Search Worlds Without End

Stories of humans metamorphosing into something else--from vampires to aliens to animals--fill modern fantasy and science fiction. Now a modern master of fantastic literature has collected together ten captivating pieces from his modern and ancient menagerie.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Brian Stableford
• Changelings - (1994) - shortstory
• Coming to Terms with the Great Plague - (1997) - shortstory
• Inside Out - (1997) - novelette
• After the Stone Age - (2004) - shortfiction
• The Oracle - (1999) - novelette
• The Tour - (1998) - shortstory
• Victims - (2000) - shortfiction
• The Serpent - (1995) - shortfiction
• Tread Softly - (2002) - shortstory
• Degrees of Separation - (2002) - shortstory with John B. Ford

Sturgeon Award nominated short story. It originally appeared on Omni Online, December 1997. The story is included in the collection Changelings and Other Metamorphic Tales (2009).

Also appeared as half of Ace Double #12140 in 1969.

Was the world's last coward mankind's final champion?

Call it soul, call it humanity, species--sentience, anything--it was missing. And not only was it gone from mankind, but from man's ancient enemies, the rats, as well. There was no will to power, no will to live... Both intelligent species were dying.

The task of regenerating the world fell to Kavan Lochlain, the last living coward. The only man who cared enough to feel fear, Kavan was afraid of everything. But this fear was going to take him to the Cradle of the Sun, because he was too frightened to let anything stop him.

Harker Lee is a survivor. His mind withstands the threat of insanity and the pressure of imprisonment. His lifelong struggle to keep mind and body together in the face of the hostile environment of the maximum-security block is a struggle against the society of his fellow men. But that society can still find a need for him; a need for the ability to survive which it is testing to the full. He was taken from his cell once to be used in experiments in reading minds. Now he is brought forth again, to endure the ultimate test: to fly a Titan spaceship through hyperspace to the stars.

Starflight destroys the minds of sane men. But Harker Lee is not sane and his mind has strength which sane men lack. In Harker Lee, the man whom society is caging for his crimes, now lies the hope that man might break out of the greatest of all cages: the void of empty darkness which enfolds the Earth. In this chilling, enthralling novel of psychology and science fiction, one final escape must be made, for a man and for mankind.

Nebula and Sturgeon Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, April 1995. The story can also be found in the Gardner Dozois anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection (1996), Supermen (2002) and Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction (2005), as well as Immortals (1998), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois.

Throughout the centuries that have passed since humans first ventured into interstellar space, they have been at war with the alien Veich. The human race has, in consequence, been fully militarized, its educational system being a form of military training--which includes, among other disciplines, the elimination of fear from the human psyche.

Attitudes to the war have, however, been colored by the gradual discovery of relics revealing that it is echoing an earlier interstellar conflict whose antagonists have completely disappeared, victors and vanquished alike. On a neglected continent of an unimportant world, ex-sergeant Remy and other human and Veich deserters have joined forces to form a mercenary company that places its expert skills at the disposal of the dominant indigenes.

This refuge from the greater war is, however, disrupted when archeologists on another world discover evidence that there might be significant relics of the earlier war buried in the inhospitable heart of the continent, where barbarian tribes are currently massing for a religious war.

Remy has no alternative but to revert to working for his own race, knowing that whatever he enables them to find, or even if they find nothing at all, his own life will be in grave peril, and that nothing will ever be the same again....

Also published as War Games.

Bennie wants to experience everything - including Papa Ogo's zombie fest.

Canny Kilcannon, heir to the earldom of Credesdale in Yorkshire, is an extremely lucky man, the scion of a long dynasty of extremely lucky men. Unlike his dour and cautious ancestors, he believes in taking material advantage of his hereditary good fortune: as a playboy gambler, he cruises the casinos of the world, winning steadily yet cleverly and calculatedly, so as not to draw undue attention.

But a particular defiance of the odds in Monte Carlo is noticed, both by a criminal gang and by Lissa Lo, a beautiful woman who may somehow share Canny's luck. As he returns to Credesdale, to the bedside of his dying father, Canny is increasingly aware that powerful forces are closing in on him.

But Canny is a resourceful man, and astute at judging the odds in any situation; as he becomes Lord Credesdale, he plays the game of life with the same tactical brilliance he showed in Monte Carlo. Faced with challenges both domestic and acutely menacing-the dilemma of how to continue and strengthen his family line, the need to fight off foreign mafiosi and alluring romantic blandishments all at once-he is well equipped, but events may be moving beyond even his capacity to control.

The ways of Chance are approaching an apocalyptic crossroads, and life as Canny knows it could be coming to an end...

Also appeared as half of Ace Double #06707 in 1970.

Bizarre struggles for power consumed the mutated inhabitants of Earth, a planet whose oceans had dried into salt beds and whose densely vegetated plains had become the impregnable entity the Wildland. The black king, John Tamerlane, black of body and of blood, was the first to claim Earth. But Sum, a powerful aggregate mind, controlled Earth through the Wildland, and sought to keep it as the base of its universe. Only a demon's price would pry the prize from Sum. And only the Blind Worm, a massive, misfit creation of a deranged mind, could satisfy Sum's demands. Viciously they battled throughout time and the universe - pseudo-man and animal-machine. Their quest was Earth, but they were willing to ravage even that for power.

A few starships had set out from Earth before civilization ended. One of them found a new world, created a new home for mankind, an ideal intellectual society on Tanagar. Humane, its deviants and criminals were sent into space in deep freeze forever...

But then came the rediscovery of Earth, a world now far different from that of the star-voyaging days. And only the explorers with guts enough to face that terrifying old world were the very criminals who could not abide Tanagar.

This novelette originally appeared in the collection An Oasis of Horror: Decadent Tales & Contes Cruels (2008), and was reprinted in Lightspeed, February 2017.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Since the sixteenth century, England has been a land ruled by the Undead. Vampires rule with terror and the darkly-seductive promise of life eternal for the lucky few. Edmund Cordery, member of the cabal pledged to penetrate the mysteries of the vampires and destroy them, strikes the first blow. But it will fall to his son. Noell, to carry on the crusade of human against inhuman. And it will fall to those who come after Noell to keep the struggle alive for over three centuries--from England to Malta to modern-day America, where destiny will decide finally whether the forces of horror or humanity will hold sway over all....

Despite the development of a faster-than-light drive, Earth's space program has been in the doldrums for centuries, as has Earth itself. Hyperspace being impossible to navigate without beacons at which to aim, there is no alternative but to wait for vessels sent out at sub-light speed decades previously to find somewhere worth going.

Unfortunately, when a worthwhile planet finally turns up, it doesn't take long for political conflicts to materialize over its exploitation. Then, when an entire survey team perishes, the problems intensify. Lee Caretta is the man most likely to solve the problem--if his conflict-ridden employers will let him, if he can keep his tendencey to suffer unexplained blackouts under control, and if the world really is sufficiently Earth-like not to be deadly to the explorers. And then the humans begin to die once more!

