Search Worlds Without End

They were a strange lot, the residents at Mrs. Mumble's boardinghouse -- her name wasn't "mumble," but that was what people did when they tried to pronounce it -- and you might call the place a miniature United Nations. There was Yusef Afifi, Afghan, an importer; Fritz Holtzer, advertising model; Johnny Jones, Welshman; Oonalak, an Alaskan Eskimo; Chien Wang, a refugee from Hong Kong; a beautiful Ethiopian woman, whom they all called Sheba; an equally lovely girl, Eufemia Rosario, who claimed to be a full-blooded Mohawk Indian, and Irish Dan Gorman, science fiction and fantasy illustrator and artist. They all got along in reasonable harmony until the night of Honey Tucci's party.

The Tucci girl knew all of them, and they were all invited. Dan Gorman knew that la Tucci expected something kookie from him because of his occupation, so he stopped in at a place called Lew's Joke Shop to see if he could find something unusual to bring. A tall, scrawny kid behind the counter asked, "Help you?" and then was sent...

This Hugo Award-nominated short story originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 23, July-August 2018.

Read the full story for free at Uncanny.

The Twin Cities of Liath and Tamren. Home to a multitude of races, faiths, and industries, the Cities are a destination for immigrants seeking their fortune and relative freedom. Once an outpost of the world's greatest empire, the Cities have since flourished under the benign negligence of the Gash, a formerly nomadic warrior tribe taken root as Liath-Tamren's aristocracy. Now, though, the river that divides the Cities carries change on its currents. While their overlords scheme on unwitting, the peoples of Liath-Tamren have begun to eye one another suspiciously again.

One day, the boy Pinchlin's destitute, drunken father makes a bold promise of impending riches, a return to the comfortable life they lost so mysteriously, and so suddenly, a year ago. Instead, he vanishes. Pinchlin will be drawn quickly into a web of dueling sorcerous cults, racial unrest, and foreign intrigue that threaten to throw the Cities into chaos.

The Three Faces of Dissatisfaction is the first book from American fantasy author M.C. Burnell. Fascinating for its milieu as much as its action and characters, The Three Faces is a fantasy adventure for anyone who has ever loved a city.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in the anthology The Farthest Reaches (1968), edited by Joseph Elder. It can also be found in the anthologies World's Best Science Fiction: 1969, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, Nebula Award Stories Four (1969), edited by Poul Anderson, Deep Space: Eight Stories of Science Fiction (1973), edited by Robert Silverberg and The Road to Science Fiction 4: From Here to Forever (1982), edited by James Gunn. It is included in the collection The Light at the End of the Universe (1976).

Were they from another time--or another place?

Earth was being watched. Their surceillance was exacting and systematic. No one knew who they were or where they came from. But they were there. Why?

Only two people from Earth knew the answers. But they were only two against so many.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction (2011), edited by Ian Whates. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 17 (2013), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

This novelette originally appeared in Lightspeed, June 2017.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

In a cyber-enhanced, futuristic Chicago, Sonata knows near-immortality is achievable through downloading her mind into a cyborg body after death. But this young artist wants to prove that living forever isn't the same as living a beautiful life.

This story can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 2 (2017), edited by Neil Clarke.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Not the same contents as the other collection called just "The Thirst Quenchers"

Table of Contents:

• Make Mine Homogenized (1960), novelette by Rick Raphael
• The Thirst Quenchers (1963), novelette by Rick Raphael
• A Filbert Is a Nut (1959), short story by Rick Raphael
• Sonny (1963), short story by Rick Raphael

Step right up, folks, and prepare to have your blood run cold as you meet the strangest, most bizarre trio of misfits ever spawned by a carnival of blood:

TWEEDLEDEE, an adult man trapped in the body of a three-year-old toddler, whose mask of childlike innocence hides a seething brain plotting hideous revenge against all that is sane and normal!

HERCULES, the circus strongman, brutal, bestial, revelling in carnage and murder - yet the submissive slave of a deadly dwarf!

ECHO, the expert ventriloquist with the uncanny ability to throw his voice so that lifeless wooden dummies seem to speak even as you or I!

Together, they are THE UNHOLY THREE, star attractions of Tod Robbins' classic novel of hate, murder and madness on and off the midway. Best known as author of the story which inspired the still-controversial fear-film FREAKS, Robbins first stunned the public with this intense account of a ruthless war on society waged by a triad of carny castaways.

Sturgeon Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Clarkesworld, Issue 101, February 2015, and can also be found in the anthologies:

• In the Shadow of the Towers: Speculative Fiction in a Post-9/11 World (2015), edited by Douglas Lain
• The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2016, edited by Paula Guran
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection (2016), edited by Gardner Dozois
• Clarkesworld Year Nine: Volume One (2018), edited by Sean Wallace and Neil Clarke
• Not One of Us: Stories of Aliens on Earth (2018), edited by Neil Clarke.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

This Nebula Award nominated novelette originally appeared in Future Science Fiction Digest, Issue 1, December 2018.

Read the full story for free at Future Science Fiction Digest.

For Born with the Dead:

His wife was among the rekindled dead now. He'd heard that she was on a plane to Zanzibar with five other rekindled dead. As a "warm" he was not really allowed to make contact with her. The dead liked to stay in their cold-cities. But he'd loved her so much when she was alive, he just had to try.

Contents:

• Born with the Dead - (1974) - novella by Robert Silverberg
• Thomas the Proclaimer - (1972) - novella by Robert Silverberg
• Going - (1971) - novella by Robert Silverberg

Contains:

• Earth's Last Fortress
• The Three Eyes of Evil

Prosperity City's corrupt mayor never guessed his greatest opponent would be a fire-breathing dragon and her unconventional platform...

