Search Worlds Without End

Suppose every event in history had at least two causes...and led to and from a separate universe in space and time. Then there would be an infinity of alternate worlds. Imagine a world in which every word written by Shakespeare was literally true. A world in which Prince Rupert of the Rhine could fight to save Charles I of England and escape the Puritans by hopping a railroad locomotive, on the right track but 200 years before its time. A world in which an aging Caliban could pace the lonely shore, yearning for the return of his lost love, Miranda. And where all these universes, and more, intersected, there lay a tavern where infinite possibilities met---if only for a night!

The novel explores events after the destruction of Earth, from the point of view of two returning starship crews, one entirely made up of men, the other consisting entirely of women.

(Wikipedia)

Poul Anderson himself has put together a retrospective collection of his recent writings, fiction and nonfiction, under the title All One Universe. This is the first major Poul Anderson collection in a decade. It encompasses all his strengths as a teller of tales and, in addition, provides a running commentary in the story notes and in the essays on other literary figures such as Rudyard Kipling, Johannes B. Jensen, and John W. Campbell, Jr., commentary that illuminates the fiction, gives personal insight into the mind of this fine writer, and provides a unifying personality for All One Universe. All One Universe, then, represents the new best of Poul Anderson. It is a rich, varied selection of quintessential science fiction as well as four essays, mostly from recent years, by one of the great science fiction writers of the century. His stories are filled with roaring energy, the soul of poetry, and dark imaginings.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1996) - essay
• Strangers - (1988) - novelette
• Neptune Diary - (1990) - essay
• Requiem for a Universe - (1987) - shortstory
• John Campbell - (1996) - essay
• In Memoriam - (1992) - shortstory
• The House of Sorrows - (1989) - novelette
• Uncleftish Beholding - (1989) - essay
• Losers' Night - (1991) - shortstory
• Science Fiction and History - (1989) - essay
• Rokuro - (1991) - shortstory
• Rudyard Kipling - (1996) - essay
• The Forest - (1985) - novelette
• Johannes V. Jensen - (1981) - essay
• Fortune Hunter - (1972) - shortstory
• Wolfram - (1975) - shortstory
• The Visitor - (1974) - shortstory
• Wellsprings of Dream - essay
• The Voortrekkers - (1974) - novelette

BEYOND THE BEYOND

Tomorrow--and the day after. When men are scattered like dust between the galaxies...

In these six full-length novellas, never before published in book form, Hugo Award-winner Poul Anderson creates all the chilling terror and distant hope of man's last frontier--the bast wilderness between the stars!

MEMORY: They peeled his mind from his body and sent him to enslave the planet of his own people...

DAY OF BURNING: An interplanetary Mafia is chosen to save a strange civilization from a Supernova...

BRAKE: Only one thing could stop the ship at such a speed. But wtih the Solar System in upheaval, who would try?

THE SENSITIVE MAN: A world balances on the brink of a new dasw--or a new Dark Age. And one man can push it wither way...

THE MOONRAKERS: The were space pirates with dreams of Empire--nomads from the far edge of the system who must be stopped.

STARFOG: the ship was trapped in a corner of space so crowded with stars that nothing could penetrate the deadly, glowing fog...

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Memory - (1957) - novelette
• 43 - Brake - [Psychotechnic League] - (1957) - novelette
• 78 - Day of Burning - [David Falkayn] - (1967) - novelette (variant of Supernova)
• 120 - The Sensitive Man - [Psychotechnic League] - (1954) - novella
• 174 - The Moonrakers - (1966) - novelette
• 207 - Starfog - [Technic History] - (1967) - novella

Tha Change had come.

The world was suddenly, incredibly different. Somwhow, the Earth has escaped from a force field that had until then showed down light and otherwise affected electromagnetic and electrochemical processes. Almost overnight the intelligence of every living creature - man and beast - trebled. And the world went mad.

Archie Brock, the near moron, found himself in sold charge of a farm of strangely uncooperative animals and had to enlist the aid of superintelligent chimpanzees who had escaped from a nearby circus.

Peter Corinth, a physicist who started out life bright, was suddenly translated to an order of intelligence that left his rather dumb wife far behind... and shw was no longer too dumb to notice.

But the biggest problem of all was the ultimate one. In a world withoute problems where all the questions that have plagues mankind throughout history are solved, what is man to do with his time?

This novelette originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, April 1957. It has been reprinted many times and can be found in the anthologies:

• The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels: 9th Series (1958), edited by T. E. Dikty
• A Century of Science Fiction (1962), edited by Damon Knight
• Spectrum 3 (1963), edited by Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest
• Alpha 2 (1971), edited by Robert Silverberg
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two A (1973), edited by Ben Bova
• Bio-Futures (1976), edited by Pamela Sargent
• The Great SF Stories 19 (1957) (1989), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Isaac Asimov
• A Century of Science Fiction 1950-1959 (1997), edited by Robert Silverberg
• Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century (2001), edited by Orson Scott Card
• Beyond Flesh (2002), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois

The story is included in the collections The Dark Between the Stars (1981) and Call Me Joe (2009).

Contents:

• Time Lag
• High Treason
• The Alien Enemy
• The Pugilist
• I Tell You, It's True
• Kings Who Die
• A Man to My Wounding
• Among Thieves
• Details
• The Turning Point

In the frozen blackness of space, humankind found a dreaming world of sun-shot mists and iridescent oceans. They stayed to explore and study, claiming it for their own; but, its deepest secrets remained utterly beyond their reach. Humanity was new to the stars, their minds still earthbound, eyes closed and fearful. But, there were a few who saw, and understood, and dreamed. With special restless courage of their pioneering ancestors, they journeyed out from their homes, eager to create a new destiny for themselves are among the stars, stretching, soaring, learning to hold a Dialogue With Darkness. This is their story.

Table of Contents:

• A Chapter of Revelation - (1972) - novella
• Sister Planet - (1959) - novella
• The Life of Your Time - (1965) - novelette
• Time Heals - (1949) - novelette
• SOS - (1970) - novelette
• Conversation in Arcady - (1963) - shortstory
• Dialogue - (1976) - novelette
• The Communicators - (1970) - novelette

Welcome to the Universe: Guided by one of science fiction's most profound and adventurous intellects, you are about to go places tht you would never have believed could exist, and think thoughts you never would have conceived. This is it. No holds barred.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction to Explorations - (1981) - essay
• The Saturn Game - (1981) - novella
• The Bitter Bread - (1975) - novelette
• The Ways of Love - (1979) - novelette
• The Voortrekkers - (1974) - novelette
• Epilogue - (1962) - novella
• Starfog - (1967) - novella

Table of Contents:

• 9 - House Rule - (1976) - short story
• 21 - The Tale of Hauk - (1977) - novelette
• 48 - Of PIGS and MEN - (1972) - essay
• 55 - A Logical Conclusion - (1960) - novelette (variant of A World to Choose)
• 84 - The Valor of Cappen Varra - [Cappen Varra] - (1957) - short story
• 102 - The Gate of the Flying Knives - [Thieves' World] - (1979) - novella
• 148 - The Barbarian - (1956) - short story
• 159 - On Thud and Blunder - (1978) - essay
• 178 - Interloper - (1951) - novelette
• 211 - Pact - (1959) - short story [as by Winston P. Sanders]
• 231 - Superstition - (1956) - novelette
• 265 - Fantasy in the Age of Science - (1981) - essay
• 287 - The Visitor - (1974) - short story
• 304 - Bullwinch's Mythology - (1981) - short fiction (variant of Poulfinch's Mythology 1967)
• 317 - Afterword: An Invitation to Elfland - (1981) - essay by Sandra Miesel

One of the most bizarre and original fictional concepts ever attempted, this book is a remarkable tour de force for a quintet of today's top writers of speculative fiction. From a common story- hook--Bailey's death at the Euthanasia Center--each author was commissioned to extrapolate his own individual vision of Bailey's fate. No two even remotely resemble one another, and with consummate individuality each of the stories validates beyond doubt the incredible fertility of both the science fiction genre and its singular practitioners.

Table of Contents:

• The Fatal Fulfillment - (1970) - novella by Poul Anderson
• Murder Will In - (1970) - novelette by Frank Herbert
• Maverick - (1970) - novella by Gordon R. Dickson
• The Region Between - (1970) - novella by Harlan Ellison
• Of Death What Dreams - (1970) - novelette by Keith Laumer

Mystery, discovery, and wonder on a cosmic scale are the core of Anderson's latest novel. Lissa, a human Earth woman, and her partner, "Karl," a giant alien academic who resembles Tyrannosaurs--are interstellar archaeologists investigating the remote and uncharted planet Jonna. There, they seem to have hit the jackpot. For on that distant world they've discovered an immense artifact that may have been left by the mysterious beings called the Forerunners. This race predated all the known cultures in the starfaring galaxy and vanished long before any other intelligent species had taken to the stars.

But Lissa and Karl aren't the first to have made the discovery on Jonna. On the far-off world the archaeologists cross paths with the two freebooters whose plans for motives towards the arcane object are not purely scientific. Their discovery may be the best preserved relic of the ancient beings yet found. Other artifacts from the Forerunners--once reverse engineers--have revolutionized entire fields of technology, reaping huge financial rewards. If the same holds true for this newest discovery, Lissa realizes, only she and Karl stand between the seemingly friendly freebooters and what could be the treasure of a lifetime.

Astronaut Christian Brannock ahs lived to see artificial intelligence develop to a point where a human personality can be uploaded into ac computer, achieving a sort of hybrid immortality. He welcomes that because the technology will make it possible for him to achieve his dream and explore the stars... A billion years later, Brannock is dispatched to Earth to check on some strange anomalies. While there, he meets Laurinda Ashcroft, another hybrid upload. Brannock and Laurinda join forces and investigate Gaia, the supermind dominating the planet, and learn the truth of her shocking and terrifying secret plans for Earth.

This novella originally appeared in the anthology Far Futures (1995), edited by Gregory Benford. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection (1996), edited by Gardner Dozois, The Furthest Horizon: SF Adventures to the Far Future (2000), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Hard SF Renaissance (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story was expanded in the full novel Genesis (2000).

Hugo and Nebula Award winning novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1972. The story can aslo be found in the anthologies The 1973 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, Nebula Award Stories Eight (1973), edited by Isaac Asimov, The Hugo Winners, Volume 3: (1970-75) (1977), edited by Isaac Asimov, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume IV (1986), edited by Terry Carr, and The Science Fiction Century (1997), edited by David G. Hartwell. It is included in the collections Homeward and Beyond (1976), Winners (1981), Going for Infinity (2002) and Admiralty (2011).

More than just a collection of some of Poul Anderson's most acclaimed works, Going for Infinity is both a celebration and a memoir of Anderson's distinguished sixty-year career in science fiction and fantasy. Along with several Hugo and Nebula Award-winning stories, Anderson also shares autobiographical musings, and fond memories as he looks back at a lifetime spent crafting many of science fiction's most memorable adventures.

Between the short story and novel excerpts collected here, which range over the entire length of Anderson's career, he reminisces about his experiences, including his encounters with such peers and colleagues as John W. Campbell, Anthony Boucher, "Gordy" Dickson, Jack Vance, Clifford Simak, and Harlan Ellison.

Going for Infinity provides a firsthand look at six decades of science fiction and fantasy, as lived by one of the field's most honored contributors. From the moons of Saturn to the shores of an enchanted isle, the astounding breadth of Poul Anderson's imagination is on ample display throughout this once-in-a-lifetime collection, along with a personal glimpse into the man himself.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay
• The Saturn Game - (1981) - novella
• Gypsy - (1950) - shortstory
• Sam Hall - (1953) - novelette
• Death and the Knight - (1995) - novelette
• Journeys End - (1957) - shortstory
• The Horn of Time the Hunter - (1963) - shortstory
• The Master Key - (1964) - novelette
• The Problem of Pain - (1973) - novelette
• Quest - (1983) - shortstory
• Windmill - (1973) - novelette
• Three Hearts and Three Lions (excerpt) - (1961) - shortfiction
• Epilogue - (1962) - novella
• Dead Phone - (1964) - shortfiction and Karen Anderson
• Goat Song - (1972) - novelette
• Kyrie - (1968) - shortstory
• A Midsummer Tempest - (1974) - shortfiction
• The Shrine for Lost Children - (1999) - shortstory
• The Queen of Air and Darkness - (1971) - novella

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - (1976) - essay
• House Rule - shortstory
• Ballade of an Artificial Satellite - (1958) - poem
• The First Love - (1960) - poem
• Upon the Occasion of Being Asked to Argue That Love and Marriage Are Incompatible - (1973) - poem
• Limericks - (1976) - poem
• Two Songs - (1976) - essay
• Science Fiction and Freedom - (1969) - essay
• Notes Toward a Definition of Science Fiction - (1971) - essay
• The Archetypical Holmes - (1968) - essay
• A Blessedness of Saints - (1962) - essay
• A Philosophical Dialogue - (1971) - shortstory
• Lost Secrets Revealed - (1972) - essay
• Uncleavish Truethinking - (1963) - essay
• Herrings - (1959) - essay

Hugo Award winning novelette. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, November 1978. The story can also be found in The Hugo Winners, Volume 4: (1976-79) (1985), edited by Isaac Asimov and Medea: Harlan's World (1985), edited by Harlan Ellison. It is included in the collections Space Folk (1989) and The Saturn Game (2010).

Sylvia Mencken was a Mortal, the most populous human form, with its passions and centuries of stubborn pride.

Alec Richmond, her lover was a Superior, one of the orphans of earth living in the shadows, blessed with superpowers, cursed with madness.

And then there were the Others, who sought to enslave them - whose alien acts of terror against the planet had already begun.