This short story originally appeared in the anthology We Think, Therefore We Are (2009), edited by Peter Crowther. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 15 (2010), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection The Best of Both Worlds and Other Ambiguous Tales (2009).

A professor recounts his time travels, one of which was to a world where vampires raised humans for blood. When he revisited that world several centuries later the vampires had advanced to making blood synthetically, respectful of human rights.

This short story originally appreaed in the anthology disLocations (2007), edited by Ian Whates. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (2008), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection The Innsmouth Heritage and Other Sequels (2009).

Six of the world's seven edges have been rounded out and the last one, edging a thin sliver of land where magic still survives, is in a parlous state. No longer able to remember the future, the last enchanter, Sirion Hilversun, knows that is about to die, and is anxious for the fate of his young daughter Helen, when a letter arrives from the neighboring unmagical kingdom of Caramorn, asking for his daughter's hand in marriage. Helen does not know that the offer is a desperate move on the part of the king of a bankrupt kingdom, but she hates the idea anyway. Unfortunately her cunning plan to avoid the marriage without disappointing her father too much goes badly awry when it volves her and Ewan, the boy hired to catalogue Caramorn's palace library, in a spell that has been gathering power for hundreds of years. If she and Ewan can complete the spell, the last of the world's edges should be neatly disenchanted and tidied away -- but can the human pawns necessary to complete it survive the obliteration of the magic lands?

In an alternate medieval society, where all royals and nobles throughout earth are immortal vampires of great power reigning over the human serfs, the aging former lover of a vampire noblewoman resolves to overthrow the vampires, no matter how terrible the means.

This novelette originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1988. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection (1989), edited by Gardner Dozois, The Mammoth Book of Vampires (1992), edited by Stephen Jones, and Vampires: The Greatest Stories (1997), edited by Martin H. Greenberg.

First published in 1976, "The Mind-Riders" features a remarkable anticipation of virtual reality gaming, in which the revised sport of boxing pits physically identical virtual fighters against one another, operated by electronically-connected "handlers" -- with viewers receiving transmissions of the combatants' emotions as their simulations slug it out.

Ryan Hart, banished from the sport in its early days because of his lack of marketable emotion, is brought back by an obsessed media executive who wants to see the reigning champion beaten at any cost. Hart is not certain that he can win, after such a lapse of time, nor is he certain he can resist pressure to give the vast virtual crowds the dose of sadistic exultation they crave.

But that doesn't stop him from heading into the virtual "ring" and fighting the bout of his life!;

Last trip out to the only world that spans two universes!

They named the planet Chaos X, because one hemisphere was not in this universe--and no one who ventured there would ever return. They named the other universe Ultra, because it was beyond the laws of the Milky Way galaxy.

It was only by means of Ultra's non-Euclidean physics that men could travel the starways. They named the ruler of that "immobile" planet Fury, because that was the effect of his power on people.

But they were afraid to call Craig Star Gazer by any other name, because he was the space captain who was going to cross into Fury's domain and wrench his loved one from Ultra's power--and this was something that no one had ever done before except the legendary Orpheus.

A vampire who calls himself Maldureve comes out of the shadowy borderlands of existence in response to the unvoiced desires of philosophy student Anne Charet. By choosing to see him she gives him substance; after feeding him, she too begins to hunger for blood. Maldureve becomes Anne's lover and mentor but he cannot protect her against his own enemies, mysterious creatures of light who call themselves owls because they believe that theirs is the highest wisdom of all. Anne's boyfriend, psychologist Gil Molari, worries about her health and state of mind, although he knows nothing about his supernatural rival. His anxiety is magnified when he becomes convinced that one of the mind-altering viruses with which he works has escaped from the laboratory. Gil refuses to believe in Maldureve but his refusal to believe cannot save him from becoming the victim of a fierce hunger that he cannot satisfy, which drives him in the end to an unendurable extreme. Anne believes that her experiences are entirely real; Gil believes that his are the products of an infectious madness. Whichever of them is right, they are both in deadly danger, and so is everyone around them. Once they have started on their strange journey, there is no way back. But what can possibly lie ahead of them, when death itself no longer seems to be an end?

Cradle of the Sun

Was the world's last coward mankind's final champion?

Call it soul, call it humanity, species--sentience, anything--it was missing. And not only was it gone from mankind, but from man's ancient enemies, the rats, as well. There was no will to power, no will to live... Both intelligent species were dying.

The task of regenerating the world fell to Kavan Lochlain, the last living coward. The only man who cared enough to feel fear, Kavan was afraid of everything. But this fear was going to take him to the Cradle of the Sun, because he was too frightened to let anything stop him.

The Wizards of Senchuria

Scobie Redfern was just a nice good-looking American young man who had never heard of such things as Portals, parallel worlds, and Trugs. So when someone materialized in his apartment with the Trugs in hot pursuit, it all seemed sort of a funny game. But there was nothing amusing about it once the monsters themselves arrived.

For it wasn't long before Scobie was himself running for his life from world to world and from Portal to Portal just to keep one jump ahead of the Trugs, and hoping that the Wizards of Senchuria might, just might, be able to get him back home alive and whole!

The Blind Worm

Bizarre struggles for power consumed the mutated inhabitants of Earth, a planet who oceans had dried into salt beds and whose densely vegatated plains had become the impregnable entity the Wildland.

The black king, John Tamerlane, black of body and of blood, was the first to claim Earth. But Sum, a powerful aggregate mind, controlled Earth through the Wildland, and sought to keep it as the base of its universe. Only a demon's price would pry the prize from Sum. And only the Blind Worm, a massive, misfit creation of a deranged mind, could satisfy Sum's demands.

viciously they battled through time and the universe--pseudo-man and animal-machine. Their quest was Earth, but they were willing to ravage even that for power.

Seed of the Dreamers

Brad Mantee, starcop on the galazy's rim, was on a routine mission when everything started to go wrong. His perfect record with star control, the vast network of galactic dictatorship, slipped suddenly into oblivion as he found himself in hot pursuit of the madman who had stolen his ship and with it, the secret that could cost him his career--at the very least.

Unfortunately, Brad's best chance was through the madman's daughter, a girl from the one organization Star Control most detested. Their search led them ultimately to a primitive and uncharted planet where fiction became fact and dreams became flesh, but where also lurked a threat of universal slavery more total than man had ever known...

The first volume of this narrative history of scientific romance includes an introduction to the prehistory of the genre in philosophical fictions, travelers' tales and utopian fantasies, and tracks early literary celebrations of scientific achievement. The authors whose contributions to the genre are discussed included Erasmus Darwin, Percy Shelley, Humphry Davy and Robert Hunt.

The second volume of this narrative history of scientific romance covers the period from the 1880s to the outbreak of the Great War, including detailed discussions of the definitive contributions made to the genre by such writers as H. G. Wells, George Griffith, M. P. Shiel, Charles Howard Hinton, Fred T. Jane, Robert Cromie and William Hope Hodgson, and the major themes of the genre that emerged in that period.

