Search Worlds Without End

Contents:

• ii - Black Pockets (frontispiece) - (2005) - interior artwork by Bob Eggleton
• xi - Foreword (Black Pockets and Other Dark Thoughts) - essay by Howard Waldrop
• 5 - Jumper - (1988) - shortstory
• 15 - The Wish in the Fear - (1995) - shortstory
• 30 - Hell Just Over the Hill - (1996) - shortstory
• 38 - The Alternate - (2006) - shortstory
• 45 - Earth Around His Bones - (2006) - shortstory
• 48 - Fire of Spring - (1981) - shortstory
• 55 - First Love, First Fear - (1972) - shortstory
• 64 - Passing Nights - (1994) - shortstory
• 67 - Takes You Back - (2003) - shortstory
• 85 - I Walked With Fidel - (1992) - shortstory
• 96 - General Jaruzelski at the Zoo - (1987) - shortstory
• 102 - The Soft Terrible Music - (1996) - shortstory
• 114 - My First World - (2004) - novelette
• 153 - Interpose - (1973) - shortstory
• 160 - The Coming of Christ the Joker - (2003) - novelette
• 178 - Nappy - (2004) - shortstory
• 191 - A Piano Full of Dead Spiders - (2005) - shortstory
• 206 - Black Pockets - (2006) - novella
• 261 - Lords of Imagination - (2006) - shortstory
• 267 - Afterword (Black Pockets) - (2006) - essay

High Crimes Call for High Punishment

It is the twenty-first century. Convicts are sentenced to asteroids that move in ever-widening solar orbits, timed to return when their terms run out. But a few ambitious administrators discover that small "errors" in velocity can rid them of selected groups altogether: the hardcore violent, the mentally defective, and especially the political dissidents. Enduring the black vise of interstellar space-time, these human rejects--men and women mixed together--create their own Darwinian societies, struggling to survive.

Back on Earth, a handful of sympathetic and curious scientists have not forgotten these lost citizens. When a technological breakthrough makes it possible to overtake these scattered asteroids, a courageous team sets out to go where none has willingly gone before. What they discover in these "brute orbits" is both provocative and moving--a startling vision of humanity you will never forget.

Ten stories, all cowritten by Jack Dann and George Zebrowski.

Table of Contents:

• Afternoon Ghost - (1994) - short story
• Dark, Dark, the Dead Star - (1970) - short story
• Faces Forward - (1975) - short story
• Listen, Love - (1971) - short story
• Od - (1973) - short story
• The Flower That Missed the Morning - (1974) - short story
• The Standard Crisis Scenario - (2012) - short story
• Thirty-Three and One-Third - (1974) - short story
• Traps - (1970) - short story
• Yellowhead - (1976) - short story

What do you tell yourself when impossible things begin to happen? What can you say? You're a police detective, but maybe you're just not good enough and that's what you have to admit, whether you like it or not. You see evidence of things that can't be real, but you just don't observe well enough to explain it in any natural way. Can you ask rational questions and still be crazy? Does it help any that you know your mind is gone? You're trapped in a black comedy with a beautiful but fatal woman right out of an old poem by Keats, hoping to wake up from the nightmare, even if on a cold hillside--as long as you wake up sane.

Detective William Benek is faced with an impossible crime: bodies are turning up without their brains and without any indication of how the organs were removed. His only lead--an attractive woman--becomes more than a lead, and then drives him into a world of terror, where his sanity is questioned and he must stop a monster he can barely comprehend.

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1971. The story can aslo be found in the anthology Nebula Award Stories Seven (1972), edited by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. and the collections The Monadic Universe (1977) and In the Distance, and Ahead in Time (2002).