All magic has consequences

Long ago, the seawitch Dread Mary fell in love with a hard-hearted prince and gave him the Magic Three of Solatia: three silver buttons that could fulfill any wish--but at a price. Centuries later, the buttons belong to Sianna of the Song, a button maker's daughter and heir to all of Dread Mary's magic secrets. But the cruel King Blaggard of Solatia seeks to wed the lovely Sianna and steal her power. Sianna will need her wits, her magic, and the silver buttons to save herself and Solatia from the evil Blaggard... but what will it cost her?

This ebook features a personal history by Jane Yolen including rare images from the author's personal collection, as well as a note from the author about the making of the book.

This short story originally appeared in VB Tech Journal, June 1995, and was reprinted in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1995. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF (1996), edited by David G. Hartwell. The story is included in the collection The Road to Amber (2009).

An enchanted green violin, an automaton that comes to life, and a hidden treasure... THE CLOCKWORK THREE is a richly woven adventure story that is sure to become a classic!

Giuseppe is an orphaned street musician from Italy, who was sold by his uncle to work as a slave for an evil padrone in the U.S. But when a mysterious green violin enters his life he begins to imagine a life of freedom.

Hannah is a soft-hearted, strong-willed girl from the tenements, who supports her family as a hotel maid when tragedy strikes and her father can no longer work. She learns about a hidden treasure, which she knows will save her family -- if she can find it.

And Frederick, the talented and intense clockmaker's apprentice, seeks to learn the truth about his mother while trying to forget the nightmares of the orphanage where she left him. He is determined to build an automaton and enter the clockmakers' guild -- if only he can create a working head.

Together, the three discover they have phenomenal power when they team up as friends, and that they can overcome even the darkest of fears.

The Green Queen

His atomic puppet was out of control!

Bonnar had created the Green Queen thoughtlessly--all part of a day's work. But when his brain-child became a full-grown Frankenstein, a monster embodied in the girl he loved, Bonnar was terrified. For now she threatened to shatter the whole carefully balanced social structure of Viridis--as well to undermine the radioactive world's atomic shield!

Only Bonnar could end the holocaust and turn the all-too-grim reality back to the illusion he had originally intended. But to do that he had to destroy the girl he loved--or be destroyed by her.

Original title: Mistress of Viridis (Universe Science Fiction, March 1955)

Three Thousand Years

They slept for thirty centuries.

Originally serialized in the magazine Astounding in 1938.

The Stars Are Ours!

Dard Nordis grew up in a world that had been devastated by atomic catastrophe. The remnants of humanity had set up an iron dictatorship to hunt out and destroy the last free bands of scientists, hiding in mountains and caves. And the day came when Dard's secret laboratory home was raided - and he escaped by the skin of his teeth.

Where else could men go to keep the torch of liberty and knowlkedge burning? Dard's martyred brother had given him a key to that unknown haven, but how could dard learn to use it? Where were the engineers and their spaceships hidden?

Three Faces of Time

Elspeth Marriner, once an ace journalist, is now a Time Watcher working from the mysterious House of Many Worlds. On some parallel time-tracks, Earth's cultures lag thousands of years behind our own. On others, science is far in advance of ours. As a Watcher, Elspeth's job is to keep advanced Earths that had discovered the existence of their parallel sisters from invading and exploiting those that were less advanced. Now the Watchers have discovered that the power-hungry dictator of one far-advanced civilization, having devastated his own Earth, has already infiltrated a parallel Earth still in the age of the Roman Empire, and is seeking to conquer it! Though chariots roll through the streets, and men with swords guard the cities, flying tanks and atomic artillery are gathering in secret behind the walls!

Message from the Eocene

Legacy of a Lost Race

His name was Tharg, but he was not of any life form we know today. He lived so long ago that the planet Earth had not yet shaped itself. Lava seas roiled and churned, volcanoes spouted and grew, and heavy clouds hung in the hydrogen atmosphere, leaving the planet's surface dark and dangerous.

On that world Tharg met his death, or something very much like it. He became a disembodied, totally nonphysical intelligence, cut off from all contact with the life he had known. He "slept" for hundreds of millions of yhears, unconnected with the world, unthinking, hardly existing.

But then he began to awake--for there was new life on Earth, creatures called "human," and Tharg, knowing an anceint promise from the stars, had to tell them of it. But... how?

Three Worlds of Futurity

Collection of short stories:

• The Everlasting Food - (1950) - novelette
• Idris' Pig - (1949) - novella
• The Rages - (1954) - novelette
• Roberta - (1962) - shortstory
• The Island of the Hands - (1952) - shortstory

The Automated Goliath

Man - yes; machine - no!

The Three Suns of Amara

The tree-trap, the she-trap and the killer ld.

The Three Suns of Amara

Wher the natural laws of the universe are suspended, so is sanity.

Battle on Venus

Earth's first spaceship to Venus landed amidst a war where strange weapons like the archaic ones used in the old wars on Earth in the twentieth century hurled shells at each other. But this war had lasted over a thousand years--and by remote control!

George Starkey had to find a way to stop the war before the little group of astronauts became early casualties. But how? Where were the headquarters of the contending sides and how do you tell a robot tank that you're neutral?

But George had an ally, a Venusian girl who thought stealing was virtuous--and, unknowingly, he had something else that turned out to be the most valuable substance on Venus--a box of chocolate bars!

