way and to stand beside her when she at last wrests from Bane the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith.

But Zannah is not the only one with the desire and power to destroy Darth Bane. Princess Serra of the Doan royal family is haunted by memories of the monstrous Sith soldier who murdered her father and tortured her when she was a child. Bent on retribution, she hires a merciless assassin to find her tormentor - and bring him back alive to taste her wrath.

Only a Sith who has taken down her own Master can become Dark Lord of the Sith. So when Bane suddenly vanishes, Zannah must find him - possibly even rescue him - before she can kill him. And so she pursues her quarry from the grim depths of a ravaged world on the brink of catastrophe to the barren reaches of a desert outpost, where the future of the dark side's most powerful disciples will be decided, once and for all, by the final, fatal stroke of a lightsaber.

Half finished upon Bester's death, and completed by Zelazny, "Psychoshop" envisions a commercial establishment that attracts customers ranging from Edgar Allan Poe to a sorcerer intent on fabricating the Beast of Revelations.

The roguish Cugel the Clever is stranded on a shore on the other side of the world by the Laughing Magic and must fight, bluff, and connive his way back to Almery to take vengeance on the wizard.

Alternate title: Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight

Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar; for millennia its protective dome shutout the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it held powers that rules the stars. But then, as legend had it, The invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man, A Unique to break through Diaspar's stifling inertia, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of the Invaders.

This is a revised and expanded version of Against the Fall of Night.

From the towering heights of Olympos Mons on Mars, the mighty Zeus and his immortal family of gods, goddesses, and demigods look down upon a momentous battle, observing -- and often influencing -- the legendary exploits of Paris, Achilles, Hector, Odysseus, and the clashing armies of Greece and Troy.

Thomas Hockenberry, former twenty-first-century professor and Iliad scholar, watches as well. It is Hockenberry's duty to observe and report on the Trojan War's progress to the so-called deities who saw fit to return him from the dead. But the muse he serves has a new assignment for the wary scholic, one dictated by Aphrodite herself. With the help of fortieth-century technology, Hockenberry is to infiltrate Olympos, spy on its divine inhabitants ... and ultimately destroy Aphrodite's sister and rival, the goddess Pallas Athena.

On an Earth profoundly changed since the departure of the Post-Humans centuries earlier, the great events on the bloody plains of Ilium serve as mere entertainment. Its scenes of unrivaled heroics and unequaled carnage add excitement to human lives devoid of courage, strife, labor, and purpose. But this eloi-like existence is not enough for Harman, a man in the last year of his last Twenty. That rarest of post-postmodern men -- an "adventurer" -- he intends to explore far beyond the boundaries of his world before his allotted time expires, in search of a lost past, a devastating truth, and an escape from his own inevitable "final fax." Meanwhile, from the radiation-swept reaches of Jovian space, four sentient machines race to investigate -- and, perhaps, terminate -- the potentially catastrophic emissions of unexplained quantum-flux emanating from a mountaintop miles above the terraformed surface of Mars ...

The first book in a remarkable two-part epic to be concluded in the upcoming Olympos, Dan Simmons's Ilium is a breathtaking adventure, enormous in scope and imagination, sweeping across time and space to connect three seemingly disparate stories in fresh, thrilling, and totally unexpected ways. A truly masterful work of speculative fiction, it is quite possibly Simmons's finest achievement to date in an already storied literary career.

Centuries in the future, Francis Sandow is the only man alive who was born as long ago as the 20th century. His body is kept young and in perfect health by advanced scientific methods; he has amassed such a fortune that he can own entire planets; and he has become a god. No, not a god of Earth, but one of the panetheon of the alien Pei'ans: he is Shimbo of Darktree, Shrugger of Thunders. Yet he doesn't believe that his personality has merged with the ancient consciousness of Shimbo, that he really can call down the skies upon his enemies. The time comes, however, when Francis Sandow must use these powers against the most dangerous antagonist in the universe: another Pei'an god -- Shimbo's own enemy, Belion. And Belion has no doubt whatever of his own powers....

The Lavalite World is a world of slow but constant change. The very landscape moves. Here mountains rise from plains or sink into rifts. New oceans form as vast hollows collapse and seas rush in. And there is only one escape from this bizarre planet: the one gateway to other universes is in the palace of the Lord Urthona. Paul Janus Finnegan - also known as Kjckaha - must reach it if he is to survive. And he must do so despite the Lords Urthona and Red Ore, the hired thug McKay, flesh-eating vegetation on the run, assorted strange beasts of prey, and planetary pseudopods . . .

The world of Shiuan was doomed. Rising waters and shattering earthquakes had sealed its fate. The only escape routes were the Gates. And just as this knowledge dawned on the desperate tribes and cities there appeared the woman Morgaine--whose mission was to seal Shiuan's Gates.

There was a star Gate in Azeroth marked by alien fires that Morgaine must seal. But Morgaine and Vanye have brought devastation to the peaceful land. For the hordes of Shiuan were on their heels, determined to conquer a new land for themselves and to avenge their lost planet.

Welcome to the new world, in which murder is all but a thing of the past. Because when someone kills you, 999 times out of 1,000, you instantly come back to life. In this world, there are dispatchers - licensed killers who step in when you're at risk of a natural or unintentional death. They kill you - so you can live.

Tony Valdez is used to working his job as a dispatcher within the rules of the law and the state. But times are tough, and more and more Tony finds himself riding the line between what's legal and what will pay his bills. After one of these shady gigs and after being a witness to a crime gone horribly wrong, Tony discovers that people around him are dying, for reasons that make no sense... and which just may implicate him.

Tony is running out of time: to solve the mystery of these deaths, to keep others from dying, and to keep himself from being a victim of what looks like murder, by other means.

A new voice in the tradition of Lauren Beukes, Ian McDonald, and Nnedi Okorafor comes The Prey of Gods, a fantastic, boundary-challenging tale, set in a South African locale both familiar and yet utterly new, which braids elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and dark humor.

In South Africa, the future looks promising. Personal robots are making life easier for the working class. The government is harnessing renewable energy to provide infrastructure for the poor. And in the bustling coastal town of Port Elizabeth, the economy is booming thanks to the genetic engineering industry which has found a welcome home there. Yes--the days to come are looking very good for South Africans. That is, if they can survive the present challenges:

A new hallucinogenic drug sweeping the country...

An emerging AI uprising...

And an ancient demigoddess hellbent on regaining her former status by preying on the blood and sweat (but mostly blood) of every human she encounters.

It's up to a young Zulu girl powerful enough to destroy her entire township, a queer teen plagued with the ability to control minds, a pop diva with serious daddy issues, and a politician with even more serious mommy issues to band together to ensure there's a future left to worry about.

Fun and fantastic, Nicky Drayden takes her brilliance as a short story writer and weaves together an elaborate tale that will capture your heart... even as one particular demigoddess threatens to rip it out.

All Joe Spork wants to do is live quietly. He repairs clockwork and lives above his shop in a wet, unknown bit of London. The bills don't always get paid and he's single and in his mid thirties and he has no prospects of improving his lot, but at least he's not trying to compete with the reputation of Mathew "Tommy Gun" Spork, his infamous criminal dad.

Edie Banister lives quietly and wishes she didn't. She's nearly ninety and remembers when she wasn't. She used to be a spy, and now she's... well... old. Worse yet, the things she fought to save don't seem to exist anymore, and she's beginning to wonder if they ever did.

When Joe repairs one particularly unusual clockwork mechanism, his quiet life is blown apart. Suddenly he's getting visits from sinister cultists and even more sinister lawyers. One of his friends is murdered and it looks as if he may be in the frame. Oh, and in case that wasn't enough, he seems to have switched on a 1950s doomsday machine - or is it something even more alarming?

Edie's story and Joe's have collided. From here on in, nothing will be the same - Joe's world is now full of mad monks, psychopaths, villainous potentates, scientific geniuses, giant submarines, determined and extremely dangerous receptionists, and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe - and if Joe's going to fix it or even survive, he must show that he can be everything Mathew was, and much, much more.

On Earth, six million B.C., two species of alien ruled, the graceful humanoid Tanu and their twisted brethren, the Firvulag. Then men from twenty-second century Earth arrived through a one-way time tunnel -- and soon the aliens were locked in a battle to the death, for the humans had upset the precarious balance of power that existed between them. But when the tides of combat had receded, no one group held firm control, though Aiken Drum, man of no woman born, had declared himself the Nonborn King . . . .

BEHIND THE WALLS OF TERRA .... LAY THE SECRET NO MAN COULD BE ALLOWED TO LEARN!

Kickaha was the name by which Paul Janus Finnegan, adventurer had been known on the artificial universes created by that super-race known as the Lords. And though Earthman and mortal, he had survived the worst they could throw at him.

But it was to be upon his return to Earth that Kickaha was to face his greatest trial. For once back on the streets of an American city, armed with the knowledge of the forces that moved the heavens, he was a target for the cosmic venom of the powers that contended for this very universe.

BEHIND THE WALLS OF TERRA lay a secret no human could learn - and live. But Kickaha had learned it - and he was not going to take it lying down!

Darth Plagueis: one of the most brilliant Sith Lords who ever lived. Possessing power is all he desires. Losing it is the only thing he fears. As an apprentice, he embraces the ruthless ways of the Sith. And when the time is right, he destroys his Master - but vows never to suffer the same fate. For like no other disciple of the dark side, Darth Plagueis learns to command the ultimate power... over life and death.

Darth Sidious: Plagueis's chosen apprentice. Under the guidance of his Master, he secretly studies the ways of the Sith, while publicly rising to power in the galactic government, first as Senator, then as Chancellor, and eventually as Emperor.

Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious, Master and acolyte, target the galaxy for domination - and the Jedi Order for annihilation. But can they defy the merciless Sith tradition? Or will the desire of one to rule supreme, and the dream of another to live forever, sow the seeds of their destruction?

In the New York Times bestseller Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, Drew Karpyshyn painted a gripping portrait of a young man's journey from innocence to evil. That man was Darth Bane, a twisted genius whose iron will, fierce ambition, and strength in the dark side of the Force made him a natural leader among the Sith - until his radical embrace of an all-but-forgotten wisdom drove him to destroy his own order... and create it anew from the ashes. As the last surviving Sith, Darth Bane promulgated a harsh new directive: the Rule of Two.

Two there should be; no more, no less.
One to embody the power, the other to crave it.

Now Darth Bane is ready to put his policy into action, and he thinks he has found the key element that will make his triumph complete: a student to train in the ways of the dark side. Though she is young, Zannah possesses an instinctive link to the dark side that rivals his own. With his guidance, she will become essential in his quest to destroy the Jedi and dominate the galaxy.

But there is one who is determined to stop Darth Bane: Johun Othone, Padawan to Jedi Master Lord Hoth, who died at Bane's hands in the last great Sith War. Though the rest of the Jedi scoff at him, Joshua's belief that there are surviving Sith on the loose is unshakeable.

As Johun continues his dogged pursuit of the man who killed his master, Zannah, faced unexpectedly with a figure from her past, begins to question her embrace of the dark side. And Darth Bane is led by Force-induced visions to a moon where he will acquire astonishing new knowledge and power - power that will alter him in ways he could never have imagined....

Although they had won a significant battle, the war between the Rebels and the Empire had really just begun. Soon, Luke, Han, the princess and their faithful companions were forced to flee, scattering in all directions--the Dark Lord's minions in fevered pursuit....

The Eyes of the Overworld is the first of Vance's picaresque novels about the scoundrel Cugel. Here he is sent by a magician he has wronged to a distant unknown country to retrieve magical lenses that reveal the Overworld. Conniving to steal the lenses, he escapes and, goaded by a homesick monster magically attached to his liver, starts to find his way home to Almery. The journey takes him across trackless mountains, wastelands, and seas. Through cunning and dumb luck, the relentless Cugel survives one catastrophe after another, fighting off bandits, ghosts, and ghouls-stealing, lying, and cheating without insight or remorse leaving only wreckage behind.

