Search Worlds Without End

What if when Columbus came to the New World he found, not Indians, but primitive apelike men who were soon dubbed "sims"?

These immediate ancestors of modern man were less effective hunters, allowing prehistoric creatures such as mammoths and saber-toothed tigers to survive. Unable to learn human speech or conceptualize at a human level, sims could, however, be trained to do reliable work... as slaves.

Table of Contents:

• The Sorry Record - (1988) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• Preface (A Different Flesh) - (1988)
• Vilest Beast - (1985)
• And so to Bed - (1986)
• Around the Salt Lick - (1986)
• The Iron Elephant - (1986)
• Though the Heavens Fall - (1986)
• Trapping Run - (1988)
• Freedom - (1988)

When the Viking lander on the planet Minerva was destroyed, sending back one last photo of a strange alien being, scientists on Earth were flabbergasted. And so a joint investigation was launched by the United States and the Soviet Union, the first long-distance manned space mission, and a symbol of the new peace between the two great rivals.

Humankind's first close encounter with extraterrestrials would be history in the making, and the two teams were schooled in diplomacy as well as in science. But nothing prepared them for alien war -- especially when the Americans and the Soviets found themselves on opposite sides...

1945: Russian troops have entered Berlin, and are engaged in a violent orgy of robbery, rape, and revenge...

Wehrmacht officer Hasso Pemsel, a career soldier on the losing end of the greatest war in history, flees from a sniper's bullet, finding himself hurled into a mysterious, fantastic world of wizards, dragons, and unicorns. There he allies himself with the blond-haired, blue-eyed Lenelli, and Velona, their goddess in human form, offering them his knowledge of warfare and weaponry in their genocidal struggle against a race of diminutive, swarthy barbarians known as Grenye.

But soon, the savagery of the Lenelli begins to eat at Hasso Pemsel's soul, causing him to question everything he has long believed about race and Reich, right and wrong, Übermenschen and Untermenschen. Hasso Pemsel will learn the difference between following orders... and following his conscience.

In a Moslem-free universe where Constantinople never fell, the Byzantine Empire has not only survived but flourished, developing technology at an earlier date than in our universe. And spreading its power and influence throughout the world. But Byzantium has enemies who are jealous of its glory and would like nothing better than to bring it down and loot its treasures.

Basil Argyros, Byzantium's top agent, as his hands full, thwarting un-Byzantine plots and making the world safe for the Byzantine Empire.

What would happen if the ancient prophecy of the End of Days came true? It is certainly the last thing Eric Katz, a secular archaeologist from Los Angeles, expects during what should be a routine dig in Jerusalem. But perhaps higher forces have something else in mind when a sign presaging the rising of the Third Temple is located in America, a dirty bomb is detonated in downtown Tel Aviv, and events conspire to place a team of archaeologists in the tunnels deep under the Temple Mount. It is there that Eric is witness to a discovery of such monumental proportions that nothing will ever be the same again.

This short story originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, January 1986. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fourth Annual Collection (1987), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Best SF of the Year #16 (1987), edited by Terry Carr. The story is included in the collections A Different Flesh (1988) and Kaleidoscope (1990).

"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." – First Corinthians 15:52

From New York Times bestselling author, Harry Turtledove, critically-acclaimed novelist, James Morrow, and Nebula Award finalist, Cat Rambo, comes a masterful anthology of three sensational novellas depicting a dark fictional future of the United States.

And the Last Trump Shall Sound is a prophetic warning about where we, as a nation, may be headed. Mike Pence is President of the United States after years of divisive, dogmatic control by Donald Trump. The country is in turmoil as the Republicans have strengthened their stronghold on Congress, increasing their dominance. And with the support of the Supreme Court, more conservative than ever, State governments become more marginalized by the authoritarian rule of the Federal government.

There are those who cannot abide by what they view as a betrayal of the nation's founding principles. Once united communities break down and the unthinkable suddenly becomes the only possible solution: the end of the Union.

The authors' depiction of a country that is both unfamiliar and yet unnervingly all too realistic, make you realize the frightening possible consequences of our increased polarization?a dire warning to all of us of where we may be headed unless we can learn to come together again.

Contents

• The Breaking of Nations by Harry Turtledove - novella
• The Purloined Republic by James Morrow - novella
• Because It Is Bitter by Cat Rambo - novella

A famous naturalist seeks a near-extinct species of bird found only on the rarest of lands in "Audubon in Atlantis." A young American on a European holiday finds himself storming an enchanted German castle in "The Catcher in the Rhine." The philosopher Sokrates plays a key role in the Athenian victory over the Spartans in "The Daimon." Centaurs take a sea voyage aboard "The Horse of Bronze" to a land where they encounter a strange and frightening tribe of creatures known as man. London's most famous detective, Athelstan Helms, and his assistant, Dr. James Walton, are in Atlantis investigating a series of murders in "The Scarlet Band." Atlantis and Other Places includes these and seven more amazing stories of ancient eras, historical figures, mysterious events, and out-of-this-world adventure from the incomparable Harry Turtledove.

Table of Contents:

• Audubon in Atlantis -(2005)
• Bedfellows - (2005)
• News from the Front - (2007)
• The Catcher in the Rhine - (2000)
• The Daimon - (2003)
• Farmers' Law
• Occupation Duty - (2007)
• The Horse of Bronze - (2004)
• The Genetics Lecture - (2005)
• Someone is Stealing the Great Throne Rooms of the Galaxy - (2006)
• Uncle Alf - (2002)
• The Scarlet Band - (2006)

At the sun-drenched dawn of human history, in the great plain between the two great rivers, are the cities of men. And each city is ruled by its god.

But the god of the city of Gibil is lazy and has let the men of his city develop the habit of thinking for themselves. Now the men of Gibil have begun to devise arithmetic, and commerce, and are sending expeditions to trade with other lands.

They're starting to think that perhaps men needn't always be subject to the whims of gods. This has the other god worried.

And well they might be... because human cleverness, once awakened, isn't likely to be easily squelched.

THE NEW NOVEL IN THE POPULAR VIDESSOS SERIES

Rhavas was a good, holy, and pious man--and the cousin of the Avtokrator. He would probably have become ecumenical patriarch of the Empire in the capital, Videssos the city... if his world had not suddenly and tragically fallen apart when the Empire of Videssos erupted into civil war and the Khamorth barbarians swarmed over the borders.

As the home he loved was brutally sacked, Rhavas had to flee for his life, and then make his way through lands swarming with fierce nomads and with soldiers loyal both to his cousin and to the rebel. He may never see Videssos the city again, let alone preside in its High Temple.

He has always followed Phos, the god of light and goodness, Videssos' god, and despised evil rival Skotos. Those who fall off the Bridge of the Separator during judgment in the afterlife tumble down to Skotos' ice forevermore. But when evil seems to have swallowed the whole world, what is a cleric who reverences logic as well as goodness supposed to believe

It's a harder question than Rhavas wishes it were.

You're the greatest writer of the age, gone to ground and subsiding into drink. You always said you wanted to catch some of those Nazi bastards in the waters around your beloved Cuba. What happens when you actually get your wish?

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

From Harry Turtledove, bestselling author and critically acclaimed master of the short story, comes a classic collection of science fiction tales and what-if scenarios. In narratives ranging from fantastic to oddly familiar to eerily prescient, this compelling volume illustrates Turtledove's literary skill and unbridled imagination.

FORTY, COUNTING DOWN: With the help of his time-travel software, computer genius Justin Kloster returns to the past to stop himself from making a terrible mistake - but all actions have their consequences.

THE MALTESE ELEPHANT: A legendary detective finds himself in grave danger when a noir masterpiece takes a stunning new twist.

GODDESS FOR A DAY: Taking a page from history, a young girl dares to challenge the gods - and is richly rewarded for her efforts.

DECONSTRUCTION GANG: Mired in unemployment and despair, an academic finds happiness and intellectual fulfillment in a most unexpected place.

TWENTY-ONE, COUNTING UP: Justin Kloster's college life and romantic dreams are rudely interrupted - and irreversibly disrupted - when forty-year-old Justin arrives from the future to save himself from himself.

Plus twelve more thrilling, unforgettable tales of wonder!

Table of Contents:

• Forty, Counting Down - (1999)
• Must and Shall - (1995)
• Ready for the Fatherland - (1991)
• The Phantom Tolbukhin - (1998)
• Deconstruction Gang - (1992)
• The Green Buffalo - (1991)
• The Maltese Elephant - (1995)
• Vermin - (1993)
• Ils ne passeront pas - (1998)
• In This Season - (1992)
• Honeymouth - (1990)
• Myth Manners' Guide to Greek Missology #1: Andromeda and Perseus - (1999)
• Goddess for a Day - (1995)
• After the Last Elf is Dead - (1988)
• The Decoy Duck - (1992)
• The Seventh Chapter - (1997)
• Twenty-One, Counting Up - (1999)

What if history had taken a different path, made a detour, and deviated just a little bit from the road it chose? Here, Harry Turtledove explores such "what ifs" in twenty alternate-history stories ranging from ancient times to the far, far-different future.

Persia has conquered Greece; Athens is in ruins. Yet even under Persia's rule, the power of the people can never be completely broken...

A werewolf boy tears through Cologne's medieval stretts in search of sanctuary from the angry mob. But who will shelter a creature so hated and feared?

A student from the far-off future sets off on a field trip to study Genghis Khan -- and finds him in the twentieth century?