The third volume of this narrative history of scientific romance covers the period between two world wars, examining the legacy of the Great War of 1914-18 in terms of its effect on futuristic hopes and fears, as reflected in the works of such new recruits to the genre as Olaf Stapledon, John Gloag, Neil Bell J. Leslie Mitchell, S. Fowler Wright, Katharine Burdekin and Muriel Jaeger.

The final volume of this narrative history of scientific romance tracks the fading away of the genre as it was gradually overtaken and absorbed into the genre of science fiction, in spite of continued work by such practitioners and Olaf Stapledon and J. D. Beresford, and new recruits such as Gerald Heard and Edward Hyams. It also includes a chronology of the major works and an index to all four volumes.

The galaxy is full of mysteries. Asgard one of the most inexplicable. Many different species & many types of individual sought answers to its enigmas. Anthropologists, fortune hunters, scientists, gangsters, politicians & explorers found reason to congregate on the planet which possibly wasn't a planet. To stand on the artificial surface & wonder how many subcutaneous levels the planet contained, & what, if anything, was at the center, to examine the artifacts on the reachable levels where the temperature approached absolute zero. Artifacts of a civilization far more advanced than any known spacefaring species of the day.

Artifacts of a species who possibly still lived at the center--thousands of miles & levels deeper than any explorer had set foot. The general consensus was that Mike Rousseau, an archeological scavenger might be capable of reaching the center & unraveling the mystery of Asgard. Rousseau didn't agree. Unfortunately, the choice wasn't his...

Asgard's not an easy world to get away from. Mike Rousseau only wants to take a vacation in his home system, but he's back before he has time to draw breath, and he's been drafted into the Space Force once again. His new mission is even more dangerous than the last one, the number of his enemies has increased vastly, and his friends haven't improved at all. By way of compensation, he has another chance to get closer to the mystery at Asgard's heart--but the inhabitants of the megaplanet's core are no longer content to sit quietly and wait to be found. They've discovered the outside universe, and are trying to decide what to do about it--but they have problems of their own. Only Rousseau can cross the boundaries between species, and offer each of the races a possible solution. Another great entry into an exciting SF series!

The gods of Asgard are in deep trouble. If they can't defeat their internal enemies, the starlet in the macroworld's core will blow up, killing trillions humanoids in its various layers. Only one man can save this articifial planet, and he can only do that by duplicating himself. Unfortunately, the software version of himself that's trying to operate within Asgard's virtual space is fighting on the adversary's home ground, and seems to have even less chance of success than the flesh-and-blood version. Even if they both get through, and contrive somehow to save the macroworld from destruction, how can they ever get together again to become a whole man--and at what cost? The thrilling conclusion to a magnificent sci-fi saga!

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Moon Shots (1999), edited by Peter Crowther. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 5 (2000), edited by David G. Hartwell, The Eagle Has Landed: 50 Years of Lunar Science Fiction, (2019), edited by Neil Clarke. The story is included in the collection The Cure for Love and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution (2007).

The eleven stories in Designer Genes showcase the latest volume in this intriguing science fiction series that explores intriguing future possibilities in biotechnology, ranging from stories of imminent technology reflecting issues that are already controversial, to stories that feature drastically altered worlds. Most of the stories are domestic dramas in which ordinary people are trying to get on with their everyday lives in circumstances that are altering in confusing ways by the year or by the day. Most of them have an element of comedy, because the human predicament is essentially comic, and most of them sound a powerful note of optimism, or at least of hope, because, the world being what it is, biotechnology is the one realistic source of optimism and hope that we have, if we are to come through the present ecocatastrophe relatively unscathed. Great, thought-provoking entertainment by a major SF writer!

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Brian Stableford
• What Can Chloë Want? - (1994) - short story
• The Invisible Worm - (1991) - novelette
• The Age of Innocence - (1995) - short story
• Snowball in Hell - (2000) - novelette
• The Last Supper - (2000) - short story
• The Facts of Life - (1993) - novelette
• Hot Blood - (2002) - short story
• The House of Mourning - (1996) - short story
• Another Branch of the Family Tree - (1999) - novelette
• The Milk of Human Kindness - (2001) - short story
• The Pipes of Pan - (1997) - novelette

BSFA and Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, October 1994. The story can also be found in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twelth Annual Collection (1995), edited by Gardner Dozois.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1991) - essay
• Bedside Conversations - (1990) - short story
• A Career in Sexual Chemistry - (1987) - novelette
• Cinderella's Sisters - (1989) - short story
• The Magic Bullet - (1989) - novelette
• The Invertebrate Man - (1990) - novelette
• The Furniture of Life's Ambition - (1990) - novelette
• The Fury That Hell Withheld - (1990) - short story
• The Engineer and the Executioner - (1975) - short story
• The Growth of the House of Usher - (1988) - novelette
• And He Not Busy Being Born... - (1986) - short story
• Mankind in the Third Millennium - (1988) - essay

This novelette originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 2000. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection (2001), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Designer Genes: Tales of the Biotech Revolution (2004).

Sturgeon Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1995. The story is included in the collection Designer Genes: Tales of the Biotech Revolution (2004).

A scientist visits a dying colleague at his house in the Orinoco river delta, to discover more about his life and scientific discoveries in genetics.

This novelette originally appeared in Interzone, #24 Summer 1988. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection (1989), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Sexual Chemistry: Sardonic Tales of the Genetic Revolution (1991).

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Off Limits: Tales of Alien Sex (1996), edited by Ellen Datlow. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 2 (1997), edited by David G. Hartwell. The story is included in the collection Designer Genes: Tales of the Biotech Revolution (2004).

This short story originally appeared in Science Fiction Age, March 2000. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 6 (2001), edited by David G. Hartwell. The story is included in the collection Designer Genes: Tales of the Biotech Revolution (2004).

This novelette originally appeared in Interzone, #29 May-June 1989. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventh Annual Collection (1990), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The 1990 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha. The story is included in the collection Sexual Chemistry: Sardonic Tales of the Genetic Revolution (1991).

This novelette originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1997, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, November 2015. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection (1998), edited by Gardner Dozios, Year's Best SF 3 (1998), edited by David G. Hartwell, and Genometry (2001), edited by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann. The story is included in the collection Designer Genes: Tales of the Biotech Revolution (2004).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This collection of nine proto-science fiction tales, translated and edited by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford, ranges from Louis-Sébastien Mercier's 1768 opening tale, in which the hero communicates with the dead through a beam that anticipates a modern-day laser, to an 1887 story by Guy de Maupassant that speculates on Martian life. In between, we have tales of a heart transplant, a device that can see through time and an alien dragon. The book also includes Albert Robida's classic novella "The Monkey King" in which Saturnin Farandoul, shipwrecked as a baby and raised by apes on a Pacific Island, visits the Mysterious Island and joins forces with Captain Nemo to battle the savage pirate hordes of Bora-Bora. The stories gathered here exemplify the manifest intention of writers from the 18th and early 19th centuries to create a new genre of modern, imaginative fiction, distinctively different from the Utopias and occult romances typical of the times. This edition includes a historical introduction and notes by Stableford.