Traveling carnival owner Thaddeus Flint expands his tour from the American Northeast out to the stars, only to discover that some of the attractions don't quite hold the audience like they did back on Earth. Realizing that his strip show has no more appeal to an alien audience than watching a saddle come off a horse, he reassigns his girls to work the game booths on the midway. When one of the girls can't make the transition, he improvises an alien solution.

Arthur Machen (1863-1947), popular Welsh writer of the bizarre and fantastic, created some of the finest horror stories ever written. On the surface, everything appears normal and cheerful in this bustling suburb of neatly laid out homes and well-trimmed hedges. But nothing is really as it seems. For in this world of impostors, conspiracies combine with dark forces to veil a once-ordinary London neighborhood in a cloud of mystery and fear.

A masterpiece of Gothic horror and suspense that inspired such writers as H. P. Lovecraft, The Three Impostors is Machen's famous collection of "weird tales" — a string of shocking short stories woven together with a fine narrative thread. Rich with terror, adventure, satire, deception, and dreamlike fantasy, it is a classic of occult literature written by a stylistic master.

The second in Doris Lessing's visionary novel cycle "Canopus in Argos: Archives". It is a mix of fable, futuristic fantasy and pseudo-documentary accounts of 20th-century history.

This is a mega-collection of four complete novels of the Man of Tomorrow, the Wizard of Science, the protector of the Solar System, and a menace to evil-doers throughout the universe: CAPTAIN FUTURE!

Contents:

• Long Live Captain Future - essay by Chuck Juzek
• The Quest Beyond the Stars (1969) - novel
• Outlaws of the Moon (1969) - novel
• The Comet Kings (1969) - novel
• Planets in Peril (1969) - novel
• The Future of Captain Future (Captain Future, Fall 1942) essay by Oscar J. Friend

Also includes many letters, essays and illustrations.

Less than a year after the release of first two volumes of THE COLLECTED EDMOND HAMILTON (Vol. One: The Metal Giants and Others and Vol. Two: The Star Stealers: The Complete Tales of the Interstellar Patrol) Haffner Press lets no grass grow under our feet as we announce the next volume of collected stories from one of the godfathers of Space Opera.

This volume sees Hamilton established not only as a regular contributor to Weird Tales, but also to Amazing Stories, Hugo Gernback's new magazine Air Wonder Stories, and the young upstart publication, Astounding Stories. Eight of these stories are reprinted for the first time, including two novels: "Cities in the Air" and "The Universe Wreckers."

Hamilton's as-yet-unrecognized talent for the short horror story gets a work-out with "The Plant Revol," "Pigmy Island," and "The Life-Masters."

As with previous volumes in this series, an appendix showcasing the original pulp magazine illustrations also bulks large with obscura including reader's letters from the vintage magazines commenting on these stories, along with editorial correspondence between Hamilton and his editors.

University of Pittsburgh professor Dr. Eric Leif Davin (and author of Pioneers of Wonder: Conversations with the Founders of Science Fiction and Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965) provides a lengthy introduction placing these Hamilton stories in historical context and shares a wealth of information on the editorial policies of the commissioning editors. His website is: http://ericleifdavin.vpweb.com/

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Eric Leif Davin
• "Cities in the Air" (Air Wonder Stories Nov, Dec '29)
• "The Life-Masters" (Weird Tales, Jan '30)
• "The Space Visitors" (Air Wonder Stories, Mar '30)
• "Evans of the Earth Guard" (Air Wonder Stories, Apr '30)
• "The Plant Revolt" (Weird Tales, Apr '30)
• "The Universe Wreckers" (Amazing Stories May, Jun, Jul '30)
• "The Death Lord" (Weird Tales, Jul '30)
• "Pigmy Island" (Weird Tales, Aug '30)
• "Second Satellite" (Astounding Stories, Aug '30)
• "World Atavism" (Amazing Stories, Aug '30)
• "The Man Who Saw the Future" (Amazing Stories, Aug '30)

Appendix

• Original Pulp Illustrations
• Readers' Letters from Original Magazines
• Correspondence between Hamilton and the SF Luminaries of the Day

The last of a three volume set of Richard Matheson's Collected Stories. Volume Three includes some of Matheson's most famous stories including Duel upon which the Steven Spielberg movie was based. 33 stories.

The Three Wild Men

The FBI is after the Man of Bronze. The U.S. government believes he's conducting bizarre experiments to transform the world's wealthiest and most powerful men into brutal, mindless creatures. From posh New York apartments to murky Virginia swamps, Doc Savage races one step ahead of the G-men as he seeks the true evil genius behind the maniacal plot of worldwide terror!

This is #121 in the Doc Savage Novels series.

More information about The Three Wild Men available at the Hidalgo Trading Company website.

The Fiery Menace

A ruthless madman is plotting to rule the world. His ingenious plan involves an enigmatic woman, a psychotic surgeon, and a strange and powerful fog that muddles men's minds. First, they have to kill Doc Savage. And Doc's vengeance begins only after he is dead!

This is # 122 in the Doc Savage Novels series.

More information about The Fiery Menace available at the Hidalgo Trading Company website.

Lester Dent authored both novels under pseudonym Kenneth Robeson.

The shadow of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II hangs over the shattered Holy Roman Church as the cardinals remain deadlocked, unable to choose a new pope. Only the Binders and a mad priest have a hope of uniting the Church against the invading Mongol host. An untested band of young warriors stands against the dissolute Khan, Onghwe, fighting for glory and freedom in the Khan's sadistic circus of swords, and the brave band of Shield-Brethren who set out to stop the Mongol threat single-handedly race against their nemesis before he can raise the entire empire against them. Veteran knight Feronantus, haunted by his life in exile, leads the dwindling company of Shield-Brethren to their final battle, molding them into a team that will outlast him. No good hero lives forever. Or fights alone.

