Search Worlds Without End

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1982) - essay by John Silbersack
• Sacheverell - (1964) - short story
• Help! I Am Dr. Morris Goldpepper - - (1957) - novelette
• Dragon Skin Drum - (1961) - short story
• The Lord of Central Park - (1970) - novelette
• Or All the Seas with Oysters - (1958) - short story
• The Man Who Saw the Elephant - (1971) - short story
• Manatee Gal, Won't You Come Out Tonight - (1977) - novelette
• Sources of the Nile - (1961) - novelette
• The Certificate - (1959) - short story
• The Golem - (1955) - short story
• The Cobblestones of Saratoga Street - (1964) - short story
• Faed-Out - (1963) - short story

Nebula Award nominated novella.

You might have thought that the Fiesta of the Holy Hermit in the Mexican town of Los Remedios was just another of those quaint colourful ceremonies that the Indian natives put on each year for the mystification of tourists. And perhaps for the past few hundred years it had bee nothing more than that - but this year was to be different.

It originally appeared as and Ace Double together with John Rackham's Danger from Vega. It later appeared in standalone edition as well.

This short story originally appeared in Last Wave, October 1983. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: First Annual Collection (1984), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Timegates (1997), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998).

Who is Joyleg? What is he?

There are governments that want to know his secret. There is evidence that his more than 200 years old. And indeed he does have a secret -- one that will cause the history of the world to be rewritten!

Joyleg is a jouous prophetic novel, one of the first great science fiction collaborations and a recognized classic of the field.

The Maze was, is, and will be. When the magnablock exploded into infinity, the Maze was formed. "There was light" - and the light shone upon the Maze. Coeval and coexistent, neither of the same substance nor the same essence; having the attributes, the incidents, the accidents of neither terrene nor contra-terrene matter, the Maze is both immanent and transcendent of both. It traverses space, it transects time. Ancient of years, the worlds form around it...

Generation after generation, generation before generation, north and south and up and down, the early and the latter rains, and the great red slow-rolling sun of the End of Days, have seen, see, and have yet to see the Masters of the Maze at their work. They explore, they plot their courses, they watch. Perhaps this above all. They watch. They guard.

World Fantasy Award winning short story. It originally appeared in the anthology Shadows (1978), edited by Charles L. Grant. It can also be found in the anthologies Nightmares (1979) and The Best of Shadows (1988), both edited by Charles L. Grant, and 100 Hair-Raising Little Horror Stories (1993), edited by Al Sarrantonio and Martin H. Greenberg. The story is included in the collection The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998).

Hugo Award winning short story. It originally appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction, May 1958. The story can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Fourth Galaxy Reader (1959), edited by H. L. Gold
• SF: '59: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy (1959), edited by Judith Merril
• The Hugo Winners, Volume 1: (1955-61) (1962), edited by Isaac Asimov
• The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction (1980), edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg
• The Great SF Stories 20 (1958) (1990), edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg
• Aliens Among Us (2000), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois
• Unnatural Creatures (2013), edited by Neil Gaiman and Maria Dahvana Headley

It is included in the collection Or All the Seas with Oysters (1962), Avram Davidson: Collected Fantasies (1982) and The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998).

Nebula Award noninated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1965. It was published as the novel Rogue Dragon later that year. The extend of the editing/expanding is unknown.

Ran Lomar wanted only to be left alone--to get away from it all. That's why he volunteered for duty on Pia 2, the most remote, isolated world in the Galazy.

His assignment was simple. The problem on Pia 2 was redwing, a plant used throughout the Galaxy as a medical fixative. Redwing grew only on Pia 2 and lately, less and less was being harvested. Lomar's job was to find out why, and to do something about it.

A simple job. Or so it seemed. Tan Carlo Harb, the Station Officer, tried to warn him. But Lomar had to find out for himself about the strange inhabitants of Pia 2--the Tocks, the Tame ones, and the Wild ones, and the mysterious, legendary "rorks" that everyone feared...

A collection of some of the best short story work from the Hugo and World Fantasy Award winning author.