Table of Contents:

• News from the Moon - short story by Louis-Sébastien Mercier (trans. of Nouvelles de la Lune 1788)
• The Embalmed Hand - short story by Adrien Robert (trans. of La main embaumée 1867)
• The Future Phenomenon - (1992) - short story by Stéphane Mallarmé (trans. of Le phénomène futur 1876)
• The Metaphysical Machine - short story by Jean Richepin (trans. of La machine à métaphysique 1876)
• The Monkey King - short story by Albert Robida (trans. of Le roi des singes 1882)
• The Historioscope - short story by Eugène Mouton (trans. of L'historioscope 1883)
• Tony Wandel's Heart - short story by Georges Eekhoud (trans. of Le cœur de Tony Wandel 1884)
• Martian Mankind - (2004) - short story by Guy de Maupassant (trans. of L'homme de Mars 1887)
• The Red Triangle - short story by Fernand Noat (trans. of Le triangle rouge 1902)

This is a new collection of 13 proto-science fiction tales and other scientific romances, penned between 1796 and 1921, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. From cosmic journeys exploring Mars and Jupiter, examining the nature, languages and reproductive methods of various alien species, to the tale of a man who awakens 10,000 years in the future when the Moon has broken apart and rained debris upon the Earth and suspension bridges link the planets of the Solar System; from future war stories, the discovery of automata and telepathy, to speculations about the extraterrestrial origins of Life on Earth, the tales gathered here exemplify the manifest intention of writers from the 18th and 19th centuries to create a new genre of imaginative fiction. The title piece, written in 1913, was the first-ever published item in a series of propagandistic works of fiction by rocket enthusiasts. It is remarkable for its description of space travel, and its attempt to design a hypothetical biosphere for another planet.

Table of Contents:

• Posthumous Correspondence - short fiction by Restif de La Bretonne (trans. of Les posthumes, lettres reçues après la mort du mari par sa femme qui le croit à Florence (excerpt) 1802)
• Perfectibility - short fiction by Charles Nodier (trans. of Hurlubleu grand Manifafa d'Hurlubière ou la perfectibilité: Histoire progressive 1833)
• he Story of a Naiad - short fiction by Louis Ulbach (trans. of Histoire d'une naïade 1858)
• Astronomical Journeys - short fiction by X. B. Saintine (trans. of Courses astronomiques 1864)
• War in 1894 - short fiction by Adrien Robert (trans. of La guerre en 1894 1867)
• The Origin of Life - short fiction by Eugène Mouton (trans. of L'origine de la vie 1877)
• Quiet House - (1885) - short fiction by Jules Lermina
• The Automaton - short fiction by Remy de Gourmont (trans. of L'automate 1889)
• The Future Terror - short fiction by Marcel Schwob (trans. of La terreur future 1891)
• A Rival of Edison - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of Un rival d'Edison 1909)
• Erebium - (1904) - short fiction by Alphonse Allais
• The Germans on Venus - short fiction by André Mas (trans. of Les Allemands sur Vénus 1914)
• Telepathy - (1921) - short fiction by Théo Varlet

This collection of 18 proto-science fiction tales, translated and edited by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford, includes such ground-breaking tales as Charles Cros' An Interastral Drama (1872), about an unlawful love between an Earthman and a Venusian woman, Victorien Sardou's The Black Pearl (1862), the first romance of forensic science, Eugène Mouton's The End of the World (1872), depicting an ecocatastrophe precipitated by global warming generated by human industrial activity, and Louis Mullem's The Supreme Progress (1890), an imaginative tour de force of unprecedented scope predicting ideas that were later to be popularized by writers such as Olaf Stapledon. All the stories included in this volume predate the first translation into French of H.G. Wells. They are representative of a distinct tradition of romans scientifiques whose cardinal influences included astronomer Camille Flammarion and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.

Table of Contensts

• Introduction (The Supreme Progress) - essay by Brian Stableford
• An Interastral Drama - (2010) - short story by Charles Cros (trans. of Un drame interastral 1872)
• The End of the World - short story by Eugène Mouton (trans. of La fin du monde 1872)
• The Supreme Progress - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of Le progrès suprême 1894)
• The Paradise of Flowers - short fiction by X. B. Saintine (trans. of Le paradis des fleurs 1864)
• The Great Discovery of Animules - short fiction by X. B. Saintine (trans. of Grande découverte des animules 1864)
• The Science of Love - short fiction by Charles Cros (trans. of La science de l'amour 1874)
• A Newspaper of the Future - short fiction by Charles Cros (trans. of Le journal de l'avenir 1880)
• The Pebble That Died of Love - (1886) - short fiction by Charles Cros (trans. of Le caillou mort d'amour 1887)
• The Mirosaurus - (1885) - short fiction by Charles Epheyre (trans. of Le Mirosaurus 1893)
• Professor Bakermann's Microbe - (1890) - short story by Charles Epheyre (trans. of Le microbe du Professeur Bakermann, récit des temps futurs 1892)
• A Tale of the Future - short fiction by Paul Adam (1862-1920) (trans. of Le conte futur 1893)
• The End of a Monopoly - short fiction by Louis Mullem
• The New Year - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of Fin d'année 1890)
• The Invisibility of Monsieur Gridaine - short fiction by Louis Mullem
• Club Conversation - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of Causeries de cercle 1909)
• The Shadow and His Man - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of L'ombre et son homme 1904)
• Chemical Eternity - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of L'éternité chimique 1909)
• The Black Pearl - novelette by Victorien Sardou (trans. of La Perle Noire 1862)

A balloon ascent to the Heavens... A man with X-ray vision... A utopian metal city built on giant pylons above Paris... A sexless world in which women reproduce parthenogenetically and man is unknown... Is science insane? Unholy? See nine French authors of the 19th century grapple in a ground-breaking fashion with the future themes of science fiction. All the stories included in this volume predate the first translation into French of H.G. Wells. They are representative of a distinct tradition of romans scientifiques whose cardinal influences included astronomer Camille Flammarion and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (2011) - essay by Brian Stableford
• A Heavenward Voyage - (1840) - short story by Samuel-Henry Berthoud (trans. of Voyage au Ciel)
• The Second Sun - short fiction by Samuel-Henry Berthoud (trans. of Le Second Soleil 1862)
• Mimer's Head - short fiction by René de Pont-Jest (trans. of La Tête de Mimer 1863)
• Wood'stown - short fiction by Alphonse Daudet (trans. of Wood'stown 1874)
• Love Among the Stars - short fiction by Camille Flammarion (trans. of Un amour des astres 1896)
• The X-Ray - short fiction by Charles Recolin (trans. of Le Rayon X 1896)
• The Mysterious Dajan-Phinn - short fiction by Michel Corday (trans. of Le Mystérieux Dajan-Phinn 1908)
• A World Above the World - short fiction by Jules Perrin and H. Lanos (trans. of Un Monde sur le monde 1911)
• Drymea, World of Virgins - short fiction by André Mas (trans. of Drymea, monde de vierges 1923)

