Search Worlds Without End

Fleeing the final war that would destroy Earth's civilization, a small group of Friends - Quakers - found refuge on the uncharted planet they named Foxfield. Somehow they managed to survive, with the aid of the bizarrely gifted native life-form, the Commensals - and, even more extraordinarily, they kept up the practice of their gentle but demanding beliefs. Then, after nearly a century of silence, Earth contacted them - human civilization had miraculously survived the war and had spread out to the stars, flourishing to an undreamed-of richness. And the Friends of Foxfield were a part of it - whether they agreed or not.

This short story originally appeared in Nature, June 29, 2000. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 6 (2001), edited by David G. Hartwell, Futures from Nature (2007), edited by Henry Gee, and Sentinels: In Honor of Arthur C. Clarke (2010), edited by Gregory Benford and George Zebrowski.

Read the full story for free at Nature.

One of the most respected writers of hard SF, it has been more than ten years since Joan Slonczewski's last novel. Now she returns with a spectacular tour de force of the college of the future, in orbit. Jennifer Ramos Kennedy, a girl from a rich and politically influential family (a distant relation descended from the famous Kennedy clan), whose twin brother has died in an accident and left her bereft, is about to enter her freshman year at Frontera College.

Frontera is an exciting school built with media money, and a bit from tribal casinos too, dedicated to educating the best and brightest of this future world. We accompany Jenny as she proceeds through her early days at school, encountering surprises and wonders and some unpleasant problems. The Earth is altered by global warming, and an invasive alien species called ultraphytes threatens the surviving ecosystem. Jenny is being raised for great things, but while she's in school she just wants to do her homework, go on a few dates, and get by. The world that Jenny is living in is one of the most fascinating and creative in contemporary SF, and the problems Jenny faces will involve every reader, young and old.

In the wake of the Death Year's atomic holocaust, an alien invasion imposes a kind of peace upon the survivors of a shattered Earth until a small community of Quakers decides to confront the saviors with their own version of resistance.

This short story originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, August 1995, and was reprinted in Apex Magazine, May 2014. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF (1996), edited by David G. Hartwell, and The Hard SF Renaissance (2002), edited by Kathryn Cramer and David G. Hartwell.

Thousands of years in the future in a distant part of the galaxy, lies the planet Shora, entirely covered by a world-spanning ocean. The huge and complex ecosystem of Shora is inhabited by the Sharers, an all female race who reproduce by parthenogensis, without males. The Sharers are immensely sophisticated in the life sciences, but have eschewed all unnatural technology. Over millennia of isolation, they have developed a complex philosophical and ethical system, idealistic, communal, and pacifist...

So begins a war, protracted and graphic, in which one side cannot fight because the concept is inconceivable in their philosophy...

The pristine city of Elysium floats on the water world of Shora, inhabited by 'immortals' who have succeeded in unlocking the secrets of life.

Outsider Blackbear Windclan wants to share the secret of immortality with his own people, but can he, and the City of Elysium, survive the corruption and decadence that immortality has bred into the ageless society. **** And what of the consciousness of self-aware nano-sentient servitors and their quest for vengence?

Only children can colonize the planet Prokaryon, genetically modified for a world whose chemistry kills unaltered adults. A colony of orphans struggle to survive, and find the planet hides strange secrets. ***** The Prokaryan landscape is ordered, as if by unseen gardeners, "hidden masters" no human has ever found. The weather behaves as though designed to meet the planet's needs. When fire threatens a forest, a rainstorm appears, only to dissipate when the fire is put out. ***** When a ruthless corporation threatens to terraform Prokaryon, to recreate it for "normal" humans, there is a sudden urgency to find the intelligent life form directing the planet. For only then can the colonists save their world-and reveal unexpected possibilities for the human future.

In Joan Slonczewski's Brain Plague...a starving artist on the planet Veledon agrees to let a colony of "brain enhancers" occupy her skull. These microscopic creatures live in the brain's outer linings, causing bursts of genius-or irreparable harm. The creatures themselves are like tiny human beings; one of their greatest concerns is getting their young to breed.