And many more!

Table of Contents:

• Author's Note (Departures) - (1993)
• Counting Potsherds - (1989)
• Death in Vesunna - (1981) - Harry Turtledove and Elaine O'Byrne
• Departures - (1989)
• Islands in the Sea - (1989)
• Not All Wolves - (1988)
• Clash of Arms - (1988)
• Pillar of Cloud, Pillar of Fire - (1989)
• Report of the Special Committee on the Quality of Life - (1980)
• Batboy - (1988)
• The Last Reunion - (1992)
• Designated Hitter - (1990)
• Gladly Wolde He Lerne - (1991)
• The Barbecue, the Movie, and Other Unfortunately Not So Relevant Material - (1986)
• In the Presence of Mine Enemies - (1992)
• The R Strain - (1985)
• Lure - (1988)
• Secret Names - (1992)
• Les Mortes D'Arthur - (1985)
• Last Favour - (1987)
• Nasty, Brutish, and... - (1989)
• About the Author
• The Guns of the South (Excerpt)

Hugo Award winning novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, January 1993. The story can also be found in the anthology The New Hugo Winners, Volume IV: (1992-94) (1997), edited by Gregory Benford. It is included in the collection We Install and Other Stories (2015).

Read the full story for free at the Baen website.

Jennifer Logan was young, gorgeous, and utterly dedicated to teaching middle English. But to qualify for any decent teaching position, she'd have to make her résumé stand out. Since her specialty was science fiction, she wrangled a berth on a trading ship bound for the stars. Just one trip, she figured, then back to a nice, safe classroom...

But Jennifer hadn't fully appreciated her own talent. She had a keen eye, a fresh perspective-and all of science fiction to fall back on when the going got tough!

Table of Contents:

• The G'Bur - (1987)
• The Atheters - (1989)
• The Foitani - (1991)

Otto of Schlepsig is risking his neck as an acrobat in a third-rate circus in the middle of nowhere when news arrives that the land of Shqiperi has invited Prince Halim Eddin to become its new king. Otto doesn't know the prince from Adam, but he does happen to look just like him-a coincidence that inspires Otto with a mad plan to assume Halim's identity and rule in his stead. True, Shqiperi is an uncivilized backwater, but even in uncivilized backwaters kings live better than acrobats. Plus, kingship in Shqiperi comes with a harem. Rank, as they say, has its privileges.

With his friend Max, a sword-swallowing giant whose chronic cough makes every performance a potential tonsillectomy, Otto embarks on a rollicking journey filled with feats of derring-do, wondrous magic, and beautiful maidens-well, beautiful women. And that's before he enters a royal world that is truly fantastical.

The twentieth century was awash in war. World powers were pouring men and machines onto the killing fields of Europe. Then, in one dramatic stroke, a divided planet was changed forever. An alien race attacked Earth, and for every nation, every human being, new battle lines were drawn.

HOMEWARD BOUND

With his epic novels of alternate history, Harry Turtledove shares a stunning vision of what might have been-and what might still be-if one moment in history were changed. In the WorldWar and Colonization series, an ancient, highly advanced alien species found itself locked in a bitter struggle with a distant, rebellious planet-Earth. For those defending the Earth, this all-out war for survival supercharged human technology, made friends of foes, and turned allies into bitter enemies.

For the aliens known as the Race, the conflict has yielded dire consequences. Mankind has developed nuclear technology years ahead of schedule, forcing the invaders to accept an uneasy truce with nations that possess the technology to defend themselves. But it is the Americans, with their primitive inventiveness, who discover a way to launch themselves through distant space-and reach the Race's home planet itself.

Now-in the twenty-first century-a few daring men and women embark upon a journey no human has made before. Warriors, diplomats, traitors, and exiles-the humans who arrive in the place called Home find themselves genuine strangers on a strange world, and at the center of a flash point with terrifying potential. For their arrival on the alien home world may drive the enemy to make the ultimate decision-to annihilate an entire planet, rather than allow the human contagion to spread. It may be that nothing can deter them from this course.

With its extraordinary cast of characters-human, nonhuman, and some in between-Homeward Bound is a fascinating contemplation of cultures, armies, and individuals in collision. From the novelist USA Today calls "the leading author of alternate history," this is a novel of vision, adventure, and constant, astounding surprise.

Nicole Gunther-Perrin is a modern young professional, proud of her legal skills but weary of childcare, of senior law partners who put the moves on her, and of her deadbeat ex-husband. Following a ghastly day of dealing with all three, she falls into bed asleep - and awakens the next morning to find herself in a different life, that of a widowed tavernkeeper in the Roman frontier town of Carnuntum around 170 A.D.

Delighted at first to be away from corrupt, sexist modern America, she quickly begins to realise that her new world is as complicated as her old one. Violence, dirt, and pain are everywhere - and yet many of the people she comes to know are as happy as those she knew in twentieth-century Los Angeles. Slavery is a commonplace, gladiators kill for sport, and drunkenness is taken for granted - but everyday people somehow manage to face life with humour and good will.

No quitter, Nicole manages to adapt to her new life despite endless worry about the fate of her children "back" in the twentieth century. Then plague sweeps through Carnuntum, followed by brutal war. Amid pain and loss on a level she had never imagined, Nicole finds reserves of strength she had never known.

From the master of alternate history comes an epic of the Second Civil War. It was an epoch of glory and success, of disaster and despair. Twenty years after the South won the Civil War, America writhed once more in the bloody throes of battle. Furious over the annexation of key Mexican territory, the United States declared total war against the Confederate States of America. And so, in 1883, the fragile peace was shattered.

But this was a new kind of war, fought on a lawless frontier where the blue and gray battled not only each other, but the Apache, the outlaw, and even the redcoat. Along with France, England entered the fray on the side of the South, with blockades and invasions from Canada.

Out of this tragic struggle emerged figures great and small. The disgraced Abraham Lincoln crisscrossed the nation championing socialist ideals. Confederate cavalry leader Jeb Stuart sought to prevent wholesale slaughter in the desert Southwest, while cocky young Theodore Roosevelt and stodgy George Custer bickered over modern weapons--even as they drove the British back into western Canada.

Thanks to the efforts of journalists like Samuel Clemens, the nation witnessed the clash of human dreams and passions. Confederate genius Stonewall Jackson again soared to the heights of military expertise, while the North's McClellan proved sadly undeserving of his once shining reputation as the "young Napoleon." For in the Second War Between the States, the times, the stakes, and the battle lines had changed... and so would history.

Once again, Harry Turtledove has created a thoroughly engrossing alternate history novel, a profoundly original epic of blood and honor, courage and sacrifice, set amidst the raw beauty of young America's frontier wilderness.

Heinrich Gimpel is a respected officer with the Oberkommando Wehrmachts office in Berlin. His wife is a common hausfrau, raising his three precious daughters the same way he was raised - to be loyal, unquestioning citizens of the Third Reich, obedient to the will of the Führer.

But Heinrich Gimpel has a secret. He is not, in fact, a member of the Master Race. He has been living a lie to protect his true identity as a Jew - and he's not alone. Throughout Berlin, Jews survive in secrecy...doing their jobs, caring for their families, maintaining the facade of perfect Aryans, and praying they will not be discovered.

But a change is coming. And soon they will be forced to choose between safety and freedom...

This short story originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March 2013. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014, edited by Rich Horton. The story is included in the collection We Install and Other Stories (2015).

President Herbert Hoover has failed America. The Great Depression that rose from the ashes of the 1929 stock market crash still casts its dark shadow over the country. Despairing and desperate, the American people hope one of the potential Democratic candidates--New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and California congressman Joe Steele--can get the nation on the road to recovery.

But fate snatches away one hope when a mansion fire claims the life of Roosevelt, leaving the Democratic party little choice but to nominate Steele, son of a Russian immigrant laborer who identifies more with the common man than with Washington D.C.'s wealthy power brokers.

Achieving a landslide victory, President Joe Steele wastes no time pushing through Congress reforms that put citizens back to work. Anyone who gets in his way is getting in the way of America, and that includes the highest in the land. Joe Steele's critics may believe the government is gaining too much control, but they tend to find themselves in work camps if they make too much noise about it. And most people welcome strong leadership, full employment, and an absence of complaining from the newspapers--especially as Hitler and Trotsky begin the kind of posturing that seems sure to drag America into war.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian (2003) edited by Janis Ian and Mike Resnick. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection (2004), edited by Gardner Dozois. Turtledove later expanded the story to the full novel Joe Steele (2015).

Thirteen dazzling tales by a master of science fiction and fantasy, including:

THE WEATHER'S FINE - In our world, time is money, but in Harry Turtledove's alternate world, weather is time. And for Tom and Donna, happiness requires a temperature of 1968.

THE LAST ARTICLE - The Nazis had conquered the British Empire. But what use were Panzers and storm troopers against the Empire's most troublesome subject - Mahatma Gandhi?

THE CASTLE OF THE SPARROWHAWK - Prince Rupen accepted the faeries' challenge to win his heart's desire. And though they told him the price of failure, they did not mention the penalty of success!

GENTLEMEN OF THE SHADE - If Jack the Ripper was a vampire, who better to stop him than Victorian London's other vampires? And who else but they could arrive at so sublimely fitting a punishment?

