Search Worlds Without End

WFA nominated short story. It originally appeared in the anthology Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy (2008), edited by William Schafer. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best Fantasy 9 (2009), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection The Best of Kage Baker (2012).

Do you want a jewel worn by Cleopatra, an original Shakespeare folio, or the combined genes of Socrates and Marilyn Monroe? Dr. Zeus can make your dreams come true.

The Company, a powerful corporate entity in the twenty-fourth century, has discovered a nearly foolproof recipe for success: immortal employees and time travel. It specializes in retrieving extraordinary treasures out of the past, gathered by cybernetically enhanced workers who pass as ordinary people. Or at least they try to pass....

One rule at Dr. Zeus Incorporated must not be broken: Recorded history cannot be changed. But avoiding the attention of mortals while stealing from them? It's definitely not in the Company manual.

History awaits, although not quite the one you remember.

Table of Contents:

• The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park - (2012) - shortstory by Kage Baker
• The Unfortunate Gytt - (2005) - shortstory by Kage Baker
• The Women of Nell Gwynne's - (2009) - novella by Kage Baker
• Mother Aegypt - (2004) - novella by Kage Baker
• Rude Mechanicals - (2007) - novella by Kage Baker
• Hollywood Ikons - (2013) - shortfiction by Kage Baker and Kathleen Bartholomew

This novella originally appeared in the collection Mother Aegypt and Other Stories (2004). It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Second Annual Collection (2005), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection In the Company of Thieves (2013).

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Sideways in Crime (2008), edited by Lou Anders, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld, Issue 128, May 2017. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best Fantasy 9 (2009), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Kramer.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Kage Baker's death in 2010 silenced one of the most distinctive, consistently engaging voices in contemporary fiction. A late starter, Baker published her first short stories in 1997, at the age of forty-five. From then until the end of her life, she wrote prolifically and well, leaving an astonishing body of work behind.

The Best of Kage Baker is a treasure trove that gathers together twenty stories and novellas, eleven of which have never been collected anywhere. The volume is bookended by a pair of tales from her best known and best loved creation: The Company, with its vivid cast of time traveling immortals. In 'Noble Mold,' Mendoza the botanist and Joseph, the ancient 'facilitator,' find themselves in 19th century California, where a straightforward acquisition grows unexpectedly complex, requiring, in the end, a carefully engineered 'miracle.' In 'The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park,' an autistic Company operative named Ezra encounters a lost soul named Kristy Ann, and finds a way to give her back the world that she has lost.

Among the volume's many other highlights are a pair of brilliant Company novellas: the Hugo Award-nominated 'Son, Observe the Time' and 'Welcome to Olympos, Mr. Hearst,' a tour de force set in the Hollywood of the 1930s and featuring an encounter with legendary newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. There is also a generous assortment of equally brilliant standalone tales, including 'Calamari Curls,' the account of a faded resort town that takes a surprising turn into Lovecraftian terrain, and the World Fantasy Award-nominated 'Caverns of Mystery,' in which ancient stories play themselves out repeatedly, shaping and altering the world around them.

These are only a few of the pleasures waiting within this book. The Best of Kage Baker is exactly what the title proclaims: the best short work of a gifted and irreplaceable writer. Anyone with an interest in first-rate imaginative fiction--anyone with an interest in lovingly crafted fiction of any kind--needs to read this book.

Table of Contents:

• Noble Mold - (1997) - shortstory
• Old Flat Top - (2002) - shortstory
• Hanuman - (2002) - novelette
• Son Observe the Time - (1999) - novella
• Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst - (2003) - novella
• The Catch - (2004) - novelette
• Leaving His Cares Behind - (2004) - novelette
• What the Tyger Told Her - (2001) - shortstory
• Calamari Curls - (2006) - shortstory
• Maelstrom - (2007) - novelette
• Speed, Speed the Cable - (2008) - novelette
• Caverns of Mystery - (2008) - shortstory
• Are You Afflicted with Dragons? - (2009) - shortstory
• I Begyn as I Meane to Go On - (2008) - shortstory
• The Ruby Incomparable - (2007) - shortstory
• Plotters and Shooters - (2007) - novelette
• The Faithful - (2003) - novelette
• The Leaping Lover - (2007) - shortfiction
• Bad Machine - (2005) - novelette
• The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park - (2012) - shortstory

In a time beyond the apocalypse, when the remnants of society are trying to restore life to the way it once was, three young circus children go exploring in the town where the circus is camped. As they wander the empty streets they stumble upon a building they will never forget, in which floor after floor is crammed with an abundance of books. This library is heaven for these child survivors of the apocalypse, but they may not be the only ones who feel this way.