The Valgolia rule the Galaxy. But they're fomenting revolt throughout their own empire. Their hope is to unite all of their subjects by giving them a common enemy. But the trick is finding a way not to be destroyed by the rebellion in the process.

This novelette originally appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1951.

From the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning imagination of Poul Anderson comes a life-or-death manhunt for the last wild alien, a planetary economy based on gambling and a robot in love with literature. This book also includes an entire short novel, "Built for Brew".

Table of Contents:

• Foreword (Kinship with the Stars) - (1991) - essay
• A Bicycle Built for Brew - (1958) - novella
• Inside Straight - (1955) - novelette
• The Critique of Impure Reason - (1962) - novelette
• Backwardness - (1958) - shortstory
• Duel on Syrtis - (1951) - shortstory
• Uncleftish Beholding - (1989) - essay
• Escape from Orbit - (1962) - novelette
• Enough Rope - (1953) - novelette
• The Live Coward - - (1956) - shortstory

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, Black Holes and Other Marvels (1978), edited by Jerry Pournelle, The Road to Science Fiction 3: From Heinlein to Here (1979), edited by James Gunn, The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 (1993), edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery and The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF (1994), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collections The Best of Poul Anderson (1976), Going for Infinity (2002) and Admiralty (2011).

As a child of just seven summers, Gunnhild finds herself fascinated with the powers of a witch-woman who is a concubine of her father's, a powerful Norse chieftain. She also finds another fascination in handsome and lordly Eirik, son of their king. When her mother dies, Gunnhild promises, "I will never yield", and that, "through me, our blood shall flow greatly".

Gunnhild has learned from her chieftain father the way the powerful use the weak. But there are other lessons and other power she seeks. Sent away to learn the magic of a pair of shamans, Gunnhild becomes a Spaewife - a knower of the Gods, a master in the ways of witchcraft and sorcery. Aided by her new abilities, Gunnhild marries Eirik. She is destined to become queen, and her magic is a fearsome complement to Eirik's strength. But Eirik's enemies are cunning, and Gunnhild is soon without his might.

If Gunnhild can keep the promise she made as a child to never yield, her family's blood will flow greatly, and the sons she bore Eirik will each become a king.

Her own struggles, though, are far from over...

In a major science fiction event, Nebula Award winners Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin, Nancy Kress, and Frederik Pohl join forces--under the editorship of Robert Silverberg--to create a triumph of world-building: Murasaki, a science fiction novel in six parts. Murasaki is completely based in hard science and what we know of the Murasaki star system--which actually exists.

Authors Poul Anderson and Frederik Pohl painstakingly constructed the working mechanics of a real star system, projecting the atmosphere, geology, chemistry, flora, and fauna of the two planets on which the work is set. They and four more of America's best science fiction authors--known for their "hard" speculative fiction--used Pohl and Anderson's essays (included as appendixes to this book) as source material to create this amazing story of the earliest human explorations of the twenty-third century--an epic tale of discovery, conflict, and resolution told by the masters of imaginative writing.

Murasaki, star HD 36395... where the gristmill of Darwinism produced two vastly different alien ecologies on two closely revolving planets, circling each other since scouring lightning storms stirred them to life billions of years ago. The two planets are Genji, violent and reckless, filled with a variety of winged life; and Chujo, a cooling world of ancient, crumbling cities, slowly going through its glacial death throes. Both planets are host to intelligences that are strange in ways Man can only guess at...and the planets have an eerie connection that will soon come to fruition after the first human explorers arrive. Exceeding light-speed for twenty years and decelerating by plasma exhaust drive, the first ship bearing humans arrives at Murasaki. The wealth, pride, and future of nations depend upon the outcome as the first contact team sets foot on a Murasaki-system world--while the hope of mankind, a planet capable of supporting human life, awaits the first explorer to touch the strangely colored alien soil....

Contains:

• Introduction (Murasaki) - essay by Robert Silverberg
• The Treasures of Chujo - novelette by Frederik Pohl
• Genji - novelette by David Brin
• Language - novelette by Poul Anderson
• World Vast, World Various - novella by Gregory Benford
• A Plague of Conscience - novelette by Greg Bear
• Birthing Pool - novelette by Nancy Kress
• Appendix A: Design for Two Worlds (Murasaki) - essay by Poul Anderson
• Appendix B: Murasaki's Worlds (Murasaki) - essay by Frederik Pohl

Hugo Award winning story.

Anderson's tale follows Colonel Mackenzie of the Army of the Pacific States of America as civil war breaks out in the wake of the President usurping power. Decades after a nuclear war, the inheritors of the United States of America - rather like the European kingdoms after Rome's fall - are feudal, vie for power, and hope to recapture the technological and, perhaps, political glories of the past.

But, with the Espers, a religion that promises the development of man's latent psychic powers, something new in human history may have been brought into the mix.

No Truce With Kings originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1963. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Hugo Winners, Volume 2: (1963-70) (1971), edtied by Isaac Asimov, Day of the Tyrant (1985), edited by John F. Carr and Jerry Pournelle, A Separate Star: A Science Fiction Tribute to Rudyard Kipling (1989), edited by David Drake and Sandra Miesel, and The Great SF Stories 25 (1963) (1992), edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. It is included in the collections Time and Stars (1964), Winners (1981) and The Saturn Game (2010). It is half of Tor Double #5: No Truce With Kings / Ship of Shadows (1989, with Fritz Leiber).

Table of Contents:

• Wildcat - (1958) - novelette
• Welcome - (1960) - shortstory
• The Nest - (1953) - novelette
• Eutopia - (1967) - novelette
• The Little Monster - (1973) - novelette
• The Light - (1957) - shortstory
• The Discovery of the Past - (1984) - essay
• Flight to Forever - (1950) - novella

Originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in June and July 1954. It also appeared in Ace Double D-199 in 1958.

For many years the starships of earth searched the heavens for places where men could live. Many planets were found, but always something was wrong: too hot; too cold; atmospheric contaminants; poisonous biochemistry; intelligent natives - something. At last a deep-space survey vessel has reported a planet that seems perfect, an uninhabited paradise where people can roam free. But the first Troas Expedition never returns. And now the crew of the De Gama must find out why or mankind will lose the stars forever.

THE ANCIENT SPORT OF WAR

Every new capability that man gains is--sooner rather than later--turned against his enemies. No government thus far has established a protection against war... except the ability to fight one. Its abolition is a work that only warriors may accomlish. And in that great battle imagination may be our strongest ally.

Table of Contents:

• 9 - Foreword (Seven Conquests) - essay
• 11 - Kings Who Die - (1962) - novelette
• 41 - Wildcat - (1958) - novelette
• 74 - Cold Victory - [Psychotechnic League] - (1957) - novelette
• 95 - Inside Straight - (1955) - novelette
• 119 - Details - (1956) - novelette
• 141 - License - (1957) - novelette
• 168 - Strange Bedfellows - (1964) - novella

Koskinen had returned to earth with a strange new "Shield" - a device which enclosed the wearer in a force shield which absorbed all energies below a certain level. Light could come through the Shield, but no weapon known to man could penetrate it Koskinen had developed the Shield in collaboration with the Martians. From the moment of his return to earth he was in deadly danger. His own country sent men to kill him to prevent the Shield from falling into enemy hands Soon the whole civilised world was searching for this one man - a man armed with the greatest potential military weapon mankind had ever seenthe only question was which power would possess the Shield as its very own?

It is in our power to decide humanity's fate forever. An unending, brilliant coming-out party, or lives that are nasty, brutish, and short: these are our choices today. Within this context, Poul Anderson provides us with a plan for the future, portraits of those people who were willing to give more to make humanity's promise come true, those with the Right Stuff, making the hard decisions, of keeping the dream alive: Space Folk.

Table of Contents:

• Pride - (1985) - novelette
• Cradle Song - poem
• Vulcan's Forge - (1983) - shortstory
• Escape the Morning - (1966) - shortstory
• Quest - (1983) - shortstory
• Wherever You Are - (1959) - novelette
• Elementary Mistake - (1967) - shortstory
• Symmetry - (1989) - shortstory
• Hunter's Moon - (1978) - novelette
• Deathwomb - (1983) - novelette
• Murphy's Hall - (1971) - shortstory with Karen Anderson
• Commentary (for Murphy's Hall) - (1989) - essay
• Horse Trader - (1953) - novelette

When evidence of an advanced civilization is discovered by SETI astronomers, an expedition into the far reaches of the galaxy is planned and an eclectic team of scientists is chosen to make the trip. But because the origin of the alien signals is thousands of light-years away, the crew will age only a few years while millennia pass on Earth. And though they are ready to face the ramifications of such a voyage, none of the starfarers are prepared for what awaits them at the outer edge of the cosmos--or back at the planet they once called home.

POUL ANDERSON

* A SENTIENT ROBOT

* THE COLONISTS WHO LEFT A PERFECT WORLD

* A MADDENING HUNT FOR A MARTIAN

* A MAN-MADE ANIMAL

* A GALACTIC SWINDLER

These are some of the ingredients Poul Anderson chooses to mix and blend into this first-class collection of stories; and his ability is as wide as the range of his interests.

Table of Contents:

• 5 - Earthman, Beware! - (1951) - novelette
• 26 - Quixote and the Windmill - [Psychotechnic League] - (1950) - short story
• 36 - Gypsy - [Psychotechnic League] - (1950) - short story
• 52 - For the Duration - (1957) - short story
• 68 - Duel on Syrtis - (1951) - short story
• 85 - The Star Beast - (1950) - novelette
• 113 - The Disintegrating Sky - (1953) - short story
• 119 - Among Thieves - (1957) - novelette

In a thrilling collection of hard science fiction stories, a master of speculative fiction envisions a volatile future when Earth's colonies throughout the galaxy attempt to break free from home-world rule.

On a spaceship rocketing toward the stars, an official council meets to discuss how to censor history for the benefit of a new generation in space--which stories to preserve and which ones to discard forever...

Golden-age hard science fiction luminary Poul Anderson approached the future with a mixture of excitement, hope, and skepticism. In Tales of the Flying Mountains, the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner offers stories from a new war of independence and beyond--portending a time when a North American government on Earth will take up arms against its own rebellious children colonizing the cosmos, then exploring the shape of the universe in the war's aftermath. Firmly based in hard science and human nature, here are seven excursions into a distant tomorrow, from the tense saber rattling preceding the hostilities to the establishment and growth of the independent Asteroid Republic.

Whether he's spinning an imaginative yarn about the courageous crew of an unarmed state-of-the-art commercial space station using every resources at hand to battle a military incursion from the home world or chronicling a space colony's desperate gamble to thwart a government takeover by moving an entire asteroid, Anderson builds truly breathtaking worlds and imagines astonishing yet eminently credible future scenarios while infusing his unforgettable tales with intelligence, compassion, surprise, and humanism.

Table of Contents:

• Prologue - shortstory
• Nothing Succeeds Like Failure - shortstory
• Interlude 1 - shortfiction
• The Rogue - (1963) - novella
• Interlude 2 - shortfiction
• Say It With Flowers - (1965) - novelette
• Interlude 3 - shortfiction
• Ramble with a Gamblin' Man - novelette
• Interlude 4 - shortfiction
• Que Donn'rez Vous? - (1963) - novelette
• Interlude 5 - shortfiction
• Sunjammer - (1964) - novelette
• Interlude 6 - shortfiction
• Recruiting Nation - shortstory
• Epilogue - shortfiction

Fifty men and women set out in the twenty-third century from Earth aboard an interstellar craft to travel to a planet some thirty light-years away. The ship will approach the speed of light and so (as Einstein predicted) subjective time on board will slow and so the journey of several decades will be of much shorter duration for the crew. But the ship's deceleration system is irreparably damaged when it hits a cloud of interstellar dust and acceleration continues toward light speed, tau zero. Soon the ship is speeding through galaxies and eons are passing on board the ship in the blink of an eye ...

A collection of fantasy stories including "The Queen of Air and Darkness", the author's Hugo and Nebula Award winning saga of changelings and magic on an alien world. Other work by the author includes "The Broken Sword" and "A Midsummer Tempest".

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - (1991) - essay
• The Queen of Air and Darkness - (1971) - novella
• House Rule - (1976) - shortstory
• The Tale of Hauk - (1977) - novelette
• Fairy Gold - (1984) - novelette
• The Valor of Cappen Varra - (1957) - shortstory
• The Gate of the Flying Knives - (1979) - novella
• The Barbarian - (1956) - shortstory
• A Feast for the Gods - (1971) - novelette with Karen Anderson

In the immeasurable past a mysterious alien race known as The Others left mankind a challenging legacy, a 'gate' to the unexplored reaches of the stars. Humanity has utilized the gate to painstakingly colonize the Phoebus star system but has left the rest of the galaxy unexplored. In the midst of turbulent political upheaval on Earth, the exploratory ship Emissary leaves through the gate on a voyage of discovery. When the Emissary returns ahead of schedule the Social Welfare Party on Earth impounds the ship and imprisons its crew - and forbids all future space exploration. Dan Broderson, an entrepreneur and adventurer, commandeers a commercial spaceship from his own company and travels to Earth to find the Emissary. He locates the ship, confounds its captors and rescues some of the explorers, including the first alien to visit the solar system. But Broderson has to flee through the gate unprepared, to become a wanderer among the stars in search of The Others. They alone have the knowledge that will enable his ship to return home.