Betrayed and betraying, he joins a cult group on a pilgrimage, crosses the Silver Desert as his comrades die one by one and, escaping the Rat People, obtains a spell that returns him home. There, thanks to incompetence and arrogance he misspeaks the words of a purloined spell and transports himself back to the same dismal place he began his journey.

Alternate title: Cugel the Clever

Harlan Ellison's masterwork of myth and terror as he seduces all innocence on a mind-freezing odyssey into the darkest reaches of mortal terror and the most dazzling heights of Olympian hell in his finest collection.

Deathbird Stories is a collection of 19 of Harlan Ellison's best stories, including Edgar and Hugo winners, originally published between 1960 and 1974. The collection contains some of Ellison's best stories from earlier collections and is judged by some to be his most consistently high quality collection of short fiction.

The theme of the collection can be loosely defined as God, or Gods. Sometimes they're dead or dying, some of them are as brand-new as today's technology. Unlike some of Ellison's collections, the introductory notes to each story can be as short as a phrase and rarely run more than a sentence or two. One story took a Locus Poll Award, the two final ones both garnered Hugo Awards and Locus Poll awards, and the final one also received a Jupiter Award from the Instructors of Science Fiction in Higher Education (discontinued in 1979).

When the collection was published in Britain, it won the 1979 British Science Fiction Award for Short Fiction. His stories will rivet you to the floor and change your heartbeat... as unforgettable a chamber of horror, fantasy and reality as you'll ever experience. -Gallery

"Brutally and flamboyantly shocking, frequently brilliant, and always irresistibly mesmerizing." -Richmond Times-Dispatch

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Oblations at Alien Altars - essay
• The Whimper of Whipped Dogs - (1973) - shortstory
• Along the Scenic Route - (1969) - shortstory
• On the Downhill Side - (1972) - shortstory
• O Ye of Little Faith - (1968) - shortstory
• Neon - (1973) - shortstory
• Basilisk - (1972) - shortstory
• Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes - (1967) - novelette
• Corpse - (1972) - shortstory
• Shattered Like a Glass Goblin - (1968) - shortstory
• Delusion for a Dragon Slayer - (1966) - shortstory
• The Face of Helene Bournouw - (1960) - shortstory
• Bleeding Stones - (1973) - shortstory
• At the Mouse Circus - (1971) - shortstory
• The Place with No Name - (1969) - shortstory
• Paingod - (1964) - shortstory
• Ernest and the Machine God - (1968) - shortstory
• Rock God - (1969) - shortstory
• Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W - (1974) - novelette
• The Deathbird - (1973) - novelette

From acclaimed, award-winning author Jo Walton: Philosopher Kings, a tale of gods and humans, and the surprising things they have to learn from one another. Twenty years have elapsed since the events of The Just City. The City, founded by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, organized on the principles espoused in Plato's Republic and populated by people from all eras of human history, has now split into five cities, and low-level armed conflict between them is not unheard-of.

The god Apollo, living (by his own choice) a human life as "Pythias" in the City, his true identity known only to a few, is now married and the father of several children. But a tragic loss causes him to become consumed with the desire for revenge. Being Apollo, he goes handling it in a seemingly rational and systematic way, but it's evident, particularly to his precocious daughter Arete, that he is unhinged with grief.

Along with Arete and several of his sons, plus a boatload of other volunteers--including the now fantastically aged Marsilio Ficino, the great humanist of Renaissance Florence--Pythias/Apollo goes sailing into the mysterious Eastern Mediterranean of pre-antiquity to see what they can find--possibly the man who may have caused his great grief, possibly communities of the earliest people to call themselves "Greek." What Apollo, his daughter, and the rest of the expedition will discover... will change everything.

Scattered about the galaxy were the time-space, gates of a vanished alien race. Long before the rise of the native civilizations, they had terrorized a hundred worlds--not from villainy but from folly. Now the task was to destroy their potency for mischief. This is the story of one such Gate.

A Nebula Award Finalist and Winner of the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, Caldé of the Long Sun is the third volume in science fiction Grand Master Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun tetralogy.

Journeying aboard the generational starship the Whorl, the young priest Patera Silk becomes a prophet and revolutionary as he questions his faith while confronting a crime lord in a saga where "[Wolfe] continues to prove himself one of the genre's most literate writers and luminescent thinkers" (Library Journal).

At an exclusive training school at an undisclosed location outside Washington, D.C., students are taught to control minds, to wield words as weapons. The very best graduate as "poets" and enter a nameless organization of unknown purpose. Recruited off the street, whip-smart Emily Ruff quickly learns the one key rule: never allow another person to truly know you. Emily becomes the school's most talented prodigy, until she makes the catastrophic mistake of falling in love.

Luke Skywalker was a twenty-year-old who lived and worked on his uncle's farm on the remote planet of Tatooine...and he was bored beyond belief. He yearned for adventures that would take him beyond the farthest galaxies. But he got much more than he bargained for....

Also Published under the Original Title - Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker.

George Lucas also gets full credit for authorship, even though Foster did the ghostwriting and fleshing out of the script for the novelization.

Contains:

Part One: The Belt of the Buried Gods

The wind blows from east to west. It brings with it the sand, deposited in dunes, to bury and torment the unfortunate souls who live here. Life on the sand is miserable. Life below it is even worse.

Part Two: Out of No Man's Land

For every bucket of sand a man hauls, the wind brings another.
For every life that wanders out of sight, one more is born.
On the anniversary of a father lost, two brothers whisper stories in a tent.
They camp on the border of No Man's Land.
And one of them has a secret.

Part Three: Return to Danvar

An eldest daughter is a father's curse. Vic knows this. She knows she was never supposed to be the one. But her father taught her to breathe beneath the sand, taught her how to dive deep and find the treasures of the buried past. He taught her brother as well. When she hears of Danvar's discovery, it feels as though fate has slipped her by. If the rumors are to believed, that is. And while she has her doubts, her missing brother sends her on a hunt of her own. Cities are not the only things that get buried and forgotten. There are families, too.

Part Four: Thunder Due East

A family long scattered reunites as danger approaches Springston. Brother and sister rush to sound a warning, but that warning will come too late. Bombs will thunder like the pulse of a terrible god. The great dune will flow as the sea. And when a people find themselves buried beneath the sands, who in the heavens will hear their muffled pleas?

Part Five: A Rap Upon Heaven's Gate

Every generation thinks that it is special, that the great fall will occur before their time is up. Every generation is wrong. Until now.

----------------------

We live across the thousand dunes with grit in our teeth and sand in our homes. No one will come for us. No one will save us. This is our life, diving for remnants of the old world so that we may build what the wind destroys. No one is looking down on us. Those constellations in the night sky? Those are the backs of gods we see.

Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown.

But Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in a constant, overwhelming, never-ending Noise. There is no privacy. There are no secrets.

Or are there?

Just one month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd unexpectedly stumbles upon a spot of complete silence.

Which is impossible.

Prentisstown has been lying to him.

And now he's going to have to run...

The embattled Republic reels from the attacks of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who has marshaled the remnants of the Imperial forces and driven the Rebels back with an abominable technology recovered from the Emperor's secret fortress: clone soldiers. As Thrawn mounts his final siege, Han and Chewbacca struggle to form a coalition of smugglers for a last-ditch attack against the empire, while Leia holds the Alliance together and prepares for the birth of her Jedi twins. Overwhelmed by the ships and clones at Thrawn's command, the Republic has one last hope--sending a small force, led by Luke Skywalker, into the very stronghold that houses Thrawn's terrible cloning machines. There a final danger awaits, as the Dark Jedi C'baoth directs the battle against the Rebels and builds his strength to finish what he had already started: the destruction of Luke Skywalker.

The stories included in The Dying Earth introduce dozens of seekers of wisdom and beauty, lovely lost women, wizards of every shade of eccentricity with their runic amulets and spells. We meet the melancholy deodands, who feed on human flesh and the twk-men, who ride dragonflies and trade information for salt. There are monsters and demons. Each being is morally ambiguous: The evil are charming, the good are dangerous. All are at home in Vance's lyrically described fantastic landscapes like Embelyon where, "The sky [was] a mesh of vast ripples and cross-ripples and these refracted a thousand shafts of colored light, rays which in mid-air wove wondrous laces, rainbow nets, in all the jewel hues...." The dying Earth itself is otherworldly: "A dark blue sky, an ancient sun.... Nothing of Earth was raw or harsh-the ground, the trees, the rock ledge protruding from the meadow; all these had been worked upon, smoothed, aged, mellowed. The light from the sun, though dim, was rich and invested every object of the land ... with a sense of lore and ancient recollection." Welcome.

alternate title: Mazirian the Magician

Hugo and Nebula-winning and BSFA, BFA, and Locus-nominated Novella

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself - but first she has to make it there, alive.

The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2016, edited by Paula Guran, Nebula Awards Showcase 2017, edited by Julie E. Czerneda, and Infinite Stars (2017), edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt.

Captain Kel Cheris is possessed by a long-dead traitor general. Together they must face the rivalries of the hexarchate and a potentially devastating invasion.

When the hexarchate's gifted young captain Kel Cheris summoned the ghost of the long-dead General Shuos Jedao to help her put down a rebellion, she didn't reckon on his breaking free of centuries of imprisonment--and possessing her.

Even worse, the enemy Hafn are invading, and Jedao takes over General Kel Khiruev's fleet, which was tasked with stopping them. Only one of Khiruev's subordinates, Lieutenant Colonel Kel Brezan, seems to be able to resist the influence of the brilliant but psychotic Jedao.

Jedao claims to be interested in defending the hexarchate, but can Khiruev or Brezan trust him? For that matter, will the hexarchate's masters wipe out the entire fleet to destroy the rogue general?

It is 1982. The United States has a permanent Moonbase. Richard M. Nixon is in the fourth term of the "imperial presidency." And an eccentric novelist named Philip K. Dick has just died in California.

Or has he? Psychiatrist Lia Pickford, M.D., is nonplussed when Dick walks into her office in small-town Georgia, with a cab idling outside, to ask for help. And Cal Pickford, a longtime Dick fan stunned by the news of his hero's death, is electrified when his wife tells him of the visit.

So begins a sequence of events involving Cal in the repressive Nixon regime, the affairs of an aging movie queen, a hip but frightened Vietnamese immigrant and an old black man who works as a groom--all leading up to a fateful confrontation between Dick, Cal, and Nixon himself on the moon.

Iain M. Banks, the international bestselling author of The Player of Games and Consider Phlebas, is a true original, a literary visionary whose brilliant speculative fiction has transported us into worlds of unbounded imagination. Now, in his acclaimed new novel, Banks presents an engrossing portrait of an alien world, and of two very different people bound by a startling and mysterious secret.

On a backward world with six moons, an alert spy reports on the doings of one Dr. Vosill, who has mysteriously become the personal physician to the king despite being a foreigner and, even more unthinkably, a woman. Vosill has more enemies than she first realizes. But then she also has more remedies in hand than those who wish her ill can ever guess.

Elsewhere, in another palace across the mountains, a man named DeWar serves as chief bodyguard to the Protector General of Tassasen, a profession he describes as the business of "assassinating assassins." DeWar, too, has his enemies, but his foes strike more swiftly, and his means of combating them are more direct.

No one trusts the doctor, and the bodyguard trusts no one, but is there a hidden commonality linking their disparate histories? Spiraling around a central core of mystery, deceit, love, and betrayal. Inversions is a dazzling work of science fiction from a versatile and imaginative author writing at the height of his remarkable powers.

Severian, formerly a member of the Torturers' Guild and now Autarch of Urth, travels beyond the boundaries of time and space aboard the Ship of Tzadkiel on a mission to bring the New Sun to his dying planet.

The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa - a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past.

Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks - alone, except for her fox companion - searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers.

But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?