This is a new collection of 12 French proto-science fiction tales penned between 1757 and 1924, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. From a pioneering venture on the exploration of "inner space" by renowned Swiss philosopher Emerich de Vattel to visions of Paris in ruins being explored by future antiquarians; from interplanetary communication with the planet Mars to the discovery of a spaceship from Mercury, which crashed in the Antarctic, and the moving saga of the Earthmen who tried to save its alien pilot, this fifth collection provides an unparalleled view of the evolution of French scientific romances. In the title piece, Quebec helped to make up for France's lack of female genre writers with Emma-Adèle Lacerte's 1917 sequel to Jules Verne's classic tale, Twenty Thousands Leagues Under the Sea.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Nemoville) - (2011) - essay by Brian Stableford
• Voyages in the Microcosm - short fiction by Emerich de Vattel (trans. of Voyages dans le microcosme, par un disciple moderne de Pythagore 1757)
• Archeopolis - short fiction by Alfred Bonnardot (trans. of Archéopolis 1859)
• All the Way! The Commune in 1873 - short fiction by René de Maricourt (trans. of Au bout du fossé ! ! : la commune en l'an 2073 1874)
• The Tell-Tale Insects - short fiction by Alphonse Brown (trans. of Les insectes révélateurs 1889)
• A Professional Scruple - (1896) - short fiction by G. Bethuys
• Cataclysm - short fiction by G. Bethuys (trans. of Cataclysme 1896)
• A Message from Mars - short fiction by Paul Combes (trans. of Un message de la planète mars 1897)
• The Blue Laboratory - short fiction by Paul Combes (trans. of Le laboratoire bleu 1898)
• Nemoville - short fiction by Madame A. B. Lacerte (trans. of Némoville 1917)
• Three Hundred Years Hence - short fiction by Pierre Mille (trans. of Dans trois cents ans 1922)
• The Eternal Voyage; or The Prospectors of Space - short fiction by José Moselli (trans. of Le voyage éternel ou Les prospecteurs de l'infini 1923)
• The Planetary Messenger - (2011) - short fiction by José Moselli (trans. of Le messager de la planète 1924)

This is a new collection of seven French proto-science fiction stories devoted to explorations of the future, as imagined in the 1850s and early 1900s, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. This collection includes fantastic explorations of Future Paris by Théophile Gautier, Arsène Houssaye, Victor Fournel as well as Alfred Franklin's visionary The Ruins of Paris in 4875 (1875), Maurice Spronck's devastating criticism of socialist utopianism, Year 330 of the Republic (1894), and Jean Jullien's An Investigation of the World of the Future (1909), in which a reporter interviews scientists whose discoveries are in the process of laying the foundations for the transformation of human society.

Table of Contents:

• Future Paris - short fiction by Théophile Gautier (trans. of Paris futur 1851)
• Future Paris - short fiction by Arsène Houssaye (trans. of Le Paris futur 1856)
• Future Paris - short fiction by Victor Fournel (trans. of Paris nouveau et Paris futur 1865)
• The Ruins of Paris in 4875 - short fiction by Alfred Franklin (trans. of Les Ruines de Paris en 4908, documents officiels et inédits 1875)
• Year 330 of the Republic - short fiction by Maurice Spronck (trans. of L'an 330 de la République : XXIIe siècle de l'ère chrétienne 1894)
• An Investigation of the World of the Future - short fiction by Jean Jullien (trans. of Enquête sur le monde futur 1909)
• Hebal's Vision - short fiction by Pierre-Simon Ballanche (trans. of Vision d'Hebal, chef d'un clan écossais 1831)

In the 1890s, a generation before Hugo Gernsback, Louis Figuier, editor of the French popular science magazine La Science Illustrée, made a concerted effort to define and delimit the genre of roman scientifique, using that term to head a series of feuilletons that ran in his magazine from 1888 to 1905. This is a new collection of eight French proto-science fiction stories taken from the pages of La Science Illustrée, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. Included here are Vernian romances, tall tales featuring the dramatic extrapolation of natural phenomena, stories highlighting the scientific obsessions of geniuses with its social and psychological costs, and stories of everyday life in which scientific knowledge comes to play a significant role.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (The Conqueror of Death) - (2013) - essay by Brian Stableford
• The Tribulations of an Angler - short fiction by Alphonse Brown (trans. of Les tribulations d'un pêcheur à la ligne 1891)
• The Story of an Earthquake - short fiction by Camille Debans (trans. of Histoire d'un tremblement de terre 1892)
• Le Désiré - short fiction by Émile Gautier (trans. of Le Désiré, première traversée d'un bateau sous-marin 1893)
• Fire Island - short fiction by Camille Debans (trans. of L'île en feu 1893)
• Springfield's Doubloons - short fiction by Georges Price (trans. of Les 800 doublons de Springfield 1895)
• A Steam Duel - short fiction by Camille Debans (trans. of Un duel à vapeur 1895)
• The Conqueror of Death - short story by Camille Debans (trans. of Le vainqueur de la mort. Chronique des siècles à venir 1895)
• The Gold-Mines of Bas-Meudon - (1898) - short fiction by Paul Combes (trans. of Les mines d'or du Bas Meudon)

The Revolt of the Machines translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford, features eight stories written between 1865 and 1918, providing a cross-section of the early development of what the editor of the 19th century magazine La Science Ilustrée, Louis Figuier, called roman scientifique [scientific fiction]. Expanding upon the scientific speculations of the day, the stories in this volume often adopt philosophical or moral tones when conceptualizing the consequences of the discovery of anti-gravity; the breakthrough finding that life is possible after death; the mass suicide of technology; a cautionary tale of the dangers of telepathy; humans being dominated by a sub-species; a man who gets lost in history; and the exploration of Earth's newest moon, the wandering planetoid Anthea. In every case, these scientific romances use scientific conjecture to tackle the eternal theme of what it means to be human.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Brian Stableford
• A Prodigious Discovery - short fiction by X. Nagrien (trans. of Prodigieuse découverte 1866)
• Dr. Z***'s Autopsy - short fiction by Edouard Rod (trans. of L'Autopsie du Dr. Z*** 1884)
• The Revolt of the Machines - short story by Emile Goudeau (trans. of La révolte des machines 1891)
• The Rival Colleagues - short fiction by Louis Valona (trans. of Confrères ennemis 1896)
• Monsieur Forbe's Hallucination - short fiction by Jules Perrin (trans. of L'Hallucination de Monsieur Forbe 1908)
• The Race That Will Be Victorious - short fiction by Jules Sageret (trans. of La Race qui vaincra 1908)
• The Veridical Ascension Through History of James Stout Brighton - short fiction by Gaston de Pawlowski (trans. of La véridique ascension dans l'histoire de James Stout Brighton 1909)
• Anthea; or, The Strange Planet - short fiction by Michel Épuy (trans. of Anthéa ou l'étrange planète 1918)

They call them the "rat-catchers." They're the crew of the spaceship Daedalus, which an economically destitute Earth has dispatched on a mission to re-establish contact with its far-flung, long-lost space colonies. Alex Alexander, ship's biologist, must help solve the mysteries of human and alien ecosystems that he encounters light-years from home.