In this third and final book of the Mongoliad trilogy from Neal Stephenson and company, the gripping personal stories of medieval freedom fighters collide to form an epic, imaginative recounting of a moment in history when a world in peril relied solely on the courage of its people.

A note on this edition: The Mongoliad began as a social media experiment, combining serial story-telling with a unique level of interaction between authors and audience during the creative process. Since its original iteration, The Mongoliad has been restructured, edited, and rewritten under the supervision of its authors to create a more cohesive reading experience and will be published as a trilogy of novels. This edition is the definitive edition and is the authors' preferred text.

The Three Stigmata hid a secret that could transform the world - or end it...

When the mysterious Palmer Eldritch returned from a distant galaxy, he claimed to have brought a gift for mankind. Chew-Z was a drug capable of transporting people into an illusory world, a world the could linger in for years wihout losing a second of Earth time. For the lonely colonists living out their dreary term on Mars, here was the ultimate trip, a pastime that could deliver immortality, wish fulfillment... the twin-power over time and space.

But in return, Palmer Eldritch exacted a terrible price. He would enter, control and be a god in everyone's private universe - a universe from which there was no escape, not even death...

Kethol -- The pretty fellow, a long and lanky redhead with an easy smile and an easygoing attitude that his clever eyes deny. He is quick with a quick... and quicker with a sword.

Durine -- The big man, a head taller than most and twice as wide, built like a barrel, with a loyal heart and hands too thick to use anything more delicate than an ax handle.

Pirojil -- The ugly one, his face heavy-jawed, with an eye ridge that would mark him as a Neanderthal only to the most gracious. But looks deceive, and his might be the rarest gift of all.

Athos, Porthos, and Aramis they're not.

Judge Dee is back to solve a brand-new case involving the mysterious death of the vampire Count Werdenfels. The mystery? Who killed him. The twist? Three different people are proudly proclaiming to have committed the crime.

Originally published on 10 February 2021, read it for free at Tor.com

The world of Zelharri, where magic reigns supreme, begins a chaotic existence after the death of the Duke. To usurp the throne and prevent the Duke's son, Aletto, from taking his rightful place, the Duke's bother, Jadek, marries his widow and exercises enormous power of Zelharri. Fearing that all the good in Zelharri will be unraveled, Aletto and his sister, Lialla, summon allies to aid them.

In this bewitching fantasy novel, three Californians are recruited into helping Aletto assume his royal position as Duke of Zelharri. The workaholic lawyer Jennifer; her irresponsible sister, Robyn; and Robyn's flippant son, Chris, must harness the mighty power of the Night-Threads to combat the sinister Jadek. The only problem is that they have no faith in this awesome power.

For millennia after the collapse of the great galactic empire in a war that destroyed hundreds of whole planets, the surviving worlds of the Confederation had permitted no new scientific research. The resultant stagnation was considered an acceptable price, since it meant no new weapons of war would be developed, and wars could be confined to disputes between nations on a single planet. But when one of their colony planets was discovered by warships from the Caliphate, another surviving group of planets with technology far superior to anything the Confederation possessed, the Confederation discovered that they had made a fatal mistake. Only the nearly superhuman abilities of the Tyss-trained White Regiment had driven off the attackers. But now the Caliphate is returning in force, with a vast fleet warships, determined to conquer the Confederation.

And there is a third player. Between the regions of the galaxy separating the two forces is a third empire of reptilian beings who were attacked without provocation by an earlier Caliphate incursion--and who make no distinction between one group of humans and another. They are determined to eliminate this dangerous ape species from the galaxy once and for all.

The Caliphate thinks it has the element of complete surprise, as do the lizardlike aliens. But the mystic warriors of Tyss have made mental contact with both fleets, and they have a plan which is the only hope to avert a second galaxy-wide war, a war that could shatter the worlds of all three sides.

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.

Translation by Ken Liu.

In this, our third volume of Robert Silverberg Ace Double novels you get some of his best stuff. "Invaders from Earth" is a great tale about an outer space scam gone horribly wrong, with the fate of an entire world hanging in the balance. In "Collision Course," the discovery of another, more-advanced race shakes the very foundations of humanity, with a clash of intergalactic powers seemingly inevitable. "The Silent Invaders" throws one man into the middle of a three-pronged conflict that has Earth seemingly threatened by one race, while secretly being imperiled by another.

All three tales are perfect examples of why Ace Books was the one-stop shopping place for thrilling science fiction. Also included in this volume is an updated Silverberg Ace Cover Gallery, showing the wonderful artwork that accompanied all twelve of Bob's Ace novels. Featured are two of the best science fiction artists of the day, Ed Emshwiller and Ed Valigursky.

Lastly, as we did in our first two volumes, we've thrown in a Robert Silverberg bonus tale, "The Songs of Summer," not seen in print in decades, complete with its original Kelly Freas illustration.