This short story originally appreared in the anthology The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF (2010), edited by Mike Asley. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection (2011), edited by Gardner Dozois, After the End: Recent Apocalypses (2013), edited by Paula Guran, and Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries & Lore (2017), edited by Paula Guran.

Appealing to boys and girls alike, this beguiling adventure explores classic fantasy themes from a unique young heroine's perspective. Nine-year-old Emma loses everything she has in a fearsome storm and finds herself alone in the wilderness of the Dunes-an area desolate since the mysterious disappearance of a resort known as the Grand Wenlocke. Finding a friend in Winston, the ghostly bellboy who wanders the Dunes, Emma learns that it has been more than 100 years since the hotel with an unsavory reputation vanished; but, unbeknownst to either of them, the long slumbering resort has just begun to stir. Allying herself with a motley crew of companions-the ghost bellboy, a kindhearted cook, a pirate with a heart of gold, and the imperious young heir to the Wenlocke fortune-Emma soon learns that things are not always as lost as they seem, especially if you have a brave heart and good friends.

When purest Evil and purest Good join in marriage, you can't expect the relationship to be a tranquil one--but sometimes it can produce unexpected consequences that surprise both.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy (2007), edited by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann. It was reprinted in Lightspeed, May 2012. The story can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best Fantasy 8 (2008), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and Best American Fantasy 2 (2008), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. It is included in the collection The Best of Kage Baker (2012).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

The Anvil of the World is the tale of Smith and his feud-prone people, the Children of the Sun. Smith, formerly a successful assassin, is trying to retire, hoping to live an honest life in obscurity in spite of all those who have sworn to kill him. But when he agrees to be the master of a caravan from traveling from the inland city of Troon to Salesh by the sea, trouble follows.

As always, Baker's approach is charmingly distinctive. Smith's adventure is certainly the only fantasy featuring a white-uniformed nurse, gourmet cuisine, one hundred and forty-four glass butterflies, and a steamboat.

Before the Riders came to their remote valley the Yendri led a tranquil pastoral life. When the Riders conquered and enslaved them, only a few escaped to the forests. Rebellion wasn't the Yendri way; they hid, or passively resisted, taking consolation in the prophecies of their spiritual leader.

Only one possessed the necessary rage to fight back: Gard the foundling, half-demon, who began a one-man guerrilla war against the Riders. His struggle ended in the loss of the family he loved, and condemnation from his own people.

Exiled, he was taken as a slave by powerful mages ruling an underground kingdom. Bitterer and wiser, he found more subtle ways to earn his freedom. This is the story of his rise to power, his vengeance, his unlikely redemption and his maturation into a loving father--as well as a lord and commander of demon armies.

Kage Baker, author of the popular and witty fantasy, The Anvil of the World, returns to that magical world for another story of love, adventure, and a fair bit of ironic humor.

In this new story set in the world of The Anvil of the World and The House of the Stag, two teenagers join the crew of a huge river barge after their addict mother is drowned. The girl and her half-breed younger brother try to make the barge their new home. As the great boat proceeds up the long river, we see a panorama of cities and cultures, and begin to perceive patterns in the pirate attacks that happen so frequently in the river cities. Eliss, the girl, becomes a sharp-eyed spotter of obstacles in the river for the barge, and more than that, one who perceives deeply.

A young boy her age, Krelan, trained as a professional assassin, has come aboard, seeking the head of a dead nobleman, so that there might be a proper burial. But the head proves as elusive as the real explanation behind the looting of cities, so he needs Eliss's help. And then there is the massive Captain of the barge, who can perform supernatural tricks, but prefers to stay in his cabin and drink.

We hope you enjoy this complete story from Songs of the Dying Earth, about, in author Kage Baker's words, "a liar and thief in a doomed world of liars and thieves."

This story originally appeared in the George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois anthology Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance (2009).