The planet Floria initially appears to be one of the few Earth colonies that's actually prospered since its initial settlement. But underneath the surface of the society, the "Planners" keep a strict, repressive rule over the Florians, while the police are apparently attempting to assert their own authority. But is either group actually what they seem? Daedalus Mission, Book One.

They call them the "rat-catchers." They're the crew of the spaceship Daedalus, which an economically destitute Earth has dispatched on a mission to re-establish contact with its far-flung, long-lost colonies in space. Alex Alexander, the ship's biologist, together with his staff, must help solve the mysteries of human and alien ecosystems that he encounters light-years from home.

Dendra is a stable world, covered by a huge, unchanging forest--except that nothing living can really be free of change. The planet has no seasons, but its animal life still undergoes life-cycles involving birth, maturation, metamorphosis, and death. The Earth colony sent to tame the world has failed, at least in the terms expected of it, and seems beyond redemption; but the crew of the Daedalus still has to find out exactly why and how the program has gone wrong. Provided, of course, that they can survive the investigation itself!

They call them the "rat-catchers." They're the crew of the spaceship Daedalus, which a declining Earth has sent to re-establish contact with its long-lost colonies. Biologist Alex Alexander, together with his staff, must help solve the mysteries of human and alien ecosystems that they encounter far from home.

On the world called Wildeblood, named for the ecologist/Emperor who founded it, the settlers' descendants harbor a terrible secret--a secret that Alex must uncover, if the colony is to survive. But he must also make contact with the world OTHER intelligent species, something that will take time--time that the colonists are determined not to give him. And even if can solve the biological problem, what about the diplomatic one? The Daedalus Mission, Book Thre

The fourth landing of the Daedalus Mission confronts Alex and his companions with a colonial culture seemingly modeled on a classic Utopian dream, but all of its inhabitants are infected with a mysterious alien parasite, and they no longer seem entirely human. Are they being controlled by the parasite, or has the parasite merely enabled them to transform themselves? Can the visitors from Earth avoid infection themselves, and what will the consequences be if they cannot?

For once, the risks of the contact seem potentially far greater than any possible reward--but that still leaves the visitors with the necessity of passing judgment and deciding what to do, in an exceedingly awkward situation. Daedalus Mission, Book Four.

The planet Attica has two continents: Lambda and Delta. The indigenous alien population being restricted to Delta, Earth's colony was planted on Lambda. Before the arrival of the Daedalus, two sailing ships had set out from Lambda to cross the ocean separating the two continents, and neither had returned.

Now a third is on its way, and Mariel Valory and Alex Alexander of the Daedalus have hitched a lift, in order that Mariel might use her talent to try to make contact with the aliens. Unfortunately, it turns out that contact has already been made, and that the aliens are building an empire with the aid of borrowed Terran technology--an empire that's beginning to crack under its internal strains and eternal challenges.

And when Alex and Mariel are marooned by their reluctant hosts, things start to go from very bad to much worse....

Daedalus Mission, Book Five.

The final contact made by the Daedalus Mission begins badly, even before the ship makes a hard landing in the middle of nowhere. The situation of the colony doesn't seem to make any sense, and neither does the situation of the indigenous aliens--the Sets--that have helped the colony survive and thrive.

Alex Alexander doesn't take long to work out a hypothesis that might explain the mystery--a hypothesis that the people on the ground have already worked out for themselves--and he's fortunate enough to fall in with a colonist who's obsessively determined to prove the hypothesis. Unfortunately, the quest seems likely to become so dangerous that both of them might die trying--and there's too much at stake not to take it to the very limit of possibility, no matter what the cost.

The stunning conclusion (Book Six) of The Daedalus Mission series.

An extraordinary story of suspense set in 1872 that tells of David and Gabriel, unknowing hosts for the enormously powerful fallen angels of Biblical mythology. As the fallen angels move toward their final confrontation in a strange private hell, their pawns must move with them, struggling for their own lives - and the fate of the world.

The second in the trilogy that began with The Werewolves of London, continues the chronicle of the fallen angels, who manipulate earthly events through human instruments. Twenty-one years after David's first mission, he is called upon again to discover the truth behind these supernatural beings. And this mission cannot succeed unless he can first confront the Angel of Pain.

God is dead, and seven remaining fallen angels carry on their eternal battle through human agents. Now, while the Great War rages in Europe, David Lydyard embarks on his final supernatural quest. With a French soldier miraculously rescued from death for an ally against his old enemies, Lynyard penetrates the nature of angels and their interference in human affairs.

Ten millennia had passed since the creation of the Beasts, and those ten thousand years had obliterated the original purpose of Adam December and the construct surgeons.

Ten millennia had passed since the word WAR was forgotten and remembered; and that word wiped out ten thousand years of peaceful coexistence.

Ten millennia, one thousand decades, ten thousand years... and for the first time Humans and Beasts were dying throughout the galaxy.

But it should have been expected: man had created the Beasts in his own image, and unfortunately, the Beasts were just like him.

The first of the brilliant science fiction trilogy of the Dies Irae, by the talented author of CRADLE OF THE SUN.

Mark Chaos was a long way from home. He had spent many years fighting in the Beast war, which had begun as an affair to honor but ended in a bloodbath for all the Humans of the House of Stars. Yet Beasts and Humans were exactly alike - except that ten thousand years before the Beasts had originated from zoological gene banks under the deft hands of the construct surgeons.

The war was a terrible thing, even more terrible because its leaders never knew they were being tricked and guided by one man - a man who came from a universe which no longer existed. He was Heljanita the Toymaker, who spun a crooked wheel that distorted minds and dimensions.

And Heljanita was particularly interested in Mark Chaos.

Humans and beasts alike were licking their wounds after the bloodiest battle in cosmic history. They had been pawns-puppets whose strings had been pulled by a cruel master: Heljanita the Toymaker.

Heljanita had used what he considered to be the deadliest weapon-a ten thousand year distortion of time. His purpose: to obliterate a world he'd hated.

But his new world was a powder-keg. For two of his victims, stranded in time, were determined to fight back.

Time, as before, was manipulated, twisted, bent and perverted... up to a point.

This is a science fiction novel of enormous scope, filled with wonders. Set earlier in the same "future history" as Inherit the Earth, Architects of Emortality, and The Fountains of Youth, The Cassandra Complex is the independent story of events crucial to the creation of the universe in which the others take place. It is the twenty-first century, a world of rapid change and biotech threats and promises. World War Three, the biotech war, is on the horizon and the world as we know it is going to end. The fateful question is, who is going to choose the kind of future that will follow, and who gets to live in this new world to come?