1883. Thaniel Steepleton returns home to his tiny London apartment to find a gold pocket watch on his pillow. Six months later, the mysterious timepiece saves his life, drawing him away from a blast that destroys Scotland Yard. At last, he goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori, a kind, lonely immigrant from Japan. Although Mori seems harmless, a chain of unexplainable events soon suggests he must be hiding something. When Grace Carrow, an Oxford physicist, unwittingly interferes, Thaniel is torn between opposing loyalties.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is a sweeping, atmospheric narrative that takes the reader on an unexpected journey through Victorian London, Japan as its civil war crumbles long-standing traditions, and beyond. Blending historical events with dazzling flights of fancy, it opens doors to a strange and magical past.

The Sith Empire is in flux. The Emperor is missing, presumed dead, and an ambitious Sith lord's attempt to seize the throne has ended fatally. Still, Darth Karrid, commander of the fearsome Imperial battle cruiser Ascendant Spear, continues her relentless efforts to achieve total Sith domination of the galaxy.

But Karrid's ruthless determination is more than matched in the steely resolve of Theron Shan, whose unfinished business with the Empire could change the course of the war for good. Though the son of a Jedi master, Theron does not wield the Force--but like his renowned mother, the spirit of rebellion is in his blood. As a top covert agent for the Republic, he struck a crucial blow against the Empire by exposing and destroying a Sith superweapon arsenal--which makes him the ideal operative for a daring and dangerous mission to end Ascendant Spear's reign of terror.

Joined by hot-headed smuggler Teff'ith, with whom he has an inexplicable bond, and wise Jedi warrior Gnost-Dural, Darth Karrid's former master, Theron must match wits and weapons with a battle-tested crew of the most cold-blooded dark side disciples. But time is brutally short. And if they don't seize their one chance to succeed, they will surely have countless opportunities to die.

When a one-way time tunnel to Earth's distant past, specifically six million B.C., was discovered by folks on the Galactic Milieu, every misfit for light-years around hurried to pass through it. Each sought his own brand of happiness. But none could have guessed what awaited them. Not even in a million years....

Fred Cassidy, thirteen years an undergraduate and an acrophiliac, joins Professor Paul Byler in a search for their laboratory replica of an alien artifact of interest to more than one interstellar community.

This is the haunting story of an extraordinary woman and her dangerous quest to reclaim her healing powers. Revered healer Snake must undertake a journey in search of the dreamsnake, whose bite eases the fear and pain of death.

The richest and most depraved man on Earth takes a wild space journey to distant worlds, learning about the purpose of human life along the way.

"The good thing is, no one will ever die again. The bad thing is, everyone will want to."

A physicist receives a mysterious paper. The ideas in it are far, far ahead of current thinking and quite, quite terrifying. In a city of "fast ones," shadow players, and jinni, two sisters contemplate a revolution. And on the edges of reality a thief, helped by a sardonic ship, is trying to break into a Schrödinger box for his patron. In the box is his freedom. Or not.

Jean de Flambeur is back. And he's running out of time.

In Hannu Rajaniemi's sparkling follow-up to the critically acclaimed international sensation The Quantum Thief, he returns to his awe-inspiring vision of the universe...and we discover what the future held for Earth.

Her name was Killashandra Ree. And after ten grueling years of musical training, she was still without prospects. Until she heard of the mysterious Heptite Guild who could provide careers, security, and wealth beyond imagining. The problem was, few people who landed on Ballybran ever left. But to Killashandra the risks were acceptable....

Within the concealing walls of an elegant forty-storey tower block, the affluent tenants are hell-bent on an orgy of destruction. Cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks on 'enemy' floors and the once-luxurious amenities become an arena for technological mayhem!In this classic visionary tale, human society slips into violent reverse as the inhabitants of the high-rise, driven by primal urges, recreate a world ruled by the laws of the jungle.

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide; the third expedition in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.

The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers--they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding--but it's the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.

It's five years after Return Of The Jedi: the Rebel Alliance has destroyed the Death Star, defeated Darth Vader and the Emperor, and driven out the remnants of the old Imperial Starlfleet to a distant corner of the galaxy. Princess Leia and Han Solo are married and expecting Jedi Twins. And Luke Skywalker has become the first in a long-awaited line of Jedi Knights.

But thousands of light-years away, the last of the emperor's warlords has taken command of the shattered Imperial Fleet, readied it for war, and pointed it at the fragile heart of the new Republic. For this dark warrior has made two vital discoveries that could destroy everything the courageous men and women of the Rebel Alliance fought so hard to build.

The explosive confrontation that results is a towering epic of action, invention, mystery, and spectacle on a galactic scale -- in short, a story worthy of the name Star Wars.

When Cirrocco Jones, captain of the spaceship Ringmaster, and his crew are captured by Gaea, a planet-sized creature that orbits around Saturn, they find themselves inside a bizarre world inhabited by centaurs, harpies, and constantly shifting environments.

The great epic of Darkover did not begin with the Terrans' arrival. For in those years, the power of the matrix was first learned--and misused in a power struggle that could have made Darkover a duplicate of Terra.

WITNESS THE BIRTH OF THE RESISTANCE

When the Rebellion defeated the Empire in the skies above Endor, Leia Organa believed it was the beginning to a lasting peace. But after decades of vicious infighting and partisan gridlock in the New Republic Senate, that hope seems like a distant memory.

Now a respected senator, Leia must grapple with the dangers that threaten to cripple the fledgling democracy--from both within and without. Underworld kingpins, treacherous politicians, and Imperial loyalists are sowing chaos in the galaxy. Desperate to take action, senators are calling for the election of a First Senator. It is their hope that this influential post will bring strong leadership to a divided galaxy.

As the daughter of Darth Vader, Leia faces with distrust the prospect of any one person holding such a powerful position--even when supporters suggest Leia herself for the job. But a new enemy may make this path Leia's only option. For at the edges of the galaxy, a mysterious threat is growing....

"Sleep. And when you awake everything you know of the twentieth century will be gone from your mind. Tonight is January 21, 1882. There are no such things as automobiles, no planes, computers, television. 'Nuclear' appears in no dictionary. You have never heard the name Richard Nixon."

Did illustrator Si Morley really step out of his twentieth-century apartment one night -- right into the winter of 1882? The U.S. Government believed it, especially when Si returned with a portfolio of brand-new sketches and tintype photos of a world that no longer existed -- or did it?

Nyx had already been to hell. One prayer more or less wouldn t make any difference...

On a ravaged, contaminated world, a centuries-old holy war rages, fought by a bloody mix of mercenaries, magicians, and conscripted soldiers. Though the origins of the war are shady and complex, there's one thing everybody agrees on--

There's not a chance in hell of ending it.

Nyx is a former government assassin who makes a living cutting off heads for cash. But when a dubious deal between her government and an alien gene pirate goes bad, Nyx's ugly past makes her the top pick for a covert recovery. The head they want her to bring home could end the war--but at what price?

The world is about to find out.

Physicist Dennis Nuel's career has taken a sudden and startling turn. After being denied access to the Zievatron Project through the political machinations of his chief rival, the self-righteous, priggish Bernard Brady, Dennis is need back - badly. The zievatron, a device created to provide access to parallel worlds, has indeed made contact. But now the return mechanism is malfunctioning, and the only way to repair it is for someone to go through to this alien world where no human has yet ventured. That someone is to be Dennis Nuel.

Edgar Rice Burroughs created one of the most iconic figures in American pop culture, Tarzan of the Apes, and it is impossible to overstate his influence on entire genres of popular literature in the decades after his enormously winning pulp novels stormed the public's imagination.

The Warlord of Mars, first published in 1919, is the third book in Burroughs' Mars series--this opening trilogy of a series that grew to 11 books is considered among the greatest science fiction ever written. Here, Earthman John Carter, swept by magical means to the Red Planet, embarks on a rescue mission to the frozen polar wastes to save his beloved Martian princess, Dejah Thoris.

Antor Trellig, head of a ruthless interstellar syndicate, had seized a super computer with godlike powers, which could make him omnipotent. The Council offered master criminal Mavra Chang any reward if she stopped Trellig - and horrible, lingering death if she failed. But neither Trellig nor Mavra had taken the Well World into consideration. Built by the ancient Markovians, the Well World controlled the design of the cosmos. When the opponents were drawn across space to the mysterious planet, they found themselves in new alien bodies, and in the middle of a battle where strange races fought desperately, with the control of all the Universe as the prize.

Science Fiction. Southern California -- sunny days, blue skies, neighbors on flying bicycles ... ghostly submarines ... mermen off the Catalina coast ... and a vast underground sea stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Inland Empire where Chinese junks ply an illicit trade and enormous creatures from ages past still survive. It is a place of wonder ... and dark conspiracies. A place rife with adventure - if one knows where to look for it. Two such seekers are the teenagers Jim Hastings and his friend, Giles Peach. Giles was born with a wonderful set of gills along his neck and insatiable appetite for reading. Drawing inspiration from the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Giles is determined to build a Digging Leviathan. Will he reach the center of the earth? or destroy it in the process?

In TO DIE IN ITALBAR, the galaxy is in chaos, with people falling prey to an unidentifiable disease. Only one man has the ability to help - a man who can heal or kill with a touch. Known only as 'Mr. H', he is being sought after by everyone, but for vastly different reasons. Even Francis Sandow is seeking him, and may be the only one with a clue as to who H really is... In the bonus novel 'A Dark Travelling', James Wiley is an 'ordinary' 14-year-old who has lost his scientist father to a parallel world in the darkbands. With the help of Becky, his sister with magical powers, Barry the exchange student and Uncle George, the werewolf, James goes in search of his parent. But he must take care: for if there just happens to be a full moon at the wrong moment, James's itchy palms might lead him into trouble...

Luna, the Eden-like lunar colony that has become humankind's home since an alien attack destroyed Earth, is threatened by strange dark forces that lead reporter Hildy Johnson and other inhabitants to feelings of depression and suicide.

Count Alandre Sessine VII has already died seven times. He has only one life left - one last chance to catch his killer. His only clues point to a conspiracy beyond his own murder. For a catastrophe is fast approaching the earth from which there is no escape - until a loophole through apocalypse is discovered. And a chosen few will do anything to keep it a secret.

Someone has betrayed Sessine, killed him before he could uncover the truth. Now he has three days before his funeral to live the way men used to live: restricted to one life where one mistake could be his last. Suddenly he finds himself an outlaw, a fugitive, a desperado. And his only hope of survival is finding others like himself. Others who hold a piece of the puzzle to an enigmatic weapon of salvation and chaos...

When Robert Wolff found a strange horn in an empty house, he held the key to a different universe. To blow that horn would open up a door through space-time and permit entry to a cosmos whose dimensions and laws were not those known by our starry galaxy.

For that other universe was a place of tiers, world upon world piled upon each other like the landings of a sky piercing mountain. The one to blow that horn would ascend those steps, from creation to creation, until he would come face to face with the being whose brain-child it was. But what if that maker of universes was a madman? Or an imposter? Or a super-criminal hiding from the wrath of his own superiors?

Soldier and adventurer John Carter tells the story of how he returns to the planet Mars to be reunited with his love, the Martian princess Dejah Thoris. With his great friend Tars Tarkas, mighty Jeddak of Thark, Carter sets out in search of his princess. But Dejah Thoris has vanished. And Carter becomes trapped in the legendary Eden of Mars from which none has ever escaped alive.

A retired hunter of alien zoo specimens, William Blackhorse Singer, the last Navajo on a future Earth, has come to what he sees as the end of his life. The world Government calls upon him for aid in protecting an alien diplomat from a powerful and hostile member of his own species. Knowing both the importance of the task and his inability to handle it on his own. Singer goes to confront his greatest conquest with a strange bargain. A shape-shifting alien, the last of his species, sits in a special cage at an institute dedicated to the study of extra-terrestrial beings. Most frequently he projects the aspect of a one-eyed catlike creature, but he can appear as almost anything.