The ten stories of this collection present glimpses of our near, middle, and far futures

"Heathen God," the author's first Nebula Award finalist, reveals the consequences of learning that our solar system may have been engineered by an alien race. "In the Distance, and Ahead in Time" and "Wayside World" depict the rediscovery of a ruined Earth's interstellar colonies by a new culture of mobile habitats. In "Transfigured Night" and "Between the Winds," we enter two possible destinies as we tamper with human reality and humankind mutates into vastly different offshoots.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (2002) - essay
• The Water Sculptor - (1970) - shortstory
• Parks of Rest and Culture - (1973) - shortstory
• Assassins of Air - (1973) - shortstory
• The Soft Terrible Music - (1996) - shortstory
• The Sea of Evening - (1983) - shortstory
• Heathen God - (1971) - shortstory
• Wayside World - (1977) - novelette
• In the Distance, and Ahead in Time - (1993) - novelette
• Transfigured Night - (1978) - novella
• Between the Winds - (1995) - shortstory

Respected science fiction author-editors Gregory Benford and George Zebrowski present an anthology, with unique color illustrations, that is filled with the excitement, poetry, and adventure awaiting us in the limitless final frontier that is the sky. For years, science fiction has portrayed humankind growing away from the cradle of Earth through spacecraft, space stations, and space homes. Skylife features stories by such masters of science fiction as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Larry Niven, Joan Vinge, and James Blish-in addition to several essays by scientists-all of which come together in one spectacular volume to provide a picture of our possible future beyond Earth.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: We All Live in the Sky - essay by George Zebrowski and Gregory Benford
• The End of the Beginning - (1956) - shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• Bigger Than Worlds - (1974) - essay by Larry Niven
• Special Delivery - (1957) - shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
• Feathered Friend - (1957) - shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
• Take a Deep Breath - (1957) - shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
• Freedom of Space - (1957) - shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
• Passer By - (1957) - shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Call of the Stars - (1957) - shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke
• Tank Farm - novelette by David Brin
• Breakaway, Backdown - (1996) - shortstory by James Patrick Kelly
• The Wind from a Burning Woman - (1978) - novelette by Greg Bear
• View from a Height - (1978) - shortstory by Joan D. Vinge
• The Voyage That Lasted Six Hundred Years - (1940) - novelette by Don Wilcox
• Redeemer - (1979) - shortstory by Gregory Benford
• Bindlestiff - (1950) - novelette by James Blish
• Open Loops - novelette by Stephen Baxter
• Spomelife: The Universe and the Future - (1965) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• Reef - novelette by Paul J. McAuley
• A Dream of Time - shortstory by George Zebrowski
• Space Stations and Space Habitats: A Selective Bibliography - essay by Gary Westfahl
• About the Authors - essay by George Zebrowski
• About the Artists - essay by George Zebrowski
• About the Editors - essay by George Zebrowski
• Permissions Acknowledgments - essay by George Zebrowski

The orbiting tachyon detector was designed by physicist Juan Obrion to identify life in other star systems, but even though he expected to find some signs of life, he certainly didn't expect to find any life on earth. Juan discovers that a culture has been concealed for many years far below Antarctica, and Obrion ventures out as part of a four-man team to explore the unknown. Juan, Lena, Malachi and Magnus are awestruck when they discover a myriad of portals to parallel lands, but the maze they fall into makes them wonder if their journey will ever come to an end.

Contents:

• ix - The Writer as Philosopher - essay by Gregory Benford
• 3 - The Word Sweep - (1979) - shortstory
• 15 - Starcrossed - (1973) - shortstory
• 22 - The Eichmann Variations - (1984) - shortstory
• 31 - This Life and Later Ones - (1987) - shortstory
• 42 - The City of Thought and Steel - (1984) - shortstory
• 50 - Gödel's Doom - (1985) - shortstory
• 62 - Lenin in Odessa - (1990) - shortstory
• 80 - Sacred Fire - (1991) - shortstory
• 90 - Stooges - (1986) - shortstory
• 107 - Bridge of Silence - (1986) - shortstory
• 117 - Swift Thoughts - (1995) - novelette
• 134 - The Idea Trap - (1986) - shortstory
• 149 - Behind the Night - (1987) - shortstory
• 163 - Wound the Wind - (2001) - shortstory
• 176 - Rope of Glass - (1973) - shortstory
• 189 - In the Distance, and Ahead in Time - (1993) - novelette
• 220 - Lesser Beasts - (1989) - shortstory
• 231 - The Number of the Sand - (1991) - shortstory
• 241 - Let Time Shape - (1992) - shortstory
• 253 - Shrinkers & Movers - (1999) - shortstory
• 268 - Augie - (2001) - shortstory
• 282 - The Last Science Fiction Story of the 20th Century - (2000) - shortstory
• 297 - Catch the Sleep Ship: The First Science Fiction Story of the 21st Century - (2001) - shortstory
• 309 - The Holdouts - (2000) - shortstory