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Hugo-nominated and Nebula-winning Novella

Lady Beatrice was the proper British daughter of a proper British soldier, until tragedy struck and sent her home to walk the streets of early-Victorian London. But Lady Beatrice is no ordinary whore, and is soon recruited to join an underground establishment known as Nell Gwynne's. Nell Gwynne's is far more than simply the finest and most exclusive brothel in Whitehall; it is in fact the sister organization to the Gentlemen's Speculative Society, that 19th-century predecessor to a certain Company... and when a member of the Society goes missing on a peculiar assignment, it's up to Lady Beatrice and her sister harlots to investigate.

Re-published by Subterranean Press in 2010 as "Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy", with the addition of the Nell Gwynne novelette "The Bohemian Astrobleme".

Sequel to The Women of Nell Gwynne's (2009). Originally published in Subterranean Press Magazine, Winter 2010.

Read the full story for free at Subterranean.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology The Silver Gryphon (2003), edited by Marty Halpern and Gary Turner. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 9 (2004), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and The Time Traveler's Almanac (2014), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. The story is included in the collection Gods and Pawns (2007).

This collection brings together the early Company stories in one volume for the first time with three previously unpublished works, including 'The Queen in Yellow', written exclusively for this compilation. In these tales sci-fi fans follow the secret activities of the Company's field agents -- once human, now centuries-old time-travelling immortal cyborgs -- as they attempt to retrieve history's lost treasures. Botanist Mendoza's search for the rare hallucinogenic Black Elysium grape in 1844 Spanish-held Santa Barbara, facilitator Joseph's dreamlike solicitation of the ailing Robert Louis Stevenson in 1879, and marine salvage specialist Kalugin's recovering of an invaluable Eugene Delacroix painting from a sunken yacht off the coast of Los Angeles in 1894 are included.

These eight stories, reprinted for the first time in this collection, delve further into the history and exploits of the Company. The book opens with the novella, "To the Land Beyond the Sunset," starring Lewis and Mendoza, and involving a strange tribe in Bolivia whose members claim to be gods. "Standing in His Light" features Van Drouten's role in the career of the artist Jan Vermeer. Other stories include "Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst," which opens up intriguing questions about The Company, and the original novelette, "Hellfire at Twilight," which concludes the volume and tells of Lewis infiltrating the famous Hellfire Club in eighteenth century England. Gods and Pawns is a compelling read for every Baker fan, and essential for Company addicts.

Table of Contents

• To the Land Beyond the Sunset - (2007) - novella
• The Catch - (2004) - novelette
• The Angel in the Darkness - (2003) - novella
• Standing in His Light - (2001) - novelette
• A Night on the Barbary Coast - (2003) - short story
• Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst - (2003) - novella
• Hellfire at Twilight - (2007) - novelette

This novelette originally appeared in the collection Gods and Pawns (2007). It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (2008), edited by Gardner Dozois.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Fast Forward 1 (2007), edited by Lou Anders. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 13 (2008), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, Twenty-First Century Science Fiction (2013), edited by David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and Space Opera (2014), edited by Rich Horton. The story is included in the collection The Best of Kage Baker (2012).

The year is 1934, the scene is a Wood Near Athens -- temporarily relocated to the environs of the Hollywood Bowl, as German theater impresario Max Reinhardt attempts to stage his famous production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Fortunately for Reinhardt, he has immortal assistance in the person of Literature Specialist Lewis, a cyborg working undercover for Dr. Zeus Incorporated, masters of time travel. Lewis is tasked with preserving Reinhardt's promptbooks for future Company profits at auction. Unfortunately for Reinhardt, there are complications... For Joseph, Lewis's fellow cyborg, is on the case as well, attempting to salvage a botched mission of his own. It involves the lost treasure of the Cahuenga Pass, a missing diamond, a third-century pope, burglary, disguises, car chases, and a legendary Hollywood party spot. All of which interact, more or less disastrously, with Lewis's mission and Reinhardt's Shakespearean extravaganza. Will the show go on?

Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, May 1999. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection (2000), edited Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collection The Best of Kage Baker (2012).

Sturgeon Award winning and Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novella.

There were three Empresses of Mars. The first one was a bar at the Settlement. The second was the lady who ran the bar; though her title was strictly informal, having been bestowed on her by the regular customers, and her domain extended no further than the pleasantly gloomy walls of the only place you could get beer on the Tharsis Bulge. The third one was the Queen of England.