Table of Contents

• Preface - essay
• Introduction: Night Travel on the Orient Express Destination: Avram - essay by Ray Bradbury
• Sacheverell - (1964) - shortstory
• Take Wooden Indians - (1959) - novelette
• The Vat - (1961) - shortstory
• The Tail-Tied Kings - (1962) - shortstory
• Paramount Ulj - (1958) - shortstory
• A Bottle Full of Kismet - (1966) - shortstory
• The Goobers - (1965) - shortstory
• Dr. Morris Goldpepper Returns - (1962) - shortstory
• The Certificate - (1959) - shortstory
• Ogre in the Vly - (1959) - shortstory
• Après Nous - (1960) - shortstory
• Climacteric - (1960) - shortstory
• Yo-Ho, and Up - (1960) - shortstory
• The Sixty-Third Street Station - (1962) - shortstory
• The House the Blakeneys Built - (1965) - shortstory
• The Power of Every Root - (1967) - novelette
• The Sources of the Nile - (1961) - novelette

The Avram Davidson Treasury may be the most satisfying short-story collection of the decade. Davidson (1923-1993), one of science fiction and fantasy's greatest writers, was "a master shaper of small stories," writes Alan Dean Foster in his introduction to "Or the Grasses Grow." Foster is joined in introducing the stories by dozens of extraordinary authors, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, William Gibson, Poul Anderson, and many others. Davidson was clearly adored, and often emulated, despite his reputation for being somewhat curmudgeonly. His mastery of language was exquisite, and his stories glittered like diamonds. Each of the 38 tales in this collection spanning five decades is a self-contained wonderland. One of the most famous (and most often plagiarized) short stories in science fiction appears here: "Or All the Seas with Oysters," tells of slightly sinister safety pin pupae, coat hanger larvae, and bicycle adults in a world where machines are more than they seem.

Of "Dagon," John Clute writes, "It is as vicious as the world of a fish, and wise. It is masterly.... it cannot be read. It can only be re-read." On the surface, this is the story of an American military officer in Peking in 1945, but lurking underneath are ancient gods, Chinese magicians, and the obscene torpor of hell. As Ray Bradbury writes in his afterword, "Many of these stories are complete mysteries, puzzles. Avram Davidson starts us in a fog and lets us orient ourselves slowly.... His knack for a proper pace is that of a true teller of tales." But all of Davidson's stories aren't dark--far from it. He was a satirical genius, able to poke fun at sacred cows and turn a comic phrase with the best of them. Some of these stories will make you laugh out loud.

To the fan of great literary short fiction: Don't skip over this deeply fulfilling treasury because Avram Davidson was "only" a science fiction author. He's been compared to Rudyard Kipling, Saki, John Collier, and G.K. Chesterton, if you need a literary excuse.

And to the science fiction or fantasy fan: This amazing and creative Hugo, Edgar, and World Fantasy Award winner, nominated for seven Nebula Awards by his fellow writers, will astound and amaze you. --Therese Littleton (Amazon)

Here are a dozen stories - the cream of the crop from one of the masters of science fiction and fantasy. With an introduction by Michael Kurland.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay by Peter S. Beagle
• Introduction - essay by Michael Kurland
• Or the Grasses Grow - (1958) - shortstory
• The Golem - (1955) - shortstory
• King's Evil - (1956) - shortstory
• The Ogre - (1959) - shortstory
• The Phoenix and the Mirror (Chapter 8) - (1969) - shortfiction
• The Trefoil Company - (1971) - shortstory
• What Strange Stars and Skies - (1963) - novelette
• The Necessity of His Condition - (1957) - shortstory
• The Sources of the Nile - (1961) - novelette
• The Unknown Law - (1964) - novelette
• Now Let Us Sleep - (1957) - shortstory
• Help! I Am Dr. Morris Goldpepper - (1957) - novelette
• Afterword - essay by Avram Davidson

Nebula Award nominated novella.

Professor Vlad Smith is on a terrifying quest, one that will take him from the halls of our most hallowed institutions to the most run-down of old houses in blighted neighborhoods. A mysterious committee, shredded yellowed newspapers, a daguerrotype of a Confederate soldier, a headless corpse and a corpseless head....

These are the clues which Smith must piece together to save his sanity and his daughter, and uncover the terrible secret of the Boss in the Wall. BACK COVER: What a scary story, like a modern Dracula but completely original in its concept and chillingly realistic in its narration. Avram Davidson was one of the finest writers the fantasy field has had, endlessly inventive and uniquely vivid.

This story is included in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 10 (1999), edited by Stephen Jones.

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1965. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 15th Series (1966), edited by Edward L. Ferman, The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 (1993), edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery. It is included in the collections Strange Seas and Shores (1971) and The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998).