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in the anthology Light Years and Dark: Science Fiction and Fantasy Of and For Our Time (1984), edited by Michael Bishop. The story can also be found in the anthology Nebula Awards 20 (1985), edtied by Zebrowski himself and the collection Swift Thoughts (2002).

The late 21st century seems like a good time to be alive. Earth is at peace. Humans now command self-replicating machines that create engineering marvels on enormous scales. Artificial habitats dot the solar system. Anti-matter driven Valkyrie rockets carry explorers to the stars at nearly the speed of light. All seems well.

Then, from the uncaring black of space come swarms of relativistic missiles. Though they are merely boulder-sized hunks of metal, they move fast enough to hit with the force of many nuclear arsenals. They are impossible to track and impossible to stop. Humanity is all but wiped out by the horrific bombardment.

A handful of survivors desperately struggle to escape the alien mop-up fleet. They hide close to the sun, inside asteroids, beneath the crusts of moons, within ice rings, and in the fathomless depths of interstellar space. But most are hunted down and slaughtered.

The last man and woman on Earth are captured as zoo specimens. In the belly of an alien starship, a squid-like being relates to them the pitiless logic behind human-kind's execution: the moment humans learned to travel at relativistic speeds was the moment mankind simply became too dangerous a neighbor to have around. Nothing personal.

Table of Contents:

• First Love, First Fear (1972)
• Starcrossed (1973)
• Assassins of Air (1973)
• Parks of Rest and Culture (1973)
• The Water Sculptor (1970)
• Rope of Glass (1973)
• Heathen God (1971)
• Interpose (1973)
• The History Machine (1972)
• The Cliometricon (1975)
• Stance of Splendor (1973)
• The Monadic Universe (1972) with Gerald Hull

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appaered in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, May 2001 and can also be found in the collection Swift Thoughts (2002).

A UN research team has been sent to the Antartic to investigate strangely patterened radio signals. Expecting a buried transmitter, the team is awestruck by what they discover hidden beneath the polar ice. But it doesn't remain hidden for long! The team is soon hurtling through space on an adventure that is as incredible as it is frightening.

George Zebrowski, author of The Star Web, is a Nebula Award Finalist. His first novel, Omega Point, published in 1972, has already been translated into six languages!

Subtitled A MOBILE UTOPIA, this pioneering novel about the meaning of space habitats for human history, presents spacefaring as no work did in its time, and since. A utopian novel like no other, presenting a dynamic utopian civilization that transcends the failures of our history.

Epic in scope, MACROLIFE opens in the year 2021. The bulero family owns one of Earth's richest corporations. As the Buleros gather for a reunion at the family mansion, an industrial accident plunges the corporation into a crisis, which eventually brings the world around them to the brink of disaster. Vilified, the Buleros flee to a space colony where young Richard Bulero gradually realizes that the only hope for humanity lies in macrolife--mobile, self-reproducing space habitats.

A millennium later, these mobile communities have left our sunspace and multiplied. Conflicts with natural planets arise. John Bulero, a cloned descendant of the twenty-first century Bulero clan, falls in love with a woman from a natural world and experiences the harshness of her way of life. He rediscovers his roots when his mobile returns to the solar system, and a tense confrontation of three civilizations takes place.

One hundred billion years later, macrolife, now as numerous as the stars, faces the impending death of nature. Regaining his individuality by falling away from a highly evolved macrolife, a strangely changed John Bulero struggles to see beyond a collapse of the universe into a giant black hole.