Table of Contents:

• Recollecting Anderson - essay by Barry N. Malzberg
• Introduction - essay
• The Longest Voyage (Author Note) - essay
• The Longest Voyage - (1960) - novelette
• The Barbarian (Author Note) - essay
• The Barbarian - (1956) - shortstory
• The Last of the Deliverers (Author Note) - essay
• The Last of the Deliverers - (1958) - shortstory
• My Object All Sublime (Author Note) - essay
• My Object All Sublime - (1961) - shortstory
• Sam Hall (Author Note) - essay
• Sam Hall - (1953) - novelette
• Kyrie (Author Note) - essay
• Kyrie - (1968) - shortstory
• The Fatal Fulfillment (Author Note) - essay
• The Fatal Fulfillment - (1970) - novella
• Hiding Place (Author Note) - essay
• Hiding Place - (1961) - novella
• The Sky People (Author Note) - essay
• The Sky People - (1959) - novelette

Others have written SF on the theme of immortality, but in The Boat of a Million Years, Poul Anderson made it his own. Early in human history, certain individuals were born who live on, unaging, undying, through the centuries and millenia. We follow them through over 2000 years, up to our time and beyond-to the promise of utopia, and to the challenge of the stars.

A milestone in modern science fiction, a New York Times Notable Book on its first publication in 1989, this is one of a great writer's finest works.

A young man from the twentieth century is recruited to fight in a war that rages throughout time in a classic science fiction adventure from a multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning master

College student, ex-marine, and martial artist Malcolm Lockridge is in prison awaiting his trial for murder when he receives an unexpected visit from an extraordinarily beautiful woman named Storm. Claiming to be a representative of the Wardens, a political faction from two thousand years in the future, Storm offers the astonished young man a proposition: freedom in return for his assistance in recovering an unspecified lost treasure. But it is not long before Malcolm realizes that, in truth, he's been recruited as a soldier in the Wardens' ongoing war against their rivals, the Rangers. And this war is different from any that has ever been fought, because the battlefield is not a place but time itself.

Traveling backward and forward through corridors connecting historical epochs separated by thousands of years, Malcolm is soon embroiled in a furious conflict between the forces of good and minions of evil. But the deeper he is pulled into this devastating time war, the clearer Malcolm's ultimate role in humankind's destiny becomes, causing the troubled young soldier from the twentieth century to question whether he's been chosen to fight on the side of good or evil... and if such a distinction even exists.

An experiment in the future gone awry... and Duncan Reid, American architect of the 20th century, came out of unconsciousness to find himself hopelessly marooned in the far distant past. Bound to him were three of the strangest humans he had ever encountered... a medieval Russian, a fourth-century Hun, and a sacred priestess who worshiped him as a god. And all shared the same fate - pulled through a hole in time to a present which was ancient history. Together the quartet formed a strange alliance which none dared break. For not only were their own futures at stake... but the very future of the world they had found...

Someday. Tomorrow. When Earth fails man and man leaves Earth behind, the awesomeness is waiting Out There. Empty beyond all imagining, vast beyond all reckoning, as deep as Time and twice as cold, The Dark between the stars. Here collected for the first time are the most incredible and terrifying voyages of the acclaimed master of SF adventure. Voyages to the center of a universe dark with terror. And Beyond. Collection of 9 stories: "The Sharing of Flesh," nominated, 1968 Nebula award; winner, 1969 Hugo award, best novelette; "Fortune Hunter;" "Eutopia;" "The Pugilist;" "Night Piece;" "The Voortrekkers;" "Gibralter Falls," a Time Patrol story; "Windmill," and "Call Me Joe," which was voted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay
• The Sharing of Flesh - (1968) - novelette
• Fortune Hunter - (1972) - shortstory
• Eutopia - (1967) - novelette
• The Pugilist - (1973) - novelette
• Night Piece - (1961) - shortstory
• The Voortrekkers - (1974) - novelette
• Gibraltar Falls - (1975) - shortstory
• Windmill - (1973) - novelette
• Call Me Joe - (1957) - novelette

IN A VESSEL THAT SAILS ON A TIMELESS SEA, A GOD SINGS OF HUMAN MORTALITY...

Hear then of a time when the Lochlannach first came a viking into Eire, of a time when the gentle Christos was new-come to the land and an elder magic flickered still--and once in a great while, under just the right conditions and with a very special curse, might flare up into full life again.

On an isolated island, seven people with a desperate need for money play a game conceived by an intelligence of perfect evil. The rules are simple: each player will perform an act: each of the others must duplicate it, or be eliminated. All that the players have in common is their desperation. One is a mercenary soldier with a taste for proving his manhood through self-torture. Another is a porno-starlet. A third is a perfectly ordinary mother whose seven-year-old's life depends on a million-dollar medical treatment Each of the seven thinks he or she will do anything all but one of them are wrong.

The stories included in The Gods Laughed are: "The Martyr" (1960) Desperate for knowledge, men capture representatives of an alien race. What they find out is different than they expected to learn... "Night Piece" (1961) A man doing research into ESP and other worlds lets his study take him several steps too far. "When Half-Gods Go" (1953) The Harvard Astronomy department agrees to meet a couple who claim to be representatives of an interstellar civilization. "Peek! I See You!" (1968) Sean F.X. Lindquist is fairly convinced that he just saw a flying saucer. The only question becomes what doe she do about it? (This was my favorite story in the collection.) "Details" (1956) Representatives from a distant civilization try to positively influence the historical development of Earth. "Captive of the Centurianess" (1978) An unlikely threesome from different planets gets thrown together, building the base for future Galactic expansion. "The Soldier from the Stars" (1955) A group of mercenaries from outer space appears on Earth and offers their support to the highest bidder. "The Word To Space" (1960) Earth finally makes contact with another species. Unfortunately, the conversation isn't getting very far... "A Little Knowledge" (1971) A group of pirates get more than they bargained for when they kidnap the Trillian pilot Witweet.

In the year of grace 1345, as Sir Roger Baron de Tourneville is gathering an army to join King Edward III in the war against France, a most astonishing event occurs: a huge silver ship descends through the sky and lands in a pasture beside the little village of Ansby in northeastern Lincolnshire. The Wersgorix, whose scouting ship it is, are quite expert at taking over planets, and having determined from orbit that this one was suitable, they initiate standard world-conquering procedure. Ah, but this time it's no mere primitives the Wersgorix seek to enslave-they've launched their invasion against Englishmen! In the end, only one alien is left alive-and Sir Roger's grand vision is born. He intends for the creature to fly the ship first to France to aid his King, then on to the Holy Land to vanquish the infidel!

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction -> Science Fact, September 1965 under the penname Michael Karageorge. It can also be found in the collections Dialogue With Darkness (1985) and Door to Anywhere (2013), under his own name.

Hugo Award winning story.

In search of the Aureate cities, Captain Rovic had brought the Golden Leaper halfway round the World. Weathering hurricanes and mutiny, he meant to do what no other ship's master had done: circumnavigate the glove and return to riches and glory. Then, on a distant, barbarous island, Rovic met a shipwrecked traveler who claimed to have come on an even longer voyage. But who could believe his tale - of a ship that sailed between the stars?

The Longest Voyage originally appeared in Analog Science Fact -> Fiction, December 1960. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Hugo Winners, Volume 1: (1955-61) (1962), edited by Isaac Asimov, Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction (1994), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Explorers: SF Adventures to Far Horizons (2000), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collections The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson (1974), Winners (1981) and The Queen of Air and Darkness (2009). It is half of Tor Double #30: The Longest Voyage / Slow Lightning (1991, with Steven Popkes).

Expanded from the novella A Bicycle Built for Brew (1958). The novel version originally appeared in Ace Double F-139 (1962).

Knud Axel Syrup, chief engineer of the spaceship Mercury Girl, sat and drank his favourite beer and thought about the coming war he was so anxious to avoid. For Grendel - the planetoid on which he was stranded - had been occupied by a band of fiery Irish revolutionaries. And once the rival Anglians discovered this, there response would be speedy and violent. Then, as Herr Syrup shook up a bottle of brew and let the foam shoot out of its top, he realised suddenly what could be done to get him off Grendel. And so came about a marvellous spaceship - built of beer kegs, bound by gunk, upholstered with pretzel boxes, and powered by the mighty reaction forces of malted brew!

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay by Roger Elwood
• Tomorrow's Children - (1947) - novelette by Poul Anderson and F. N. Waldrop
• The Queen of Air and Darkness - (1971) - novella
• Her Strong Enchantments Failing - essay by Patrick L. McGuire
• Epilogue - (1962) - novella
• The Longest Voyage - (1960) - novelette
• Challenge and Response - (1970) - essay by Sandra Miesel
• Journeys End - (1957) - short story
• A World Named Cleopatra - essay by Poul Anderson
• The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch - (1951) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Day of Burning - (1967) - novelette

In the waning years of the Middle Ages, before Christendom had completely scoured the world of magic, both Faery and Man lived on Europe's shores. This is the story of those last days: of the halfling children of the Liri king, who were of both realms but chose the one we call the other; of how they schemed and fought for survival, hounded from the Baltic to the ice caves of Greenland to the Mediterranean coast; of how they loved and how they died.

It is the epic masterpiece, the adventure at once erotic, violent and magnificently sad, that Poul Anderson has always wanted to write.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson
• The Pathways of Desire - (1979) - novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Dream Done Green - (1974) - shortstory by Alan Dean Foster
• Midnight by the Morphy Watch - (1974) - shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• All on a Golden Afternoon - (1956) - novelette by Robert Bloch
• The Helmet - (1973) - shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg
• Dreams Are Sacred - (1948) - novelette by Peter Phillips
• Dreaming Is a Private Thing - (1955) - shortstory by Isaac Asimov
• The Monarch of Dreams - (1886) - shortstory by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
• The Circle of Zero - (1936) - shortstory by Stanley G. Weinbaum
• The Soft Predicament - (1969) - novelette by Brian W. Aldiss
• Heartstop - (1974) - novelette by George Alec Effinger
• The Detective of Dreams - (1980) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Jade Blue - (1971) - shortstory by Edward Bryant
• Something Wild Is Loose - (1971) - novelette by Robert Silverberg
• The Visitor - (1974) - shortstory by Poul Anderson

Hugo, Nebula and Locus Award winning novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1971. The story can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Best Science Fiction of the Year #1 (1972), edited by Terry Carr
• Nebula Award Stories Seven (1972), edited by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
• The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Special 25th Anniversary Anthology (1974), edited by Edward L. Ferman
• The Hugo Winners, Volume 3: (1970-75) (1977), edited by Isaac Asimov
• The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction (1980), edtied by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume IV (1986), edited by Terry Carr

It is included in the collections:

• The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories (1973)
• The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson, aka The Book of Poul Anderson (1974)
• Winners (1981)
• New America (1985)
• The Armies of Elfland (1992)
• Going for Infinity (2002)
• The Queen of Air and Darkness (2009)

A potpourri of poetry and amazing tales that cross genre borders, between fantasy, horror, noir, science fiction, and more, from the legendary Poul Anderson and his wife, Karen Anderson

Lyrical and beautiful, enchanting and strange, exhilarating and horrific, this extraordinary collaboration between science fiction-fantasy luminary Poul Anderson and his equally creative wife, Karen, almost defies description. Combining their extraordinary talents, the Andersons have produced a sumptuous feast of the written word--stories that delight, move, and disturb, mixed with rich, sumptuous poetry that soars.

A truly stunning collection, The Unicorn Trade transports readers to places at once uniquely strange and strangely familiar--magical fairy realms, the far reaches of outer space, and the twisted minds of madmen. Stories of love, loss, and self-discovery are met with soaring verse that celebrates the human spirit and the wonders of the universe. Here are unforgettable bounding leaps of the imagination, where detective noir is ingeniously reimagined, and tales of Edgar Allan Poe-like suspense stand side by side with poignant tributes to the men who led us to the stars. Real treasures are to be found here--a hungry Olympian god's interactions with a divine computer, a murdered man's shrewd revenge, an Earthling's con game on an unsuspecting Martian visitor, and other such flights of inventive fancy--in a sterling compendium of stories, poems, and science fiction haikus (scifaiku) as bright as starshine and more magical and enduring than fairy gold.

Table of Contents:

• The Unicorn Trade - (1971) - poem by Karen Anderson
• Fairy Gold - novelette by Poul Anderson
• Ballade of an Artificial Satellite - (1958) - poem by Poul Anderson
• The Innocent Arrival - (1958) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson
• Six Haiku - (1962) - poem by Karen Anderson
• Haiku for Mars - poem by Karen Anderson
• Think of a Man - (1965) - poem by Karen Anderson
• Dead Phone - (1964) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson
• Bela Lugosi: 1883-1956 - poem by Karen Anderson
• The Kitten - (1976) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson
• Apollo 1: January 27, 1967 - poem by Karen Anderson
• Planh on the Death of Willy Ley: June 23, 1969 - (1969) - poem by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson and Tim Courtney
• Murphy's Hall - (1971) - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson
• Single Jeopardy - (1958) - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson
• In Memoriam: Henry Kuttner - (1958) - poem by Karen Anderson
• Cyril M. Kornbluth - poem by Karen Anderson
• A Feast for the Gods - (1971) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson
• Theoretical Progress - (1964) - poem by Karen Anderson
• Investigation of Galactic Ethnology - (1964) - poem by Karen Anderson
• Look Up - (1965) - poem by Karen Anderson
• The Sky of Space - (1963) - poem by Karen Anderson
• Cosmic Concepts - (1961) - poem by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson
• Extract From the English Edition of a Guide Michelin - (1973) - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson
• Robert A. Heinlein - poem by Karen Anderson
• Treaty in Tartessos - (1963) - shortstory by Karen Anderson
• A Philosophical Dialogue - (1971) - shortstory by Poul Anderson
• Professor James - (1965) - poem by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson
• Landscape With Sphinxes - (1962) - shortstory by Karen Anderson
• Alpha, Beta - poem by Karen Anderson
• A Blessedness of Saints - (1962) - essay by Poul Anderson
• Origin of the Species - (1958) - poem by Karen Anderson
• Conjunction (Venus and Jupiter, February 1975) - poem by Karen Anderson
• Adonis Recovered - poem by Karen Anderson
• The Piebald Hippogriff - (1962) - shortstory by Karen Anderson
• The Coasts of Faerie - shortstory by Karen Anderson
• Shanidar IV - poem by Karen Anderson

Thousands of years from now, after a new Ice Age has reduced our world to frozen ruins, new civilizations and cultures arise from the Ice. But as the people of tomorrow slowly uncover the lost technology of the past, they also rediscover war, conquest, diplomacy...and betrayal.