A world of living legend, peopled by centaurs, golems, harpies, and primitive but shrewd humans - all this in a mysterious realm of Starflux and Earthflux, closer to the primordial chaos than the world we know and told in a style at once familiar and fantastic, homely and horrific.

Avram Davidson was widely regarded as one of the most outstanding authors of short fantasy fiction in our time. This collection comprises his distinctive historical fantasies - tales of strange Mitteleurpoas, of magic in Victorian England and on the American frontier. Here are "The Lineaments of Gratified Desire", "Traveller from an Antique Land", and "What Strange Stars and Skies"; here are dragons, cameras, and "The Singular Incident of the Dog on the Beach". Witty, whimsical, dark, and strange, these tales of times and places that almost were will leave even the most jaded readers amazed. No one has ever written like Avram Davidson, before or since.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay by Michael Kurland
• Introduction - essay by Randall Garrett
• Sacheverell - (1964) - short story
• The Lord of Central Park - (1970) - novelette
• The Grantha Sighting - (1958) - short story
• The Singular Events.... - (1962) - short story
• Dagon - (1959) - short story
• I Weep, I Cry, I Glorify - novelette
• The 13th Brumaire - short story
• Lemuria Revisited - novelette
• In Which the Lodge Is Tiled - short story
• Partial Comfort - novelette
• Afterword for The Redward Edward Papers - essay
• Afterword to Entire Book - essay

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology Universe 15 (1985), edited by Terry Carr. The story is included in the collection The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998).

Danger from Vega

Shot down on an ennemy-occupied planet.

Clash of Star-Kings

The night the stars fell and the spacemen rose.

Rocannon's World

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

The Kar-Chee Reign

It was the distant future of Earth, and the mother planet of a glaxy-wide empire had been forgotten by her far-flung colonies. Forgotten, tired, old and stripped of her ores and natural fuels, Earth and the scattered bands of humans left behind were totally unprepared for the invasion of the strange, monstrous Kar-chee from the depths of the stars.

The Kar-chee had come to strip Earth of the few natural resources the planet had left--to crack the marrow of the aged planet and scavenge whatever of worth was left there. It was a massive, planet-wide operation in which continents were sunk and oceans drained, and if the tiny, insignificant humans died in these holocausts, what did that matter to the Kar-chee?

It mattered to the humans... and, at last, they began to fight.

The Kar-Chee Reign

It was the distant future of Earth, and the mother planet of a glaxy-wide empire had been forgotten by her far-flung colonies. Forgotten, tired, old and stripped of her ores and natural fuels, Earth and the scattered bands of humans left behind were totally unprepared for the invasion of the strange, monstrous Kar-chee from the depths of the stars.

The Kar-chee had come to strip Earth of the few natural resources the planet had left--to crack the marrow of the aged planet and scavenge whatever of worth was left there. It was a massive, planet-wide operation in which continents were sunk and oceans drained, and if the tiny, insignificant humans died in these holocausts, what did that matter to the Kar-chee?

It mattered to the humans... and, at last, they began to fight.

Rogue Dragon

Here there be dragons...

Earth was old, her riches gone. Her children too had left her, all but a few who lived peacefully off the land. And then came the Kar-Chee, to crack Earth open and suck out what remained of her richness, threatening the twilight of the old planet with an evil beyond anything that had gone before.

With them they brought their servants, beasts so cruel and horrible that men could recall their like only from ancestral nightmares, and named them "Dragons..."

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1963) - essay by Avram Davidson
• Test - (1962) - shortstory by Theodore L. Thomas
• Please Stand By - (1962) - shortstory by Ron Goulart
• Who's in Charge Here? - (1962) - shortstory by James Blish
• Three for the Stars - (1962) - shortstory by Joseph Dickinson
• When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed - (1962) - shortstory by Vance Aandahl
• Landscape With Sphinxes - (1962) - shortstory by Karen Anderson
• My Dear Emily - (1962) - shortstory by Joanna Russ
• The Gumdrop King - (1962) - shortstory by Will Stanton
• The Golden Horn - [Tales of a Darkening World] - (1962) - novelette by Edgar Pangborn
• The Singular Events Which Occurred in the Hovel on the Alley Off of Eye Street - (1962) - shortstory by Avram Davidson
• A Kind of Artistry - (1962) - novelette by Brian W. Aldiss
• Two's a Crowd - (1962) - shortstory by Sasha Gilien
• The Man Without a Planet - (1962) - shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• The Garden of Time - (1962) - shortstory by J. G. Ballard
• Hop-Friend - (1962) - shortstory by Terry Carr