Inspired by the possibilities of space settlements, projections of biology and cosmology, and basic human longings, MACROLIFE is a visionary speculation on the long-term future of human and natural history. Filled with haunting images and memorable characters, this is a vivid and brilliant work.

Zebrowski's works have been translated into eight languages; his short fiction has been nominated for the Nebula Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. Brute Orbits, an uncompromising novel about a future penal system, was honored with the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel of the Year in 1999.

The Easton Press published Macrolife in its "Masterpieces of Science Fiction" series.

Old Earth is gone. Humanity has been scattered to the stars. Some left their dying planet in spaceship arks, in search of new worlds to inhabit. Others, nanoengineered for near-immortality, explore the far reaches of interstellar space in gargantuan macrolife mobiles. An earthlike human society endures on the einvironmentally volatile planet of Tau Ceti IV--a rigid community of the faithful that has declared evil the science that caused the homeworld's destruction. The Church is the absolute power here; obedience and belief the rule. But His Holiness Peter III, the New Vatican's most powerful figure, himself harbors doubts, engendered by his love for his unacknowledged and illegitimate rebel daughter Josepha. And suddenly there is another assault on his tottering faith--and on the sacred tradtitions he has devoted his life to uphold. For an emissary, Voss Rhazes, has arrived from one of old Earth's journeying mobiles--the first off-planet human visitor ever to Tau Ceti--bearing remarkable hated technology that could shred the fragile emotional fabric of a family...and bring devastating chaos to their world.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Nebula Awards 20) - essay by George Zebrowski
• 1984 or Against - essay by Algis Budrys
• Bloodchild - (1984) - novelette by Octavia E. Butler
• The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule - (1984) - novelette by Lucius Shepard
• Press Enter [] - (1984) - novella by John Varley
• New Rose Hotel - (1984) - shortstory by William Gibson
• The Greening of Bed-Stuy - (1984) - novella by Frederik Pohl
• The Lucky Strike - (1984) - novelette by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Morning Child - (1984) - shortstory by Gardner Dozois
• The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything - (1984) - shortstory by George Alec Effinger
• A Cabin on the Coast - (1984) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Dogs' Lives - (1984) - novelette by Michael Bishop
• The Eichmann Variations - (1984) - shortstory by George Zebrowski
• Love Song to Lucy - (1983) - poem by Helen Ehrlich
• Lucy Answers Back - (1983) - poem by Helen Ehrlich
• Saul's Death - (1983) - poem by Joe Haldeman
• Science Fiction Films of 1984 - essay by Bill Warren
• SFWA, the Guild - essay by Norman Spinrad

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by George Zebrowski
• What Was 1985 That We Were Mindful of It? - essay by Algis Budrys
• Heirs of the Perisphere - (1985) - shortstory by Howard Waldrop
• Out of All Them Bright Stars - (1985) - shortstory by Nancy Kress
• The Fringe - (1985) - novelette by Orson Scott Card
• Sailing to Byzantium - (1985) - novella by Robert Silverberg
• More Than the Sum of His Parts - (1985) - shortstory by Joe Haldeman
• Portraits of His Children - (1985) - novelette by George R. R. Martin
• For Spacers Snarled in the Hair of Comets - (1984) - poem by Bruce Boston
• Letter from Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) - (1984) - poem by Siv Cedering
• The Steam-Powered Word Processor - (1986) - shortfiction by Arthur C. Clarke
• Paper Dragons - (1985) - novelette by James P. Blaylock
• Effing the Ineffable - (1987) - essay by Gregory Benford
• Science Fiction Films of 1985 - essay by Bill Warren

Nebula Awards 22: SFWA Choices for the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 1986 - Nebula Awards Showcase