The most dangerous matrix on all Darkover was the legendary Sharra. Embodied in the image of a chained woman, wreathed in flames, it was the last remaining weapon of the Age of Chaos that had almost destroyed civilization on the planet of the Bloody Sun. The Sharra had been exiled off-planet among the far stars of the Terran Empire in the custody of Lew Alton... until he found himself called back to his homeworld to contest his rights.

But once the Sharra was back, the flaming image spread far and wide---and set in motion events that were to change the land, the domains, and the future of Darkover forever....

Second in the Gaean Trilogy. Human explorers have entered the sprawling mind of the alien Gaea. Now they must fight her will. For she is much too powerful. And definitely insane.

An American frigate, tracking down a ship-sinking monster, faces not a living creature but an incredible invention -- a fantastic submarine commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo. Suddenly a devastating explosion leaves just three survivors, who find themselves prisoners inside Nemo's death ship on an underwater odyssey around the world from the pearl-laden waters of Ceylon to the icy dangers of the South Pole . . .as Captain Nemo, one of the greatest villians ever created, takes his revenge on all society.

More than a marvelously thrilling drama, this classic novel, written in 1870, foretells with uncanny accuracy the inventions and advanced technology of the twentieth century and has become a literary stepping-stone for generations of science fiction writers.

La beauté sans vertu by Genevieve Valentine is a vicious little swipe at the fashion industry as certain disturbing trends are amplified in the future and a famous fashion House prepares for an important show.

This short story can also be found in the anthology Worlds Seen in Passing: Ten Years of Tor.com Short Fiction (2018), edited by Irene Gallo.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

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.

A romantic fantasy set in a futuristic society divided by two cultures, one male dominated and one egalitarian, where the roles of male and female, love and marriage and justice and injustice are brought sharply into focus.

En route to an interplanetary research mission, a scientist is abducted by a strange, shadowy race of aliens and taken to a previously uncharted planet, a storehouse of information that would be invaluable--even to an Earth so advanced that time travel allows goblins, dinosaurs, even Shakespeare to coexist.

Dr. Moreau, a scientist expelled from his homeland for cruel experiments, finds a deserted island where he can create hideous creatures with manlike intelligence. But as the rigid order on Moreau's island dissolves, the consequences of his experiments emerge-and his creations revert to beasts more shocking than nature could devise.

The second novel set in the Old Republic era and based on the massively multiplayer online game Star Wars: The Old Republic ramps up the action and brings readers face-to-face for the first time with a Sith warrior to rival the most sinister of the Order's Dark Lords--Darth Malgus, the mysterious, masked Sith of the wildly popular "Deceived" and "Hope" game trailers.

Malgus brought down the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in a brutal assault that shocked the galaxy. But if war crowned him the darkest of Sith heroes, peace would transform him into something far more heinous--something Malgus would never want to be, but cannot stop, any more than he can stop the rogue Jedi fast approaching.

Her name is Aryn Leneer--and the lone Knight that Malgus cut down in the fierce battle for the Jedi Temple was her Master. And now she's going to find out what happened to him, even if it means breaking every rule in the book.

Features a bonus section following the novel that includes a primer on the Star Wars expanded universe, and over half a dozen excerpts from some of the most popular Star Wars books of the last thirty years!

Set in a dangerous near future world, The Book of M tells the captivating story of a group of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe who risk everything to save the ones they love. It is a sweeping debut that illuminates the power that memories have not only on the heart, but on the world itself.

One afternoon at an outdoor market in India, a man's shadow disappears--an occurrence science cannot explain. He is only the first. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories.

Ory and his wife Max have escaped the Forgetting so far by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life feels almost normal, until one day Max's shadow disappears too.

Knowing that the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become to Ory, Max runs away. But Ory refuses to give up the time they have left together. Desperate to find Max before her memory disappears completely, he follows her trail across a perilous, unrecognizable world, braving the threat of roaming bandits, the call to a new war being waged on the ruins of the capital, and the rise of a sinister cult that worships the shadowless.

As they journey, each searches for answers: for Ory, about love, about survival, about hope; and for Max, about a new force growing in the south that may hold the cure.

Somewhere on the outer rim of the universe, a mass of decaying world-ships known as the Legion is traveling in the seams between the stars. For generations, a war for control of the Legion has been waged, with no clear resolution. As worlds continue to die, a desperate plan is put into motion.

Zan wakes with no memory, prisoner of a people who say they are her family. She is told she is their salvation - the only person capable of boarding the Mokshi, a world-ship with the power to leave the Legion. But Zan's new family is not the only one desperate to gain control of the prized ship. Zan finds that she must choose sides in a genocidal campaign that will take her from the edges of the Legion's gravity well to the very belly of the world.

Zan will soon learn that she carries the seeds of the Legion's destruction - and its possible salvation. But can she and her ragtag band of followers survive the horrors of the Legion and its people long enough to deliver it?

The leader of the Hana was a Priestess-Ruler in a world of humanoid aliens. Yet she was more closely related to her human prisoner, Kurt Morgan, though their star nations had been bitter enemies for two thousand years. She granted Kurt Moragn his lfie, but for a price: that he remain indebted to his captors, immersed in an alien environment which threatened to drive him mad. Beset with doubts, Kurt accepted the terms of his capture and despite his misgivings became intrigued with his life.

For he shared something unique with his captor--both of them had survived the destruction of their worlds. And then they realized that the world on which they now lived was on the brink of a devastating war, and they were perhaps the only two sentient beings there who understood the ultimate sacrifice that might come from such a conflict. Could they save this world, or would they die with their adopted planet, humanity's orphans at the edge of space

The dying Empire's most cunning and ruthless warlord--Grand Admiral Thrawn--has taken command of the remnants of the Imperial fleet and launched a massive campaign aimed at the New Republic's destruction. With the aid of unimaginable weapons long hidden away by the Emperor on a backwater planet, Thrawn plans to turn the tide of battle, overwhelm the New Republic, and impose his iron rule throughout the galaxy. Meanwhile, Han and Lando Calrissian race against time to find proof of treason inside the highest Republican Council--only to discover instead a ghostly fleet of warships that could bring doom to their friends and victory to their enemies. Yet most dangerous of all is a new Dark Jedi, risen from the ashes of a shrouded past, consumed by bitterness... and scheming to corrupt Luke Skywalker to the Dark Side.

Kay Kenyon, noted for her science fiction world-building, has in this new series created her most vivid and compelling society, the Universe Entire. In a land-locked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire is a bizarre and seductive mix of long-lived quasi-human and alien beings gathered under a sky of fire, called the bright. A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and an exotic, never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme.

Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot, bereft of his beloved wife and daughter who are assumed dead by everyone on earth except Quinn. Believing them trapped in a parallel universe--one where he himself may have been imprisoned--he returns to the Entire without resources, language, or his memories of that former life. He is assisted by Anzi, a woman of the Chalin people, a Chinese culture copied from our own universe and transformed by the kingdom of the bright. Learning of his daughter's dreadful slavery, Quinn swears to free her. To do so, he must cross the unimaginable distances of the Entire in disguise, for the Tarig are lying in wait for him. As Quinn's memories return, he discovers why. Quinn's goal is to penetrate the exotic culture of the Entire--to the heart of Tarig power, the fabulous city of the Ascendancy, to steal the key to his family's redemption.

But will his daughter and wife welcome rescue? Ten years of brutality have forced compromises on everyone. What Quinn will learn to his dismay is what his own choices were, long ago, in the Universe Entire. He will also discover why a fearful multiverse destiny is converging on him and what he must sacrifice to oppose the coming storm.

This is high-concept SF written on the scale of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld, Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles, and Dan Dimmons's Hyperion.

John Carter desperately needed the aid of Barsoom's greatest scientist. But Ras Thavas was the prisoner of a nightmare army of his own creation -- half-humans who lived only for conquest. And in their hidden laboratory seethed a horror that could engulf all of Mars.

This masterpiece of science fiction is the fascinating story of Griffin, a scientist who creates a serum to render himself invisible, and his descent into madness that follows.

Falk was a fully grown man, alone in the dense forest, with no trail to show where he had come from and no memory to tell who - or what - he was.

The forest people took him in and raised him almost as a child, teaching him to speak, training him in forest lore, giving him all the knowledge they had.

But they could not solve the riddle of his past, and finally he had to set out on a perilous quest to Es Toch, the City of the Shing, the Liars of Earth, the Enemy of Mankind.

There he would find his true self - and a universe of danger....

All those who ever lived on Earth have found themselves resurrected--healthy, young, and naked as newborns--on the grassy banks of a mighty river, in a world unknown. Miraculously provided with food, but with no clues to the meaning of their strange new afterlife, billions of people from every period of Earth's history--and prehistory--must start again.

Sir Francis Bacon would be the first to glimpse the incredible way-station, a link between worlds. This forbidden sight would spur the renowned 19th-century explorer to uncover the truth. Along with a remarkable group of compatriots, including Alice Liddell Hargreaves (the Victorian girl who was the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland), an English-speaking Neanderthal, a WWII Holocaust survivor, and a wise extraterrestrial, Burton sets sail on the magnificent river. His mission: to confront humankind's mysterious benefactors, and learn the true purpose--innocent or evil--of the Riverworld...

Jack Vance is one of the most remarkable talents to ever grace the world of science fiction. His unique, stylish voice has been beloved by generations of readers. One of his enduring classics is hisThe Dying Earth series, fascinating, baroque tales set on a far-future Earth, under a giant red sun that is soon to go out forever.

Rhialto the Marvellous contains three linked novellas about the adventures of the wizard Rhialto across the decadent landscape of the Dying Earth, under its swollen red sun.

Charles Render is a shaper, one of a small number of psychotherapists qualified, by his granite will and ultra-stability, to use the extraordinary device that enables him to to participate in, and control, his patients' dreams. But this is a dangerous therapy for the therapist and only his armour-plated integrity protects Render from too deep an involvement in the mental worlds of the damaged people he seeks to help. But then, Eileen Shallot, another therapist who is blind, asks him to help her 'see' by transferring from his mind to hers a world of colour and light. Render agrees but suddenly finds himself obsessed with Eileen and drawn into fantasies which, she controls.

Sirius is the titular character and a 1944 science fiction novel by the British philosopher and author Olaf Stapledon.

Scientist Thomas Trelone creates a super-intelligent dog, named Sirius. He is the only dog to have attained a humanlike intelligence. Other dogs of the same breed Trelone created, have an intermediate intelligence (they are above the dog's average intelligence, but they cannot master human language and complex analytic thinking as Sirius does. A sense of existential questioning suffuses the book, as the author delves into every aspect of Sirius's psyche. The novel deals with a lot of human issues through Sirius and his experiences, his unusual nature, his ideas and his relationships with humans, showing a very gloomy, intelligent, obscure, sad, and complex tale, whose significance and depth cannot be fully understood, and is often misinterpreted.

It was a world of tiers and layers - the Amerind level, the Garden of Eden level, theTalanac, the Atlantean - a universe of green skies and fabled beasts. It was the playground-cosmos of the Lord Jadawin, with transgravitational gates to the other levels and other worlds. But now those gates were being sabotaged to permit the entry of an invading force of 'Sellers' - human bodies housing the transferred minds of rebel Lords - and their minions, who were seeking two things: total domination of every Lord's private cosmos, now that they had achieved immortality, and the life of Kickaha the Trickster, who knew too much…

SKYJACKED!

One minute Kip Russell is walking around his own backyard, testing out an old space suit and dreaming about going to the moon - the next he is the captive of a space pirate and on his way to the very place he had been dreaming of. At first, the events are so unreal he thinks he might be having a nightmare... but when he discovers other prisoners aboard the spaceship he knows the ordeal is all too real. Kip and his fellow abductees, the daughter of a world-renowned scientist and a beautiful creature from an alien planet, have been skyjacked by a monstrous extraterrestrial who is flying them to the moon on a journey toward a fate worse than death....

Part of the multi-volume DARKOVER series, CITY OF SORCERY is the third novel to feature Darkovan Renunciate Jaelle and the Terran Intelligence Agent Magda.