While the might Rahidain-Barammian Empire expands across the globe, Josserek Derrain, uncover agent for the freedom-loving Seafolk, must find a way to save his people from the Empire's grasp. His best hope is an alliance with the Rogaviki, a wild and nomadic race whose women are rumored to cast an unbreakable spell on any man who dares seek them out.

(Amazon.com)

The gathering forces of the Dark Powers threaten the world of man. The legions of Faery, aided by trolls, demons and the Wild Hunt itself, are poised to overthrow the Realms of Light. Holger Carlsen, a bemused and puzzled twentieth-century man mysteriously snatched out of time, finds himself the key figure in the conflict. Arrayed against him are the dragons, giants and elven warriors of the armies of Chaos, and the beautiful sorceress Morgan le Fay.

On his side is a vague prophecy, a quarrelsome dwarf and a beautiful woman who can turn herself into a swan, not to mention Papillon, the magnificent battle-horse, and a full set of perfectly fitting armour, both of which were waiting for him when he entered the magical realm. The shield bears three hearts and three lions - the only clue to Holger Carlsen's true identity. Could Carlsen really be a legendary hero, the only man who can save the world?

Sympathetic Centaur-like Jovians are in danger of extinction by cruel invaders from another region of the planet. At the same time their friends, the human colonists of Ganymede, are threatened by a powerful space warship commanded by a dictatorial militarist. Eventually, the two groups find ingenious ways to help each other defeat their respective enemies.

(Wikipedia)

Contents:

• No Truce with Kings
• Turning Point
• Escape from Orbit
• Epilogue
• The Critique of Impure Reason

8 stories about conflicts in time travel.

Contents:

• 1 - Introduction (Time Wars) - essay by Poul Anderson
• 3 - Frost and Thunder - (1979) - novelette by Randall Garrett
• 27 - Gunpowder God - [Kalvan] - (1964) - novella by H. Beam Piper
• 75 - Amphiskios - (1949) - novelette by John D. MacDonald
• 110 - Delenda Est - [Time Patrol - 5] - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• 149 - Dragonrider - [Dragonriders of Pern short fiction] - (1967) - novella by Anne McCaffrey
• 265 - The Timesweepers - (1969) - novelette by Keith Laumer
• 296 - Run from the Fire - (1975) - novelette by Harry Harrison
• 329 - Skirmish on a Summer Morning - (1976) - novella by Bob Shaw

This short story originally appeared in Amazing Science Fiction, January 1983. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: First Annual Collection (1984), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Space Folk (1989).

The story of the great King Hadding is one of the darkest and most violent to come down to us from the old North. Hadding was raised by giants far from his rightful throng, as his father, a Danish King, was slain shortly after Hadding's birth. But the times comes when Hadding feels he must reclaim his legitimate place in the land of the old North. He must endure ferocious battles, the charms of voluptuous Valkyries, and a War of the Gods to rival Armageddon.

Table of Contents:

• No Truce With Kings - (1963) - novella
• The Longest Voyage - (1960) - novelette
• The Sharing of Flesh - (1968) - novelette
• The Queen of Air and Darkness - (1971) - novella
• Goat Song - (1972) - novelette

A mythic tale of space travelers marooned on a planet engulfed in the flames of war and of the immortal hero who endeavors to save them in the name of love.

In a far-future era, death is virtually no more, banished except in the case of severe, violent trauma, enabling mankind to spend what were once entire lifetimes exploring the farthest reaches of the vast universe. When the interstellar vessel Meteor is dispatched to investigate a distant orb circling a giant red sun, an error in calculations sends the ship crashing into a different world altogether, casting its surviving crew into the heart of a savage, planetwide war of primitive alien tribes. With no means of escape and hostiles on every side, the situation appears hopeless for Captain Felip Argens. But for the mission's true leader--crewman, adventurer, and ship's bard Hugh Valland--impossible is not an option. If necessary, he will alter destiny to end the terrible conflict and bring his men safely back home, even if it takes decades, or centuries, or longer--for a remarkable love patiently awaits Valland's return to Earth. It is she who sustains him, who inspires his actions, his courage, his song, with a love that is a miracle, a memory, a tragedy, and a dream.

One of the most thoughtful and lyrical works by the incomparable Poul Anderson--winner of seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards over the course of his acclaimed career--World without Stars is a thrilling deep-space adventure and a magnificent feat of world building by a luminary of science fiction's golden age.

City Under the Sea

Jeremy Dodge knew the Earth would face starvation if it were not for the new science of "aquaculture". With the world's population numbering many billions, only the extra food being cultivated on the bottom of the sea could feed everyone.

But, like the rest of the surface-dwellers, Jeremy did not know what a vicious monopoly underwater cultivation had become. That is, until the dreadful moment when he himself was kidnapped and dragged beneath the depths.

And there he was to learn that just making his own escape would not be enough - he would have to save mankind from the tyranny of a new race of water-breathing human monsters!

Star Ways

They called themselves The Nomads. Unplanned by-products of the chaotic explosion of humankind into space, they had evolved for themselves a way of life similar to that of the gypsies of ancient Earth--except that their gypsy wagons were mighty starships, each a self-contained world that housed a clan of many thousands.

It was a hard life, but the only one the nomads knew, or wanted. But someone, or something, did not want them to have it; one by one the nomad starships were disappearing without a trace--and it fell to Joachim, Captain of the Starship Peregrine, to find out why...

Let the Spacemen Beware!

The inhabitants of Gwydion are a peaceful race with no weapons let alone concept of hatred or war. Every item on the planet has a mythological meaning to them. All except for one of the plants that grows nearly everywhere. The two main characters have arrived from different planets. One is from a libertarian culture while the other is from a capitalistic culture. They both fall in love with the same woman and are determined to find out why the Gwydions act the way they do.

The Wizard of Starship Poseidon

CONSPIRACY OF GENIUS

His height barely reached five feet, his spindly legs supported a bulging chest, and his eyes protruded grotesquely from a gnome-like head - but within that absurd-looking man lay the mind of a genius.

It was a genius that had carried mankind deep into the secrets of creation and was now on the verge of producing living organisms from test tubes filled with inert chemicals. The world, however, ridiculed the theories of Professor Cheslin Randolph and the government refused to advance the millions needed for the final series of experiments.

But Professor Randolph was determined to get the money - even if it meant turning his powerful brain to robbing a spaceship in mid-flight, using trained viruses as his accomplices.

Mayday Orbit

Shout it to the stars.

No Man's World

Beyond the star curtain.

Planet of No Return

For many years the starships of earth searched the heavens for places where men could live. Many planets were found, but always something was wrong: too hot; too cold; atmospheric contaminants; poisonous biochemistry; intelligent natives - something. At last a deep-space survey vessel has reported a planet that seems perfect, an uninhabited paradise where people can roam free. But the first Troas Expedition never returns. And now the crew of the De Gama must find out why or mankind will lose the stars forever.

Star Guard

Worlds and cons away are the adventures of Kana Karr, Swordsman Third Class, who goes to the planet Fronn with Yorke Horde in the 5th millenium A.D.-Terran figuring. Earth, or Terra, under a despotic and all powerful Central Control has developed a system of professional fighting men, which it sends out for needed patrol duty in other solar systems. For his first assignment Kana, who is one of these soldiers, is sent out as part of a patrol to quell an uprising between two humanoid factions on forbidding Fronn. The adventures that follow are protracted and typical of Andre Norton's well developed sets of fantastic circumstances and they result in Kang's initiation to the coterie of Terrans who are breaking away from Central Control and seeking freedom to pioneer on their own on other planets.

The 1000 Year Plan

Title variant of Isaac Asimov's novel Foundation (1951).

No World of Their Own

Space explorers returning to an unrecognizable Earth after five millennia away find themselves caught up in a deadly political power game on a planet racing toward intergalactic war.

Early in the 21st century the world is enjoying an uneasy peace, with a distinct division between the 'straight' society and the various fringe groups that go to form the Byworld. Tension grows, however, over the presence of an alien spaceship that is orbiting the world, bearing a single occupant - the Sigman.

It appears that no-one knows how to communicate with the Sigman; no-one knows the purpose of his visit. Until two people - one 'straight' and the other a Byworlder - solve the problems involved; and in doing so trigger off a series of violent plots and counterplots that mount to a frenetic climax...

In this superb collection of six stories, the acclaimed author carries man's characteristic inability to learn from his mistakes, and his age-old inclination toward war, power and injustice to their ultimate, nightmarish conclusion.

The Snows of Ganymede

When the Order of Planetary Engineers sent Hall Davenant to Ganymede for a terraforming survey, they knew that the job on the airless, frigid Jovian moon would be tough. Changing it to resemble Earth - with fertile land, water and good air - was the biggest and most important planet conversion job ever attempted by the Engineers. But they hadn't counted on the already too Earthlike behaviour of the Ganymede colonists, who had never altered the ancient Earth-born habits of intrigue, bigotry and double-dyed treachery!

War of the Wing-Men

Three Terrans crash on a planet whose food is poison to them. They have to get to the other side of the planet where a Terran base camp can feed them. Unfortunately they get embroiled in a war between rival tribes of wing-men. van Rijn uses his wits to manipulate the situation to his own benefit and brings about a truce.

Threshold of Eternity

Because of a twist in the structure of Time, three strangers were brought unexpectedly together: Red Hawkins of California, Chantal Vareze of London and a man from the 41st Century. Their meeting seemed an impossible prank of a universe gone mad - but it turned out to be quite otherwise.

For it seemed there was a war going on throughout space and time. A war fought by men of different epochs, on planets of different cultures, but for a cause that all could acknowledge - the very continued existence of creation itself.

And the coming together of these three very unlikely people - a modern man, a lovely girl and a futurian soldier - was to prove the master stroke of a super-science strategy that had already brought humanity to the THRESHOLD OF ETERNITY.

The War of Two Worlds

The twenty-year Earth-Mars war was finally over. What was left of Earth - its crumbled cities, its ruined farmlands - were firmly and completely under the rule of the Martian Archon. And this powerful planetary ruler was taking no chances: he intended to reduce the Terrans to a society of primitive agricultural tribes in less than a generation!

But for David Arnfeld, ex-spaceman and Earth Base Commander, there was something in the whole set-up which did not ring true. Why had both sides muffed countless chances to end that awful war in the first year or two? And why had the two planets gone to war in the first place?

In the back of Arnfeld's mind an idea was growing...perhaps there was yet a chance to save the doomed population of Earth. But if his idea was true, and proof was available, he had to work fast. Too many people were involved in this War of the Two Worlds to let one man upset their plans.

To the Tombaugh Station

Was his spaceship haunted - or only booby-trapped?

Earthman, Go Home!

Published as an Ace Double book (1960), cover code D-479, two short novels. Cover art by Ed Emshwiller , Ed Valigursky. "To The Tombaugh Station" was first published in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction," July 1960. "Earthman, Go Home!" is part of Anderson's "Ensign Flandry" series, and was serialized in Fantastic Stories (December 1960, January 1961) under the title "A Plague of Masters."

This novella is also part of Flandry of Terra (Dominic Flandry #6) as "The Plague of Masters".

Table of Contents:

• The Makeshift Rocket - (1962) - novel
• novel Un-Man - (1953) - novella
• Margin of Profit - (1956) - novelette
• The Live Coward - (1956) - shortstory

Five hundred years after the "Doom" that destroyed present-day civilization and sent nations to their graves with its "glowing death," the world is pictured as a barbaric society composed of primitive tribes that shunned all things connected with the twentieth century.

This is the story of sixteen-year-old Carl who set out to break down the ignorant taboos that were destroying a priceless heritage and crushing all hope for the future of humanity.

When the fierce Lann army thundered down from the north to conquer the peace-loving Dalesmen, Carl entered the forbidden City to seek out the wisdom and knowledge that would save his people and rebuild the ancient glories of man. Accused of consorting with witches, threatenened with penalty of death for ignoring the taboo on old-world works and magic, Carl defied his own tribal seer to raise the ban on the time vault which held salvation for a dying civilization. How he fought the invading enemy for life itself in a series of violent clashes, the slow discovery of what twentieth-century civilazation had accomplished makes this book an intriquing one.

With action and suspense and the fascination of science fiction speculation, this tale of rebellion and battle fury is one that will keep readers breathless to the very last page.

We Claim These Stars!

All's fair in love and war--and with the galaxy split in conflict between two implacable confederations, anything ought to go. Still, how do you plan the ambush and capture of a tremendously capable telepath?

The intended victim, a weird genius from an uncharted world and the right arm of the enemy's general staff, not only knew everything everyone was thinking nearby, he could also read minds at a distance. So the problem posed to Dominic Flandry, Captain of Terran Intelligence, was a real killer.

To make matters worse, the telepath in question was equally interested in putting Flandry out of commission. The fate of many planets depended on which of the two triumphed.

The Planet Killers

Murder Mission to Betelgeuse IV

It was in wide-eyed horror that Roy Gardner heard the news from the Chief of Security. In just sixty-seven years the Earth would be destroyed by the planet Lurion.

That data had been compiled by the invincible computer. With unwavering faith in the machine, humans had only one thing to do--destroy Lurion first.

And the man for the job was Gardner. If he did it successfully the blood of billions would be on his hands; if he fouled up he would be the worst traitor in Terrestrial history. And not even he knew which course he would pursue when he finally learned that eben the all-wise machine had not known all the right answers.