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1988) - essay by George Zebrowski
• 1986, Reduced from 2000 - (1988) - essay by Algis Budrys
• Robot Dreams - (1986) - shortstory by Isaac Asimov
• Seven Steps to Grand Master - (1988) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• Tangents - (1986) - shortstory by Greg Bear
• Surviving - (1986) - novelette by Judith Moffett
• The Girl Who Fell into the Sky - (1986) - novelette by Kate Wilhelm
• Listening to Brahms - (1986) - novelette by Suzy McKee Charnas
• R & R - (1986) - novella by Lucius Shepard
• Salvage - (1986) - novelette by Orson Scott Card
• Newton Sleep - (1986) - novelette by Gregory Benford
• Rhysling Poetry Award Winners (1986) - (1988) - essay by George Zebrowski
• The Neighbor's Wife - (1985) - poem by Susan Palwick
• Shipwrecked on Destiny Five - (1985) - poem by Andrew Joron
• Science Fiction Movies of 1986 - (1988) - essay by Bill Warren

With their sun about to go nova, the people of Epictetus III face annihilation. Although the U.S.S. Enterprise has come to lead the rescue operation, there is no way to evacuate a population of over twenty million, leaving Captain Picard to make an agonizing decision. Should he try to salvage the planet's children, its greatest leaders and thinkers, or its irreplaceable archeological treasures? No matter what he decides, millions must be sacrificed -- unless another solution can be found.

With time running out, Data proposes a revolutionary scientific experiment that could save all of Epictetus III, or doom both the planet and the Enterprise as well.

Two hundred million kilometers across, with a surface area that exceeds that of a quarter-billion worlds, the Dyson sphere is one of the most astounding discoveries the Federation has ever made. Now the U.S.S. Enterprise has returned to explore the awesome mysteries of the sphere. Intrigued by what is possibly the greatest archaeological treasure of all time, Captain Jean-Luc Picard hopes to discover the origin of humanoid life throughout the galaxy -- or perhaps the ultimate secret of the Borg.

But when a neutron star approaches on a collision course with the sphere, a mission of discovery becomes a desperate race against time. The many sentient species inhabiting the sphere face extinction -- can even the Starship Enterprise save them all?

The legend of Captain Garth, the hero of Axanar, has spread throughout the Federation. His exploits are required reading at Starfleet Academy -- where he became a hero of a future legend, James T. Kirk.

Brutal injuries sustained on Antos IV forced the native Antosians to heal him by means of giving him their natural shape-changing abilities. But the cure proved worse than the disease, as Garth was driven insane.

His madness apparently cured at the rehab colony on Elba II, Captain Garth has returned to service to mediate a crisis on Antos IV, with the aid of Captain Kirk and the Starship Enterprise. But has Garth truly put his insanity behind him, or will he renew his plans for conquest -- starting with the Antosians?

When an abandoned space habitat is found within a distant asteroid belt, the Starship Enterprise is sent to investigate. Captain Kirk and his crew discover an artificial world full of technological marvels -- and unexpected dangers.

But wonder and curiosity give way to fear when the habitat's shifting orbit sends it on a collision course with an inhabited planet within the same solar system. Now Kirk and Spock must find a way to save the planet without destroying a treasure trove of alien science, and time is running out...

The Hawking left Earth during the 21st Century on a one-way mission to colonize a distant world. Due to the relativistic effects of pre-warp travel, it's crew has aged only thirty years while two centuries have passed outside the ship. When the Starship Enterprise comes to the rescue of the malfunctioning Hawking, the colonists find themselves thrust into a universe and an era that has left them behind.

Captain Kirk intends to help the colonists adjust as best he can, but the task is not a simple one. The newcomers are survivors of a more violent, more paranoid time -- and the have brought old suspicions, and an ancient weapon of mass destruction, into a world of unexpected challenges and dangers.