The story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 2003 and appeared as a chapbook later that year. It is included in the anthology Best Short Novels: 2004, edited by Jonathan Strahan. It was later expanded into the novel The Empress of Mars (2009).

Listen to the author read this story at Green Man Review.

This short story originally appeared in the collection Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers (2002). It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection (2003), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Futures Past (2006), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois.

This novella originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, October-November 2003. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection (2004), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collections Gods and Pawns (2007) and The Best of Kage Baker (2012).

Growing up anywhere is hard, but it may be hardest of all on Mars. Bill is twelve Earth years old. He was the third boy born on the red planet. Ford is six Mars years old. He was the second.

This novella originally appeared in the anthology Escape from Earth: New Adventures in Space (2006), edited by Jack Dann and Garnder Dozois, and was published as a standalone limited-edition chapbook by Subterranean Press (2013). It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection (2007), edited by Gardner Dozois, Best Short Novels: 2007, edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of The Year's Best Science Fiction (2019), edited by Gardner Dozois.

In the 24th century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life (for profit of course). It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company, Dr. Zeus. One of these is Mendoza the botanist. She is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden.

But while there, she meets Nicholas Harpole, with whom she falls in love. And that love sounds great bells of change that will echo down the centuries, and through the succeeding novels of The Company.

Facilitator Joseph has outlasted entire civilizations during his twenty-thousand years of service to Dr. Zeus, the twenty-fourth century Company that created immortal operatives like him to preserve history and culture. The year is 1699 and Joseph is now in Alta California, to imitate an ancient Native-American Coyote god, and save the native Chumash from the white Europeans.He has the help of the Botanist Mendoza, who hasn't gotten over the death of her lover Nicholas, in Elizabethan England.

Lately though, Joseph has started to have a few doubts about The Company. There are whispers about the year 2355, about operatives that suddenly go missing. Time is running out for Joseph, which is ironic considering he's immortal, but no one ever said that it was easy being a god.

In the 24th century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life, for profit, of course. It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company, Dr. Zeus. One of these is Mendoza the botanist. The death of her lover has been followed by centuries of heartbreak. She spends a period of time in early twentieth century Hollywood in the days of D.W. Griffith, and then Mendoza is in the midst of the Civil War, and runs into a man that looks disturbingly similar to her lost love. She is about to find love again, and be in more trouble than she could ever have imagined.

Mendoza is a Preserver for The Dr. Zeus Company, living in the past to collect species for the future. But when she kills six people in California in 1863, The Company makes her disappear.

Joseph, a senior Preserver, loves Mendoza as the daughter he never had. Drunk on chocolate and fueled by rage, he's determined to find her however long it takes. Being an indestructible, immortal cyborg gives him an unlimited well of patience.

What begins as a rescue mission uncovers a conspiracy stretching across fifty centuries of recorded history. Behind it lie genocide, graveyards filled with Company agents, and the roots of the ominous Silence that falls across the world in 2355.

From idea to flesh to myth, this is the story of Alec Checkerfield: Seventh Earl of Finsbury, pirate, renegade, hero, anomaly, Mendoza's once and future love.

Mendoza is a Preserver, which means that she's sent back from the twenty-fourth century by Dr. Zeus, Incorporated - the Company - to recover things from the past which would otherwise be lost. She's a botanist, a good one. She's an immortal, indestructible cyborg. And she's a woman in love.

In sixteenth century England, Mendoza fell for a native, a renegade, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiated determination and sexuality. He died a martyr's death, burned at the stake. In nineteenth century America, Mendoza fell for an eerily identical native, a renegade, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiated determination and sexuality. When he died, she killed six men to avenge him.

The Company didn't like that - bad for business. But she's immortal and indestructible, so they couldn't hurt her. Instead, they dumped her in the Back Way Back.

Meanwhile, back in the future, three eccentric geniuses sit in a parlor at Oxford University and play at being the new Inklings, the heirs of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Working for Dr. Zeus, they create heroic stories and give them flesh, myths in blood and DNA to protect the future from the World to Come, the fearsome Silence that will fall on the world in 2355. They create a hero, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiates determination and sexuality.

"Now," stranded 150,000 years in the past, there are no natives for Mendoza to fall in love with. She tends a garden of maize, and she pines for the man she lost, twice. For Three. Thousand. Years.