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1964) - essay by Avram Davidson
• The Golden Brick - (1963) - shortstory by P. M. Hubbard
• Peggy and Peter Go to the Moon - (1963) - shortstory by Don White
• Now Wakes the Sea - (1963) - shortstory by J. G. Ballard
• Green Magic - (1963) - shortstory by Jack Vance
• Captain Honario Harpplayer, R.N. - (1963) - shortstory by Harry Harrison
• Treaty in Tartessos - (1963) - shortstory by Karen Anderson
• Hunter, Come Home - (1963) - novelette by Richard McKenna
• McNamara's Fish - (1963) - shortstory by Ron Goulart
• Niña Sol - (1963) - shortstory by Felix Marti-Ibanez
• They Don't Make Life Like They Used To - (1963) - novelette by Alfred Bester
• What Strange Stars and Skies - (1963) - novelette by Avram Davidson
• Eight O'Clock in the Morning - (1963) - shortstory by Ray Nelson
• Deluge - (1963) - novelette by Zenna Henderson

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1965) - essay by Avram Davidson
• Sacheverell - (1964) - shortstory by Avram Davidson
• Trade-In - (1964) - shortstory by Jack Sharkey
• The Illuminated Man - (1964) - novelette by J. G. Ballard
• A Bulletin from the Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Research at Marmouth, Mass. - (1964) - shortstory by Wilma Shore
• Automatic Tiger - (1964) - shortstory by Kit Reed
• The Court of Tartary - (1963) - shortstory by T. P. Caravan
• Touchstone - (1964) - shortstory by Terry Carr
• Thaw and Serve - (1964) - shortstory by Allen Kim Lang
• Nada - (1964) - shortstory by Thomas M. Disch
• Into the Shop - (1964) - shortstory by Ron Goulart
• A Rose for Ecclesiastes - (1963) - novelette by Roger Zelazny
• Olsen and the Gull - (1964) - shortstory by Eric St. Clair
• Dark Conception - (1964) - shortstory by Alexei Panshin and Joe L. Hensley
• The Compleat Consumators - (1964) - shortstory by Alan E. Nourse
• The House by the Crab Apple Tree - (1964) - novelette by S. S. Johnson
• The Girl With the Hundred Proof Eyes - (1964) - shortstory by Sharon Webb
• Fred One - (1964) - shortstory by James Ransom

This novella originally appeared in Amazing Stories, May 1985. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection (1986), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Magicats II (1991), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy (1991).

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appaered in Amazing Science Fiction, November 1983. The story is included in the collection The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy (1991).

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1975. The story can also be found in the collections The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy (1975), The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy (1991) and The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998).

This invaluable collection of Avram Davidson's resonant, witty short stories describes some incidents in the career of many-times-Doctor Engelbert Eszterhazy, loyal subject of the Triune Monarchy of Scythia- Pannonia-Transbalkania, located in a nineteenth-century Europe whose political landscape will be, after a little reflection, familiar to most fantasy readers. Enquire with Doctor Eszterhazy into curious matters - the lurley; the old woman who lived with a bear; gingerbread men; dancing goats; and more.

Table of Contents:

• The Fish Unturned: Avram Davidson - (1988) - essay by Gene Wolfe
• Cornet Eszterhazy - (1984) - novella
• The Autogondola Invention - (1983) - novella
• Duke Pasquale's Ring - (1985) - novella
• Writ in Water, or the Gingerbread Man - (1985) - novelette
• The King Across the Mountains - (1986) - novelette
• Polly Charms, the Sleeping Woman - (1975) - novelette
• The Crown Jewels of Jerusalem, or The Tell-Tale Head - (1975) - novelette
• The Old Woman Who Lived with a Bear - (1975) - novelette
• The Church of Saint Satan and Pandaemons - (1975) - shortstory
• Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard - (1975) - novelette
• The Case of the Mother-in-Law of Pearl - (1975) - novelette
• The Ceaseless Stone - (1975) - shortstory
• The King's Shadow Has No Limits - (1975) - shortstory
• The Inchoation of Eszterhazy - (1988) - essay by Avram Davidson

This short story originally appeared in Weird Tales, Winter 1988/1989. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventh Annual Collection (1990), edited by Garnder Dozois, and Dinosaurs II (1995), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection The Other Nineteenth Century (2001).