Table of Contents:

• ix - Introduction: Synergists - essay by George Zebrowski
• 1 - Bleak Velocities - poem by Gregory Benford
• 6 - Jewels in an Angel's Wing - short story by Ian Watson
• 28 - Signals - novelette by Charles L. Harness
• 83 - Veritas - novelette by James Morrow
• 111 - My Life as a Born-Again Pig - novelette by Frederik Pohl
• 164 - Madonna of the Red Sun - short story by W. Warren Wagar
• 183 - Inside Out - novelette by Rudy Rucker
• 217 - What Should an SF Novel Be About? - (1986) - essay by Brian W. Aldiss

Table of Contents:

• vii - Introduction: In the Flow of Synergies - essay by George Zebrowski
• 1 - Diary of a Mad Deity - novelette by James Morrow
• 27 - French Scenes - novelette by Howard Waldrop
• 49 - Taking from the Top - novella by Daniel Pearlman
• 107 - Probability Pipeline - [Delbert & Zeb - 1] - novelette by Marc Laidlaw and Rudy Rucker
• 131 - The Daily Chernobyl - poem by Robert Frazier
• 137 - Backward, Turn Backward - novella by James Tiptree, Jr.
• 215 - SF Poetry: A New Genre - (1981) - essay by Andrew Joron

Table of Contents:

• vii - Introduction: The Wines of Synergy - essay by George Zebrowski
• 1 - Before the Rainbow - novelette by Fruma Klass
• 55 - Phylogenesis - novelette by Paul Di Filippo
• 76 - All the Livelong Night - novelette by Bruce Clemence
• 113 - Proserpina's Daughter - novella by Gregory Benford and Paul A. Carter
• 186 - The Author as Torturer - (1987) - essay by Ian Watson

Table of Contents:

• vii - Introduction: Beyond Entertainment - essay by George Zebrowski
• 1 - The End-of-the-World Ball - novelette by James E. Gunn [as by James Gunn]
• 34 - Oort Cloud - novelette by Robert Reed
• 66 - Chimera - short story by Jayge Carr
• 86 - Passages - short story by Michael Cassutt
• 106 - The Farmer on the Wall - short story by Marc Laidlaw
• 126 - Old Four-Eyes - novelette by Chad Oliver
• 161 - The Final Dream - novella by Daniel Pearlman
• 238 - Antenna - poem by Andrew Joron
• 246 - In the Tradition of: An Immodest Proposal Revisited - essay by Pamela Sargent

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: The Engine of Synergy - essay by George Zebrowski
• [One of the great pleasures of editing an original anthology ...] - essay by George Zebrowski
• Bodily Surrender - short story by Jan Lars Jensen
• [Charles L. Harness's memorable first story, ...] - essay by George Zebrowski
• ["One sunny day on the lawn behind the main lab ...] - essay by Charles L. Harness
• Polly -novelette by Charles L. Harness
• [Christopher McKitterick is a technical writer, ...] - essay by George Zebrowski
• The Enlightenment - short story by Christopher McKitterick
• [About Eleanor Arnason's novel, ...] - essay by Eleanor Arnason and George Zebrowski
• The Garden: A Hwarhath Science Fictional Romance - novelette by Eleanor Arnason
• [This gifted Australian polymath, ...] - essay by George Zebrowski
• The Meek - short story by Damien Broderick
• Yggdrasil - short story by Damien Broderick
• [Humankind is an unhappy family, ...] - essay by George Zebrowski
• Two More for Tolstoi - short fiction by Fruma Klass
• [Janeen Webb's shortfiction has won ...] - essay by George Zebrowski
• The Red City - novelette by Janeen Webb
• [Poetry is the heart of science fiction.] - essay by George Zebrowski
• Uncompressed Rituals - poem by Robert Frazier and Andrew Joron
• Man Suspended by Voices - poem by Robert Frazier and Andrew Joron
• [William Tenn is the well-known pseudonym ...] - essay by George Zebrowski
• Welles or Wells: The First Invasion from Mars - essay by William Tenn
• [I regret that this wonderful editor, ...] - essay by George Zebrowski
• Cele Goldsmith Lalli: Furthering the Unwritten History - (2002) - interview of Cele Goldsmith - interview by Barry N. Malzberg
• [Reading this, you should not have to be told ...] - essay by George Zebrowski
• An Interview with Ray Bradbury - interview of Ray Bradbury - interview by George Zebrowski
• Who Killed Science Fiction - Again? - essay by George Zebrowski