Seven years after the events of THENDARA HOUSE, Jaelle and Magda have acknowledged their profound bond by taking the oath of freemates. They are leading a quiet, fairly uneventful life until they receive evidence that the legendary Dark Sisterhood--a community of wise, psychic women, who observe and manipulate the fates of the people of Darkover--may actually exist. It is said that if anyone manages to reach their ancient, practically inaccessible city, she will get the answers to her most profound questions and have her heart's desire realized.

Jaelle and Magda organize an expedition of Terran and Darkovan women to find this mysterious city of wisdom. But it is no simple journey. The women will find themselves tested by the harsh environment; the unreliable locals they meet along the way; a sinister cabal that has set itself against the Sisterhood; and, most devastatingly, their own doubts and fears.

It is November. When Meg comes home from school, Charles Wallace tells her he saw dragons in the twin's vegetable garden. That night Meg, Calvin and C.W. go to the vegetable garden to meet the Teacher (Blajeny) who explains that what they are seeing isn't a dragon at all, but a cherubim named Proginoskes. It turns out that C.W. is ill and that Blajeny and Proginoskes are there to make him well – by making him well, they will keep the balance of the universe in check and save it from the evil Echthros.

Meg, Calvin and Mr. Jenkins (grade school principal) must travel inside C.W. to have this battle and save Charles' life as well as the balance of the universe.

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.

When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate.

But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.

In a far distant future, an enforcement agent named Quillon has been living incognito in the last human city of Spearpoint, working as a pathologist in the district morgue. But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, his world is wrenched apart.

For the angel is a winged posthuman from Spearpoint's Celestial Levels, and with the dying body comes bad news-to save the angel's life, Quillon must leave his home and travel into the cold and hostile lands beyond the city.

Carter relates an adventure commencing with a private war he and his picked followers have been waging against the resurgent Guild of Assassins, led by Ur Jan. Hoping to cut off the threat at the root, he travels undercover to the Assassins' base, the restive city of Zodanga, still smarting from its defeat and sack by the Empire of Helium and the horde of Tharks in A Princess of Mars.

The wild and beautiful planet of Darkover becomes the target of the World Wreckers, an intergalactic company that destroys the ecology and economy of a planet so that Terran investors can make a profit in restoring it.

The satellite-sized alien Gaea has gone completely insane. She has transformed her love of old movies into monstrous realities. She is Marilyn Monroe. She is King Kong. And now she must be destroyed.

This debut novel from preeminent science-fiction writer Ursula LeGuin introduces her brilliant Hainish series, set in a galaxy seeded by the planet Hain with a variety of humanoid species, including that of Earth. Over the centuries, the Hainish colonies have evolved into physically and culturally unique peoples, joined by a League of All Worlds.

Earth-scientist Rocannon has been leading an ethnological survey on a remote world populated by three native races: the cavern-dwelling Gdemiar, the elvish Fiia, and the warrior clan, Liuar. But when the technologically primitive planet is suddenly invaded by a fleet of ships from the stars, rebels against the League of All Worlds, Rocannon is the only survey member left alive. Marooned among alien peoples, he leads the battle to free this newly discovered world and finds that legends grow around him as he fights.

Tara, Princess of Helium, beautiful, fiery-tempered, impetuous, found that following a whim could be dangerous. Lost in her flier in the midst of a Martian tempest, she was at the mercy of the mad wind, and could only pray to be set down unharmed. Her hope of survival in the ancient, mysterious region of Barsoom would have been small indeed had she known of the strange inhuman customs of its inhabitants.

A chessboard manned by humans who must contest each square to the death. Heads without bodies, and bodies without heads. And meet Gahan of Gathol, a hero worthy of the immortal warlord's daughter.

The Oversoul of the colony planet Harmony selected the family of Wetchik to carry it back to long-lost Earth. Now grown to a tribe in the years of their journey to Harmony's hidden starport, they are ready at last to take a ship to the stars. But from the beginning there has been bitter dispute between Nafai and Elemak, Wetchick's youngest son and his oldest.

On board the starship Bailica, the children of the tribe will become pawns in the struggle. Two factions are each making secret plans to awaken the children, and themselves, early from the cold-sleep capsules in which they will pass the long decades of the journey. Each side hopes to gain years of influence on the minds of the children, winning their loyalty in the struggle for control of reclaimed Earth.

But the Oversoul is truly in control of this journey. It has downloaded a complete copy of itself to the Ship's computers. And only Nafai, who wears the Cloak of the Starmaster by the Oversoul's command, really understand what this will mean to all their plans for the future.

The Road runs from the unimaginable past to the far future, and those who travel it have access to the turnoffs leading to all times and places--even to the alternate time-streams of histories that never happened. Why the Dragons of Bel'kwinith made the Road--or who they are--no one knows. But the Road has always been there and for those who know how to find it, it always will be!

As a member of the Terran Spaceforce, Jeff Kerwin returns to Darkover, where he had spent his early years in an orphanage, and searches for clues about his true identity.

The Earth colony of Landin has been stranded on Werel for ten years, and ten of Werel's years are over 600 terrestrial years, and the lonely and dwindling human settlement is beginning to feel the strain. Every winter, a season that lasts for 15 years, the Earthmen have neighbors: the humanoid hilfs, a nomadic people who only settle down for the cruel cold spell. The hilfs fear the Earthmen, whom they think of as witches and call the farborns. But hilfs and farborns have common enemies: the hordes of ravaging barbarians called gaals and eerie preying snow ghouls. Will they join forces or be annihilated?

From the editor-in-chief of io9.com, a stunning novel about the end of the world -- and the beginning of our future

Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during high school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one's peers and families.

But now they're both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them. Laurence is an engineering genius who's working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention into the changing global climate. Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the world's magically gifted, and works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world's ever-growing ailments. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together -- to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages.

A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse.

He's the scion of an honorable and revered family. A dedicated soldier and distinguished legislator. Loyal proponent of the Republic and trusted ally of the Jedi Order. Groomed by the ruthless politician and Sith Lord who would be Emperor, Governor Wilhuff Tarkin rises through the Imperial ranks, enforcing his authority ever more mercilessly... and zealously pursuing his destiny as the architect of absolute dominion.

Rule through the fear of force rather than force itself, he advises his Emperor. Under Tarkin's guidance, an ultimate weapon of unparalleled destruction moves ever closer to becoming a terrifying reality. When the so-called Death Star is completed, Tarkin is confident that the galaxy's lingering pockets of Separatist rebellion will be brought to heel--by intimidation... or annihilation.

Until then, however, insurgency remains a genuine threat. Escalating guerrilla attacks by resistance forces and newfound evidence of a growing Separatist conspiracy are an immediate danger the Empire must meet with swift and brutal action. And to bring down a band of elusive freedom fighters, the Emperor turns to his most formidable agents: Darth Vader, the fearsome new Sith enforcer as remorseless as he is mysterious; and Tarkin--whose tactical cunning and cold-blooded efficiency will pave the way for the Empire's supremacy... and its enemies' extinction.

They were all playing games.... but one of them was playing for keeps.

Chet Henderson was playing at revenge, an to boost his flagging reputation as a Lore-master.

Richard Lopez was playing to prove this his earlier successes as a Gamemaster were no fluke.

Ollie and Gwen and Mary-em and Tony were playing because it made them feel alive.

Alex Griffin was playing to protect Dream Park's darkest secret.

In Dream Park, everyone plays. But if some win, some have to lose. And losing can be a matter of life or death.

Tan Handron from the realm of Gatho encounters a wide range of enemies in this science fiction thriller of the 1930's. He fends off green men, mad scientists, cannibal, spiders and white apes. The main character Tan Handron finds himself an unlikely hero in this pulp fiction classic. "A Fighting Man of Mars," is the seventh book in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Martian series.

Former Earthman Ulysses Paxton served Barsoom's greatest scientist, until his master's ghoulish trade in living bodies drove him to rebellion. Then, to save the body of the woman he loved, he had to attack mighty Phundahl, and its evil, beautiful ruler.

At first Killashandra Ree's ambitions to become a Crystal Singer, get rich, and forget her past, were going just as she had hoped. But after she grew wealthy, a devastating storm turned her claim to useless rock. In short order she was broke, she had crystal sickness so bad she thought she was going to die, and the only way she could be true to the man she loved was to leave him....

After the effortless capture of Earth by vastly superior aliens, humanity is forced to fight for existence on the Moon and other lumps of airless rock. The invention of the Hotline -- a constant stream of data from a star in the constellation Ophiuchus -- facilitates survival and enables the development of amazing new technologies.

Then, after 400 years, humanity's unknown helpers send a bill for their services... and suddenly everything is threatened once again.

The Ophiuchi Hotline was John Varley's first novel, and it received nominations for both the Hugo and Nebula awards he later won both for his book Persistence of Vision.

On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses--until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.

When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.

Being a Time Courier was one of the best jobs Judson Daniel Elliott III ever had. It was tricky, though, taking group after group of tourists back to the same historic event without meeting yourself coming or going. Trickier still was avoiding the temptation to become intimately involved with the past and interfere with events to come. The deterrents for any such actions were frighteningly effective. So Judson Daniel Elliott played by the book. Then he met a lusty Greek in Byzantium who showed him how rules were made to be broken... and set him on a family-history-go-round that would change his past and his future forever!

Two years before Edgar Rice Burroughs became a worldwide celebrity with the publication of Tarzan of the Apes and its twenty-two sequels, which together have sold more than 30 million copies, he published A Princess of Mars. A futuristic sci-fi fantasy romance, A Princess of Mars tells the story of John Carter, a Civil War veteran who inexplicably finds himself held prisoner on the planet Mars by the Green Men of Thark. Together with Dejah Thoris, the princess of another clan on Mars, the unlikely pair must fight for their freedom and save the entire planet from destruction as the life-sustaining Atmosphere Factory slowly grinds to a halt.

She had rejected her noble birthright and embraced the freedom only a man could claim. She was Romilly who lived among the beasts of hill and forest and communicated with them, who tried humanity and turned it down for its evils and jealousies. She had the MacAran Gift, the rare Iaran that conferred mastery over hawk and horse.

The City of Basilica has fallen. Now Wetchik, Nafai, and all their family must brave the desert wastes, and cross the wide continents to where Harmony's hidden spaceport lies silent, abandoned, waiting for the command to make the great interstellar ships ready for flight again.

But of these sixteen people, only a few have chosen their exile. The others, Rasa's spiteful daughters and their husbands; Wetchik's oldest son, Elemak, have been forced against their will. Their anger and hatreds will make the difficult journey harder.

Captain Pausert thought his luck had finally turned-but he did not yet realize it was a turn for the worse. On second thought, make that a turn for the disastrous! Pausert thought he had made good with his battered starship, successfully selling off odd-ball cargoes no one else could sell. And then he made the mistake of freeing three slave children from their masters (who were suspiciously eager to part with them). No good deed goes unpunished, and those harmless-looking young ladies were just trying to be helpful, but those three adorable little girls quickly made Pausert the mortal enemy of his fiancée, his home planet, the Empire, warlike Sirians, psychopathic Uldanians, the dread pirate chieftain Laes Yango-and even the Worm World, the darkest threat to mankind in all of space. And all because those harmless-looking little girls were in fact three of the notorious and universally feared Witches of Karres.

Edgar Rice Burroughs created one of the most iconic figures in American pop culture, Tarzan of the Apes, and it is impossible to overstate his influence on entire genres of popular literature in the decades after his enormously winning pulp novels stormed the public's imagination.

Thuvia, Maid of Mars, first published in 1920, is the fourth book in Burroughs' Mars series. Here, hero Carthoris goes in search of the kidnapped Thuvia, princess of Ptarth, encountering strange Martian creatures and romantic rivals along the way.