Table of Contents:

• 5 - Foreword (Robert Silverberg: The Ace Years, Part Three) - essay by Gregory Luce [as by Greg Luce]
• 6 - Invaders from Earth - (1958) - novel
• 142 - Collision Course - (1961) - novel
• 270 - The Silent Invaders - (1963) - novel
• 376 - The Songs of Summer - (1956) - short story

Showcasing some of the world's greatest science fiction writers, the eclectic short stories and novelettes in this anthology--all published here for the first time--range from futuristic murder mysteries to tales of contact with alien beings.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by George Mann
• Rescue Mission - shortstory by Jack Skillingstead
• The Fixation - shortstory by Alastair Reynolds
• Artifacts - novelette by Stephen Baxter
• Necroflux Day - novelette by John Meaney
• Providence - novelette by Paul Di Filippo
• Carnival Night - novelette by Warren Hammond
• The Assistant - novelette by Ian Whates
• Glitch - novelette by Scott Edelman
• One of Our Bastards Is Missing - novelette by Paul Cornell
• Woodpunk - shortstory by Adam Roberts
• Minya's Astral Angels - novelette by Jennifer Pelland
• The Best Monkey - novelette by Daniel Abraham
• Long Stay - shortstory by Ian Watson
• A Soul Stitched to Iron - novelette by Tim Akers
• iThink, Therefore I Am - shortstory by Ken MacLeod

"As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create."
-- Spock, The Wrath of Khan

Sweeping across the Alpha Quadrant at a terrifying speed, a wave of Genesis energy has wiped out whole populations of entire planets, rearranging matter on a molecular level to create bizarre new landscapes and life-forms.

The U.S.S. Enterprise, commanded by Captain Jean-Luc Picard, managed to counter the threat, halting the wave in its tracks and stopping the alien race that had sent the wave crashing through the galaxy. In the process the crew saved trillions of souls and hundreds of inhabited planets from the mutagenic wave. Earth itself, as well as the Romulan Empire, was saved from obliteration.

Now nothing is left to do but clean up the mess the Genesis Wave left behind. Or so it seems.
Unknown to Picard and his crew, the use of the Genesis Wave on a galactic scale had weakened the walls between our dimension and one right next door, one that harbors a deadly threat to not only the survival of civilization throughout the galaxy, but the survival of reality itself.

The Sackers. In all Captain James T. Kirk's travels, he has never found a race more universally shunned and abhorred. Their mere appearance causes most Federation members to become violently ill.

Now the Sackers have performed a deed whose brutality matches their horrifying exterior. They have stolen a revolutionary new scientific device -- murdering an entire race in the process -- and used it to create a rip in the fabric of space, a hole through which another universe is rapidly leaking. Unless Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise can find a way to stop the new universe's expansion, it will consume -- and utterly destroy -- our own.

With the universe's wormholes collapsed, darkness has fallen across interstellar civilization, and superstition once again holds sway over the masses, until Dr. Karl Woodward, commander of the starship The Mountain, ventures to an uncharted world and into a terrifying confrontation with a ruthless gang of space pirates.

Searching the galaxy for an elusive utopian planet known as the world of the Three Kings, a desperately indebted salvage team tries to recreate the journey of a starfaring evangelist who disappeared after discovering its location.

An encounter between a mysterious alien force and the human military brings an armed expedition to the Kaspar, the third planet of the Three Kings, where they join forces with the survivors of two earlier expeditions that had been marooned on the planet by human treachery and alien power and confront a fateful decision that could determine the fate of the entire human race.

Suspense and murder lurk at the house of Mr. Death. Three gold crowns and a dentist's forceps are clues that lead from blackmail to a grisly death on a railroad track. The Avenger now stalks his victim like a black panther.

Paul Ernst authored this novel under the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson.

What frightens us? What unnerves us? What causes that delicious shiver of fear to travel the lengths of our spines? It seems the answer changes every year. Every year the bar is raised; the screw, tightened. Ellen Datlow knows what scares us; the nineteen stories included in this anthology were chosen from magazines, webzines, anthologies, literary journals, and single author collections to represent the best horror of the year.

Table of Contents:

• Summation 2010 - essay by Ellen Datlow
• At the Riding School - (2009) - short story by Cody Goodfellow
• Mr. Pigsny - (2010) - short story by Reggie Oliver
• City of the Dog - (2010) - novelette by John Langan
• Just Outside Our Windows, Deep Inside Our Walls - (2010) - short story by Brian Hodge
• Lesser Demons - (2010) - novelette by Norman Partridge
• When the Zombies Win - (2010) - short story by Karina Sumner-Smith
• ----30---- - (2010) - novella by Laird Barron
• Fallen Boys - (2010) - short story by Mark Morris
• Was She Wicked? Was She Good? - (2010) - short story by M. Rickert
• The Fear - (2010) - novelette by Richard Harland
• Till the Morning Comes - (2010) - short story by Stephen Graham Jones
• Shomer - (2010) - short story by Glen Hirshberg
• Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside - (2010) - short story by Christopher Fowler
• The Obscure Bird - (2010) - short story by Nicholas Royle
• Transfiguration - (2010) - short story by Richard Christian Matheson
• The Days of Flaming Motorcycles - (2010) - short story by Catherynne M. Valente
• The Folding Man - (2010) - short story by Joe R. Lansdale
• Just Another Desert Night with Blood - (2010) - short fiction by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
• Black and White Sky - (2010) - novelette by Tanith Lee
• At Night, When the Demons Come - (2010) - short story by Ray Cluley
• The Revel - (2010) - novelette by John Langan

The depth and breadth of what science fiction and fantasy fiction is changes with every passing year. The two dozen stories chosen for this book by award-winning anthologist Jonathan Strahan carefully maps this evolution, giving readers a captivating and always-entertaining look at the very best the genre has to offer. Jonathan Strahan has edited more than twenty anthologies and collections, including The Locus Awards, The New Space Opera, The Jack Vance Treasury, and a number of year's best annuals. He has won the Ditmar, William J. Atheling Jr., and Peter McNamara Awards for his work as an anthologist, and is the reviews editor for Locus.