Table of Contents:

• And so to Bed - (1986)
• Bluff - (1985)
• A Difficult Undertaking - (1986)
• The Weather's Fine - (1987)
• Crybaby - (1987)
• Hindsight - (1984)
• Gentlemen of the Shade - (1988)
• The Boring Beast - (1988) by Harry Turtledove and Kevin R. Sanders
• The Road Not Taken - [Roxalani] - (1985)
• The Castle of the Sparrowhawk - (1985)
• The Summer Garden
• The Last Article - (1988)
• The Girl Who Took Lessons - (1988)

In the history we know, General Robert E. Lee felt compelled to fight on the Confederate side, because honor (as he saw it) forbade him to take up arms against Virginia, his native state. But what if the demands of honor had led him in the other direction altogether? Harry Turtledove, author of perhaps the most famous alternate-history novel about Robert E. Lee (The Guns of the South, 1992), here returns with a look at what the great military leader might have done under only slightly different circumstances...

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Sidewise, Hugo and Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, November 1995. The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Awards 32 (1998), edited by Jack Dann and Roads Not Taken: Tales of Alternate History (1998) edited by Gardner Dozois and Stanley Schmidt. It is included in the collection Counting Up, Counting Down (2002).

A man sets out to tell a story of his ex, which in turns becomes a story of the world. If only he could change that story - find the moment where it all began and alter the past. But what if he can't find the beginning - or even the end?

Read the story for free at Tor Reactor

When the Survey Service first came to Bilbeis IV, it found a planet inhabited by humanoid aliens just on the verge of civilization. Then compassion overcame common sense, and David Ware did the one thing the Service prohibited - he interfered. Just a little.

But when the Survey Service returned 1,500 years later, it discovered just what David Ware's meddling had done.

The bureaucrats of the Survey Service could not afford to allow just a breach of Noninteference to be publicized. So they set out to cover it up. Reports were destroyed, files erased, and people eliminated. For the future of the Survey Service was at stake - and so was the future of Bilbeis IV.

As Britain faces the full fury of the Nazi war machine, hope comes in the form of American volunteers called the Eagle Squadrons. As these units join their RAF cousins during the Battle of Britain, famous woman aviator Amelia Earhart (who survived her world-circling flight) emerges as a rallying point for those willing to stand against fascism.

Harry Turtledove, Capclave 2009's Guest of Honor, is the master of alternate history, and now with Reincarnations, a limited edition celebrating his achievements, he explores worlds that might have been. Featuring six previously-uncollected stories, an original story, story notes, and an introduction by Sheila Williams, the editor of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Reincarnations) - (2009) - essay by Sheila Williams
• The Haunted Bicuspid - (2005)
• Reincarnation - (1990)
• The Phantom Tolbukhin - (1998)
• Moso - (2008)
• Bluethroats - (2009)
• Worlds Enough, and Time - (2008)
• He Woke in Darkness - (2005)
• They'd Never-- - (1994)

The year is 1597. For nearly a decade the island of Britain has been under the rule of King Philip in the name of Spain. The citizenry live under an enforced curfew - and in fear of the Inquisition's agents who put heretics to the torch in public displays. And with Queen Elizabeth imprisoned in the Tower of London the British have no one to unite them against the enemy who occupies their land.

William Shakespeare has no interest in politics. His passion is the theatre where his words bring laughter and tears to a populace afraid to speak out against the tyranny of the Spanish crown. But now Shakespeare is given an opportunity to pen his greatest work - a drama that will incite the people of Britain to rise against their persecutors - and change the course of history...

Professional actors Veit Harlan and his wife Kristi are happy citizens of the prosperous, triumphant Reich. It's been over a century since the War of Retribution cleaned up Europe, long enough that now curious tourists flock to the painstakingly recreated "village" of Wawolnice, where--along with dozens of colleagues--Veit and Kristi re-enact the daily life of the long-exterminated but still frightening "Jews."

Veit and Kristi are true professionals, proud of their craft. They've learned all there is to know about this vanished way of life. They know the dead languages, the turns of phrase, the prayers, the manners, the food. But now they're beginning to learn what happens when you immerse yourself long enough in something real...

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

From the Hugo-winning, bestselling author of The Guns of the South, a tale of love, parasitism, and loss.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

For more than forty years, Harry Turtledove has been the acknowledged master of one of science fiction's most durable sub-genres: the tale of alternate history. In the course of an incredibly prolific career, Turtledove has created a host of brilliantly imagined revisionist histories on subjects ranging from the American Civil War to the Byzantine Empire to the Second World War (in which an alien invasion plays an unexpected role.) His work includes standalone novels and multi-volume epics, along with an impressive array of short fiction, the best of which has been gathered in this generous, irreplaceable volume.

The Best of Harry Turtledove opens with "Peace is Better," the first of three stories featuring Bill Williamson, the nine-foot-tall Sasquatch who serves as governor of the fictional state of Jefferson, a place where "everyone gets along, regardless of race or size." Or species. "Bonehunters" posits a world in which the extinction event that ended the reign of the dinosaurs never took place. Two subsequent stories, "Junior & Me" and the Melville-inspired novella, "The Quest for the Great Gray Mossy," continue to develop this scenario. "The Eighth Grade History Class Visits the Hebrew Home for the Aging" imagines a world in which Anne Frank survived and emigrated to the United States, where she recounts her experiences to a visiting middle school class. "But It Does Move" is the account of a fictional confrontation between Galileo and a leader of the Holy Inquisition.

These are only a few of the people, places, and historical epochs you will encounter in this magisterial collection. The twenty-four stories in The Best of Harry Turtledove constitute a master class both in the technique of alternate history and in the art of narrative itself. Longtime Turtledove readers will take this book to their hearts. Newcomers will find themselves searching for more of the author's inimitable--and highly addictive--fiction. They have a lot to look forward to.

David Fisher, an EPA (Environmental Perfection Agency) bureaucrat, was not the stuff of which heroes are made. At least he hoped not. All he wanted was a good life with a good wife, and a chance to do his bit for society reviewing magical impact statements (like the one that assesses the effect on local non-life resulting from the introduction of leprechauns into Southern California, for example) and ensuring that various manufacturers of magical devices did not intentionally or otherwise foul the environment with the sorcerous by-products of their trade. Indeed it would be hard to imagine a more regular and down to earth soul than that of David Fisher of the EPA. No hero he!

Then one day David received a call from Washington to investigate a certain Toxic Spell Dump, and suddenly he is up to his neck in skullduggery and magic most foul. Some ancient deity, it seems, is attempting to reopen for business in the L.A. Basin, complete with human sacrifice (open up their hearts and let the sun shine in!) and the destruction of Western Civilization. All that stands in the way is David Fisher - and he's no hero.

Until he has to be.

Some people will tell you that world-class fame is better than living to a contented old age. Other people disagree. One of those other people might possibly be the protagonist of this tale by Harry Turtledove, master of the counterfactual.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

The Bronze Age. The era of Troy, of Gilgamesh, of the dawning of human mastery over the earth. For decades, fantasists have set tales of heroism and adventure in imagined worlds based on the real Bronze Age, from the "Hyborean Age" of the Conan stories to the Third Age of Middle-earth.

Now bestselling science fiction and fantasy author Harry Turtledove, a noted expert on the ancient world, teams up with author and Egyptologist Noreen Doyle to present fourteen new tales of the real Bronze Age from some of the best writers in science fiction.

In The First Heroes: here is Gene Wolfe's mock-journal of a man from the future who travels with figures out of history and mythology; Judith Tarr's tale of a a town that sends its resident goddess to try to learn the secrets of the morose God of Chariots; Harry Turtledove's story about mythological beings witnessing the devastating effect of the first humans on the Earth's natural order; and a poignant new story from the late Poul Anderson, in which a modern scholar is sent to the late Bronze Age to witness the end of an era, emerging with memories from the past as vibrant and intact as those from his accustomed life.

Table of Contents:

• Definition - essay
• Introduction - essay by Harry Turtledove and Noreen Doyle
• The Lost Pilgrim - (2004) - novelette by Gene Wolfe
• How the Bells Came from Yang to Hubei - shortstory by B. W. Clough
• The Gods of Chariots - novelette by Judith Tarr
• The Horse of Bronze - novella by Harry Turtledove
• A Hero for the Gods - shortstory by Josepha Sherman
• Blood Wolf - novelette by S. M. Stirling
• Ankhtifi the Brave is dying - novelette by Noreen Doyle
• The God Voice - shortstory by Katharine Kerr and Debra Doyle
• Orqo Afloat on the Willkamayu - novelette by Karen Jordan Allen
• The Myrmidons - shortstory by Larry Hammer
• Giliad - novella by Gregory Feeley
• The Sea Mother's Gift - shortstory by Laura Frankos
• The Matter of the Ahhiyans - shortstory by Lois Tilton
• The Bog Sword - novelette by Poul Anderson

"It is absolutely unique--without question the most fascinating Civil War novel I have ever read."

Professor James M. McPherson

Pultizer Prize-winning BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM

January 1864--General Robert E. Lee faces defeat. The Army of Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equpped. Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower.

Then, Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle: Its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking--and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantitites to the Confederates.

The name of the weapon is the AK-47....

Since the Big Bubble popped in 1929, life in the United States hasn't been the same. Hotshot wizards will tell you nothing's really changed, but then again, hotshot wizards aren't looking for honest work in Enid, Oklahoma. No paying jobs at the mill, because zombies will work for nothing. The diner on Main Street is seeing hard times as well, because a lot fewer folks can afford to fly carpets in from miles away.