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1970. The story can also be found in the anthology Five Fates (1970) and is included in the collections The Best of Poul Anderson (1976) and The Best of Poul Anderson (2013).

Contents:

• 5 - The Star Beast - (1950) - novelette
• 36 - The Nest - (1953) - novelette
• 66 - Honorable Enemies - [Dominic Flandry] - (1951) - novelette
• 94 - Lord of a Thousand Suns - (1951) - novelette
• 128 - The Long Return - (1950) - novelette
• 166 - Earthman, Beware! - (1951) - novelette
• 193 - Terminal Quest - (1951) - shortstory
• 216 - World of the Mad - (1951) - novelette
• 241 - Sentiment, Inc. - (1953) - novelette
• 275 - Duel on Syrtis - (1951) - shortstory
• 297 - The Valor of Cappen Varra - [Cappen Varra] - (1957) - shortstory

Thor has broken the sword Tyrfing so that it cannot strike at the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree that binds together earth, heaven and hell. But now the mighty sword is needed again to save the elves in their war against the trolls, and only Scafloc, a human child kidnapped and raised by the elves, can hope to persuade Bolverk the ice-giant to make Tyrfing whole again. But Scafloc must also confront his shadow self, Valgard the changeling who has taken his place in the world of men.

Born of a treacherous love union, Hrolf Kraki rose to wild Norseland power in a storm of sorcery, blood... and glory!

Hrolf Kraki's magnificent saga is the story of an age of runes and ravishments, of blades and omens... and of a man who ruled and was ruled by an inescapable destiny.

A grand adventure of the mighty thewed barbarian, from one of Fantasy's biggest names

Conan, The name has inspired generations, one that resounds through time immemorial. Yet it all began with a handful of stories from Robert E. Howard. In the decades since, there have been feature films, television and comic book series, and numerous spin-off novels. In 1979, Poul Anderson--winner of a staggering eight Hugo and three Nebula Awards--wrote what is regarded as one of the finest adventures in the canon of Conan:

Conan the Rebel.

Conan the barbarian and Belit, his raven-haired beauty, lead a band of savage pirates striving to free Belit's people from the iron grip of an evil reptile god and its cruel minions. Striking at the heart of tyranny, Conan must break the chains of oppression before eternal darkness claims them all.

Journey Across the Sea of Space

They named her Souther Cross and launched her on the road whose end they would never see. Months afterward shw was moving at half the speed of light; if there was to be enough reaction mass for deceleration and maneuver, the blast must be terminated. And so the long silence came. For four and half centuries the ship would fall.

They manned her by turns, and dreamed other ships and launched them, and saw how a few of the shortest journeys ended. Then they died.

After ten generations, the Souther Cross was not quite halfway to her own goal, though she was the farthest from Earth of any human work...

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology Destinies, January-February 1979, edited by James Patrick (Jim) Baen. It can also be found in the collection Explorations (1981), and in some editions of the novel The Enemy Stars (1959).

Hugo Award nominated story. It orgiginally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1965. The story is included in the collection The Queen of Air and Darkness (2009).

Earthmen and Aleriona have met in space and neither side can afford to let the other get too strong. The Aleriona have captured the human outpost, New Europe, and claim that all the inhabitants were killed. The World Federation on Earth seems committed to peace at any price, but there are those, and ex-navy Captain Gunnar Heim is one of them, who know that appeasement will only lead to further Alerion encroachment, and he passionately believes that there must be a showdown now, before its too late.

Anu, red giant companion-star to Bel and Ea, was relentlessly approaching Ishtar-scorching the land, forcing the barbarians of the North ever southward away from the inferno. Fire Time was fast confronting the planet; civil war broke out as the Tassui led their forces against the army of the Gathering in a desperate struggle for survival.

The Gathering anxiously awaited help from the human colony in Primavera. Jill Conway and other colonists like her hoped to save the civilization of Ishtar and they relied on the Navy of the Federation of Earth to do so. But now the Federation was engaged in its own war with Naqsa, an interstellar war that seemingly had no end. And no end meant no help for Ishtar....

Winner of seven Hugo and three Nebula Awards, Poul Anderson is one of science fiction's supreme masters. In "Harvest of Stars," his most ambitous novel to date, Earth lies crushed in the grip of totalitarianism.

To save her planet, his heroine, Kyra Davis is sent on a mission to liberate our last bastion of freedom and rescue its legendary leader. Her bold adventure will sweep her from Earth's rebel enclaves to the decadent court of an exotic lunar colony, from the virtual realities of biotech and artificial intelligence to a brave new world menaced by a dying star.

Poul Anderson returns to the same brilliantly conceived future to tell a story of revolution and liberation on the Moon.

Poul Anderson, a legend of SF, is the writer whom the mantle of Robert A. Heinlein descended upon. Anderson devoted his career to the visionary enterprise of creating science fiction set in a carefully extrapolated human society of the future in the spirit of Heinlein.

Nowhere does he succeed more powerfully than in the works set in the future history that began in Harvest of Stars, continued in The Stars Are Also Fire, and now leaps into the distant future in Harvest the Fire. This is no less than the tale of the expansion of humanity to the limits of the solar system and beyond. It also chronicles the evolution of machine intelligence, until humans and machines come into conflict in an age when the outward urge and the urge to change are the chief barriers to utopia for many humans--and for their machines.

Harvest the Fire is the story of politics and poetry: of a poet, Jesse Nicol, who aspires to great work in an era when human literary greatness is apparently all in the past, who travels to the Moon and falls in love with a beautiful revolutionary, Falaire--a woman determined to escape from the care of machines. For the machines are now the masters of humanity, and the great work of Falaire is freedom, which must be stolen from the machines.

With the precision and clear focus of a master, Poul Anderson tells a sharp and poignant tale against an epic interplanetary background. Harvest the Fire is hard SF raised to the intensity of poetry.

In Fleet of Stars, Poul Anderson brings back the wildly colorful Anson Guthrie, his iconoclastic hero from Harvest of Stars. The staid, somber people of Earth are not only dependent on technology, they are all but ruled by machine intelligence. Suspecting a conspiracy to suppress humankind's last vestiges of freedom, Guthrie begins a dangerous journey across the realm of the comets, the asteroids, and the stars themselves--willing to risk his life to preserve humanity's ability to roam the universe.

It could almost have been Earth - or so thought Ensign Alexander Braithwaite Jones, who crash-landed on the planet Taka, 500 light-years from the Solar System. Then he met the Hokas, a race of teddy-bear-like aliens, with the astounding ability to transform outdated Earth stories into riotous real life adventures.

From the guns and slang of an Old West saloon to a hair-raising drug bust in Victorian England led to the by a button-nosed, pipe-puffing Hokan Sherlock Holmes, the Hokas demand that Alex Jones live it all along with them.

Suddenly his ordinary military career is changed into a crazy world of intergalactic adventure, as he tries, without much success, to bring his furry, alien charges along the road to civilization, sanity, and a m ore respectable social rating in the Interbeing League.

Table of Content:

• The Sherrif of Canyon Gulch
• Don Jones
• In Hoka Signo Vinces
• The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound
• Yo Ho Hoka!
• The Tiddleywink Warriors
• Incredibly Secret

Charlie Stuart, young scion of the Scottish royal family, long nourished a secret desire for adventure - an escape from his dreary books, his sheltered life. When his father realized that, for Charlie to grow into the full Stuart heritage he must face the rigors of the real world, the young man's dreams had a chance of coming true.
But Charlie's private fantasies had never included Talyina, a planet 200 light-years from earth and ruled by a ruthless usurper. And he had never envisioned himself as a galactic savior. Yet, young Charlie, late the classroom dreamer, suddenly found himself the only man in the galaxy capable of averting inter-planetary war!

One Hoka is a threat to human sanity. Two Hokas are a menace to civilization. And three Hokas... Heaven help the galaxy, in this hilarious science fiction adventure from two of the best writers in the genre.

Table of Contents:

• Prologue - (1983) - essay by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Joy in Mudville - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Undiplomatic Immunity - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Full Pack (Hokas Wild) - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• "The Bear that Walks Like a Man": An Ursanoid Stereotype in Early Interbeing Era Poplular Culture by S*ndr* M**s*| - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• The Napoleon Crime - (1983) - novella by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson

One Hoka is a threat to human sanity. Two Hokas are a menace to civilization. And three Hokas... Heaven help the galaxy, in this hilarious science fiction adventure from two of the best writers in the genre.

Table of Contents:

• Prologue - shortstory by Gordon R. Dickson and Poul Anderson
• The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch - (1951) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude I - shortstory by Gordon R. Dickson and Poul Anderson
• Don Jones - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude II - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• In Hoka Signo Vinces - (1953) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude III - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound - (1953) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude IV - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Yo Ho Hoka! - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude V - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• The Tiddlywink Warriors - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude VI - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Joy in Mudville - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Undiplomatic Immunity - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Mysterious Message - (1957) - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson

If a human thinks he's Napoleon, it's time to get out a straitjacket. But when a Hoka thinks he's Napoleon, you'd better believe it! Just remember that with Hokas, reality is merely optional....

Table of Contents:

• Full Pack (Hokas Wild) - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• The Napoleon Crime - (1983) - novella by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Star Prince Charlie - (1975) - novel by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson

Book one of the King of Ys series: Blending fantasy, history, and adventure, the epic story of Ys begins as the Roman Gratillonius finds himself thrust into the highest seat of power.

In the waning days of the Roman Empire, Magnus Maximus sends his prefect Gratillonius to western Gaul and the faraway land of Ys, a place shrouded in legend and ruled by a cruel and tyrannical king. When the sovereign challenges Gratillonius to a duel, the envoy from Rome emerges victorious and claims the throne as the new king of Ys, inheriting a land whose religion, culture, and history are entirely foreign. He also gains the former king's nine wives, the Gallicenae, a powerful group of women to whom he must appear equally devoted despite his growing feelings for one in particular. As he adjusts to his new role as ruler of Ys, Gratillonius must fight to keep his strange new country on its feet while the rest of the Roman Empire begins to crumble around him.

Roma Mater is the first book in Poul and Karen Anderson's King of Ys series, which continues with Gallicenae.

In book two of the King of Ys series, Gratillonius adjusts to his new role as sovereign of Ys as threats from all sides begin closing in.

As the Roman Empire loses its grip on its far-flung territories, the mystical kingdom of Ys in western Gaul is in great danger of slipping into oblivion. Suffocated for years by the rule of a tyrant king, Ys's last hope arrived in the form of a Roman emissary, Gratillonius, who defeated the sitting king to take the throne himself. Now Gratillonius must grapple with the kingdom's political strife and religious tensions while balancing his responsibilities to the Gallicenae, nine wide-ranging witches who have become his wives. Though Rome seeks to spread Christianity, and Gratillonius stands firm in his worship of Mithras, the Ysans hold to an entirely different religion in service of pagan deities who must be obeyed lest grave consequences descend on the fragile kingdom.

Gallicenae is the second book in Poul and Karen Anderson's King of Ys series, which continues with Dahut.

In book three of the King of Ys series, Gratillonius's reign faces a deadly new threat from across the sea.

For sixteen years Gratillonius has been the king of Ys, a position he has used to bring the once-teetering city-state back to stability as the Roman Empire continues to collapse around it. Rome would prefer a more malleable leader in Gratillonius's place and makes no secret of it. As pressure from Roman leadership increases, Gratillonius must also contend with Niall maqq Echach, the leader of Northern Ireland who holds the Ysan king responsible for the death of his son. Compounding these complications is the ever-present threat of retribution by the Ysan gods, should the kingdom's leadership make a misstep. But perhaps the greatest danger of all is unfolding from within Gratillonius's own household, where, following the death of one of his nine wives, the gods have named an unsettling replacement: Dahut, Gratillonius's own daughter.

As treachery mounts from within and without, Gratillonius must hold to his principles in defiance of the gods while still protecting Ys from the destruction closing in on all sides.

Dahut is the third book in Poul and Karen Anderson's King of Ys series, which concludes with The Dog and the Wolf.

In the fourth and final book of the King of Ys series, Gratillonius and the Ysan survivors have one final chance to rebuild in the wake of inconceivable destruction.

As legendary as King Arthur's Court and as mystical as Atlantis, the fabled kingdom of Ys has finally fallen, the victim of invading hordes and vengeful gods. Destitute, the remaining Ysans put their faith in their longtime leader, Gratillonius, who protected the city-state of Ys for two decades before it succumbed to the malevolent forces surrounding it. Now more vulnerable than ever, Gratillonius and the Ysans set out to rebuild their beloved city, first with wood and then with stone, providing a fortress against the elements and the marauding King Niall maqq Echach, still on his years-long quest to see Ys turned to dust. While the Dark Ages begin to rise across Europe, the Ysans and their king grasp one last time for survival--lest their history be lost forever.

The Dog and the Wolf is the final book in Poul and Karen Anderson's King of Ys series, which also includes Roma Mater, Gallicenae, and Dahut.

When humans and kzinti met, the kzinti introduced themselves with a scream-and-leap of joyous anticipation. But - surprise! - the monkey boys and girls of Planet Earth not only fought back but won! How, how could the Warrior Race have fallen prey to slinking cowardly (albeit clever) leaf-eaters who didn't even possess weapons?

After long hard thought the Kzin have come up with an answers: the first time they didn't leap hard or fast enough! After all, no matter how clever the humans may be, they won't stand a chance if it all happens so suddenly that monkey cleverness never has a chance to come into play. So when Eric Saxtorph and his crew stumble across the secret of the Great Attack the kzinti are more than a little upset.

And when kzinti are upset, you know what they do...