Contents:

• Introduction - Jonathan Strahan
• Exhalation - Ted Chiang
• Shoggoths in Bloom - Elizabeth Bear
• Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel - Peter S. Beagle
• Fixing Hanover - Jeff VanderMeer
• The Gambler - Paolo Bacigalupi
• The Dust Assassin - Ian McDonald
• Virgin - Holly Black
• Pride and Prometheus - John Kessel
• The Thought War - Paul McAuley
• Beyond the Sea Gates of the Scholar Pirates of Sarskoe - Garth Nix
• The Small Door - Holly Phillips
• Turing's Apples - Stephen Baxter
• The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates - Stephen King
• Five Thrillers - Robert Reed
• The Magician's House - Megan McCarron
• Goblin Music - Joan Aiken
• Machine Maid - Margo Lanagan
• The Art of Alchemy - Ted Kosmatka
• 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss - Kij Johnson
• Marry the Sun - Rachel Swirsky
• Crystal Nights - Greg Egan
• His Master's Voice - Hannu Rajaniemi
• Special Economics - Maureen McHugh
• Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment - M Rickert
• From Babel's Fall'n Glory We Fled... - Michael Swanwick
• If Angels Fight - Rick Bowes
• The Doom of Love in Small Spaces - Ken Scholes
• Pretty Monsters - Kelly Link

Table of Contents:

• The Brides of Sheckenstein - (1991) - essay by Harlan Ellison
• The People Trap - (1968) - short story
• The Victim from Space - (1957) - short story
• Shall We Have a Little Talk? - (1965) - novelette
• Restricted Area - (1953) - short story
• The Odor of Thought - (1953) - short story
• The Necessary Thing - (1955) - short
• Redfern's Labyrinth - (1968) - short
• Proof of the Pudding - (1952) - short
• The Laxian Key - (1954) - short story
• The Last Weapon - (1953) - short story
• Fishing Season - (1953) - short story
• Dreamworld - (1968) - short story
• Diplomatic Immunity - (1953) - novelette
• Ghost V - (1954) - short story
• Prospector's Special - (1959) - novelette
• The Girls and Nugent Miller - (1960) - short story
• Meeting of the Minds - (1960) - novelette
• Potential - (1953) - short story
• Fool's Mate - (1953) - short story
• Subsistence Level - (1954) - short story
• The Slow Season - (1954) - short story
• Alone at Last - (1957) - short story
• Forever - (1959) - short story
• The Sweeper of Loray - (1959) - short story
• The Special Exhibit - (1953) - short story

This volume features the final two Slammers novels, The Sharp End and Paying the Piper, as well as an original novelette, The Darkness. This volume will feature an introduction by Barry Malzberg.

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Inextricable Disengagement: The War Games of David Drake: An Introduction - (2005) - essay by Barry N. Malzberg
• 5 - The Sharp End - [Hammer's Slammers - 6] - (1993) - novel
• 231 - Paying the Piper - [Hammer's Slammers - 7] - (2002) - collection
• 232 - Choosing Sides - (2002) - novella
• 290 - The Political Process - (2002) - novella
• 377 - Neck or Nothing - (2002) - novella
• 483 - The Darkness - (2006) - novelette
• 511 - Jim - (2007) - essay

The Man in Black is dead, and Roland is about to be hurled into 20th-century America, occupying the mind of a man running cocaine on the New York/Bermuda shuttle. A brilliant work of dark fantasy inspired by Browning's romantic poem, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came."

Four novellas with the same main character Caher O'Neill.

Contains:

• On the Gem Planet
• On the Storm Planet
• On the Sand Planet
• Three to a Given Star

Taran dreams of adventure, but nothing exciting ever happens to an Assistant Pig-Keeper, until his pig runs away. A chase through the woods leads Taran far from home and into great danger, for evil prowls the land of Prydain. With a collection of strange and wonderful friends whom he meets on his journey, Taran finds himself fighting so that good may triumph over evil, and so that his beloved home will not fall to a diabolical fiend.

Four simultaneous plane crashes. Three child survivors. A religious fanatic who insists the three are harbingers of the apocalypse. What if he's right?

The world is stunned when four commuter planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. Facing global panic, officials are under pressure to find the causes. With terrorist attacks and environmental factors ruled out, there doesn't appear to be a correlation between the crashes, except that in three of the four air disasters a child survivor is found in the wreckage.

Dubbed 'The Three' by the international press, the children all exhibit disturbing behavioural problems, presumably caused by the horror they lived through and the unrelenting press attention. This attention becomes more than just intrusive when a rapture cult led by a charismatic evangelical minister insists that the survivors are three of the four harbingers of the apocalypse. The Three are forced to go into hiding, but as the children's behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, even their guardians begin to question their miraculous survival.

Hundreds of pleasure-seekers stream aboard The Beautiful Dreamer cruise ship for five days of cut-price fun in the Caribbean sun. On the fourth day, disaster strikes: smoke roils out of the engine room, and the ship is stranded in the Gulf of Mexico. Soon supplies run low, a virus plagues the ship, and there are whispered rumors that the cabins on the lower decks are haunted by shadowy figures. Irritation escalates to panic, the crew loses control, factions form, and violent chaos erupts among the survivors.

When, at last, the ship is spotted drifting off the coast of Key West, the world's press reports it empty. But the gloomy headlines may be covering up an even more disturbing reality.

Dominic Sheldrake has never forgotten his childhood in fifties Liverpool or the talk an old boy of his grammar school gave about the First World War. When his history teacher took the class on a field trip to France it promised to be an adventure, not the first of a series of glimpses of what lay in wait for the world. Soon Dominic would learn that a neighbour was involved in practices far older and darker than spiritualism, and stumble on a secret journal that hinted at the occult nature of the universe. How could he and his friends Roberta and Jim stop what was growing under a church in the midst of the results of the blitz? Dominic used to write tales of their exploits, but what they face now could reduce any adult to less than a child...

