Search Worlds Without End

"It was a time of pause, a time between planting and harvest when the air was heavy, humming with its own slow warm music."

So begins an extraordinary fantasy of the rural Midwest by a winner of the John W. Campbell, Jr., Award for best young science fiction writer.

One summer day in the 1920s, Haverstock's Traveling Curiosus and Wondershow rides into a small Midwestern town. Haverstock's show is a presentation of mysterious wonders: feats of magic, strange creatures, and frightening powers.

Three teenage girls attend the opening performance that evening which, for each, promises love and threatens death. The three girls are drawn to the show and its performers-a lusty centaur, Angel the magical albino boy, the rowdy stage hands-but frightened by the enigmatic owner, Haverstock. The girls at first try to dismiss these marvels as trickery, but it becomes all too real, too vivid to be other than nightmare reality.

Each feels the force of the show and its power to alter everyday lives: Francine is drawn embarrassingly to the centaur, Rose makes an assignation with one of the hands and gets in trouble, and Evelyn is fascinated by the pathetic, mysterious Angel, The Boy Who Can Fly, and together they plan escape.

Nebula Award winning and Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1975. The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Award Stories 11 (1976), edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 22nd Series (1977), edited by Edward L. Ferman. It is included in the collection San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories (1979).

Contents:

• Twilla (1974)
• Under the Hollywood Sign (1975)
• Beyond the Cleft (1974)
• San Diego Lightfoot Sue (1975)
• Dinosaurs (1976)
• The Sweetwater Factor (1976)
• The Mistress of Windraven (1976)
• The Detweiler Boy (1977)
• Insects in Amber (1978)
• Waiting for Billy Star (1978)
• 2076: Blue Eyes (1979)

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1974. The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Award Stories Ten (1975), edited by James Gunn, and Demons! (1987), edited by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann. It is included in the collection San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories (1979).