Search Worlds Without End

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Weird Tales, Fall 1990. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 2 (1991), edited by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell and Nebula Awards 26 (1992). It is included in the collection Voyages by Starlight (1996).

Hugo, Nebula and Sturgeon Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, May 2002. The story can also be found in the anthologies Science Fiction: The Best of 2002 (2003) edited by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection (2003), edited by Gardner Dozois and Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction (2005), also edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collection Breathmoss and Other Exhalations (2004).

This collection of literary short fiction combines fantasy, science fiction, and horror in vivid settings, peopled with ordinary humans with normal relationships, and the interaction of the mundane with the fantastic. In "Breathmoss," a young girl must cope with the relationship with her family, love, and a community set in rigid custom, where males are a rarity. In "Verglas," a man must decide to leave his humanity by going native on an ice world or abandon his family. The events leading to the formation of the current government, the repression of Jews and homosexuals, and the horrors of being a closet homosexual in such a regime are examined in "The Summer Isles." Other stories encompass a scientist who searches for extraterrestrial intelligence; a rigid, aged man finding magic by a pool; and an 18-year-old girl who gains the reputation of being a death flower during WWII.

Table of Contents:

• Big Lies - essay
• Breathmoss - (2002) - novella
• Verglas - (1996) - novella
• The Chop Girl - (1999) - novelette
• The Noonday Pool - (1995) - novelette
• New Light on the Drake Equation - (2001) - novella
• Isabel of the Fall - (2001) - novelette
• The Summer Isles - (1998) - novella

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, December 2013. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection (2014), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eight (2014), edited by Jonathan Strahan. The story is included in the collection Frost on Glass (2015).

Famous, creatively-blocked, novelist faces exile or execution unless he can write a new story in the title novella of this collection, and the theme of writing threads through the pages of the entire book.

As well as eleven dazzling stories that explore strange pasts and new futures, there are pieces drawn from the writer's life, substantial commentaries on the origins and development of each of the stories, and a major new essay on how ideas are developed.

Both a magnificent gathering of fiction and a penetrating examination of the craft of writing, Frost on Glass memorably showcases and analyses the storytelling genius of Ian R. MacLeod.

Tiptree nominated novella. First published in Asimov's, June 1992. Later anthologized in Gardner Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection (1993) and Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy (1998), and collected in Voyages by Starlight (1996) and Snodgrass and Other Illusions: The Best Short Stories of Ian R. MacLeod (2013).

BSFA and Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Interzone, #169 July 2001. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection (2002), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Space Opera (2014), edited by Rich Horton. It is included in the collections Breathmoss and Other Exhalations (2004) and Snodgrass and Other Illusions: The Best Short Stories of Ian R. MacLeod (2013).

Read the full story for free at Best SF.

Journeys will take you to extraordinary places. From a changed Jerusalem to windmills which draw their own wind. From windswept British campsites to vast slave empires which have never been. MacLeod's breadth of vision in this collection is extraordinary, but what unites these stories is his abiding interest in humanity, and the way in which he combines the fantastically strange and with the memorably everyday. Expect widescreen wonder in Journeys, with many surprising truths, and some dazzling writing, along the way.

Table of Contents:

• The Master Miller's Tale - (2007) - novella
• Taking Good Care of Myself - (2006) - shortstory
• The English Mutiny - (2008) - novelette
• Topping Off the Spire - (2008) - shortstory
• Elementals - (2008) - novella
• The Camping Wainwrights - (2008) - novelette
• The Hob Carpet - (2008) - novella
• On the Sighting of Other Islands - (2008) - shortstory
• Second Journey of the Magus - (2010) - shortstory

This novelette originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, May 1991. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection (1992), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Voyages by Starlight (1996).

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Dying for It: More Erotic Tales of Unearthly Love (1997), edited by Gardner Dozois, and was reprinted in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 1998, and in Clarkesworld Magazine, #95 August 2014. It can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection (1998), edited by Gardner Dozois
• Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future (2002), also edited by Dozois
• Beyond Flesh (2002), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois

The story is included in the collections Past Magic (2006) and Snodgrass and Other Illusions: The Best Short Stories of Ian R. MacLeod (2013).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Sturgeon Award nominated novella. It originally appeared on Sci Fiction, May 2, 2001 and was later reprinted in Lightspeed, November 2014. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection (2002) and Best of the Best Volume 2: 20 Years of the Year's Best Short Science Fiction Novels (2007), both edtied by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collections Breathmoss and Other Exhalations (2004) and Snodgrass and Other Illusions: The Best Short Stories of Ian R. MacLeod (2013).

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, October 1993. It can also be found in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eleventh Annual Collection (1994), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Voyages by Starlight (1996).

This short story originally appeared in Interzone, #39 September 1990. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighth Annual Collection (1991), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Clones (1998), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collections Past Magic (2006) and Snodgrass and Other Illusions: The Best Short Stories of Ian R. MacLeod (2013).

Recrossing the Styx is the short story of Frank Onions, tour guide on the futuristic cruise ship Glorious Nomad, who meets Dottie Hastings, the deliciously seductive woman of his dreams. Dottie is unhappily married to a zombie-like, resurrected trillionaire named Warren.