There s a place past all the stars that s so dark you have to make your eyes light up to see, Toby said. There s a creature that lives in the dark, only maybe the dark s what he is. Or maybe the dark is his mouth that s like a black hole or what black holes are trying to be. Maybe they re just thoughts he has, bits of the universe he s thinking about. And he s so big and hungry, if you even think about him too much he ll get hold of you with one of them and carry you off into the dark...

More than thirty years have passed since the events of The Searching Dead. Now married with a young son, Dominic Sheldrake believes that he and his family are free of the occult influence of Christian Noble. Although Toby is experiencing nocturnal seizures and strange dreams, Dominic and Claudine have found a facility that deals with children suffering from his condition, which appears to be growing widespread. Are their visions simply dreams, or truths few people dare envisage? How may Christian Noble be affecting the world now, and how has his daughter grown up? Soon Dominic will have to confront the figures from his past once more and call on his old friends for aid against forces that may overwhelm them all. As he learns the truth behind Toby s experiences, not just his family is threatened but his assumptions about the world...

Born to the Dark is the second volume of Ramsey Campbell s Brichester Mythos trilogy.

More than thirty years have passed since the events of Born to the Dark. Christian Noble is almost a century old, but his and his family's influence over the world is stronger than ever. The latest version of their occult church counts Dominic Sheldrake's son and the young man's wife among its members, and their little daughter too. Dominic will do anything he can to break its influence over them, and his old friends Jim and Bobby come to his aid. None of them realise what they will be up against - the Nobles transformed into the monstrousness they have invoked, and the inhuman future they may have made inevitable...

The Way of the Worm is the final volume of Ramsey Campbell's Brichester Mythos trilogy, in which he returns to his original themes and develops them in his mature style. The first volume, The Searching Dead, received the Children of the Night Award from the Dracula Society for the best original Gothic fiction of the year.

Since 2005, Valancourt Books has earned a reputation as one of the foremost publishers of lost and rediscovered classics, reissuing more than 400 unjustly neglected works from the past 250 years. In this third volume of horror stories, the editors of Valancourt Books have selected fifteen tales (and one macabre poem) - all by Valancourt authors - for this new collection featuring horror from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. This volume features previously unpublished contributions by Steve Rasnic Tem, Eric C. Higgs, and Hugh Fleetwood, as well as thirteen other tales that have never or seldom been reprinted.

In this volume, you will encounter tales of ghosts, haunted houses, black magic, monsters, demonic babies, and vengeful spirits. Stories of the strange and sinister, of a boy who unwisely disobeys his grandfather's warning never to go up the stairs, a man whose apparently irrational terror of fire proves all too justified, an unpopular man who discovers a shocking new way of making friends, an ancestor who exerts a chilling influence from beyond the grave. With stories ranging from frightening to horrific to weird to darkly humorous, by a lineup of authors that includes both well-known masters of horror fiction and acclaimed authors of literary fiction, this is a horror anthology like no other.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword by James D. Jenkins and Ryan Cagle
• Don't Go Up Them Stairs (1971) by R. Chetwynd-Hayes
• Courage (1918/1941) by Forrest Reid
• Pete Barker's Shanty (1898) by Ernest G. Henham
• The Parts Man (2018) by Steve Rasnic Tem
• The Face in the Mirror (1903) by Helen Mathers
• The Life of the Party (2013) by Charles Beaumont
• The Poet Gives His Friend Wildflowers (2018) by Hugh Fleetwood
• Monkshood Manor (1954) by L. P. Hartley
• Blood of the Kapu Tiki (2018) by Eric C. Higgs
• On No Account, My Love (1955) by Elizabeth Jenkins
• Underground (1974) by J. B. Priestley
• Mr Evening (1968) by James Purdy
• Mothering Sunday (1960) by John Keir Cross
• The Bottle of 1912 (1961) by Simon Raven
• "With What Measure Ye Mete..." (1906) by Ethel Lina White
• Beelzebub (1992) by Robert Westall

A new collection of twenty ghostly tales of Yuletide terror, collected from rare Victorian periodicals

Seeking to capitalize on the success of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (1843), Victorian newspapers and magazines frequently featured ghost stories at Christmas time, and reading them by candlelight or the fireside became an annual tradition, a tradition Valancourt Books is pleased to continue with our series of Victorian Christmas ghost stories. This third volume contains twenty tales, most of them never before reprinted. They represent a mix of the diverse styles and themes common to Victorian ghost fiction and include works by once-popular authors like Ellen Wood and Charlotte Riddell as well as contributions from anonymous or wholly forgotten writers. This volume also features a new introduction by Prof. Simon Stern.