Lisa Frieman, a forensic researcher working for the police, is attacked in her apartment. Jordan Miller, a distinguished scientist with whom Lisa once worked, has disappeared with a secret discovery. But what has he discovered that everyone wants? And why do the thieves, and their remote masters, think that Lisa has any knowledge of the secret Miller guards?

Profound scientific extrapolation combined with riveting suspense make this at once a futuristic thriller and a cutting-edge SF novel. The Cassandra Complex expands the scope of Brian Stableford's growing future history and adds another major accomplishment to his long list of triumphant creations.

In the twenty-second century, biomedical nanotechnology has given everyone in the world long life and robust health. It is the New Utopia, and all live in the expectation that true immortality will soon be realized.

Damon Hart, son of the scientist responsible for much of the wonders of the new world, would rather forget his famous father and get on with his own life. But a shadowy terrorist group forces Damon to confront his heritage, launching a cat-and-mouse game that pits Damon against the terrorists, Interpol, and the powerful corporations that control the biotechnology of the future...a game Damon is ill-equipped to survive.

Dark Araratis the fifth novel in an overarching masterpiece. It extends into interstellar space Brian Stableford's ambitious ongoing future history series begun in Inherit the Earth and continued in The Architects of Emortality, The Fountains of Youth, and The Cassandra Complex.

Hundreds of years in our future, humanity is expanding out into the galaxy in gigantic colony ships. Slower than light speed, the ships are filled with long-lived people who are, nevertheless, in suspended animation for all or much of the voyage. One ship has reached a promising world and begun a colony, but not everyone has yet been awakened.

Matthew Fleury is shocked to learn that he has been revived from suspended animation to replace a colleague who has been murdered.

Is the planet still inhabited by the alien race that left ancient ruins of great cities? And who killed the eminent scientist leading the investigation of the ruins? If the aliens survive, then the planet becomes off limits to humans, and the ship must find another planet to colonize. There are some colonists who would kill to leave. And some who would kill to stay.

Brian Stableford launched an ambitious future history series with Inherit the Earth, to widespread praise. "Stableford has created in this novel a totally believable world, and wrapped it around a series of mysterious events, surprise revelations, double crosses, confused motivations, rumors, lies, plots, and counterplots.... Tightly controlled and suspenseful throughout," said Science Fiction Chronicle.

Library Journal said, "The ethical questions posed by the prospect of conquering the aging process underscore this fast-paced SF adventure, adding depth to a story that will appeal to fans of high-tech SF and conspiracy theories." This future world is a complex society obsessed with the technology of life extension and on the brink of creating true immortals.

Now, in Architects of Emortality, Stableford gives us a story set hundreds of years in the future, filled with people who can hope for 300-year lifespans and a fortunate few whose lives will be in the thousands of years. This society is on the edge of radical change, where people have the time to develop eccentric lifestyles and personal obsessions, a world sometimes reminiscent of the distant future of Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time series. And there has been a series of murders that threaten the future stability of the world, murders executed by bioengineered flowers. Police officers Watson and Holmes investigate, but the central figure quickly becomes the amateur detective Oscar Wilde, a student of history who has taken on the persona of his namesake. And the question is not so much who the murderer is, but how and why.

Filled with memorable characters and powerful and striking images of the richly altered world of the future, Architects of Emortality is a satisfying and complete story that also adds depth and detail to the evolving series.

Hundreds of years in the future, Mortimer Gray is born into a world in which he potentially can live forever. But after a traumatic natural disaster that kills millions, Gray devotes the next 500 years of his life to a study of death and its effects on human civilization.

The Omega Expedition is a philosophical novel, an independent work, but also a sequel to both Inherit the Earth and The Fountains of Youth. It begins with the extraordinary life-history of Adam Zimmerman, developer of the technology of emortality. The main part of the narrative describes his long-delayed awakening into the 35th century, a time of true immortals. His exotic hosts--inhabitants of a microworld in the outer solar system--have recruited various interested parties to help with the project, one of whom (inevitably) is the famous historian of death, the immortal Mortimer Gray, who is exceedingly anxious to gain what insight he can into the vagaries of the mortal mind.

The Omega Expedition is a richly textured, serious SF novel that will resound like a huge bell, ringing down the halls of science fiction for years to come.

In a galactic culture that extends from quasi-Utopian worlds like New Alexandria to vermin-infested slums like Old Earth, starship pilots have become the great romantic heroes of the day. When Star-Pilot Grainger is rescued from a shipwreck, he finds himself pressed into reluctant service to fly the Hooded Swan, the prototype of a new kind of interstellar ship. He's also picked up an alien parasite that's determined to share his brain. Under these dire circumstances, can Grainger possibly stay out of trouble? Not a chance!

Hooded Swan, Book One.

In the culture of the galaxy, the Star-Pilots of the starships that link the cosmos together have become the great heroes of the day. Grainger, who has become a legend in his own lifetime, is drafted to fly the prototype (the Hooded Swan) of a new ship that could revolutionize space travel. The members of the ultra-ascetic Church of the Exclusive Reward have colonized a number of marginal worlds to exclude themselves from galactic society. On Rhapsody, church members lead a completely subterranean existence. Even closed societies have their rebels, however, so when a major scientific discovery emerges from the caves of the dark planet, everything there falls apart. If Grainger can secure a share in the coming bonanza, he could buy back his freedom from Titus Charlot. Before he can do that, however, he has to find some way of just staying alive....

Hooded Swan, Book Two.

In a galactic culture that extends from quasi-Utopian worlds like new Rome to vermin-infested slums like Old Earth, the Star-Pilots are the great heroes of the day, and Grainger has become a legend in his own time, flying the revolutionary ship, Hooded Swan. The rain forest of Chao Phrya seems a more hospitable place than the Halcyon Drift or the underground world of Rhapsody, scenes of Grainger's previous adventures. But the colonists of the jungle planet are crazed and the indigenous population enigmatic; and Grainger must must undertake a mission that requires a lengthy journey on foot through the dense forest. His quest seems awkward, hazardous, and doomed to failure--and that's before the giant spiders make their appearance!

Hooded Swan, Book 3.

In a galactic culture that extends from quasi-utopian worlds like New Alexandria to the vermin-infested slums of Old Earth, the Star-Pilots are the great heroes of the day, and Grainger has become a legend in his own time. Pharos is paradise--or so it appears.

But the champions of commerce want to package and sell the planet, and the conservationists want to stop them. Grainger's employer, Titus Charlot, is enlisted to negotiate a settlement, but the game is rigged. Charlot needs the Star-Pilot's help, but there seems to be nothing he can do--until the planet's ecosystem takes a hand, and "paradise" suddenly turns deadly!

Hooded Swan, Book Four.