Table of Content

• Iron - (1988) - novella by Poul Anderson
• Inconstant Star - (1990) - novella by Poul Anderson

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

All of them.

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

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

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

Contents:

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

Jack Havig, a man born with the ability to move at will through the past and the future of mankind, must save the world from a doomed future of tyranny before his time runs out.

After Armageddon the People of the Sea created a new kind of civilization: one based on the integrity of Life and the moral as well as pragmatic necessity of conservation. But the Sky People live by a different vision, and they have come to enforce it.

After nuclear weapons ravaged the Earth, only Skyholm, a huge solar-powered station floating above Europe, remains in possession of high technology. But as Skyholm is seized by a religious faction, a young noble escapes to the ground below and joins a group who conspire to use the power of the atom, outlawed for centuries, to regain the lost heritage of space flight.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1969) - essay by Poul Anderson
• Foreword: The Science Fiction Novel in 1968 - (1969) - essay by Willis E. McNelly
• Mother to the World - (1968) - novelette by Richard Wilson
• The Dance of the Changer and the Three - (1968) - shortstory by Terry Carr
• The Planners - (1968) - short story by Kate Wilhelm
• Sword Game - (1968) - short story by H. H. Hollis
• The Listeners - (1968) - novelette by James E. Gunn
• Dragonrider - (1967) - novella by Anne McCaffrey
• In Memoriam - Anthony Boucher - (1969) - essay by J. Francis McComas
• In Memoriam - Rosel George Brown - (1969) - essay by Daniel F. Galouye
• In Memoriam - Bernard I. Kahn - (1969) - essay by John W. Campbell, Jr.
• In Memoriam - Groff Conklin - (1969) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• In Memoriam - Anna Kavan - (1969) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss
• In Memoriam - Gerald Kersh - (1969) - essay by Harlan Ellison
• In Memoriam - Frank Owen - (1969) - essay by Emil Petaja
• In Memoriam - Edison Marshall - (1969) - essay by Alva Rogers
• In Memoriam - Mervyn Peake - (1969) - essay by Michael Moorcock
• In Memoriam - Stuart Palmer - (1969) - essay by Karen Anderson
• In Memoriam - Arthur Sellings - (1969) - essay by John Carnell
• In Memoriam - A. A. Wyn - (1969) - essay by Donald A. Wollheim
• In Memoriam - Harl Vincent - (1969) - essay by Forrest J. Ackerman

In a world where magic is real, werewolf Steve Matuchek and powerful witch Virginia Graylock are paired together in the war to stop the invading Caliphate forces from taking over America. Their mission: stop the enemy from unleashing their superweapon--a genie in a bottle. And that is only the beginning of an adventure that will take them quite literally to Hell and back...

Now married with three rambunctious children, Steve and Ginny once again find themselves fighting for their country as they try to stop a plot to sabotage America's first manned mission to the moon (in an alternate history timeline, that is). But they will need help from a loyal cadre of magical allies if they hope to avert a catastrophe...

Seeking freedom from their oppressive government on Earth, a ragtag group of idealists embark on a perilous journey to found a new world light-years from home

On a future Earth, gone are the halcyon days of the early space program, when the universe held endless promise and excitement. Overcrowded, ruled by a corrupt autocracy, and plagued by vast economic inequalities, life on Earth has become nightmarish, and the promise of a world beyond the planet is diminishing rapidly as the government begins shuttering its interstellar efforts.

But for a small band of rebels called Constitutionalists, escaping into the vast universe beyond is the only hope. And so off they set for a distant planet where they can start over, building a new society on the principle of liberty, testing the very limits of human capability. Their years-long trip is not without its tribulations, from internecine conflict on the ship to ambiguous pleas from Earth to return.

Their destination, an Earth-like planet called Rustum, is twenty light-years away, and through every treacherous moment of the journey they know that their most harrowing trials are yet to come when they finally reach their new home.

Continuing from Orbit Unlimited, New America is the next chapter in the story of the planet Rustum, where the Constitutionalists continue their mission to build a more perfect nation

Civilization on Rustum has come a long way since its early days, when a few brave colonists traveled twenty light-years from Earth to found a society, New America, on the principle of personal liberty. Some call themselves Constitutionalists, others Jeffersonians, but whatever the title everyone can agree: Rustum has a problem. With one-and-a-quarter times the gravitational force of Earth and a host of inedible flora, Rustum is most habitable on its highlands, leaving the lowlands sparsely populated and creating a great imbalance on the planet.

Dan Coffin, an original settler of Rustum, agrees to join an expedition back to the lowlands, where he is one of the rare individuals who can survive in the dense air without a helmet. New America follows Coffin's endeavors to build a new life with a wife, children, and an effective governing body that can help give the lowlanders not only survive, but thrive.

Table of Contents:

• 9 - My Own, My Native Land - [History of Rustum] - (1974) - novelette
• 51 - Passing the Love of Women - [History of Rustum] - (1974) - novelette
• 85 - A Fair Exchange - [History of Rustum] - (1974) - novelette
• 117 - To Promote the General Welfare - [History of Rustum] - (1975) - novelette
• 159 - The Queen of Air and Darkness - [The Queen of Air and Darkness] - (1971) - novella
• 231 - Home - (1966) - short story
• 261 - Our Many Roads to the Stars - (1975) - essay

Imaginative roleplaying provides relief for some of the crew on the long, dull trip to Saturn. However their imaginary world becomes hazardously confused with the real one when a team begins the exploration of one of Saturn's moons.

Hugo Award winning and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Galaxy Magazine, December 1968. It can also be found in The Hugo Winners, Volume 2: (1963-70) (1971) and edited by Isaac Asimov, More Stories From the Hugo Winners, Volume 2 (1973), also edited by Isaac Asimov. It is included in the collections The Night Face and Other Stories (1978), Winners (1981), The Dark Between the Stars (1981), The Long Night (1983), Call Me Joe (2009) and Flandry's Legacy (2011).

The Buck Starts Here!

Think there's an unbridgeable gulf between human and alien thought Not so! There's a common tongue, all right -- and Nicholas Van Rijn speaks it fluently: TRADE. For behind the buffoonish blarney and bawdy bonhomie of the Falstaffian Van Rijn is a man who gets things done. A born wheeler-dealer who usually leaves both sides better off in the bargain. (While pocketing a hefty cut of the profits himself, of course!)

With The Man Who Counts and a passel of other tales included, this is the first of three volumes set to contain the complete cycle of "Polesotechnic League" books and stories by transcendently-gifted science fiction master (how does seven Hugos and three Nebula Awards strike you ) Poul Anderson – and starring Nicholas Van Rijn, his most famous character of all!

Table of Content:

• "The Saturn Game" (1981)
• "Wings of Victory" (1972)
• "The Problem of Pain" (1973)
• "Margin of Profit" (1956)
• "How to Be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson" (1974)
• "The Three-Cornered Wheel" (1963)
• "A Sun Invisible" (1966)
• "The Season of Forgiveness" (1973)
• "The Man Who Counts" (1958)
• "Esau" (also known as "Birthright") (1970)
• "Hiding Place" (1961)

When You Trade Upon a Star!

Think self-congratulating Federation lackeys are going to be the ones to boldly go where no one has gone before Think again! Now second-son of nobility David Falkayn, hot to prove his worth, leads a team of alien capitalists through deadly threat and gnarly interplanetary dilemma. The mission: to keep intergalactic trade forever free--and always profitable!

The second of three volumes of the complete cycle of ''Polesotechnic League'' books and stories by transcendently-gifted science fiction master (how does seven Hugos and three Nebula Awards strike you ) Poul Anderson!

Table of Content

• "Territory" (1963)
• "Plus Ça Change, Plus C'est La Même Chose" (1966)
• "The Trouble Twisters" (also known as "Trader Team") (1965)
• "Day of Burning" (also known as "Supernova") (1967)
• "The Master Key" (1964)
• "Satan's World" (1969)
• "A Little Knowledge" (1971)
• "Lodestar" (1973)

Nicholas van Rijn, the most flamboyant member of the Polesotechnic League of star traders, could see dark times ahead. Fellow league members were using tactics verging on outright piracy, and others were all too eager to sell starships and high-tech weapons to alien barbarians. A planet not previously known for interstellar commerce suddenly revealed a secret fleet of armed starships, and started building an empire. Even if Van Rijn and his right-hand man David Falkayn could find a way to stop this blatant aggression, the glory days of the League were over. Hereafter, for its own protection against well-armed alien marauders the Earth must maintain a strong military fleet, and one charismatic man would found an empire that would learn nothing of the lessons history taught about the fates of other empires as it began annexing other star systems, whether they wanted to join the Terran Empire or not...

This is the third volume in the first complete edition of Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization saga, and it includes a classic novella which appears here in book form for the first time. And the next volume begins the adventures of Poul Anderson's other legendary character, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry.

Table of Content

• Mirkheim (1977)
• "Wingless" (also known as "Wingless on Avalon") (1973)
• "Rescue on Avalon" (1973)
• "The Star Plunderer" (1952)
• "Saragasso of Lost Starships" (1951)
• The People of the Wind (1973)

It is the twilight of the Terran Empire. The warriors who made it great are long gone now, and the Traders of the Polesotechnic League who made it possible are the dimly-remembered stuff of legend. Alien enemies prowl its outer precincts, and Sector Governors conspire for the Throne of Man. On Terra herself, those who occupy the labyrinthine corridors of power busy themselves with trivialities and internal politics, as outside the final darkness gathers.

In this scene of terminal disarray one man stands like a giant: Dominic Flandry, Agent of the Terran Empire. In three full-length novels, he will rise from young ensign to lieutenant commander as he outthinks rivals and thwarts adversaries, blazing a trail across the galaxy in defense of an Empire which barely appreciates him and against alien enemies who appreciate him all too well.

Table of Content

• Ensign Flandry (1966)
• A Circus of Hells (1970)
• The Rebel Worlds (1969)

It's blazing science fiction adventure starring Dominic Flandry--Science Fiction's James Bond--in the Fifth Volume of the Complete Technic Civilization Saga.

Table of Contents:

• "Outpost of Empire" (1967)
• The Day of Their Return (1975)
• "Tiger by the Tail" (1951)
• "Honorable Enemies" (1951)
• "The Game of Glory" (1957)
• "A Message in Secret" (1959)

A KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOR IN A SAVAGE GALAXY

Captain Dominic Flandry has been knighted for his many services to the Terran Empire--an Empire which is old, jaded, and corrupt, as Flandry well knows--but he also knows that the Empire is better than anything that is likely to take its place. And while that "Sir" before his name may be an added attraction to comely ladies (not that he has ever lacked for the pleasant company of the same), he expects that it will also bring him less welcome attention from envious "colleagues" within the empire.

What it is not likely to do is make him more of an object of interest to the alien Merseians, whose plots against the Empire he has repeatedly foiled. They already are as aware as they can be of how much simpler their plans to rule the galaxy would be if their most dangerous adversary were the late Sir Dominic Flandry.

This is the sixth volume in the first complete edition of Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization saga.

Table of Contents:

• "The Warriors From Nowhere" (1954)
• "Hunters of the Sky Cave" (also known as "A Handful of Stars" and We Claim These Stars) (1959)
• "The Plague of Masters" (also known as "A Plague of Masters" and Earthman, Go Home!) (1960)
• "A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows" (1974)

Sir Dominic Flandry is now an Admiral, but takes little joy in his new rank. He sees the rot in the Terran Empire on every hand and knows that the Long Night will inevitably fall upon the galaxy. His consolation is that measures he has taken while doing what he can to postpone the Empire's final collapse may shorten the coming galactic dark age and hasten the rise of a new interstellar civilization. In the meantime, he'll enjoy the comforts of a decadent civilization-and he'll always be ready for one more battle against the Empire's enemies.

Table of Contents:

• "A Stone in Heaven" (1979)
• "The Game of Empire" (1985)
• "A Tragedy of Errors" (1967)
• "The Night Face" (1978) (also known as "Let the Spacemen Beware!" (1963), a shorter 1960 version was known as "A Twelvemonth and a Day")
• "The Sharing of Flesh" (1968)
• "Starfog" (1967)

This short story originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, August 1971. It can also be found in the anthologies The 1972 Annual World's Best SF , edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, and Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year (1972), edited by Lester del Rey. It is included in the collections The Earth Book of Stormgate (1978), The Earth Book of Stormgate 3 (1981), and David Falkayn: Star Trader (2009).

Terra + Ythri + Avalon = Universal War!

THE TERRAN EMPIRE: Behemoth, reaching ever further across the star systems, seeking to suck the entire universe into it gigantic maw. In is favor it must be said that the Empire offers peach and prosperity to its subjects.

THE YTHRIAN DOMAIN: Medium-size empire with room to grow... except where its borders meet those of the Terran Empire! Peopled by the Ythri, birdlike beings with a culture and intellect that is easily a match for the Terran way of life.

AVALON: Colony planet of Ythri but inhabited by human and Ythri alike, Avalon is the Domain's secret weapon - or is it? For Avalon has formed a culture all its own, which it will defend against all comers. And Avalon seems quite capable of defying the combined might of two of the most powerful empires in the universe!

Omnibus Collection of Book of Stormgate 1, 2 and 3.

Contents:

• The Earth Book of Stormgate
• Wings of Victory
• The Problem of Pain
• How to Be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson
• Margin of Profit
• Esau
• The Season of Forgiveness

aka The War of the Wingmen and The Man Who Counts. Versions may be slightly different.

Contents:

• A Little Knowledge
• Day of Burning
• Lodestar
• Wingless
• Rescue on Avalon

Contents:

• The Three-Cornered Wheel
• A Sun Invisible
• The Trouble Twisters

Ensign Flandry is a classic character in the history of science fiction. This definitive omnibus of three Flandry adventures will delight Anderson's legion of fans. After the first flowering of the Terran Empire, which has grown increasingly decadent and corrupt, other civilizations in the galaxy threaten to take over the Terran's worlds. In this scenario steps the debonair, tough and pessimistic Dominic Flandry, half-Hans Solo, half-James Bond and a hero for the ages!