Jack Spivey's just another down-and-out trying to stay alive, doing a little of this and a little of that. Sometimes that means making a few bucks playing ball with the Enid Eagles, against teams from as many as two counties away. And sometimes it means roughing up rival thugs for Big Stu, the guy who calls the shots in Enid. But one day Jack knocks on the door of the person he's supposed to "deal with"--and realizes that he's not going to do any such thing to the young lady who answers. This means he needs to get out of the reach of Big Stu, who didn't get to where he is by letting defiance go unpunished.

Then the House of Daniel comes to town--a brash band of barnstormers who'll take on any team, and whose antics never fail to entertain. Against the odds Jack secures a berth with them. Now they're off to tour an America that's as shot through with magic as it is dead broke. Jack will never be the same--nor will baseball.

One February morning, H.L. Mencken walked into a Baltimore restaurant to have a bite and talk baseball with the owner, a has-been player named George...

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

This novelette originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 1988. It can also be found in the anthologies:

• Call to Battle! (1988), edited by John F. Carr and Jerry Pournelle
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection (1989), edited by Gardner Dozois
• What Might Have Been? Volume 2: Alternate Heroes (1990), edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg
• The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century (2001), edited by Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenberg
• One Lamp: Alternate History Stories from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (2003), edited by Gordon Van Gelder

The story is included in the collection Kaleidoscope (1990).

What if V-E Day didn't end World War II in Europe? What if, instead, the Allies had to face a potent, even fanatical, postwar Nazi resistance? Such a movement, based in the fabled Alpine Redoubt, was in fact a real threat, ultimately neutralized by Germany's flagging resources and squabbling officials. But had SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the notorious Man with the Iron Heart, not been assassinated in 1942, fate might have taken a different turn. We might likely have seen a German guerrilla war launched against the conquerors, presaging by more than half a century the protracted conflict with an unrelenting enemy that now engulfs the United States and its allies in Iraq. How might today's clash of troops versus terrorists have played out in 1945?

In this imagined world, Nazi forces resort to unconventional warfare, using the quick and dirty tactics of terrorism-booby traps, time bombs, mortar and rocket strikes in the night, assassinations, even kamikaze-style suicide attacks-to overturn what seemed to be a decisive Allied victory. In November 1945, a truck bomb blows up the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, where high-ranking Nazi officials are about to stand trial for war crimes. None of the accused are there when the bomb goes off, but their judges, all of them present and accounted for, are annihilated. Worse acts of terrorism follow all over Europe.

Suddenly the Allies-especially the United States-must battle an invisible enemy and sacrifice countless lives in a long, seemingly pointless, unwinnable conflict. On the home front, patriotism corrodes, political fortunes are made and lost in the face of an antiwar backlash, and a once-proud country wonders how the righteous fight for freedom overseas has collapsed into a hopeless quagmire. At once a novel of thrilling military suspense, intriguing alternate history, and profound insight into contemporary affairs, The Man with the Iron Heart is a tour de force by a storyteller of exceptional imaginative power.

There's what we know... and what we assume.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

True story: in 1954, Joe Baumann hit 72 home runs for the Roswell Rockets, the most exciting thing to happen to Roswell since the alien landing. Not to imply a causal relationship. Well, maybe a little one.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

A precious and historic painting has been stolen by terrorists - radical separatists who will stop at nothing to shatter the union. Colonel Thomas Bushell, the government's most fearless agent, is the only man who can stop them.

But this is not our world. For the stolen painting depicts a treaty of peace between George Washington and King George III - a treaty that has kept America under British rule for two centuries. And the terrorists, who call themselves the "Sons of Liberty", want America to be free...

It's 1974, and Jerry Stieglitz is a grad student in marine biology at UCLA with a side gig selling short stories to science fiction magazines, just weeks away from marrying his longtime fiancée. Then his life is upended by grim-faced men from three-letter agencies who want him to join a top-secret "Project Azorian" in the middle of the north Pacific Ocean--and they really don't take "no" for an answer. Further, they're offering enough money to solve all of his immediate problems.

Joining up and swearing to secrecy, what he first learns is that Project Azorian is secretly trying to raise a sunken Russian submarine, while pretending to be harvesting undersea manganese nodules. But the dead Russian sub, while real, turns out to be a cover story as well. What's down on the ocean floor next to it is the thing that killed the sub: an alien spacecraft.

Jerry's a scientist, a longhair, a storyteller, a dreamer. He stands out like a sore thumb on the Glomar Explorer, a ship full of CIA operatives, RAND Corporation eggheads, and roustabout divers. But it turns out that he's the one person in the North Pacific who's truly thought out all the ways that human-alien first contact might go.

And meanwhile, it's still 1974 back on the mainland. Richard Nixon is drinking heavily and talking to the paintings on the White House walls. The USA is changing fast--and who knows what will happen when this story gets out?

From the modern master of alternate history and New York Times bestselling author Harry Turtledove, Through Darkest Europe envisions a world dominated by a prosperous and democratic Middle East--and under threat from the world's worst trouble spot.

Senior investigator Khalid al-Zarzisi is a modern man, a product of the unsurpassed educational systems of North Africa and the Middle East. Liberal, tolerant, and above all rich, the countries and cultures of North Africa and the Middle East have dominated the globe for centuries, from the Far East to the young nations of the Sunset Lands.

But one region has festered for decades: Europe, whose despots and monarchs can barely contain the simmering anger of their people. From Ireland to Scandinavia, Italy to Spain, European fundemantalists have carried out assassinations, hijackings, and bombings on their own soil and elsewhere. Extremist fundamentalist leaders have begun calling for a "crusade", an obscure term from the mists of European history.

Now Khalid has been sent to Rome, ground zero of backwater discontent. He and his partner Dawud have been tasked with figuring out how to protect the tinpot Grand Duke, the impoverished Pope, and the overall status quo, before European instability starts overflowing into the First World.

Then the bombs start to go off.

Being Governor of Jefferson has its particular perks, and its particular challenges. Particularly if you're a member of this Pacific Northwest state's most famous ethnic minority... with all the extra height and hair that implies.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Harris Moffatt III, President of the Free United States and Prime Minister of Canada, has never seen Washington, D.C.; it belongs to the Krolp now, along with ninety percent of everything. All he can do is try to keep the rest of it out of their hands.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

What if HIV started spreading in the early 1500s rather than the late 1900s? Without modern medicine, anybody who catches HIV is going to die. A patriarchal society reacts to this devastating disease in the only way it knows how: it sequesters women as much as possible, limiting contacts between the sexes except for married couples. While imperfect, such drastic actions do limit the spread of the disease.

The 'Wasting' (HIV) has caused devasting destruction throughout the known world and severely limited the development of technology as well, creating a mid-nineteenth century England and London almost unrecognizable to us. This is the world Viola is born into. Extremely intelligent and growing up in a house full of medical books which she reads, she dreams of travelling to far-off places, something she can only do via books since her actions and movements are severely restricted by both law custom.

William Shakespeare is mightily out of sorts -- every scribbling wagtail cullion in London is shamelessly pilfering his ideas, and this new fellow is the cheekiest of all. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead? What kind of name is that for a play?

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

From Harry Turtledove, bestselling author of the Worldwar series and The Guns of the South, a collection of nine stories and three essays that illuminate his broad storytelling range

Harry Turtledove earned the title "master of alternate history" from Publishers Weekly for his thought-provoking novels that turn historical facts into gripping tales of possibility. But his writing talent goes much further. We Install offers a showcase of styles, from humor--in "Father of the Groom," a scientist with a penchant for wild experimentation helps his love-struck son by synthesizing a wedding ring out of two carrots--to classic science fiction, as in the Hugo Award-winning "Down in the Bottomlands" and "Hoxbomb," in which a regular guy just trying to make a living selling scooters has to deal with some very odd competition. The alternate history tale "Drang von Osten" begins on a bloody battlefield in World War II and ends somewhere quite different. In the brand-new "Logan's Law," a man discovers that sometimes, second chances really do work out. The book's three essays tackle the diverse subjects of how to write alternate history, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and the history of Chanukah.

We Install will delight longtime Turtledove fans and new readers alike with its rich offerings from one of the finest craftsmen writing today.

Table of Contents:

• Father of the Groom
• We Install
• Drang von Osten
• Alternate History: the How-to of What Might Have Been
• Hoxbomb
• Logan's Law
• The Ring and I
• Birdwitching
• Down in the Bottomlands
• Perspectives on Chanukah
• Under St. Peter's
• It's the End of the World As We Know It, and We Feel Fine

Four award-winning authors. Four amazing alternate histories.

In this collection of novellas, four masters of alternate history turn back time, twisting the facts with four excursions into what might have been.

Bestselling author Harry Turtledove imagines a different fate for Socrates (now Sokrates); S. M. Stirling envisions life "in the wilds of a re-barbarized Texas" after asteroids strike the earth in the 19th century; Sidewise winner Mary Gentle contributes a story of love (and pigs) set in the mid-15th century, as European mercenaries prepare to sack a Gothic Carthage; and Nebula nominee Walter Jon Williams pens a tale of Nietzsche intervening in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Table of Contents:

• The Daimon - novella by Harry Turtledove
• The Real History Behind "The Daimon" - essay by Harry Turtledove
• Shikari in Galveston - novella by S. M. Stirling
• Why Then, There - essay by S. M. Stirling
• The Logistics of Carthage - novella by Mary Gentle
• 1477 and All That - essay by Mary Gentle
• The Last Ride of German Freddie - novella by Walter Jon Williams
• Afterword to "The Last Ride of German Freddie" - essay by Walter Jon Williams

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, September-October 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection (2018), edited by Gardner Dozois.