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared Amazing Stories, November 1984. The story is included in the collection The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy (1991).

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1978. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Finest Fantasy - Volume 2 (1979), edited by Terry Carr, Baker's Dozen: 13 Short Fantasy Novels (1984), edited by Charles G. Waugh, Martin H. Greenberg and Isaac Asimov, and Sorcerers! (1986) edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collection Limekiller! (2003).

Avram Davidson's six Jack Limekiller stories create a rich and colorful world where the magical and inexplicable coexist with the outboard motor and the escalation of the American war in Vietnam. British Hidalgo is "a place that you can put your arms around," welcoming and friendly to the visitor, but uncanny beings dwell in the bush and roam along its coast. Afloat and ashore, Jack Limekiller, master of the working sailboat Saccharissa, encounters ghosts of the colonial past and monsters far older.

Table of Contents:

• Preface: The Adventures of Jack Limekiller in a Far Countrie - (2003) - essay by Grania Davis
• Introduction - (2003) - essay by Lucius Shepard
• Introduction: Jack Limekiller - (2003) - essay by Peter S. Beagle
• Bloody Man - (1976) - novelette by Avram Davidson
• There Beneath the Silky-Tree and Whelmed in Deeper Gulphs Than Me - (1980) - novella by Avram Davidson
• Manatee Gal, Won't You Come Out Tonight - (1977) - novelette by Avram Davidson
• Sleep Well of Nights - (1978) - novella by Avram Davidson
• Limekiller at Large - (1990) - novelette by Avram Davidson
• A Far Countrie - (1993) - novella by Avram Davidson
• Afterwords - (2003) - essay by Henry Wessells
• Along the Lower Moho (The Iguana Church) - (2000) - essay by Avram Davidson
• Dragons in San Francisco - A Sequel - (2000) - essay by Grania Davis
• Afterword - (2003) - essay by Ethan Davidson

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1977. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Finest Fantasy (1978), edited by Terry Carr, Future Earths: Under South American Skies (1993), edited by Gardner Dozois and Mike Resnick, and Modern Classics of Fantasy (1997), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collections Avram Davidson: Collected Fantasies (1982), The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998) and Limekiller! (2003).

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Other Worlds 2 (1980) edited by Roy Torgeson. The story is included in the collection Limekiller! (2003).

Here there be dragons...

Earth was old, her riches gone. Her children too had left her, all but a few who lived peacefully off the land. And then came the Kar-Chee, to crack Earth open and suck out what remained of her richness, threatening the twilight of the old planet with an evil beyond anything that had gone before.

With them they brought their servants, beasts so cruel and horrible that men could recall their like only from ancestral nightmares, and named them "Dragons..."

Peregrine was the illigitimate son of the king of Sapodilla, which, as every schoolboy knows, was the last pagan kingdom in the world to resist Christianity. Cast out of Sapodilla as required by law when he reached his majority, Peregrine sallied forth into the Dark Ages with his page Dafty and the rather time-worn sorcerer Appledore to find his fortune. What he found instead was: dragons, whores, Huns, Roman legions, emperors, and a delightful collection of mysteries and adventures...

Peregrine, bastard son of King Paladrine, thought he had trouble when he was transformed by a sorcerer into a falcon. In fact, his real troubles began when the prepubescent Princess Ruby changed him back into... well, almost a prince. A bastard.

Against the backdrop of a hauntingly familiar yet alien otherworld, Avram Davidson casts the adventures of the sorcerer known as Vergil Magus. Vergil was to construct a virgin speculum, a mirror of magical properties.

From Publishers Weekly: Inspired by medieval legends about the poet Vergil, who was revered not only as the author of the Aeneid but also as a powerful necromancer, Davidson embarked on his Vergil Magus series in the '60s with the intriguing novel The Phoenix and the Mirror. In this sequel, Vergil answers a magical summons from Averno, both the wealthiest and the filthiest of cities. The magnates there are worried about the waning and shifting of the natural fires that have fueled their industries and fouled their air. The bare skeleton of plot is fleshed out with an eccentric, wide-ranging series of digressions, reminiscences, dreams and cabalistic glosses, all in a rich, baroque, rhetorical style. Between that form and the subject matter (counterfeiters and alchemists, rituals of superstition and sorcery, mystic visions and magic lantern shows), the novel is less akin to fantasy than to the fiction of Laurence Sterne or William Gaddis. An acquired taste, the work is by turns witty and obscure, frustrating and fascinating.