Search Worlds Without End

For centuries the human outcasts of Mars lived wild, independent lives in the Martian outback called the Ruck.

But then the mysterious men of the "New Clan" came to preach total rebellion against the Mother Planet - and that, Earth's U.N. Command could not allow.

So it sent a team of its best officers to learn the secrets of the "New Clan." Unfortunately, to do the job right, the Terrans would have to cooperate with their worst enemies - the Ruckers!

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1974. The story can also be found in the anthologies First World Fantasy Awards (1977), edited by Gahan Wilson, and Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space (1984), edited by Martin Harry Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh and Isaac Asimov. It is included in the collection The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes (1986).

Who is Brigadier Ffellows? Soldier, paleontologist,adventurer. Someone who lives at the lost fringes of the planet, and a focal point for the supernatural and sometimes dark forces that lie unknown in the hidden corners of the world. As the retired Brigadier tells his stories at the club, he is often initially scoffed at, but as the tales continue, silence fills the room and the bravest of men begin to shudder as they absorb the all too real terror of Ffellows adventures. Listen yourself and see how well YOU sleep afterwards.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Arthur C. Clarke
• His Only Safari - (1970)
• The Kings of the Sea - (1968)
• His Coat So Gay - (1965)
• The Leftovers - (1969)
• A Feminine Jurisdiction - (1969)
• Fraternity Brother - (1969)
• Soldier Key - (1968)

The legend continues, with Brigadier Ffellowes returning in this second volume, with six new tales of terror just as bone chilling and unearthly as the first. Strange creatures, bizarre circumstances, a brush with the supernatural, and Ffellowes actually finds a wife !!! If it's possible, this book is even harder to put down than the first volume!

Table of Contents:

• The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes - essay by Ned Dameron
• Introduction - essay by Donald M. Grant
• Fore/Thought/Word - essay by Sterling E. Lanier
• Ghost of a Crown - (1976) - novelette
• And the Voice of the Turtle ... - (1972) - novelette
• A Father's Tale - (1974) - novelette
• Commander in the Mist - (1982) - short story
• Thinking of the Unthinkable - (1973) - short story
• The Brigadier in Check -- and Mate - novella

Per Hiero Desteen was a priest, a telepath -- and a highly trained killer. Together with his great riding moose and the young bear who was his friend, he was on an extraordinary mission. For this was five thousand years after the holocaust known as The Death. Now the evil Brotherhood of the Unclean was waging all-out war against the few remnants of normal humanity, determined to wipe out all traces of its emerging civilization. Hiero's task was to bring back a lost secret of the ancients that might save the humans. But his path lay through the very heart of the territory ruled by the Unclean and their hordes of mutated, intelligent, savage beast followers. And the Unclean were waiting for him!

North America 5000 Years after the Death. Part two of Hiero's Journey scatters Hiero and his band of compatriots across the face of the continent. Hiero will face capture by the unclean, death by dehydration in the deserts of death, vicious attacks by murderous, mutated animals, and the most devastating terror of all... Hiero's loss of his unparalleled mental powers. He and his allies will be tested to the very limits of their abilities. They are bolstered only by a fierce determination to defeat the Unclean. It is that determination upon which their survival depends, and which must bring victory in their ultimate confrontation with the unclean if the remnants of civilization are to survive.