AMERICAN EMPIRE: BOOK ONE

Twice in the last century, brutal war erupted between the United States and the Confederacy. Then, after a generation of relative peace, The Great War exploded worldwide. As the conflict engulfed Europe, the C.S.A. backed the Allies, while the U.S. found its own ally in Imperial Germany. The Confederate States, France, and England all fell. Russia self-destructed, and the Japanese, seeing that the cause was lost, retired to fight another day.

The Great War has ended, and an uneasy peace reigns around most of the world. But nowhere is the peace more fragile than on the continent of North America, where bitter enemies share a single landmass and two long, bloody borders.

In the North, proud Canadian nationalists try to resist the colonial power of the United States. In the South, the once-mighty Confederate States have been pounded into poverty and merciless inflation. U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt refuses to return to pre-war borders. The scars of the past will not soon be healed. The time is right for madmen, demagogues, and terrorists.

At this crucial moment in history, with Socialists rising to power in the U.S. under the leadership of presidential candidate Upton Sinclair, a dangerous fanatic is on the rise in the Confederacy, preaching a message of hate. And in Canada another man--a simple farmer--has a nefarious plan: to assassinate the greatest U.S. war hero, General George Armstrong Custer.

With tension on the seas high, and an army of Marxist Negroes lurking in the swamplands of the Deep South, more than enough people are eager to return the world to war. Harry Turtledove sends his sprawling cast of men and women--wielding their own faiths, persuasions, and private demons--into the troubled times between the wars.

AMERICAN EMPIRE: BOOK TWO

In this spectacular, thought-provoking epic of alternate history, Harry Turtledove has created an unparalleled vision of social upheaval, war, and cutthroat politics in a world very much like our own--but with dramatic differences.

It is 1924--a time of rebuilding, from the slow reconstruction of Washington's most honored monuments to the reclamation of devastated cities in Europe and Canada. In the United States, the Socialist Party, led by Hosea Blackford, battles Calvin Coolidge to hold on to the Powell House in Philadelphia. And it seems as if the Socialists can do no wrong, for the stock market soars and America enjoys prosperity unknown in a half century. But as old names like Custer and Roosevelt fade into history, a new generation faces new uncertainties.

The Confederate States, victorious in the War of Secession and in the Second Mexican War but at last tasting defeat in the Great War, suffer poverty and natural calamity. The Freedom Party promises new strength and pride. But if its chief seizes the reins of power, he may prove a dangerous enemy for the hated U.S.A. Yet the United States take little note. Sharing world domination with Germany, they consider events in the Confederacy of little consequence.

As the 1920s end, calamity casts a pall across the continent. With civil war raging in Mexico, terrorist uprisings threatening U.S. control in Canada, and an explosion of violence in Utah, the United States are rocked by uncertainty.

In a world of occupiers and the occupied, of simmering hatreds, shattered lives, and pent-up violence, the center can no longer hold. And for a powerful nation, the ultimate shock will come when a fleet of foreign aircraft rain death and destruction upon one of the great cities of the United States....

Harry Turtledove's acclaimed alternate history series began with a single question: What if the South had won the Civil War? Now, seventy years have passed since the first War Between the States. The North American continent is locked in a battle of politics, economies, and moralities. In a world that has already felt the soul-shattering blow of the Great War, North America is the powder keg that could ignite another global conflict--complete with a new generation of killing machines.

"Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!" In 1934, the chant echoes across the Confederate States of America, a country born of bloodshed and passion, stretching from Mexico to Virginia. But while people use the word to greet each other in the streets, the meaning of "Freedom" has become increasingly unclear.

Jake Featherston, leader of the ruling Freedom Party, has won power--and is taking his country and the world to the edge of an abyss. Charismatic, shrewd, and addicted to conflict, Featherston is whipping the Confederate States into a frenzy of hatred. Blacks are being rounded up and sent to prison camps, and the persecution has just begun. Featherston has forced the United States to give up its toeholds in Florida and Kentucky, and as the North stumbles through a succession of leaders, from Socialist Hosea Blackford to Herbert Hoover and now Al Smith, Featherston is feeling his might. With the U.S.A. locked in a bitter, bloody occupation of Canada, facing an intractable rebellion in Utah, and fatigued from a war in the Pacific against Japan, Featherston may pursue one dangerous proposition above all: that he can defeat the U.S.A. in an all-out war.

The Victorious Opposition is a drama of leaders and followers, spies and traitors, lovers and soldiers. From California to Canada, from combat on the high seas to the secret meetings where former slaves plot a desperate strategy for survival, Harry Turtledove has created a human portrait of a world in upheaval. The third book in his monumental American Empire series, The Victorious Opposition is a novel of ideas, action, and surprise--and an unforgettable re-imagining of history itself.

In the extraordinary Worldwar tetralogy, set against the backdrop of the World War II, Harry Turtledove, the "Hugo-winning master of alternate SF" (Publishers Weekly), wove an explosive saga of world powers locked in conflict against an enemy from the stars. Now he expands his magnificent epic into the volatile 1960s, when the space race is in its infancy and humanity must face its greatest challenge: alien colonization of planet Earth.

Yet even in the shadow of this inexorable foe, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany are unable to relinquish their hostilities and unite against a massive new wave of extraterrestrials. For all the countries of the world, this is the greatest threat of all. This time, the terrible price of defeat will be the conquest of our world, and perhaps the extinction of the human race itself.

In 1942 Hitler led the world's most savage military machine. Stalin ruled Russia while America was just beginning to show its strength in World War II. Then, in Harry Turtledove's brilliantly imagined Worldwar saga, an alien assault changed everything. Nuclear destruction engulfed major cities, and the invaders claimed half the planet before an uneasy peace could be achieved.

A spectacular tale of tyranny and freedom, destruction and hope, Colonization takes us into the tumultuous 1960s, as the reptilian Race ponders its uneasy future. But now a new, even deadlier war threatens. Though the clamoring tribes of Earth play dangerous games of diplomacy, the ultimate power broker will be the Race itself. For the colonists have one option no human can ignore. With a vast, ancient empire already in place, the Race has the power to annihilate every living being on planet Earth...

World War II has evolved into decades of epic struggles and rebellions targeting the aliens known as the Race. As the 1960s begin, one of Earth's great powers launches a nuclear strike against the Race's colonization fleet-and the merciless invaders find themselves confronting a far more complex and challenging species than any they have encountered before. Ultimately, only superior firepower may keep Earth under the Empire's control-or it may destroy the world. While uprisings and aftershocks of war shake the planet, one nation plots a stunning counterattack...

A new Conan adventure--Conan of Venarium--from one of today's most popular writers of fantasy and science fiction, Harry Turtledove!

For decades, millions of readers have thrilled to the adventures of Conan, the barbarian adventurer invented by Robert E. Howard and further chronicled by other fantasy greats, including such notables as L. Sprague de Camp, Poul Anderson, and Robert Jordan.

Now Harry Turtledove, one of today's most popular writers of fantasy and SF, contributes a novel to the Conan saga--a tale of Conan in his youth, in the year or so before he becomes the wandering adventurer we know from the tales of Howard and others.

On the verge of adulthood, he lives in a Cimmerian hamlet, caring for his ailing mother, working in his father's smithy, and casting his eye on the weaver's daughter next door.
Then war comes: an invasion by the Aquilonian Empire. Conan burns to join the fight, but he's deemed too young. Then, from the border country, comes an unbelievable report: The Aquilonians have smashed the Cimmerian defending forces, and can rule as they please. Soon their heavily garrisoned forts dot the countryside. Their settlers follow after, carving homesteads out of other men's land.

Every Cimmerian longs to drive the intruders out with fire and sword, but they must stay their hands, for the Aquilonians have promised savage reprisals. Then, intolerably, the Aquilonian commander takes a wholly dishonorable interest in the weaver's daughter -- and he's not a man to wait, or even ask permission.

It's not a recipe for a peaceable outcome.

Jeremy Solter is a teenager growing up in the late 21st century. During the school year, his family lives in Southern California--but during the summer the whole family lives and works on the frontier of the Roman Empire. Not the Roman Empire that fell centuries ago, but a Roman Empire that never fell: a parallel timeline, one of an infinity of possible worlds.

For in our timeline, we now have the technology to move among these. Some are uninhabitable; some are ghastly, such as the one where Germany won World War II. But many are full of resources and raw materials that our world can use. So we send traders and businesspeople--but to keep the secret of crosstime traffic to ourselves, these traders are trained, in whole-family groups, to pass as natives.

But when Jeremy's mother gets sick--really sick, the kind you can't cure with antibiotics. Both parents duck out through the gateway for a quick visit to the doctor. But while they're gone, the gateways stop working. So do the communications links to their home timeline. The kids are on their own, and things are looking bad. The Lietuvans are invading. The city is besieged. The kids are doing their best to carry on business and act like everything's normal, but there's only so much you can do when cannonballs are crashing through your roof.

And in the meantime, the city government has gotten suspicious, and is demanding a *full* report on how their family does business, where they get their superior merchandise, why they want all that wheat... exactly the questions they don't want to answer.