"Before me, with the sickly light from the lantern shining right down upon it, was--a cloven hoof! Then the awfulness of the compact I had made came to my mind with terrible force..." - Frederick Manley, "The Ghost of the Cross-Roads"

"By the fireplace there was a large hideous pool of blood soaking into the carpet, and leaving ghastly stains around. I am not ashamed to confess that my brain reeled; the mysterious horror overcame me..." - Lillie Harris, "19, Great Hanover Street"

"A fearful white face comes to me; a horrible mask, with features drawn as in agony--ghastly, pale, hideous! Death or approaching death, violent death, written in every line. Every feature distorted. Eyes starting from the head. Thin lips moving and working--lips that are cursing, although I hear no sound." - Hugh Conway, "A Dead Man's Face"

Contents:

• Frederick Manley - "The Ghost of the Cross-Roads"
• Lillie Harris - "19, Great Hanover Street"
• G. B. Burgin - "Sir Hugo's Prayer"
• Mrs. J. H. Riddell - "Walnut-Tree House"
• Anonymous - "Haunted Ashchurch"
• Anonymous - "The Haunted Tree"
• Hugh Conway - "A Dead Man's Face"
• L. F. Austin - "The Ghost's Double"
• E. H. Rebton - "The Haunted Manor"
• J. E. Thomas - "The Nameless Village"
• Anonymous - "Old Simons' Ghost!"
• J. W. Hollingsworth - "Miriam's Ghost"
• Lucy Farmer - "The Vicar's Ghost"
• Mrs. Henry Wood - "The Ghost of the Hollow Field"
• Alice Mary Vince - "The Wicked Editor's Christmas Dream"
• Anonymous - "The Barber's Ghost"
• Andrew Haggard - "A Spirit Bride"
• W. L. Blackley - "The Haunted Oven"
• Lilian Quiller Couch - "The Devil's Own"
• Anonymous - "A Christmas Ghost Story"

The Wandering Jew is a cosmic symbol-he is man, he is woman, he is sex, he is history, he is life itself.

Salome is the second in three important fantasy novels that were best sellers in their day; a sweeping Decadent epic trilogy consisting of My First Two Thousand Years: The Autobiography of the Wandering Jew; Salome: The Wandering Jewess; and The Invincible Adam. In this daring novel, Salome herself tells of her many loves, of her bold experiments and of the husbands and handmaidens whose lives she shaped over the past two thousand years. While Viereck's works are now considered classics, for many years he was persona non grata in the publishing world and with the public alike due to his having been an outspoken Nazi sympathizer during WWII.

"The Invincible Adam" completes the saga begun in "My First Two Thousand Years" and continued in "Salome, the Wandering Jewess." Kotikokura, the ape-man, is symbolical of man's lower being, representing the vital forces of nature and physical strength. In all his incarnations from the time when, hardly human, he is roaming primeval forests to when he dashes up the steps of a New York hotel dressed only in a monocle, he is seen struggling against the false conventions of civilisation that seek to bind him and limit him in his remorseless desires. Through the years he meets with many of the famous and the infamous of history. "The Invincible Adam" is part of a greater, and more ambitious saga of human passion. Anyone who desires to understand the larger pattern upon which the story is fashioned must acquaint himself with "My First Two Thousand Years" and "Salome, the Wandering Jewess."

Ruwenda is a pleasant, peaceful land-but the magic of its guardian, the Archimage Binah, is waning. Binah must pass along her protectorship to the triplet princess of Ruwenda. She bestows upon the infant girls the power of the rare and mystical Black Trillium-badge of the royal house, symbol of an ancient magic. While the sisters blossom into beautiful young women, neighboring Labornok use a dark magician to sunder Binah's protection. As invaders pour into Ruwenda, the Archimage orders the princesses to flee-and changes them to search for three magical talismans which when brought together will be their only chance to regain their kingdom and free its people. Each must accomplish her task separately-and to succeed, each must also confront and conquer the limits of her own soul.

A dozen years after the events recounted in Black Trillium, the World of the Three Moons is endangered by another sorcerer, Portolanus, Master of Tuzamen, considered a mountebank by some, yet still dangerous. The three sisters who hold the talismans of the Sceptre of Power, which previously saved their country, Ruwenda, must bury their differences to save their world. When Kadiya, the middle sister, champion of the aborigines, loses her talisman, and Portolanus and the pirate queen of Raktum kidnap the king of Laboruwenda and his children to obtain the talisman of his wife, the queen, it remains for Archimage Haramis, the oldest sister, to master her powers sufficiently to take on Portolanus and the armies he has raised against her beleaguered country. The Master of Tuzamen is no longer a figure of fun, however, but is unveiled as Orogastus--the powerful and evil sorcerer, believed destroyed 12 years previously.

Once the famed triplet princess who defeated the evil sorcerer Orogastus, Kadiya ventures forth into the choked swamp lands of Ruewena to seek her own destiny among the Oddlings she once led in battle. Armed with her mystical three-eyed sword, she reaches the lost city of the Vanished Ones and discovers a strange race of dream-catchers, called Hassitti, whose visions bring chilling warning of a lethal plague that sows the land with death. Now Kadiya, with only three comparisons to aid her, journeys into the Thorny Hell, realm of the cannibalistic saurian Skritek, to stop the carrier of the evil disease. Here they discover a portal leading to a universe of awesome darkness--an entranceway to a horror that threatens the very existence of The World Of The Three Moons.

Seeking a successor in the Princess Mikayla, Haramis, the Archimage and Guardian of her land, strives to train Mikayla in the magic arts, while the reluctant princess considers having to abandon the man she loves for her new calling.

Three sister-princesses... three magical talismans... one chance to save a world from utter annihilation: SKY TRILLIUM!

In the World of the Three Moons, an unknown evil stirs... and severe earthquakes, widespread volcanic eruptions, and disastrous weather rock the land...

Only the legendary Sky Trillium--made from the three talismans of the princesses Kadiya, Anigel, and Haramis--can heal the ancient wounds of the world. But Anigel's is missing, and Kadiya's talisman has lost its potency. Yet even if the sisters are able to regain all three of the talismans, will they be strong enough to control the awesome magic of the Sky Trillium?

Encounter the wondrous world of the Black Trillium, originally created by three of fantasy's stellar talents: Julian May, André Norton, and Marion Zimmer Bradley.