It was a dark time for the rebel alliance... Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, had been delivered into the hands of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. Determined to rescue him, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Lando Calrissian launched a hazar

The Rebel commanders gathered all the warships of the Rebel fleet into a single giant armada. And Darth Vader and the Emperor, who had ordered construction to begin on a new and even more powerful Death Star, were making plans to crush the Rebel Alliance once and for all.

E. C. "Scar" Gordon was on the French Riviera recovering from a tour of combat in Southeast Asia , but he hadn't given up his habit of scanning the Personals in the newspaper. One ad in particular leapt out at him:

"ARE YOU A COWARD? This is not for you. We badly need a brave man. He must be 23 to 25 years old, in perfect health, at least six feet tall, weigh about 190 pounds, fluent English, with some French, proficient in all weapons, some knowledge of engineering and mathematics essential, willing to travel, no family or emotional ties, indomitably courageous and handsome of face and figure. Permanent employment, very high pay, glorious adventure, great danger. You must apply in person, rue Dante, Nice, 2me etage, apt. D."

How could you not answer an ad like that, especially when it seemed to describe you perfectly? Well, except maybe for the "handsome" part, but that was in the eye of the beholder anyway. So he went to that apartment and was greeted by the most beautiful woman he'd ever met. She seemed to have many names, but agreed he could call her "Star." A pretty appropriate name, as it turned out, for the empress of twenty universes.

Robert A. Heinlein's one true fantasy novel, Glory Road is as much fun today as when he wrote it after Stranger in a Strange Land. Heinlein proves himself as adept with sword and sorcery as with rockets and slide rules and the result is exciting, satirical, fast-paced, funny and tremendously readable -- a favorite of all who have read it. Glory Road is a masterpiece of escapist entertainment with a typically Heinleinian sting in its tail. Tor is proud to return this all-time classic to hardcover to be discovered by a new generation of readers.

A planet orbiting binary suns, Helliconia has a Great Year spanning three millennia of Earth time: cultures are born in spring, flourish in summer, then die with the onset of the generations-long winter.

Helliconia is emerging from its centuries-long winter. The tribes of the equatorial continent emerge from their hiding places and are again able to dispute possession of the planet with the ferocious phagors. In Oldorando, love, trade and coinage are being redisovered,

This is the first volume of the Helliconia Trilogy -- a monumental saga that goes beyond anything yet created by this master among today's imaginative writers.

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.

There is no such thing as peace on the planet of war. John Carter, while searching for his granddaughter, must fight his way from Horz to the north pole, and to far Gathol.

It is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park, six years since the extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end--the dinosaurs destroyed, the park dismantled, the island indefinitely closed to the public. There are rumors that something has survived.

From author Michael Swanwick -- one of the most brilliantly assured and darkly inventive writers of contemporary fiction -- comes the Nebula Award-winning masterwork of radically altered realities and world-shattering seductions.

The "Jubilee Tides" will drown Miranda beneath the weight of her own oceans. But as the once-in-two centuries cataclysm approaches, an even greater catastrophe threatens this dark and dangerous planet of tale-spinners, conjurers, and shapechangers. For Gregorian has come, a genius renegade scientist and bush wizard. With magic and forbidden technology, he plans to remake the rotting dying world in his own evil image -- and to force whom or whatever remains on its diminishing surface toward a terrifying, astonishing confrontation with death and transcendence.

Originally appeared in Ace Double #89250 (1970).

Dan Barron was a rational and efficient member of the Terran space-force - until nightmare visions drove him from the safety of the trade city into the unmapped heart of the Darkovan mountain ranges. Into an ancient battle that would shape the destiny of more than one world.

Kennard Alton made the choice to marry a half-Terran, half-Aldaran woman. His two sons, Lewis and Marius, as a result are unable to fit into the Six Domains of the Comyn, the renegade "Seventh Domain" of Aldaran, or the world of the Terrans. This, in turn, leads Lew to his participation in the infamous Sharra Rebellion.

Meanwhile, the orphaned Regis Hastur is caught between following his heart and going on one of the Terran starships, and doing his duty to his grandfather and his family by taking his place in the Comyn Council and marrying. In the end, Lew's desire to break away from family and tradition leaves him closer than ever to his father, even as he wishes he could blame his father for leading him into the tragedy of the Sharra Rebellion.

High above the planet Harmony, the Oversoul watches. Its task, programmed so many millennia ago, is to guard the human settlement on this planet--to protect this fragile remnant of Earth from all threats. To protect them, most of all, from themselves.

The Oversoul has done its job well. There is no war on Harmony. There are no weapons of mass destruction. There is no technology that could lead to weapons of war. By control of the data banks, and subtle interference in the very thoughts of the people, the artificial intelligence has fulfilled its mission.

But now there is a problem. In orbit, the Oversoul realizes that it has lost access to some of its memory banks, and some of its power systems are failing. And on the planet, men are beginning to think about power, wealth, and conquest.

After he firewalked in Polynesia, the world wasn't the same for Alexander Hergensheimer, now called Alec Graham. As natural accidents occurred without cease, Alex knew Armageddon and the Day of Judgement were near. Somehow he had to bring his beloved heathen, Margrethe, to a state of grace, and, while he was at it, save the rest of the world....

As Harmony's Oversoul grows weaker, a great warrior has arisen to challenge its bans. His name is Moozh, and he has won control of an army using forbidden technology. Now he is aiming his soldiers at the city of Basilica, that strong fortress above the Plain.

Basilica remains in turmoil. Wetchik and his sons are not strong enough to stop a army. Can Rasa and her allies defeat him through intrigue, or will Moozh take the city and all who are in it?

Throughout history, man has been searching for better ways to gather information about his universe. But although they may have longed for it, not even the most brilliant minds could conceive of a device as infinitely powerful or as immeasurably precise as the macroscope, until the twenty-first century. By analyzing information carried on macrons, this unbelievable tool brought the whole universe of wonders to man's doorstep. The macroscope was seen by many as the salvation of the human race.

But in the hands of the wrong man, the macroscope could be immensely destructive-infinitely more dangerous than the nuclear bomb. By searching to know too much, man could destroy the very essence of his mind. This is the powerful story of man's struggle with technology, and also the story of his human struggle with himself. This novel takes us across the breathtaking ranges of space as well as through the most touching places in the human heart. It is a story of coming of age, of sacrifice, and of love. It is the story of man's desperate search for a compromise between his mind and his heart, between knowledge and humanity.

Hugo, NOMMO, and British Fantasy Award-nominated Novella

Binti has returned to her home planet, believing that the violence of the Meduse has been left behind. Unfortunately, although her people are peaceful on the whole, the same cannot be said for the Khoush, who fan the flames of their ancient rivalry with the Meduse.

Far from her village when the conflicts start, Binti hurries home, but anger and resentment has already claimed the lives of many close to her.

Once again it is up to Binti, and her intriguing new friend Mwinyi, to intervene -- though the elders of her people do not entirely trust her motives -- and try to prevent a war that could wipe out her people, once and for all.

While the earlier two Binti stories are novellas, this one is a novel of 47,885 words.

When Killashandra Ree joined the mysterious Heptite Guild, she knew that she would be forever changed. Crystal singing brought ecstasy and pain, near-eternal life... and gradual loss of memory. What she hadn't counted on was the loneliness she felt when her heart still remembered what her mind had forgotten. Fortunately, someone still cared enough to try to salvage what was left of Killashandra's mind. But she would have to learn to open herself--to another person, and to all her unpleasant memories.

On the planet Darkover, a Keeper--the center of a working psychic circle, the manipulator of colossal psychic forces--has traditionally been a virgin female. Callista, powerful Keeper of Arilinn Tower, has resigned her office to marry the Terran, Andrew Carr, who rescued her from her abductors in the previous book, THE SPELL SWORD.

As she struggles to throw off the years of conditioning that kept her mind and body under frighteningly rigid control, her new husband has his own battle with crippling culture shock. Meanwhile, Callista's brother-in-law Damon is conducting his own researches in an attempt to help her; his work, which suggests that a Keeper need not be virgin--nor female--could shake the very foundations of Darkovan society.

Kira, an orphan with a twisted leg, lives in a world where the weak are cast aside. When she is given a task that no other community member can carry out, Kira soon realizes that she is surrounded by many mysteries and secrets. No one must know of her plans to uncover the truth about her world-and to find out what exists beyond it.

Rick Riordan Presents Yoon Ha Lee's space opera about thirteen-year-old Min, who comes from a long line of fox spirits. But you'd never know it by looking at her. To keep the family safe, Min's mother insists that none of them use any fox-magic, such as Charm or shape-shifting. They must appear human at all times.

Min feels hemmed in by the household rules and resents the endless chores, the cousins who crowd her, and the aunties who judge her. She would like nothing more than to escape Jinju, her neglected, dust-ridden, and impoverished planet. She's counting the days until she can follow her older brother, Jun, into the Space Forces and see more of the Thousand Worlds.

When word arrives that Jun is suspected of leaving his post to go in search of the Dragon Pearl, Min knows that something is wrong. Jun would never desert his battle cruiser, even for a mystical object rumored to have tremendous power. She decides to run away to find him and clear his name.

Min's quest will have her meeting gamblers, pirates, and vengeful ghosts. It will involve deception, lies, and sabotage. She will be forced to use more fox-magic than ever before, and to rely on all of her cleverness and bravery. The outcome may not be what she had hoped, but it has the potential to exceed her wildest dreams.

This sci-fi adventure with the underpinnings of Korean mythology will transport you to a world far beyond your imagination.

Star of Danger is a work that stands as a foundation for the bestselling Darkover series, introducing many loyal fans to this wonderful, mysterious world. Two natives of Darkover are forced to combine Darkover matrix magic with Terran technology to stand against a shared enemy.

Greed pulls the archaeologist Matt Carse into the forgotten tomb of the Martian god Rhiannon and plunges the unlikely hero into the Red Planet's fantastic past, when vast oceans covered the land and the legendary Sea-Kings ruled from terraced palaces of decadence and delight. Talented enough to co-write The Big Sleep film with William Faulkner and imaginative enough to pen the original screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back, Leigh Brackett is a giant in the science-fiction field, and The Sword of Rhiannon is one of her most popular adventure tales.

After some sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England, the countryside reverts to nature, and the few survivors to a quasi-medieval way of life. Beginning with a loving description of nature reclaiming England -- fields becoming overrun by forest, domesticated animals running wild, roads and towns becoming overgrown, the hated London reverting to lake and poisonous swampland -- the rest of the story is an adventure set many years later in the wild landscape.

There's something out there:
a juggernaut of evil bearing down to crush the Republic--
unless one lone Jedi, shunned and reviled, can stop it.

Revan: hero, traitor, conqueror, villain, savior. A Jedi who left Coruscant to defeat Mandalorians--and returned a disciple of the dark side, bent on destroying the Republic. The Jedi Council gave Revan his life back, but the price of redemption was high. His memories have been erased. All that's left are nightmares--and deep, abiding fear.

What exactly happened beyond the Outer Rim? Revan can't quite remember, yet can't entirely forget. Somehow he stumbled across a terrible secret that threatens the very existence of the Republic. With no idea what it is, or how to stop it, Revan may very well fail, for he's never faced a more powerful and diabolic enemy. But only death can stop him from trying.

Features a bonus section following the novel that includes a primer on the Star Wars expanded universe, and over half a dozen excerpts from some of the most popular Star Wars books of the last thirty years!

Waldo
North Power--Air is in trouble. Their aircraft are crashing at an alarming rate, and no one can figure out the cause. Desperate for an answer, they turn to Waldo, a crippled genius who lives in a zero--g home in orbit around Earth. But Waldo has little reason to want to help the rest of humanity--until he learns that the solution to Earth's problems also hold the key to his own.

Magic, Inc.
Under the guise of an agency for magicians, Magic, Inc. systematically squeezed out the small independent magicians. Then one businessman stood firm. But one man stands firm. And with the help of an Oxford--educated African shaman and a little old lady adept at black magic, he is willing to take on the demons of Hell to resolve the problem--once and for all!