In a parallel-world 21st-century San Francisco where the Kaiser's Germany won World War One and went on to dominate the world, Paul Gomes and his father Lawrence are secret agents for our timeline, posing as traders from a foreign land. They run a storefront shop called Curious Notions, selling what is in our world routine consumer technology-record players, radios, cassette decks--all of which is better than anything in this world, but only by a bit. Their real job is to obtain raw materials for our timeline. Just as importantly, they must guard the secret of Crosstime Traffic--for of the millions of parallel timelines, this is one of the few advanced enough to use that secret against us.

Now, however, the German occupation police are harrassing them. They want to know where they're getting their mysterious goods. Under pressure, Paul and Lawrence hint that their supplies comes from San Francisco's Chinese... setting in motion a chain of intrigues that will put the entire enterprise of Crosstime Traffic at deadly risk.

In the 21st-century Kingdom of Versailles, the roads are terrible and Paris is a dirty little town. Serfdom and slavery are both common, and no one thinks that's wrong. Why should they? Most people spend their lives doing backbreaking farm work anyway.

But teenaged Khadija, daughter of a prosperous family of Moorish business travellers, is unfazed. That's because Khadija is really Annette Klein from 21st-century California, and her whole family are secret agents of Crosstime Traffic, trading for commodities to send back to our own timeline. Now it's time for Annette and her family to go home for the start of another school year, so they join a pack train bound for their home base in Marseilles, where the crosstime portal is hidden.

Then bandits attack while they're crossing the Pyrenees. Annette/Khadija is separated from her parents and knocked out, and wakes up to find herself a captive in a caravan of slaves being taken to the markets in the south. She's in a tight spot.

Then the really scary thing happens: her purchasers take her, along with other newly purchased slaves, to an unofficial crosstime portal... leaving open the question of whether Crosstime Traffic will ever be able to recover her!

Justin's having the worst trip ever. He and his mother are Time Traders, traveling undercover to different alternate realities of Earth so they can take valuable resources back to their own timeline. In some of these worlds, Germany won World War I or the world has been destroyed by nuclear warfare. Justin and his mother are in an America that never became the United States: each state is like a country, and many of them are at war with each other. Their mission takes them to Virginia, which is on the verge of bloody violence with Ohio. Beckie is from California, and like the rest of her world, unaware that Time Traders exist.

The only reason she's in small town Virginia is because her grandmother dragged her there to visit old relatives. Beckie is just as horrified by the violence and racism of the alternate Virginia as Justin is, and the two are drawn to one another. But when full-fledged war breaks out between the States, including a biologically designed plague, will either of them manage to get back home? Forget about home: Will they make it out alive?

The Soviet Union won the Cold War. The Russians were a little smarter than they were in our own world, and the United States was a little dumber and a lot less resolute. Now, more than a century later, the world's gone Communist, and capitalism is a bad word.

For Gianfranco and his friend Annarita, a couple of teenagers growing up in Milan, life in a heavily regimented, surveillance-rich command economy is just plain dreary. The eventual withering-away of the state doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon.

Annarita's a hard-working student and a member of the Young Socialists' League. Gianfranco is a lot less motivated--but on the other hand, his father's a Party apparatchik. The biggest excitement in their lives is a wargame shop called The Gladiator, which runs tournaments, and stocks marvelous complex games you can't find anywhere else.

Then, abruptly, the shop is shut down. Someone's figured out that The Gladiator's games are teaching counterrevolutionary capitalist principles. The Security Police are searching high and low for the shop's proprietors, who've not only vanished into thin air, but have left behind sets of fingerprints that aren't in the records of any government on earth.

Only one staffer is left: Gianfranco and Annarita's friend Eduardo. He's on the run, and he comes to them in secret with an astonishing story: he's a time trader from our own timeline, accidentally left behind when the store was evacuated. The only way Eduardo can get home to his own timeline is if Gianfranco and Annarita can help him reach one of the other time trader sites in this world--and the Security Police will be on their tails all the way there.

Usually Crosstime Traffic concerns itself with trade. Our world owns the secret of travel between parallel continuums, and we mean to use it to trade for much-needed resources with the worlds next door. Preferably without letting them know about any of that parallel-worlds stuff.

But there's one parallel world that's different. In it, the atomic war broke out in 1967, at the height of the Summer of Love. Now, Crosstime Traffic has been given a different sort of mission: find out what on earth, or on the many earths, went wrong.

When the Duke of Bari suddenly dies, the neighboring nation of Algarve, long seething over its defeat a generation ago in the Six Years' War, sees its chance to bring Bari into the fold...an action which the other countries surrounding Algarve cannot, by treaty, tolerate. As nation after nation declares war, a chain of treaties are invoked, ultimately bringing almost all the Powers of Derlavai into a war of unprecedented destructiveness.

For modern magic is deadlier than in ears past. Trained flocks of dragons rain explosive fire down on defenseless cities. Massed infantry race from place to place along a network of ley-lines. Rival powers harness sea leviathans to help sabotage one another's ships. The lights are going out all across Derlavai, and will not come back on in this lifetime.

Against this tapestry Harry Turtledove tells the story of an enormous cast of characters: soldiers and generals, washerwomen and scholars, peasants and diplomats. For all the world, highborn and low, is being plunged by world war...into the darkness.

Now Turtledove returns to the story of a World War in a world where magic works, with this moving second volume. Algarvian soldiers corral Kaunians to send them west, towards Unkerlant, to work camps. The Kaunians left behind are worried about what the work camps might mean, but are assauged by Algarvian lies.

In Kuusamo, scholars race to find the relation between the laws of similarity and contagion. Rumors abound about the Algarvian work camps, rumors most cannot believe as true. But the mages know, for they can feel the loss of life in their very souls.

Turtledove's cast of characters takes on its own life as the reader sees the war from all sides and understands how the death and destruction benefits no one, not even the victors.

A young Kaunian girl is forced to remain hidden while her Forthwegian savior braves the rough, Algarvian-controlled streets to earn their keep. The scholars of Kuusamo are no closer to understanding the bloodless magic that may win the war-and time is short. Kuusamo has joined into an unsteady alliance with Lagoas and Unkerlant. No one kingdom trusts another, but they must unite, for it is only together that they can defeat the Algarvian threat.

The war is no longer confined to soldiers and sorcerers. Common folk are joining together to fight from underneath their oppressors, whether they be Algarve or Unkerlant. What those farmer soldiers lack in skill, they make up for in dedication. A dedication that will carry them... through the darkness.

Beginning with Into the Darkness, Darkness Descending, and Through the Darkness, bestselling author Harry Turtledove ("The master of alternative history"-Publishers Weekly) has been telling an epic tale: the story of a world war, comparable to the terrible world wars of our own 20th century, in a world where magic works.

Imagine the drama and terror of the Second World War-only the bullets are beams of magical fire, the tanks are great lumbering beasts, and fighters and bombers are dragons raining fire upon their targets. Welcome to the world of the Derlavaian War, a world that is slowly but surely being conquered, mile by bloody mile, by the forces of the Algarvian empire... forces whose most terrible battle magics are powered by the slaughter of innocent people, the Kaunians, whom Algarve-like much of the world-holds in disdain.

In this, the fourth volume of the series which began with Into the Darkness, the war for the continent of Derlavai builds toward its crescendo as the mages of Kuusamo, aided by their former rivals from Lagoas, work desperately to create a newer form of magic that will change the course of the war. But this is really a story of ordinary people-on all sides of the conflict-forced by fate to rise to their heroic limits... or sink to the level of their darker natures.

Harry Turtledove's masterful story of a magical world's cataclysmic war-which began with Into the Darkness, Darkness Descending, Through the Darkness, and Rulers of the Darkness-continues in this, the fifth volume of the series. The grand conflict for control of the continent of Derlavai rages on, in a battle with all the drama and terror of the Second World War-only the bullets are beams of magical fire, the tanks and submarines are great lumbering beasts, and the fighters and bombers are dragons raining fire upon their targets.

Yet hope may be dawning at last. The terrible onslaught of the conquering forces of Algarve-who power their battle magics with the life energy of their murdered victims-begins to founder as it runs into Habbakuk: a sorcerous ship of ice used by embattled nations of Lagoas and Kuusamo to ferry their deadly dragons across the seas to strike at the very heart of Algarvian power.

But though the tide has begun to turn, the conflict is far from over. The widely disdained Kaunians still struggle desperately to escape as the Algarvians kill them by the thousands-for life energy, but also simply for the crime of being Kaunian. And as the deaths of innocent civilians on both sides continue to feed the flames of war, those who have struggled to survive and preserve their freedom have only their passions to see them through....

Harry Turtledove's rousing saga of a fantastic world at war, which began in Into the Darkness and continued through Darkness Descending, Through the Darkness, Rulers of the Darkness, and Jaws of Darkness, draws to its climactic conclusion in Out of the Darkness.

As the Derlavaian War rages into its last and greatest battles, allied nations maneuver for positions against each other in a postwar world. But before that time can come, the forces of Algarve, Unkerlant, and their allies must clash a final time, countering army with army and battle magic with ever-more-powerful battle magic. In the midst of it all, the people the war has battered and reshaped must struggle to face their greatest individual challenges, as loves are shattered and found, terrible crimes avenged... and some journeys end forever.

And the end of the war may not bring peace...

Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, December 1999. The story can also be found in the anthology The Time Traveler's Almanac (2014), edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer. It is included in the collection Counting Up, Counting Down (2002).

Videssos was beset by enemies abroad and had fallen into decadence at home. But on his first night in the imperial capital, The Empires health mattered less to Krispos than finding a dry place to sleep.