Then, one day, out of the sky and out of the future comes a renegade, a timefaring pirate, a tall, dark, not handsome man who radiates determination and sexuality. This is the beginning of the end.

Take a ride through time with the devil. In the sixth book of the Company series, we meet Executive Facilitator General Labienus. He's used his immortal centuries to plot a complete takeover of the world since he was a young god-figure in Sumeria.

In a meditative mood, he reviews his interesting career. He muses on his subversion of the Company black project ADONAI. He considers also Aegeus, his despised rival for power, who has discovered and captured a useful race of mortals known as Homo sapiens umbratilis. Their unique talents may enable him to seize ultimate power.

Labienus plans a double cross that will kill two birds with one stone: he will woo away Aegeus promising protege, the Facilitator Victor, and at the same time dispose of a ghost from his own past who has become inconvenient. The Hugo-nominated novella Son Observe The Time, telling that part of the story, is included here in its entirety. Fans of the series will love this book, and new readers will be enthralled.

Kage Baker's trademark series of SF adventure continues now in a direct sequel to The Life of the World to Come.

Mendoza was banished long ago, to a prison lost in time where rebellious immortals are "dealt with." Now her past lovers: Alec, Nicholas, and Bell-Fairfax, are determined to rescue her, but first they must learn how to live together, because all three happen to be sharing Alec's body. What they find when they discover Mendoza is even worse than what they could imagined, and enough for them to decide to finally fight back against the Company.

The Kage Baker novel everyone has been waiting for: the conclusion to the story of Mendoza and The Company.

In The Sons of Heaven, the forces gathering to seize power finally move on the Company. The immortal Lewis wakes to find himself blinded, crippled, and left with no weapons but his voice, his memory, and the friendship of one extraordinary little girl. Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, resurrected Victorian superman, plans for world domination. The immortal Mendoza makes a desperate bargain to delay him. Enforcer Budu, assisted by Joseph, enlists an unexpected ally in his plans to free his old warriors and bring judgment on his former masters.

Executive Facilitator Suleyman uses his intelligence operation to uncover the secret of Alpha-Omega, vital to the mortals’ survival. The mortal masters of the Company, terrified of a coup, invest in a plan they believe will terminate their immortal servants. And they awaken a powerful AI whom they call Dr Zeus.

Filled with great climaxes, wonderful surprises, and gripping characters many readers have grown to love or hate, The Sons of Heaven is a triumph of SF.

When the British Arean Company founded its Martian colony, it welcomed any settlers it could get. Outcasts, misfits and dreamers emigrated in droves to undertake the grueling task of terraforming the cold red planet--only to be abandoned when the BAC discovered it couldn't turn a profit on Mars.

This is the story of Mary Griffith, a determined woman with three daughters, who opened the only place to buy a beer on the Tharsis Bulge. It's the story of Manco Inca, whose attempt to terraform Mars brought a new goddess vividly to life; of Stanford Crosley, con man extraordinaire; of Ottorino Vespucci, space cowboy and romantic hero; of the Clan Morrigan, of the denizens of the Martian Motel, and of the machinations of another Company entirely, all of whom contribute to the downfall of the BAC and the founding of a new world. But Mary and her struggles and triumphs is at the center of it all, in her bar, the Empress of Mars.

Based on the Hugo-nominated novella of the same name, this is a rollicking novel of action, planetary romance, and high adventure.

Listen to the author read the novella version of this story at Green Man Review.

Recently returned from war, young Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax is grateful to be taken under the wing of the Gentleman's Speculative Society. At the Society, Edward soon learns that a secret world flourishes beneath the surface of London's society, a world of wondrous and terrible inventions and devices used to tip the balance of power in a long-running game of high-stakes intrigue. Through his intensive training Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax, unwanted and lonely boy, becomes Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax, Victorian super-assassin, fleeing across the Turkish countryside in steam-powered coaches and honing his fighting skills against clockwork opponents.

As Edward travels across Europe with a team of companions, all disguised as gentleman dandies on tour, he learns more about himself and the curious abilities he is gradually developing. He begins to wonder if there isn't more going on than simple international intrigue, and if he and his companions are maybe part of a political and economic game stretching through the centuries. But, in the end, is it a game he can bring himself to play?

Edward Anton Bell-Fairfax, the idealistic assassin. Perhaps the most dangerous man alive.