Appeared in Amazing Science Fiction Stories, November 1958, and later in slightly edited form in Ace Double F-153 (1962).

Planet Savers is the first novel set in the world of Darkover in which the Terrans of Gottman IV desperately seek a cure to a disease of epidemic proportions.

75th Anniversary Edition!

Among the best-written and most emotionally complex stories of the Pulp Era, the tales of intergalactic smuggler Northwest Smith still resonate strongly 75 years after their first publication. From the crumbling temples of forgotten gods on Venus to the seedy pleasure halls of old Mars, Northwest Smith blazes a trail through the underbelly of the solar system in 13 action-packed stories you won’t soon forget.

Contents:

• Teaching the World to Dream - essay by C. J. Cherryh
• Shambleau (1933) - novelette
• Black Thirst (1934) - novelette
• Scarlet Dream (1934) - novelette
• Dust of Gods (1934) - novelette
• Julhi (1935) - novelette
• Nymph of Darkness (1935) - short story with Forrest J. Ackerman
• The Cold Gray God (1935) - novelette
• Yvala (1936) - novelette
• Lost Paradise (1936) - novelette
• The Tree of Life (1936) - novelette
• Quest of the Starstone (1937) - novelette with Henry Kuttner
• Werewoman (1938) - novelette
• Song in a Minor Key (1940) - short story

Note: The Singularity & Co. e-book of Moore's Northwest Smith stories has the same contents as the 1982 Ace Books collection (Northwest Smith), and does not include "Nymph of Darkness", "Quest of the Starstone", and "Werewoman".

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, an evil legacy long believed dead is stirring. Now the dark side of the Force threatens to overwhelm the light, and only an ancient Jedi prophecy stands between hope and doom for the entire galaxy.

On the green, unspoiled world of Naboo, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, arrive to protect the realm's young queen as she seeks a diplomatic solution to end the siege of her planet by Trade Federation warships. At the same time, on desert-swept Tatooine, a slave boy named Anakin Skywalker, who possesses a strange ability for understanding the "rightness" of things, toils by day and dreams by night--of becoming a Jedi Knight and finding a way to win freedom for himself and his beloved mother. It will be the unexpected meeting of Jedi, Queen, and a gifted boy that will mark the start of a drama that will become legend.

Haunted by childhood memories of a strange silver man and a woman in flames, Margaret Alton returns to Darkover, the planet of her birth, where her memories lead her into a trap set centuries before her birth.

Chthon was Piers Anthony's first published novel in 1967, written over the course of seven years. He started it when he was in the US Army, so it has a long prison sequence that is reminiscent of that experience, being dark and grim. It features Aton Five, a space man who commits the crime of falling in love with the dangerous alluring Minionette and is therefore condemned to death in the subterranean prison of Chthon. It uses flashbacks to show how he came to know the Minionette, and flashforwards to show how he dealt with her after his escape from prison. The author regards this as perhaps the most intricately structured novel the science fantasy genre has seen. It was a contender for awards, but not a winner.

A woman with wings that exist in another dimension. A man trapped in his own body by a killer. A briefcase that is a door to hell. A conspiracy that reaches beyond our world. Breathtaking SF from a Clarke Award-winning author.

Tricia Sullivan has written an extraordinary, genre defining novel that begins with the mystery of a woman who barely knows herself and ends with a discovery that transcends space and time. On the way we follow our heroine as she attempts to track down a killer in the body of another man, and the man who has been taken over, his will trapped inside the mind of the being that has taken him over.

And at the centre of it all a briefcase that contains countless possible realities.

Tricia Sullivan returns to the genre with a book that will define the conversation within the genre and will show what it is capable of for years to come. This is the best book yet from a writer of exceedingly rare talent who is much loved in the genre world.

Approximately 30 years after the destruction of the second Death Star, Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi, has disappeared. The First Order has risen from the fallen Galactic Empire and seeks to eliminate Luke and the Republic. The Resistance, backed by the Republic and led by Luke's twin sister, Leia Organa, opposes them while searching for Luke to enlist his aid.

Resistance pilot Poe Dameron meets village elder Lor San Tekka on the planet Jakku to obtain a map to Luke's location. Stormtroopers under the command of Kylo Ren destroy the village and capture Poe. Poe's droid BB-8 escapes with the map, and encounters a scavenger, Rey, at a junkyard settlement. Ren tortures Poe and learns of BB-8. Stormtrooper FN-2187, unable to kill for the First Order, frees Poe and they escape in a stolen TIE fighter; Poe dubs FN-2187 "Finn". They crash on Jakku, and Finn appears to be the only survivor. He encounters Rey and BB-8, but the First Order tracks them and launches an airstrike. The three flee the planet in a stolen, rundown ship, the Millennium Falcon.

The Falcon breaks down, and is captured by a much larger ship, piloted by Han Solo and Chewbacca, who reclaim their former vessel. Han explains that Luke tried to rebuild the Jedi Order but went into exile after a student turned to the dark side and destroyed all that Luke had built. Gangs seeking to settle debts with Solo board the ship and attack, but the five escape in the Falcon. The criminals inform the First Order of Han's involvement. The Falcon crew view BB-8's map and determine it is incomplete. They travel to the planet Takodana and meet with cantina owner Maz Kanata, who can help BB-8 reach the Resistance, but Finn wants to flee on his own. Rey is drawn to a vault and finds the lightsaber that belonged to Luke and his father before him. She experiences disturbing visions and flees into the woods. Maz gives Finn the lightsaber for safekeeping.

At the First Order's Starkiller Base, a planet converted to a superweapon capable of destroying star systems, Supreme Leader Snoke orders General Hux to use it for the first time. It destroys the Republic capital and its fleet and Hux declares the end of the Republic. Snoke tells Ren that to overcome the call of the Light Side of the Force, Ren must kill his father, Han Solo. The First Order attacks Takodana. Han, Chewbacca, and Finn are saved by Resistance X-wing fighters led by Poe, but Rey is captured and taken to Starkiller Base. Ren interrogates Rey, but she resists his mind-reading. Discovering she too can use the Force, she escapes her cell with a Jedi mind trick.

Leia arrives at Takodana with C-3PO and reunites with Han and Chewbacca. At the Resistance base on D'Qar, BB-8 finds R2-D2, who has been inactive since Luke's disappearance. As Starkiller Base prepares to fire on D'Qar, the Resistance devises a plan to destroy it by attacking a critical facility. Leia urges Han to return their son alive. Using the Falcon, Han, Chewbacca, and Finn infiltrate the base. They lower its shield, find Rey, set explosives, and encounter Ren. Han confronts Ren, calling him by his birth name, Ben, and implores him to abandon the dark side. Though conflicted, Ren ultimately rejects and kills Han. An enraged Chewbacca shoots Ren in the side and sets off the explosives, allowing the Resistance X-wing fighters to attack the weapon and start a chain reaction that destroys Starkiller Base.

The injured Ren pursues Finn and Rey to the surface. Finn battles Ren with the lightsaber, but is overpowered and badly wounded. Rey takes the lightsaber and fights Ren, overpowering him with the Force before they are separated by a fissure. Snoke orders Hux to evacuate and bring Ren to him, while Rey and Chewbacca escape with Finn in the Falcon. On D'Qar, the Resistance celebrates while Leia, Chewbacca, and Rey mourn Han's death. R2-D2 awakens and reveals the rest of the map, which Rey follows with R2-D2 and Chewbacca to an island on a distant planet. She finds Luke and presents him with his lightsaber.

We don't know where on Earth you'll wind up,' Ra Chen had told him. And the Director of the Institute for Temporal Research didn't know precisely when, either. All he knew was that Hanville Svetz would be travelling back in time almost 2,000 years. But when he comes back, Hanville Svetz won't be alone. If his mission is successful he will be accompanied by a creature long extinct - a spectacular birthday present for the Secretary-General. His only help is a picture from a child's picture book. A picture of a horse. And so begins the first incredible adventure in time of Hanville Svetz.

Table of Contents:

• The Flight of the Horse - (1969) - shortstory
• Leviathan! - (1970) - shortstory
• Bird in the Hand - (1970) - novelette
• There's a Wolf in My Time Machine - (1971) - shortstory
• Death in a Cage - shortstory
• Flash Crowd - novella
• What Good Is a Glass Dagger? - (1972) - novelette
• Afterword - essay

The Einstein Intersection won the Nebula Award for best science fiction novel of 1967. The surface story tells of the problems a member of an alien race, Lo Lobey, has assimilating the mythology of earth, where his kind have settled among the leftover artifacts of humanity. The deeper tale concerns, however, the way those who are "different" must deal with the dominant cultural ideology. The tale follows Lobey's mythic quest for his lost love, Friza. In luminous and hallucinated language, it explores what new myths might emerge from the detritus of the human world as those who are "different" try to seize history and the day.

A lost ship from Terran mistakenly lands on a planet with a distant red star. That planet will come to be called Darkover, in this novel that details the crucial early days of the the land readers have grown to love. Although published in 1972, "Darkover Landfall" is viewed as the first novel in the history of Darkover.

Earthmen on Darkover stayed within the shelter of their specially constructed space port. Beyond lay uncharted territory - wild, inhospitable and sinister.

But for space traveller Andrew Carr the desolate planet held an attraction he could not resist. Darkover drew him. Darkover haunted him. And it was the planet's irresistible force that lured his craft to destruction among the unexplored mountains, leaving him alone among the magical people of the ancient planet....

Eviane's first visit to the-state-of-art amusement arena Dream Park ended in disaster: the special effects had seemed more real than life... until the holograms she was shooting with live ammunition turned out to be solid flesh and blood... and very, very dead.

Haunted by the past, rebounding from a lengthy spell in a mental hospital, she has returned to Dream Park to exorcise a nightmare that has become reality. But in Dream Park, nothing is what it seems. The Inuit mythology controlling the images is part of a "Fat Ripper Special" designed to implant new behavioral memes. The players are struggling against the game master, one another, and their own demons. And there is a killer who wants to ensure Eviane never regains her memory... no matter what it costs.

Fans have long wondered what happened to Ahsoka after she left the Jedi Order near the end of the Clone Wars, and before she re-appeared as the mysterious Rebel operative Fulcrum in Rebels. Finally, her story will begin to be told. Following her experiences with the Jedi and the devastation of Order 66, Ahsoka is unsure she can be part of a larger whole ever again. But her desire to fight the evils of the Empire and protect those who need it will lead her right to Bail Organa, and the Rebel Alliance.

Nebula Award winning and Hugo Award nominated novelette.

The biggest fish in the solar system swims the seas of Venus, and no one has caught it yet. Pursuit of this monster has cost more than one person a fortune, some their lives. Carlton Davits had his chance at it and failed. Now cosmetics queen Jean Luharich is putting together a high-tech fishing expedition, and she wants Carlton along. As bait. But just what is she fishing for?

The story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1965. It can also be found in thet anthologies:

• The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 15th Series (1966), edited by Edward L. Ferman
• Nebula Award Stories 1965 (1966), edited by Damon Knight
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume III (1983), edited by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Best of the Nebulas (1989), edited by Ben Bova
• The Good Old Stuff: Adventure SF in the Grand Tradition (1998), edited by Gardner Dozios.

The story is included in the collections:

• Four for Tomorrow (1967)
• The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth (1971)
• Threshold (2009)

This is the story of the Anthropologists Guild who travel across galaxies in ships and study other planets' peoples.

Duncan Chalk's six-hundred-pound frame is nearly as large as his media empire. Beneath the depths of his immense rolls of flab, the fabulously wealthy mogul wields the editorial power to deliver his programming across the solar system to billions of viewers. His newest real-life romance drama is between a starman who survived painful surgical experimentation while in alien captivity, and an emotionally scarred 17-year-old virgin. When the arranged relationship takes off on a whirlwind tour of the antarctic and out to the moons of Saturn, the viewers are swept up in the romance, but Chalk's true motives are revealed when the doomed relationship begins to unravel... and Chalk can feed on the emotional anguish of the two lost souls.