Driven by crushing taxes from the farm where his family had lived -- and died -- Krispos had come to the. city seeking what fortune a good mind and a strong back could earn. He had a single goldpiece to his name -- the gift, years past, of a nomad chieftain to a ragged peasant boy. Now, though the night was raw and the inn was warm, he was loath to spend that coin, for the barbarian had claimed it carried magic.

Keep his lucky goldpiece or trade it for a warm, dry bed? Krispos tucked the coin away and stepped back into the wet streets -- all unaware that so simple a choice would lead to a world of peril and possibility...

Against all expectations, Krispos had won the crown of Videssos. But how long could he hope to keep head and crown together?

For trouble was brewing in every, quarter. Civil war erupted under Petronas, the late Emperor's uncle. A brilliant general and a canny politician, Petronas had a very personal score to settle against the upstart Krispos.

And even as rebel troops took the field against the untried Emperor, outland raiders swept down from the northlands in a tide of carnage. The power stemmed from foulest sorcery, and Videssos' wizards could not counter its evil curse.

Krispos reign showed every sign of being brief -- and very bloody...

Krispos had held the throne of Videssos since he was scarcely more than a peasant youth. But now a strange heresy has taken root in the land, a hidden dissent that is flaring into open revolt. As Krispos leads his legions with his three sons, against the rebels, one son disappears into the rebel ranks. Then the renegades seize the day, and Krispos wages an ever more desperate war against an implacable foe that would not scruple to set brother against brother, father against son....

This novella originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 2005. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection (2006), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Best Short Novels: 2006, edited by Jonathan Strahan. The story is included in the collection Atlantis and Other Places (2010).

Atlantis lies between Europe and the East Coast of Terranova. For many years, this land of opportunity lured dreamers from around the globe with its natural resources, offering a new beginning for those willing to brave the wonders of the unexplored territory.

It is a new world indeed: ripe for discovery, for plunder, and eventually for colonization?but will its settlers destroy the very wonders they had journeyed to Atlantis to find?

As England tightens its control over the Atlantean colonies, Victor Radcliff and his band of revolutionaries resolve to make the English pay for each and every piece of land they dare to occupy and will stop at nothing to preserve the liberty of their people as a new nation is born?a nation that will change the face of the world?

Frederick Radcliff is a descendent of the family that founded Atlantis's first settlement. But he is also a slave. And when fate presents him with the opportunity to throw off his shackles once and for all, he becomes the leader of a revolutionary army of slaves determined to free all of his brethren across Atlantis.

Count Hamnet Thyssen is a minor noble of the drowsy old Raumsdalian Empire. Its capital city, Nidaros, began as a mammoth hunters' camp at the edge of the great Glacier. But that was centuries ago, and as everyone knows, it's the nature of the great Glacier to withdraw a few feet every year. Now Nidaros is an old and many-spired city; and though they still feel the breath of the great Glacier in every winter's winds, the ice cap itself has retreated beyond the horizon.

Trasamund, a clan chief of the mammoth-herding Bizogots, the next tribe north, has come to town with strange news. A narrow gap has opened in what they'd always thought was an endless and impregnable wall of ice. The great Glacier does not go on forever--and on its other side are new lands, new animals, and possibly new people.

Ancient legend says that on the other side is the Golden Shrine, put there by the gods to guard the people of their world. Now, perhaps, the road to the legendary Golden Shrine is open. Who could resist the urge to go see?

For Count Hamnet and his several companions, the glacier has always been the boundary of the world. Now they'll be travelling beyond it into a world that's bigger than anyone knew. Adventures will surely be had...

Once the great Glacier enclosed the Raumsdalian Empire. Now it's broken open, and Count Hamnet Thyssen faces a new world. With the wisecracking Ulric Skakki, the neighboring clan leader Trasamund (politely addressed as Your Ferocity), and his lover, the shaman Liv, Hamnet leads an exploration of the new territory in hopes of finding the legendary Golden Shrine.

But dangers abound. A violent and implacable group known as the Rulers has already killed many, and now they attack again. Riding deer and woolly mammoths and using powerful magic, the Rulers triumph and force the Raumsdalians to flee.

In the spring another battle ends even more badly for Hamnet's side, but the Glacier is also retreating, so they are able to escape. Meeting a tribe whose desperate living conditions have led them to overcome the Raumsdalian taboo against eating fallen foes, they find unexpected allies. Now, returning to the capital city and its intrigues, Hamnet prepares to lead an army against the merciless Rulers. The world, once so bounded and comprehensible, will never be the same...

Continuing the alternate-Bronze-Age epic begun in Beyond the Gap:

The glaciers came and covered the world with ice. Now they are in retreat. North of the city of Nidaros, north of the forest, north of the steppes where the nomadic Bizogots hunt, a gap has opened in the ice-wall. And down through that gap come the men who call themselves "Rulers."

Their terrifying cavalry rides wooly mammoths. Their bows can shoot arrows farther than those of the southerners. Their wizards wield power that neither the shamans of the Bizogots nor the wizards of Raumsdalian Empire can match, a magic that can melt the stone beneath a man's feet, call down blasting fire from the sky, or decimate a tribe with plagues that have no cure. Scattered survivors of the Bizogot tribes hide from the Rulers. The Empire is shattered. The feckless Emperor Sigvat II is in hiding.

Against the Rulers stands Count Hamnet Thyssen and his small band of friends. Jarl Trasamund of the Three Tusk Bizogots. The adventurer Ulric Skakki. And, most important, Marcovefa, the female shaman of a cannibal tribe that lives atop the Glacier itself. Marcovefa has magic that the Rulers cannot counter.

But there are many Rulers, and they have many wizards. Marcovefa is but one.

Perhaps Hamnet and his allies can save their lands from the Rulers. But first they must seek out the legendary Golden Shrine--and the Golden Shrine has not been seen by human eyes since the time before the glaciers came.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched an attack against United States naval forces stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. But what if the Japanese followed up their air assault with an invasion and occupation of Hawaii? With American military forces subjugated and civilians living in fear of their conquerors, there is no one to stop the Japanese from using the islands' resources to launch an offensive against America's western coast.

Six weeks ago, Imperial Japanese military forces conquered and occupied the Hawaiian Islands. A puppet king sits on Hawaii's throne, his strings controlled by the general of the invasion force. American POWs, malnourished and weak, are enslaved as hard laborers until death takes them. Civilians fare little better, struggling to survive on dwindling resources. And families of Japanese origin find their loyalties divided.

Meanwhile, across the United States, from Pensacola, Florida, to San Diego, California, the military is marshaling its forces. Steel factories and fuel refineries are operating around the clock. New recruits are enlisting, undergoing rigorous training exercises. All for the opportunity to strike back and drive the enemy from American soil...

Harry Turtledove's remarkable alternative history novels brilliantly remind us of how fragile the thread of time can be, and offer us a world of "what if." Drawing on a magnificent cast of characters that includes soldiers, generals, lovers, spies, and demagogues, Turtledove returns to an epic tale that only he could tell-the story of a North American continent, separated into two bitterly opposed nations, that stands on the verge of exploding once again.

In 1914 they called it The Great War, and few could imagine anything worse. For nearly three decades a peace forged in blood and fatigue has held sway in North America. Now, Japan dominates the Pacific, the Russian Tsar rules Alaska, and England, under Winston Churchill, chafes for a return to its former glory. But behind the façade of world order, America is a bomb waiting to go off. Jake Featherston, the megalomaniacal leader of the Confederate States of America, is just the man to light the fuse.

In the White House in Philadelphia, Socialist President Al Smith is a living symbol of hope for a nation that has been through the fires of war and the flood tides of depression. In the South, Featherston and his ruling Freedom Party have put down a Negro rebellion with a bloody fist and have interned them in concentration camps. Now they are determined to crush their Northern neighbor at any cost.

Featherston's planes attack Philadelphia without warning. The U.S.A. lashes back blindly at Charleston. And a terrible second coming is at hand. When the CSA blitzkrieg is launched, the U.S.A. is caught flat-footed. Before long, the gray Army reaches Lake Erie. But in its wake the war machine is spinning a vortex of destruction, betrayal, and fury that no one, not even Jake Featherston himself, can control.

Now, President Smith faces a Herculean task, while an obscure assistant secretary of war named Roosevelt rises in his ranks. For the U.S.A., the darkest days still lay ahead. Across the globe, a new era of war has just begun. And in the hands of the incomparable Harry Turtledove, readers are treated to a masterful vision of what might have been. An enduring portrait of history, nations, and human nature in its many manifestations, Return Engagement is a monumental journey into the second half of the twentieth century.

Harry Turtledove-the master of alternate history-has recast the tumultuous twentieth century and created an epic that is powerful, bold, and as convincing as it is provocative. In Drive to the East he continues his saga of warfare that has divided a nation and now threatens the entire world.

In 1914, the First World War ignited a brutal conflict in North America, with the United States finally defeating the Confederate States. In 1917, The Great War ended and an era of simmering hatred began, fueled by the despotism of a few and the sacrifice of many. Now it's 1942. The USA and CSA are locked in a tangle of jagged, blood-soaked battle lines, modern weaponry, desperate strategies, and the kind of violence that only the damned could conjure up-for their enemies and themselves.