The Barbarians in their long ships waited at the edge of the Galaxy, waited for the ancient Terran Empire to fall, while tow men struggled to save it: ex-Admiral McCormac, forced to rebel against a corrupt Emperor, and Starship Commander Flandry, the brilliant young officer who served the Imperium even as he scorned it.

Trapped between them was the woman they both loved, but couldn't share: the beautiful Kathryn, whose single world could decide the fate of a billion suns.

This is the second in the Dominic Flandry series (often compared to C. S. Forester's Hornblower series except in space). Here Flandry has been promoted to Lieutenant and has a duty to the empire to explore a dark and treasure laden moon. Yet within the desolate peaks and valleys of that strange world of ice and shadow, Flandry found more than he bargained for. The planet swarmed with a hideous race of strange, inhuman creatures controlled by a deranged and brilliant computer brain. Each, like a piece of a bizarre and vicious chess game was programmed to kill.

Aeneas is the powder keg of the universe, a frontier planet where rebellion is a way of life--and death. Smarting under the thumb of the Terran Empire after an almost successful war against Imperial rule, the Aeneans are swept up in a fanatical religious movement that promises the return of the Elder

(Amazon.com)

Contents:

• Tiger by the Tail
• Warriors from Nowhere
• Honorable Enemies
• Hunters of the Sky Cave

Contents:

• The Game of Glory
• A Message in Secret
• The Plague of Masters

Raconteur, bon vivant, troubleshooter for the decaying Terran Empire, Dominic Falndry doesn't crave further danger in the service of galactic unity.

But duty calls, so it's back to the spaceways for the most elegant Special Agent is a hundred star systems--straight into the well-laid plans of his lifelong enemy Aycharaych.

Win or lose, though, the long night of human civilization is coming and Flandry knows it. How many more battles can he stand to win in a losing cause? And how many planets will die meanwhile?

With A STONE IN HEAVEN Poul Anderson has brought the career of Dominic Flandry full cycle. From the beginning Flandry has piece by piece mortgaged his soul that the long night of galactic barbarism might be held off just a little longer. Now, face to face with his personal long night, Flandry is offered one last chance for love and honor in a universe he has come to believe holds neither...

Contents:

• Prologue by Sandra Miesel
• The Star Plunderer
• Outpost of Empire
• A Tragedy of Errors
• The Sharing of Flesh
• Starfog
• A Chronology of Technic Civilization by Sandra Miesel

Now that Dominic Flandry is of an age more suited to deciding the fate of empires from behind the throne, others must take up the challenge of courting danger on strange planets filled with still stranger creatures. So begins the career of Diana and her faithful Tigery companion.

Originally appeared in Ace Double F-209 (1963).

The inhabitants of Gwydion are a peaceful race with no weapons let alone concept of hatred or war. Every item on the planet has a mythological meaning to them. All except for one of the plants that grows nearly everywhere. The two main characters have arrived from different planets. One is from a libertarian culture while the other is from a capitalistic culture. They both fall in love with the same woman and are determined to find out why the Gwydions act the way they do.

Three Terrans crash on a planet whose food is poison to them. They have to get to the other side of the planet where a Terran base camp can feed them. Unfortunately they get embroiled in a war between rival tribes of wing-men. van Rijn uses his wits to manipulate the situation to his own benefit and brings about a truce.

A shorter version appeared in Ace Double D-303 in 1958. Slightly different versions have appeared as The Man Who Counts and The Earth Book of Stormgate 2.

Meet that twenty-first century stellar trader, Nicholas Van Rijn, and get set for one of the finest creations of Poul Anderson.

Contents:

Hiding Place
Territory
The Master Key

Falkayn simultaneously discovers a lead on a potentially very valuable planet and evidence of a deep penetration of human society by agents of an unknown alien race, and must race to claim the planet for van Rijn and to head off whatever it is the aliens are up to. Right in the heart of the Commonwealth, on Luna, van Rijn takes independent action -- breaking the law -- to close down the alien spies, and then follows Falkayn to meet the aliens.

When the Baburites, an alien race, claim the phenomenally metal-rich core of the blasted planet, Mirkheim, a union of interplanetary governments joins with the Terran empire's Polesotechnic League in clamoring for war against the interlopers.

Table of Contents:

• Editor's Introduction (Rick Katze) 6
• Poul Anderson (Greg Bear) 7
• Call Me Joe 11
• Prayer in War 36
• Tomorrow's Children 37
• Kinnison's Band 57
• The Helping Hand 58
• Wildcat 77
• Clausius' Chaos 100
• Journey's End 101
• Heinlein's Stories 107
• Logic 108
• Time Patrol 129
• The First Love 156
• The Double-dyed Villains 157
• To a Tavern Wench 177
• The Immortal Game 178
• Upon the Occasion of Being Asked to Argue That Love and Marriage Are Incompatible 186
• Backwardness 187
• Haiku 195
• Genius 196
• There Will Be Other Times 222
• The Live Coward 223
• Ballade of an Artificial Satellite 240
• Time Lag 241
• The Man Who Came Early 266
• Autumn 283
• Turning Point 284
• Honesty 294
• The Alien Enemy 295
• Eventide 307
• Enough Rope 308
• The Sharing of Flesh 329
• Barbarous Allen 353
• Welcome 354
• Flight to Forever 360
• Barnacle Bull 399
• To Jack Williamson 411
• Time Heals 412
• MacCannon 425
• The Martian Crown Jewels 426
• Then Death Will Come 438
• Prophecy 439
• Sea Burial 444
• Einstein's Distress 444
• Kings Who Die 445
• Ochlan 466
• Starfog 467

Table of Contents:

• Editor's Introduction (Rick Katze)
• Poul Anderson by Mike Resnick
• The Queen of Air and Darkness
• Jennifer's Lament
• Industrial Revolution
• Cradle Song
• Operation Afreet
• On Imaginary Science
• Upon the Occasion of Being Asked at a Court of Love to Declare That About His Lady Which Pleases Him the Most
• The Longest Voyage
• Brave to Be a King
• Midsummer Song
• Christa McAuliffe
• Brake
• Jennifer's Song
• The Hardness of Hard Science Fiction
• The Burning Bridge
• Veleda Speaks
• Science Fiction and History
• A World Called Maanerek
• The Pirate
• To Build a World
• Say It with Flowers
• My Object All Sublime
• Innocent at Large
• Route Song of the Winged Folk
• The Corkscrew of Space
• A Little Knowledge
• Marque and Reprisal
• Uncleftish Beholding
• The Critique of Impure Reason
• Science and Creation
• Of the Sea
• Epilogue
• Tanka

This multi-volume series includes the very best of the short works by Poul Anderson, including all of his Hugo and Nebula nominated and winning short stories. Volume 3 includes three of Anderson's Hugo and Nebula award-winning stories, "The Saturn Game", "No Truce with Kings", and "Hunter's Moon".

Table of Contents

• Editor's Introduction
• Introduction by Tom Easton
• The Saturn Game
• No Truce with Kings
• Operation Salamander
• Sam Hall
• Robin Hoods Barn
• The Only Game in Town
• Supernova
• Sunjammer
• Arsenal Port
• Hiding Place
• A Tragedy of Errors
• What'll You Give
• A Sun Invisible
• Musn't Touch
• Elementary Mistake
• Peek, I see You.
• Eve Times 4
• Hunter's Moon
• and Untitled Limericks and Songs

"Admiralty: The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson" (volume 4) continues the series of presenting the best of his fantasy and science fiction stories published over a writing career of 50 years. It includes "Admiralty", a story in the foreseeable future when man has colonies on other planets and is in conflict with an alien empire, "Goat Song", the Hugo and Nebula award winning story about a man's determination to bring his lost love back to life, "Operation Changeling", a world where magic and demons co-exist, "Delenda Est", a story of the time patrol and the choices that must be made to keep our existence intact, "The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound", co-written with Gordon R. Dickson, where the aliens are living on their own planet, a portion of which is created as Victorian England with Scotland Yard and Sherlock Holmes, "Marius", which shows that the only thing we lean from history is history, and the delightful "Inside Straight", in which an understanding of poker defeats an invasion.

Table of Contents

• Introduction by David G. Hartwell
• Admiralty
• Among Thieves
• Delenda Est
• Eutopia
• Goat Song
• Gypsy
• Holmgang
• Home
• Horse Trader
• Inside Straight
• Kyrie
• Lodestar
• Marius
• Murphy's Hall
• Operation Changeling
• Quixote and the Windmill
• The Problem of Pain
• Sister Planet
• The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound
• The Barrier Moment
• The Bitter Bread
• The Pugilist
• The Star Beast

Door to Anywhere is the fifth of a multivolume compendium of Poul Anderson's best works from a writing career that spans over 50 years. This volume contains stories about Manse Everard and Wanda Tamberly, Dominic Flandry, the Hokas, Nicholas van Rijn, and Stephen Matuchek and Virginia Graylock.

Table of Contents:

• Editor's Introduction - essay by Rick Karze
• An Appreciation of Poul Anderson - essay by Jerry Pournelle
• Door to Anywhere - (1966) - novelette
• Deathwomb - (1983) - novelette
• The Nest - (1953) - novelette
• Fairy Gold - (1984) - novelette
• The Master Key - (1964) - novelette
• Recruiting Nation - (1970) - shortstory
• Gibraltar Falls - (1975) - shortstory
• Operation Incubus - (1959) - shortstory
• The White King's War - (1969) - novelette
• In Hoka Signo Vinces - (1953) - novelette with Gordon R. Dickson
• The Life of Your Time - (1965) - novelette
• The Star Plunderer - (1952) - novelette
• Un-Man - (1953) - novella
• Wings of Victory - (1972) - novelette
• The Fatal Fulfillment - (1970) - novella
• For the Duration - (1957) - shortstory
• Sargasso of Lost Starships - (1952) - novella
• The Last of the Deliverers - (1958) - shortstory
• Birthright - (1970) - novelette
• Strangers - (1988) - novelette
• The Year of the Ransom - (1988) - novel

A Bicycle Built for Brew: The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson (volume 6) continues the series of presenting the best of his fantasy and science fiction stories published over a writing career of 50 years. It includes 5 short novels and 3 novellas.

A Bicycle Built for Brew, the lead short novel mixes beer, air-tight drums, a talking parrot guaranteed to repeat phrases laced with 4-letter indignities, a romance between an English lass and a Scottish soldier, and the need to communicate the fact of the invasion to British authorities on a nearby asteroid in a very humorous tale.

The original magazine version of Three Hearts and Three Lions, long unavailable except for the original magazines published in 1953, in which Holger Carlsen, fighting the Nazis, is suddenly transported to a world where magic and a growing battle between good and evil is raging.

Silent Victory in which Mars has defeated Earth in a war but things are never that simple.

"Territory" features Nicholas van Rijn, A Plague of Masters features Dominic Flandry, "Three Cornered Wheel" features David Falkyn, "The Sensitive Man" and "The Snows of Ganymede".

Table of Contents:

• Editor's Introduction - essay by Rick Katze
• My Father, Poul Anderson - essay by Astrid Anderson Bear
• A Bicycle Built for Brew - (1958) - novella
• Three Hearts and Three Lions - (1961) - novel
• The Snows of Ganymede - (1955) - novella
• Territory - (1963) - novella
• The Sensitive Man - (1954) - novella
• Silent Victory - (1953) - novella
• The Three-Cornered Wheel - (1963) - novelette
• A Plague of Masters - novella

Question and Answer: The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson (volume 7) continues the series of the best of his fantasy and science fiction stories published over his writing career of 50 years. It contains 6 short novels, 2 novellas, and 4 short stories.

"Question and Answer", the lead short novel tells the story of what may or may not be the first meeting between two different species, with a touch of politics and a mystery. The book's two-page frontispiece is an illustration of this story. "The Big Rain" is set on Venus while it is still being terraformed, and concludes the "Un-Man stories". Dominic Flandry is well represented in this volume, including the first time he meets Aycharaych of Chereion, his life-long nemesis. "The Troublemakers" examines life aboard a slower-than-light transport ship as it makes a voyage that will last over three generations. Finally, but not least, David Falkyn and his trader team open a planet for trade.

Table of Contents:

• 2 - Frontispiece (Question and Answer) - interior artwork by Vincent Di Fate
• 10 - Editor's Introduction (Question and Answer) - essay by Rick Katze
• 12 - Poul Anderson - essay by Vincent Di Fate
• 15 - Question and Answer - (1978) - novella (variant of Planet of No Return 1956)
• 80 - Tiger by the Tail - [Dominic Flandry] - (1951) - novelette
• 102 - The Big Rain - [Psychotechnic League] - (1954) - novella
• 152 - Warriors from Nowhere - [Dominic Flandry] - (1954) - short story (variant of The Ambassadors of Flesh)
• 166 - The Troublemakers - [Psychotechnic League] - (1953) - novella
• 203 - To Outlive Eternity - (1967) - novella
• 261 - A Message in Secret - [Dominic Flandry] - (1959) - novella
• 306 - In the Shadow - (1967) - novelette
• 323 - Trader Team - [David Falkayn] - (1965) - novella
• 392 - Honorable Enemies - [Dominic Flandry] - (1951) - novelette
• 410 - Outpost of Empire - [Dominic Flandry] - (1967) - novella
• 468 - Hunters of the Sky Cave - [Dominic Flandry] - (1965) - novel (variant of We Claim These Stars! 1959)

The first of three volumes collecting ALL of the Psychotechnic League future history stories, from multiple Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning author Poul Anderson. After World War III ravages the globe, humanity, led by the Psychotechnic Institute, bands together to create peace on Earth and to spread that peace throughout the solar system and beyond. But soon the cycle of war and destruction begins anew. Includes short stories never before collected in a Psychotechnic League volume.