In a galactic culture that extends from quasi-Utopian worlds like New Alexandria to vermin-infested slums like Old Earth, the Star-Pilots that link the cosmos are the great heroes of the day, and Grainger has become a legend in his own lifetime. The atmosphere of Mormyr is so dense that the surface is unreachable, which made it the ideal place for the alien Gallacellans to hide an ancient spaceship. Now they want it back. Grainger refuses, but when the Hooded Swan answers a mayday call, Grainger and his crew are trapped by a madman, who forces them to pursue the salvage anyway. Success will mean Grainger's freedom from Titus Charlot, owner of the Hooded Swan; failure will mean the death of the inhabitants of an entire planet. And then the Gallacellans appear!

Hooded Swan, Book Five.

In a galactic culture that extends from quasi-Utopian worlds such as New Alexandria to vermin-infested slums like Old Earth, the Star-Pilots have become the great heroes of the day. Grainger has become a legend in his own time, flying the prototype vessel of a new starship.... Having escaped from his contract with Charlot, Grainger is hounded by the Caradoc Commpany, who wants to extract everything from his brain about his former employer. But Charlot has other plans, and Grainger suddenly finds himself back on the Hooded Swan, leading a rescue mission for the Swan's sister ship in the bizarre Nightingale Nebula. This last voyage proves costlier than the previous ones, as Grainger must risk not only his life--but his very soul!

Hooded Swan, Book Six.

Where Paul Heisenberg had stood there was now a silver statue, dressed in the same white tunic, but reflecting from the surface that had, once been bare flesh all the light which had been carefully directed to compose the glowing nimbus.

The glow was even brighter now, and in the stillness which followed the interruption of the beautiful voice, there was a profundity which seemed terrible ...'

In front of 80,000 people Heisenberg, the new Messiah, the darling of the media, had gone into a trance of immeasurable depth. His body had gone into limbo, awaiting some future awakening, and it wasn't long before others had similarly gone into stasis and followed him.

Soon there were thousands fleeing through the aeons, congregating at meeting points hundreds of years ahead and then leaping off ever further into the future until finally they reached the very end of time.

But then where would they go? And where were the people they'd left behind?

Brian Stableford discusses all of James Blish's significant work, his major and minor themes, and places his career in the perspective of science fiction history during the post-war period.

Table of Contents

• Introduction - essay
• Foundation Stones - essay
• Tectogenesis and Pantropy - essay
• Cities in Flight - essay
• Experiments in Thought - essay
• Experiments in Adventure - essay
• Juveniles - essay
• After Such Knowledge - essay
• Conclusion - essay
• Biography & Bibliography - essay

Contents:

• 3 - Introduction (Masters of Science Fiction: Essays on Six Science-Fiction Authors) - essay by Brian Stableford
• 6 - Edmond Hamilton and Leigh Brackett: An Appreciation - essay by Brian Stableford
• 15 - Locked in the Slaughterhouse: The Novels of Kurt Vonnegut - essay by Brian Stableford
• 24 - Insoluble Problems: Footnotes to Barry Malzberg's Career in Science Fiction - (1977) - essay by Brian Stableford
• 32 - The Metamorphosis of Robert Silverberg - essay by Brian Stableford
• 43 - Utopia--and Afterwards: Socioeconomic Speculation in the SF of Mack Reynolds - essay by Brian Stableford

Seven lucid and entertaining essays on masters of science fiction and fantasy literature.

Contents:

• 4 - About Brian Stableford - essay by uncredited
• 5 - Introduction (Algebraic Fantasies and Realistic Romances: More Masters of Science Fiction) - essay by Brian Stableford
• 7 - The Future Between the Wars: The Speculative Fiction of John Gloag - (1980) - essay by Brian Stableford
• 25 - Algebraic Fantasies: The Science Fiction of Bob Shaw - (1981) - essay by Brian Stableford
• 45 - Realistic Romances: The Fantastic Fiction of Edgar Fawcett - essay by Brian Stableford
• 73 - The Politics of Evolution: Philosophical Themes in the Speculative Fiction of M. P. Shiel - (1983) - essay by Brian Stableford
• 99 - Galactic Hitch-Hiker: The Sudden Rise of Douglas Adams - essay by Brian Stableford
• 105 - The Chronicles of Stephen R. Donaldson: The Fantasist - essay by Brian Stableford
• 113 - Animal Spirits: The Erotic and the Supernatural in Michael Jackson's "Thriller" Video - (1985) - essay by Brian Stableford

S. Fowler Wright's novel, The World Below, one of the classics of British scientific romance, was hailed as a masterpiece of science fiction when it was published in the U.S. Originally intended as a trilogy, the novel was cut short when Wright's business went bankrupt. Now Brian Stableford, with the permission of the author's estate, has penned the sequel that the master never had the chance to finish.

A Million years hence, life on Earth has undergone a radical transformation that has brough it under threat from extraterresteral trials. To settle its difficulties, a time-traveler from the twentieth century must attempt a further odyssey into the remote future time, which only he is qualified to undertake. But will he be able to bring back any intelligence from his voyage, if he manages to return at all-or will the possiblity that he might change history doom his quest from the outset?

Like it's predecessor, The World Beyond attemps to enxtend the literary imagination as far as it can be taken, in the context of our present scientific understanding of evolutionary processes. This is a first-rate adventure based on a work of creative genius.

After laboring for thousands of years, the people of Earth, fleeing ecological disaster, have built a new, clean, stable world on a worldwide platform erected over the entire land surface of the Earth. Everything is going well--except for Carl Magner, the man who's been having bad dreams.

He shouldn't be having dreams at all, because dreams have been banished from the society of the Euchronian Millennium, but somehow he is, and his dreams are showing him the "Underworld." The real surface of the Earth, the Underworld that the Euchronian Millennium has left behind, still maintains life, human and otherwise, life that's adapted to a world without sky or sun, still evolving in response to extreme environmental challenges.

Dreams are only dreams, but they're a provocation nevertheless, not merely for Carl Magner, but for the whole of Euchronian society. Can Heaven be truly Heaven, if Hell still festers in its entrails?

Deep within the shadowy foothills of the Grey Mountains, a dark and deadly plot is uncovered by an innocent young merchant. A mysterious stranger leads young Reinmar Weiland to stumble upon the secrets of a sinister underworld hidden beneath the very feet of the unsuspecting Empire - and learn of a legendary elixir, the mysterious and forbidden Wine of Dreams.

A moment's kindness plunges the wandering player Orfeo deep into a web of intrigue within the grim walls of Zaragoz, where his life is imperiled by tyrannical ministers, secret police, black magicians and wayward saints. This is the first in a trilogy of macabre tales related by Orfeo of the struggles that threaten the Warhammer world.

The second of a trilogy of macabre fantasies told by the minstrel Orfeo of the struggle against the Dark Powers that threaten the Warhammer world.

The third of a trilogy of macabre fantasies told by the minstrel Orfeo of the struggle against the Dark Powers that threaten the Warhammer world.