In Richmond, Confederate president and dictator Jake Featherston is shocked by what his own aircraft have done in Philadelphia-killing U.S. president Al Smith in a barrage of bombs. Featherston presses ahead with a secret plan carried out on the dusty plains of Texas, where a so-called detention camp hides a far more evil purpose.

As the untested U.S. vice president takes over for Smith, the United States face a furious thrust by the Confederate army, pressing inexorably into Pennsylvania. But with the industrial heartland under siege, Canada in revolt, and U.S. naval ships fighting against the Japanese in the Sandwich Islands, the most dangerous place in the world may be overlooked.

It is 1943, the third summer of the new war between the Confederate States of America and the United States, a war that will turn on the deeds of ordinary soldiers, extraordinary heroes, and a colorful cast of spies, politicians, rebels, and everyday citizens. The CSA president, Jake Featherston, seems to have greatly miscalculated the North's resilience. But as new demonic tools of killing are unleashed, secret wars are unfolding. The U.S. government in Philadelphia has proof that the tyrannical Featherston is murdering African Americans by the tens of thousands in a Texas gulag called Determination. And the leaders of both sides know full well that the world's next great power will not be the one with the biggest army but the nation that wins the race against nature and science-and smashes open the power of the atom.

Franklin Roosevelt is the assistant secretary of defense. Thomas Dewey is running for president with a blunt-speaking Missourian named Harry Truman at his side. Britain holds onto its desperate alliance with the USA's worst enemy, while a holocaust unfolds in Texas. In Harry Turtledove's compelling, disturbing, and extraordinarily vivid reshaping of American history, a war of secession has triggered a generation of madness. The tipping point has come at last.

The third war in sixty years, this one yet unnamed: a grinding, horrifying series of hostilities and atrocities between two nations sharing the same continent and both calling themselves Americans. At the dawn of 1944, the United States has beaten back a daredevil blitzkrieg from the Confederate States–and a terrible new genie is out of history's bottle: a bomb that may destroy on a scale never imagined before. In Europe, the new weapon has shattered a stalemate between Germany, England, and Russia. When the trigger is pulled in America, nothing will be the same again.

With visionary brilliance, Harry Turtledove brings to a climactic conclusion his monumental, acclaimed drama of a nation's tragedy and the men and women who play their roles–with valor, fear, and folly–on history's greatest stage.

Yellowstone National Park sits on a hotspot: a plume of molten rock coming up from deep inside the earth capable of volcanic eruptions far greater than any that have occurred in times past. It has been silent for many years, providing false security for a nation unprepared for the full force and fury of nature unleashed.

It begins with explosions that send lava and mud flowing far beyond Yellowstone towards populated areas. Clouds of ash drift across the country, nearly blanketing the land from coast to coast. The fallout destroys crops and livestock, clogs machinery, and makes cities uninhabitable. Those who survive find themselves facing the dawn of a new ice age as temperatures plummet worldwide.

Colin Ferguson is a police lieutenant in a suburb of Los Angeles, where snow is falling for the first time in decades. He fears for his family who are spread across America, refugees caught in an apocalyptic catastrophe where humanity has no choice but to rise from the ashes and recreate the world...

In the aftermath of the supervolcano's eruption in Yellowstone Park, North America is covered in ash. Farmlands cannot produce food. Machinery has been rendered useless. Cities are no longer habitable. And the climate across the globe grows colder every day.

Former police officer Colin Ferguson's family is spread across the United States, separated by the catastrophe and struggling to survive as the nation attempts to recover and reestablish some measure of civilization....

An explosion of incalculable magnitude in Yellowstone Park propelled lava and ash across the landscape and into the atmosphere, forever altering the climate of the entire continent. Nothing grows from the tainted soil. Stalled and stilled machines function only as statuary.

People have been scraping by on the excess food and goods produced before the eruption. But supplies are running low. Natural resources are dwindling. And former police officer Colin Ferguson knows that time is running out for his family--and for humanity....

Explosive and provocative battles fought across the boundaries of time and space--and on the frontiers of the human mind.

Science fiction's finest have yielded this definitive collection featuring stories of warfare, victory, conquest, heroism, and overwhelming odds. These are scenarios few have ever dared to contemplate, and they include:

"Superiority": Arthur C. Clarke presents an intergalactic war in which one side's own advanced weaponry may actually lead to its ultimate defeat.

"Dragonrider": A tale of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern, in which magic tips the scales of survival.

"Second Variety": Philip K. Dick, author of the short story that became the movie Blade Runner, reaches new heights of terror with his post apocalyptic vision of the future.

"The Night of the Vampyres": A chilling ultimatum of atomic proportions begins a countdown to disaster in George R. R. Martin's gripping drama.

"Hero": Joe Haldeman's short story that led to his classic of interstellar combat, The Forever War.

"Ender's Game": The short story that gave birth to Orson Scott Card's masterpiece of military science fiction.

...as well as stories from Poul Anderson o Gregory Benford o C. J. Cherryh o David Drake o Cordwainer Smith o Harry Turtledove o and Walter John Williams

Guaranteed to spark the imagination and thrill the soul, these thirteen science fiction gems cast a stark light on our dreams and our darkest fears--truly among the finest tales of the 20th century.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Harry Turtledove
• Among Thieves - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• Second Variety - (1953) - novelette by Philip K. Dick
• Hero - (1972) - novella by Joe Haldeman
• Superiority - (1951) - shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
• Ender's Game - (1977) - novelette by Orson Scott Card
• Hangman - (1979) - novella by David Drake
• The Last Article - (1988) - novelette by Harry Turtledove
• The Game of Rat and Dragon - (1955) - shortstory by Cordwainer Smith
• Night of the Vampyres - (1975) - novelette by George R. R. Martin
• To the Storming Gulf - (1985) - novella by Gregory Benford
• Wolf Time - (1987) - novelette by Walter Jon Williams
• The Scapegoat - (1985) - novella by C. J. Cherryh
• Dragonrider - (1967) - novella by Anne McCaffrey

Explore fascinating, often chilling "what if" accounts of the world that could have existed–and still might yet...

Science fiction's most illustrious and visionary authors hold forth the ultimate alternate history collection. Here you'll experience mind-bending tales that challenge your views of the past, present, and future, including:

• "The Lucky Strike": When The Lucky Strike is chosen over The Enola Gay to drop the first atomic bomb, fate takes an unexpected turn in Kim Stanley Robinson's gripping tale.
• "Bring the Jubilee": Ward Moore's novella masterpiece offers a rebel victory at Gettysburg which changes the course of the Civil War... and all of American history.
• "Through Road No Wither": After Hitler's victory in World War II, two Nazi officers confront their destiny in Greg Bear's apocalyptic vision of the future.
• "All the Myriad Ways": Murder or suicide, Ambrose Harmon's death leads the police down an infinite number of pathways in Larry Niven's brilliant and defining tale of alternatives and consequences.
• "Mozart in Mirrorshades": Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner explore a terrifying era as the future crashes into the past–with disastrous results.

...as well as works by Poul Anderson - Gregory Benford - Jack L. Chalker - Nicholas A. DiChario - Brad Linaweaver - William Sanders - Susan Shwartz - Allen Steele - and Harry Turtledove himself!

The definitive collection: fourteen seminal alternate history tales drawing readers into a universe of dramatic possibility and endless wonder.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Harry Turtledove
• The Lucky Strike - (1984) - novelette by Kim Stanley Robinson
• The Winterberry - (1992) - shortstory by Nicholas A. DiChario
• Islands in the Sea - (1989) - novelette by Harry Turtledove
• Suppose They Gave a Peace - (1992) - novelette by Susan Shwartz
• All the Myriad Ways - (1968) - shortstory by Larry Niven
• Through Road No Whither - (1985) - shortstory by Greg Bear
• Manassas, Again - (1991) - shortstory by Gregory Benford
• Dance Band on the Titanic - (1978) - novelette by Jack L. Chalker
• Bring the Jubilee - (1952) - novella by Ward Moore
• Eutopia - (1967) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• The Undiscovered - (1997) - novelette by William Sanders
• Mozart in Mirrorshades - (1985) - shortstory by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner
• The Death of Captain Future - (1995) - novella by Allen Steele
• Moon of Ice - (1982) - novella by Brad Linaweaver

LEAP INTO THE FUTURE, AND SHOOT BACK TO THE PAST

H. G. Wells's seminal short story "The Time Machine," published in 1895, provided the springboard for modern science fiction's time travel explosion. Responding to their own fascination with the subject, the greatest visionary writers of the twentieth century penned some of their finest stories. Here are eighteen of the most exciting tales ever told, including

"Time's Arrow" In Arthur C. Clarke's classic, two brilliant physicists finally crack the mystery of time travel--with appalling consequences.

"Death Ship" Richard Matheson, author of Somewhere in Time, unveils a chilling scenario concerning three astronauts who stumble upon the conundrum of past and future.

"Yesterday was Monday" If all the world's a stage, Theodore Sturgeon's compelling tale follows the odyssey of an ordinary joe who winds up backstage.

"Rainbird" R.A. Lafferty reflects on what might have been in this brainteaser about an inventor so brilliant that he invents himself right out of existence.

"Timetipping" What if everyone time-traveled except you? Jack Dann provides some surprising answers in this literary gem.

...as well as stories by Poul Anderson - L. Sprague de Camp - Joe Haldeman - John Kessel - Nancy Kress - Henry Kuttner - Ursula K. Le Guin - Larry Niven - Charles Sheffield - Robert Silverberg - Connie Willis