FROM THE ASHES OF WORLD WAR III

World War III has ravaged the globe. Once great nations have been brought to their knees. Now, a new science offers hope for the future: Psychodynamics, the ability to influence government and popular opinion. Led by the Psychotechnic Institute, humanity denounces its violent ways, once and for all. While peace reigns on Earth, humankind ventures out into the Solar System--and to the stars beyond. But soon the cycle of war and destruction begins anew.

The first of three volumes collecting all of multiple Hugo- and Nebula-Award winning author Poul Anderson's massive future history magnum opus. Includes short stories previously uncollected in a Psychotechnic League volume!

FROM THE RAVAGES OF WAR, HOPE FOR A BRIGHTER TOMORROW

After World War III has ravaged the globe and toppled once-great nations, a new science offers hope for the future: Psychodynamics, the ability to influence government and popular opinion. Led by the Psychotechnic Institute, humanity denounces its violent ways, once and for all. Peace reigns on Earth. Humankind shakes off the tyranny of gravity and ventures out into the galaxy. But no sooner is utopia realized than the cycle of war and destruction begins anew.

The second of three volumes collecting all of multiple Hugo- and Nebula-Award winning author Poul Anderson's massive future history magnum opus. Includes short stories previously uncollected in a Psychotechnic League volume!

Table of Contents:

• Quixote and the Windmill - (1950) - short story
• Holmgang - (1955) - novelette
• Cold Victory - (1957) - novelette
• What Shall It Profit? - (1956) - short story
• The Troublemakers - (1953) - novella
• The Snows of Ganymede - (1955) - novella
• Brake - (1957) - novelette
• Gypsy - (1950) - short story
• Star Ship - (1950) - novelette

Volume three of three collecting ALL of the Psychotechnic League future history stories, from multiple Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning author Poul Anderson. Includes stories never before collected in a Psychotechnic League volume! After World War III ravages the globe, humanity, led by the Psychotechnic Institute, bands together to create peace on Earth and to spread that peace throughout the Solar System and beyond. But soon the cycle of war and destruction begins anew.

After World War III has ravaged the globe and toppled once-great nations, a new science offers hope for the future: Psychodynamics, the ability to influence government and popular opinion. Led by the Psychotechnic Institute, humanity denounces its violent ways, once and for all. Peace reigns on Earth. Humankind shakes off the tyranny of gravity and ventures out into the galaxy. But no sooner is utopia realized than the cycle of war and destruction begins anew.

The final of three volumes collecting all of multiple Hugo- and Nebula-Award winning author Poul Anderson's massive future history magnum opus. Includes short stories previously uncollected in a Psychotechnic League volume!

Table of Contents:

• The Acolytes - (1951) - short story
• The Green Thumb - (1953) - novelette
• Virgin Planet - (1957) - novella
• Teucan - (1954) - novelette
• The Pirate - (1968) - novelette
• Entity - (1949) - short story with John Gergen
• Symmetry - (1954) - short story
• The Chapter Ends - (1954) - novelette

At seventeen, Harald Sigurdharson--one day to be called Hardrede--tastes the bitter nectar of blood and battle for the first time, and from that day forward he will forever crave the intoxicating brew of war. Though he knows it is his destiny to conquer and to rule, he is still young and the throne he covets is beyond his grasp. In the meantime, the wide world beckons.

Setting out from Norway after a great series of mercenary adventures in Sweden and Russia, the now towering seven-foot-tall Harald arrives at Constantinople on the Golden Horn. In the heart of an empire choking on its own intrigues and excesses, as a member of the Varangian Guard--the foreign warriors entrusted with the safety of the Byzantine emperor--and a tireless suitor to an enticing beauty from a powerful clan, Harald carves out his legend in flesh, bone, and blood. But his true path stretches to the other side of the world, for he must ultimately return to Norway, his homeland, to claim his royal birthright.

The giant Norse warrior-king Harald Hardrede strives to forge a mighty empire by conquering the North in the second volume of the epic Last Viking Trilogy

He is a savior to the hordes of loyal Norsemen who would gladly give their lives battling at his side and a dreaded scourge to anyone who resists his dreams of empire. Now, Harald Hardrede--who, legend has it, has never been defeated in battle or sport--has returned to Norway, the land of his birth, after years of serving foreign rulers in faraway realms.

The lessons of Constantinople are not lost on the giant Viking warrior, as he sets out to unite the northlands under his sole rule and create an empire to rival the great powers of Europe. Harald's task will not come easily and will demand great sacrifice, for the resisting Danes love their current king, and the proud people of the Throndheimsfjord would rather die than relinquish their cherished independence. But the fabled "Lightning of the North" will not be deterred, for he is determined to carve his place in history--or die in the process.

The epic saga of Norway's greatest hero concludes as the legendary Viking conqueror-king Harald Hardrede pursues his dreams of empire to the shores of England

Young Norseman Harald Hardrede eagerly followed the hand of destiny around the world, learning much of the methods of conquerors and kings. Throughout history there have been great and lauded champions who achieved far less than the towering Viking who now rightly rules Norway. But the crown sits heavily upon Harald's head, for the throne he occupies rests on shaky ground: Treachery is brewing in the lands of a one-time ally in the North and the conquest of Denmark remains an elusive dream. The enduring sadness of his beloved wife pains him, and the sons he sired with his tempestuous mistress remain to him perplexing mysteries.

As the middle years take their toll on the greatest of all Norse champions and a magnificent era approaches its end, destiny once again summons the "Lightning of the North." Ahead lies the king's final adventure, one last opportunity to man the dragon-prowed ships and sail across an ocean for the prize he has coveted above all others: the fortified island called Britannia.

"Five of our worlds are missing". That was the essence of the report that shocked the galactic Nomads at their annual meeting. For each of the mighty star-ships reported vanished was a world of its own - a man-made, self-sustaining city-state housing thousands of people. The Nomads themselves were an unplanned by-product of man's conquest of the stars. They were the gypsies of the distant future, the restless rovers of outer space. But to Joachim of the peregrine tey represented a way of life that was to be dearly defended. So it fell to him to make his own world-ship the bait in a cosmic trap set to catch the galaxy's unknown foemen!

FOR 300 YEARS THE PLANET OF WOMEN AWAITED THE COMING OF MAN. THEN ONE ARRIVES...

He is Davis Bertram, a space-explorer. But how can he convince the he really is a man? Their legends have built Men into gods.

Trying to worthy of the Coming, the women imitate masculine virtues. they are warlike, ambitions, ruthless. Unless Davis can convince them he is a man, they will kill him for blasphemy. But if he does convince them, the Coctor-Priests will kill him to protect their own iron control of the planet....

IN THE BEGINNING WAS WORLD WAR III...

Out of the flames was born a new civilization, a new humanity dedicated to one world rather than to many nations, to one peace rather than many wars. Never again on Planet Earth would one group of humans "defend" themselves against another group equally convinced that all their actions were "defensive." Never again on Planet Earth.

But cycles repeat themselves endlessly. Earth is only the beginning of the human story. Next coms planer against planet, and then the stars themselves. Through it all the impersonal forces of historical necessity will tend to force that story into the pathways of tyranny, stasis, and war. And in the end they must prevail. But ever will humankind win free once more...

Table of Contents:

• 10 - Foreword (The Psycho-Technic League) - essay by Sandra Miesel
• 13 - Marius - [Psychotechnic League] - (1957) - short story
• 31 - Un-Man - [Psychotechnic League] - (1953) - novella
• 131 - The Sensitive Man - [Psychotechnic League] - (1954) - novella
• 201 - The Big Rain - [Psychotechnic League] - (1954) - novella
• 283 - Author's Note (The Psycho-Technic League) - essay

The Psychotechnic Institute

Born in the radioactive ashes of world War Three the Institute for Applied Psychotechnics had guided Planet Earth to a period of plenty that for the first time fulfilled Science's promise. But it is the central irony of human existence that prosperity bears the seeds of its own destruction, this time not just Earth but the entire Solar System would endure the flames of war. Cold Victory.

Table of Contents:

• 9 - Foreword (Cold Victory) - essay by Sandra Miesel
• 15 - Quixote and the Windmill - [Psychotechnic League] - (1950) - short story
• 31 - The Troublemakers - [Psychotechnic League] - (1953) - novella
• 112 - Holmgang - [Psychotechnic League] - (1955) - novelette
• 165 - Cold Victory - [Psychotechnic League] - (1957) - novelette
• 196 - What Shall It Profit? - [Psychotechnic League] - (1956) - short story
• 225 - Brake - [Psychotechnic League] - (1957) - novelette

THE WARS ARE OVER...

The conflicts of Planet Earth are forgotten now. Even The Solar System War with its Cold Victory is barely a memory. In this the third and final volume of The Psychotechnic League, the scale is immeasurably greater in Sace, in Time... and in violence.

Table of Contents:

• 9 - Foreword (Starship) - essay by Sandra Miesel
• 12 - Gypsy - [Psychotechnic League] - (1950) - short story
• 36 - Star Ship - [Psychotechnic League] - (1950) - novelette
• 83 - Virgin Planet - [Psychotechnic League] - (1957) - novella
• 183 - Teucan - [Psychotechnic League] - (1954) - novelette
• 211 - The Pirate - [Psychotechnic League] - (1968) - novelette
• 253 - The Chapter Ends - [Psychotechnic League] - (1954) - novelette
• 283 - A Chronology of the Psychotechnic Series - essay by Sandra Miesel

Contents:

• Time Patrol
• Brave to be King
• The Only Game in Town
• Delenda Est

Two novella's in Anderson's Time Patrol universe.

Table of Contents:

• Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks - novella
• The Sorrow of Odin the Goth - novella

SF veteran Anderson revives his Time Patrol series for this brisk, intricate tale of crime and pursuit across the centuries. The trouble starts when bandits from the far future stage a raid on the fabulous ransom that Francisco Pizarro demanded in 1533 for the Inca Emperior Atahuallpa.

Mase Everard is a man with a mission. As an Unattached Agent of the Time Patrol, he's to go anyplace - and anytime! - where humanity's transcendent future is threatened by the alteration of the past. This is Manse's profession, and his burden: for how much suffering, throughout human history, can he bear to "preserve"?

Wanda Tamberley is a Patrol member in search of her mission. Recruited from sunny California in the late 20th century, she'd rather serve as a scientist in the research branch, exploring Earth's flora and fauna in epochs long past. But as hints accumulate from the Patrol's mysterious leaders uptime, it's beginning to look as if a lot of human history depends on her personal decisions - and Manse's.

Meanwhile, the Exaltationists are on the loose, determined to revise human history and rule Time forever and Manse Everard is sworn to stop them, no matter what the heartbreaking cost!

Table of Contents:

• The Stranger That is Within Thy Gates - short story
• Women and Horses and Power and War - novella
• Before the Gods That Made the Gods - short story
• Beringia - novella
• Riddle Me This - short story
• Amazement of the World - novella

This anthology of all the classic short tales of the Time Patrol, the future organization that insures the continuity of human history, also includes a short novel about the patrol, Star of the Sea.

Table of Contents:

• Time Patrol - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• Brave to Be a King - (1959) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• Gibraltar Falls - (1975) - short story by Poul Anderson
• The Only Game in Town - (1960) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• Delenda Est - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks - (1983) - novella by Poul Anderson
• The Sorrow of Odin the Goth - (1983) - novella by Poul Anderson
• Star of the Sea - (1991) - novella by Poul Anderson
• The Year of the Ransom - (1988) - novel by Poul Anderson

No Truce With Kings:

Anderson's tale follows Colonel Mackenzie of the Army of the Pacific States of America as civil war breaks out in the wake of the President usurping power. Decades after a nuclear war, the inheritors of the United States of America - rather like the European kingdoms after Rome's fall - are feudal, vie for power, and hope to recapture the technological and, perhaps, political glories of the past.

But, with the Espers, a religion that promises the development of man's latent psychic powers, something new in human history may have been brought into the mix.

Ship of Shadows:

The setting is a spaceship; Spar is just a man who wants some teeth and better eyes. Old Doc says he may be able to use some old technology to give those to him. But then Spar gets involved with Crown, the local gangster. Oh, and people keep disappearing - maybe due to vampires.

The Saturn Game:

Imaginative roleplaying provides relief for some of the crew on the long, dull trip to Saturn. However their imaginary world becomes hazardously confused with the real one when a team begins the exploration of one of Saturn's moons.

Iceborn:

Pluto was the last place anyone expected to find life. That's why it's the last place they looked.

THE LONGEST VOYAGE:

In search of the Aureate cities, Captain Rovic had brought the Golden Leaper halfway round the World. Weathering hurricanes and mutiny, he meant to do what no other ship's master had done: circumnavigate the glove and return to riches and glory. Then, on a distant, barbarous island, Rovic met a shipwrecked traveler who claimed to have come on an even longer voyage. But who could believe his tale - of a ship that sailed between the stars?

SLOW LIGHTNING:

A full-length original novel of alien contact, from a rising star of SF Ira and Gray found the egg on an abandoned ferryboat. It was wrinkled, with smears of red and yellow, and bigger than a basketball. They weren't sure why it was there, only that it must have been left there on purpose. The next day, the egg had grown ... Gray wouldn't guess what might be inside it, but Ira knew it had to be better than anything else he had on this rotten world. Then it hatched, and the real trouble began!

This short story is a retunr to the Wing Alak stories Anderson produced early in his carreer. It appeared as a chapbook in 1991 and is included in the collection All One Universe (1996).