Imprisoned on the planet Corellia, Han Solo finds himself at the mercy of his evil cousin, Thracken Sal-Solo. Thracken plans to restore the Imperial system and seize total power -- no matter what the cost. Han has one chance to stop him. But to do so he must turn his back on his human cousin and join forces with a female alien. Dracmus was arrested as a ringleader in a plot against the corrupt Human League. Now she and Han will attempt a daring escape to Selonia in time to warn Leia, Luke Skywalker, and Lando of Thracken's plan. But can Han trust the alien to keep her word?

Meanwhile, other questions threaten the New Republic -- and the lives of millions. Who is behind the deadly Starbuster plot? Why is someone attempting to take possession of Corellia's powerful planetary repulsors? And what is the secret behind the mysterious Centerpoint Station, and ancient, artificial world of unknown origin that has suddenly -- and inexplicably -- come alive?

Pew Mogel and a monstrous giant threaten the peace and security of Barsoom.

John Carter is treacherously captured then transported to Jupiter by the war-like Morgors. Only his wits and sword arm may see him through.

troika, n. [Russ.], 1. a vehicle drawn by a team of three horses abreast. 2. the minimum coordinate set required to define a single point in three-dimensional space. 3. a jeep, a brontosaurus, and an old Mexican woman.

Beneath the glare of three purple suns, manipulated by unseen forces three travelers cross an endless desert: Alex, who wanted to be a machine, Naomi, the human corpsicle, and Eva, who escaped the whale emperor of her native land....

When Jyn Erso was five years old, her mother was murdered and her father taken from her to serve the Empire. But despite the loss of her parents she is not completely alone -- Saw Gerrera, a man willing to go to any extremes necessary in order to resist Imperial tyranny, takes her in as his own, and gives her not only a home but all the abilities and resources she needs to becomea rebel herself.

Jyn dedicates herself to the cause -- and the man. But fighting alongside Saw and his people brings with it danger and the question of just how far Jyn is willing to go as one of Saw's soldiers. When she faces an unthinkable betrayal that shatters her world, Jyn will have to pull the pieces of herself back together and figure out what she truly believes in... and who she can really trust.

Originally appeared in Ace Double F-153 (1962).

After Lew Alton unwittingly roused the fire demon Sharra, the Sword of Aldones was the only weapon that could lay her to rest again. But only one man could wield the sword, and getting it was an even bigger problem.

DOM SALABOS HAD A LOT OF ADVANTAGES

As heir to a huge fortune, he had an excellent robot servant (with Man-Friday subcircuitry), a planet (the First Syrian Bank) as godfather, a security chief who even ran checks on himself, and on Dom's home world even death was not always fatal.

Why, then, in an age when prediction was a science, was his future in doubt?

Originally appeared in Ace Double F-173 (1962).

When Argo, the White Goddess, orders it Geo, the itinerant poet, and his three disparate companions journey to the island of Aptor to seize a jewel from the dark god, Hama, and return it to Argo so that she may defeat the malign forces ranged against her and the land of Leptar

But, as the four push deep into the enigmatic heart of Aptor and the easy distinctions between good and evil start to blur, their mission no longer seems straightforward. For Argo already controls two of the precious stones and possession of the third would make her power absolute. And the four friends have learned that power tends to corrupt...

During the age of The Hundred Kingdoms, a feud between the Hammerfell and Storn leads to the murder of the duke of Hammerfell, the flight of the duchess and her twin sons, Alastair and Conn, and the separation of the twins, an event that could lead to a new beginning -- or destruction.

Something has gone wrong on the planet of Paradise.

The human settlers - farmers and scientists - are finding that their crops won't grow and their lives are becoming more and more dangerous. The indigenous plant life - never entirely safe - is changing in unpredictable ways, and the imported plantings wither and die. And so the order is given - Paradise will be abandoned. All personnel will be removed and reassigned. And all human presence on the planet will be disestablished.

Not all agree with the decision. There are some who believe that Paradise has more to offer the human race. That the planet is not finished with the intruders, and that the risks of staying are outweighed by the possible rewards. And so the leader of the research team and one of the demolition workers set off on a journey across the planet. Along the way they will encounter the last of the near-mythical Dendron, the vicious Reapers and the deadly Tattersall Weeds as they embark on an adventure which will bring them closer to nature, to each other and, eventually, to Paradise.

Jeremy Bremen has a secret. All his life he's been cursed with the ability to read minds. He knows the secret thoughts, fears, and desires of others as if they were his own. For years, his wife, Gail, has served as a shield between Jeremy and the burden of this terrible knowledge. But Gail is dying, her mind ebbing slowly away, leaving him vulnerable to the chaotic flood of thought that threatens to sweep away his sanity.

Now Jeremy is on the run--from his mind, from his past, from himself--hoping to find peace in isolation. Instead he witnesses an act of brutality that propels him on a treacherous trek across a dark and dangerous America. From a fantasy theme park to the lair of a killer to a sterile hospital room in St. Louis, he follows a voice that is calling him to witness the stunning mystery at the heart of mortality.

A wildly successful innovator to rival Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, Vivian Liao is prone to radical thinking, quick decision-making, and reckless action. On the eve of her greatest achievement, she tries to outrun people who are trying to steal her success.

In the chilly darkness of a Boston server farm, Viv sets her ultimate plan into motion. A terrifying instant later, Vivian Liao is catapulted through space and time to a far future where she confronts a destiny stranger and more deadly than she could ever imagine.

The end of time is ruled by an ancient, powerful Empress who blesses or blasts entire planets with a single thought. Rebellion is literally impossible to consider--until Vivian Liao arrives. Trapped between the Pride--a ravening horde of sentient machines--and a fanatical sect of warrior monks who call themselves the Mirrorfaith, Viv must rally a strange group of allies to confront the Empress and find a way back to the world and life she left behind.

Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight, is just a memory. Darth Vader, newly anointed Sith Lord, is ascendant. The Emperor's chosen apprentice has swiftly proven his loyalty to the dark side. Still, the history of the Sith Order is one of duplicity, betrayal, and acolytes violently usurping their Masters--and the truest measure of Vader's allegiance has yet to be taken. Until now.

On Ryloth, a planet crucial to the growing Empire as a source of slave labor and the narcotic known as "spice," an aggressive resistance movement has arisen, led by Cham Syndulla, an idealistic freedom fighter, and Isval, a vengeful former slave. But Emperor Palpatine means to control the embattled world and its precious resources--by political power or firepower--and he will be neither intimidated nor denied. Accompanied by his merciless disciple, Darth Vader, he sets out on a rare personal mission to ensure his will is done.

For Syndulla and Isval, it's the opportunity to strike at the very heart of the ruthless dictatorship sweeping the galaxy. And for the Emperor and Darth Vader, Ryloth becomes more than just a matter of putting down an insurrection: When an ambush sends them crashing to the planet's surface, where inhospitable terrain and an army of resistance fighters await them, they will find their relationship tested as never before. With only their lightsabers, the dark side of the Force, and each other to depend on, the two Sith must decide if the brutal bond they share will make them victorious allies or lethal adversaries.

The return to the caverns of Chthon! The planet Chthon was a prison world of ruby caverns where rebels and outlaws were exiled to endless darkness. Aton's crime was loving a minionette, one of the sensuous woman warriors it was death to touch. His son Arlo was both minion and human. Arlo's destiny was war with the deadliest enemy of all - the very planet Chthon, which was alive and furious at the life forms within its depths.

War is tearing the galaxy apart. For years the Republic and the Separatists have battled across the stars, each building more and more deadly technology in an attempt to win the war. As a member of Chancellor Palpatine's top secret Death Star project, Orson Krennic is determined to develop a superweapon before their enemies can. And an old friend of Krennic's, the brilliant scientist Galen Erso, could be the key.

Galen's energy-focused research has captured the attention of both Krennic and his foes, making the scientist a crucial pawn in the galactic conflict. But after Krennic rescues Galen, his wife, Lyra, and their young daughter, Jyn, from Separatist kidnappers, the Erso family is deeply in Krennic's debt. Krennic then offers Galen an extraordinary opportunity: to continue his scientific studies with every resource put utterly at his disposal. While Galen and Lyra believe that his energy research will be used purely in altruistic ways, Krennic has other plans that will finally make the Death Star a reality. Trapped in their benefactor's tightening grasp, the Ersos must untangle Krennic's web of deception to save themselves and the galaxy itself.

A classic work of science fiction, this novel was one of the first to explore the world of the atom.

The Girl in the Golden Atom is the story of a young chemist who finds a hidden atomic world within his mother's wedding ring. Under a microscope, he sees within the ring a beautiful young woman sitting before a cave. Enchanted by her, he shrinks himself so that he can join her world.

Having worked for Thomas Alva Edison, Ray Cummings (1887–1957) was inspired by science's possibilities and began to write science fiction. The Girl in the Golden Atom was enormously successful at its publication in 1923, and Cummings went on to write an equally successful sequel, The People of the Golden Atom.

Secrets Lie Within The Earth

"Tell me frankly what you saw in that chasm: I am sure it was something strange and terrible. Confide in me."

The engineer long endeavoured to evade my inquiries. But at last, he spoke.

"I will tell you all. A steady brilliant light. I left the cage and clambered down. As I drew nearer and nearer to the light, the chasm became wider, and at last I saw, to my unspeakable amaze, a broad level road at the bottom of the abyss, illumined as far as the eye could reach by what seemed artificial gas-lamps placed at regular intervals, as in the thoroughfare of a great city; and I heard confusedly at a distance a hum as of human voices. I know, of course, that no rival miners are at work in this district. Whose could be those voices? What human hands could have levelled that road and marshalled those lamps?"

"You will descend again?"

"I ought, yet I feel as if I durst not."

A trade summit on Corellia brings Han Solo back to the home world he left many years before. Arriving on the distant planet with Leia, their children and Chewbacca, Han finds Corellia overrun with agents of the New Republic Intelligence and finds himself part of a deceptive plan whose aim not even he understands. One thing is clear: the five inhabited worlds of the sector are on the brink of civil war and the once peaceful coexistence of the three leading races -- human, Selonian, and Drallan -- has come to an end.

Luke Skywalker's game-changing destruction of the Death Star has made him not only a hero of the Rebel Alliance but a valuable asset in the ongoing battle against the Empire. Though he's a long way from mastering the power of the Force, there's no denying his phenomenal skills as a pilot--and in the eyes of Rebel leaders Princess Leia Organa and Admiral Ackbar, there's no one better qualified to carry out a daring rescue mission crucial to the Alliance cause.

A brilliant alien cryptographer renowned for her ability to breach even the most advanced communications systems is being detained by Imperial agents determined to exploit her exceptional talents for the Empire's purposes. But the prospective spy's sympathies lie with the Rebels, and she's willing to join their effort in exchange for being reunited with her family. It's an opportunity to gain a critical edge against the Empire that's too precious to pass up. It's also a job that demands the element of surprise. So Luke and the ever-resourceful droid R2-D2 swap their trusty X-wing fighter for a sleek space yacht piloted by brash recruit Nakari Kelen, daughter of a biotech mogul, who's got a score of her own to settle with the Empire.

Challenged by ruthless Imperial bodyguards, death-dealing enemy battleships, merciless bounty hunters, and monstrous brain-eating parasites, Luke plunges head-on into a high-stakes espionage operation that will push his abilities as a Rebel fighter and would-be Jedi to the limit. If ever he needed the wisdom of Obi-Wan Kenobi to shepherd him through danger, it's now. But Luke will have to rely on himself, his friends, and his own burgeoning relationship with the Force to survive.

In Carson of Venus our intrepid hero and his beloved Duare flee from Havatoo but are soon attacked by a brutal female tribe; Carson is left for dead and Duare is enslaved. Carson's only mission now is to find and rescue Duare and make his escape with her to their new kingdom of Korva.

Originally serialized in 1938 in Argosy.