The question is: What lengths will Frank and Dottie go to to be together?

This story story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July-August 2010. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection (2011) and is included in the collection Frost on Glass (2015).

In the aftermath of the last great battle of the American Civil War, a disillusioned Union medic stumbles across a strange figure picking amid the corpses, and his life is changed forever...

In the cathedral city of Strasbourg in the years before the French Revolution, a church restorer is commissioned to paint a series of portraits that chart the changing appearance of a beautiful woman over the course of her life, although the woman herself seems ageless...

In Prohibition-era New York, an idealistic young Marxist is catapulted into the realms of elite society, and forced to assume the identity of someone who never existed...

Red Snow is a novel of love and violence, ideas and dreams, and revolves around the mystery of a monster drawn from humanity's darkest myths which still somehow survives, and thrives, and kills, in this modern age.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology In Dreams (1992), edited by Paul J. McAuley and Kim Newman. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection (1993), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 4 (1993), edited by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell. The story is included in the collections Past Magic (2006) and Snodgrass and Other Illusions: The Best Short Stories of Ian R. MacLeod (2013).

As seen on Sky Arts' Playhouse Presents: Imagine there's no Lennon... In the reality-altering novella "Snodgrass," John Lennon sidesteps his musical destiny and instead becomes a civil servant

After spending his adolescence like so many others had, playing in a band with friends, John Lennon knows it's time to grow up. Skipping out on the Beatles before they would go on to become one of the greatest rock groups of the twentieth century, John moves to Birmingham. As he watches the exploits of friends Paul, Ringo, and George, John grows older and lives an ordinary life... and he is left wondering "what if?"

With "Snodgrass" as its anchor, this collection of eleven stories also includes "The Chop Girl," inspired by the infamous Dresden bombing raids; "Past Magic," a futuristic account of parents cloning their children who have passed away; "New Light on the Drake Equation," inspired by a man's journey as he searches for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence; and seven more tales that showcase MacLeod's breadth as a writer.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay
• Grownups - (1992) - novella
• Hector Douglas Makes a Sale - (2011) - short story
• Isabel of the Fall - (2001) - novelette
• Nevermore - (1997) - novelette
• New Light on the Drake Equation - (2001) - novella
• Past Magic - (1990) - short story
• Second Journey of the Magus - (2010) - short story
• Snodgrass - (1992) - novelette
• The Chop Girl - (1999) - novelette
• The Master Miller's Tale - (2007) - novella
• Tirkiluk - (1995) - novelette
• A Biography of Ian R. MacLeod - essay

A man lies half-drowned on a Cornish beach at dawn in the furthest days of this century. The old woman who discovers him, once a famous concert violinist, is close to death herself... or a new kind of life she can barely contemplate.

Does death still exist at all, or has it finally been obliterated? And who is this strange man she's found? Is he a figure returned from her past, a new messiah, or an empty vessel? Is he God, or the Devil?

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 1995, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, February 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection (1996), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in Voyages by Starlight (1996).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Nature, May 4, 2006. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 12 (2007), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection Journeys (2010).

Read the full story for free at Nature.

World Fantasy Award winning and Hugo and Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, December 1999. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Thirteenth Annual Collection (2000), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling. It is included in the collections Breathmoss and Other Exhalations (2004) and Snodgrass and Other Illusions: The Best Short Stories of Ian R. MacLeod (2013).

A boy, desperate to escape the drudgery of life in his small town, gets caught up in the machinations of a traveling time keeper, and slowly watches his town and his life unravel by the seams.

Read the full story story for free at Tor.com

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2011. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection (2012), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Frost on Glass (2015).

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, September 2013, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld, #126, March 2017. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014, edited by Rich Horton, and The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection (2014), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Frost on Glass (2015).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Winner of the Locus Award for Best First Novel: In a dark future, a priest who has lost his faith battles for hope, love, and redemption in the teeming streets and souls of a vividly reimagined North Africa

Father John Alston has lost his faith but his heart remains strong. Having left behind a computerized, climate-controlled, and disease-free Europe, he administers aid to the destitute of a Borderer town in the Endless City. In the squalor of what was once North Africa, he provides spiritual comfort and basic health care, while preaching a message that he no longer believes. But the recent explosion of a deadly virus has John profoundly troubled and desperately searching for answers.

Suspecting a native plant commonly used as an intoxicant, John decides to investigate further with the help of a brilliant but mysterious Borderer woman. His pursuit of the mystery will set him on a collision course with powerful political realities designed to maintain the status quo of the Third World. On a harrowing journey through a radioactive valley of death—and through his own painful history—he will confront devastating truths that will either revive his damaged soul or destroy it completely.

Sidewise and World Fantasy Award winning and Hugo and Sturgeon Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, October-November 1998. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual Collection (1999), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collection Breathmoss and Other Exhalations (2004). It was later expanded to the full novel The Summer Isles (2005).

What would life in England look like in 1940 had the British lost World War I, replacing Germany 's role in history?

A powerfully gripping story of a closeted homosexual trying to survive in an alternate history England, Hugo finalist Ian R. MacLeod's novella The Summer Isles took readers by storm in 1998. First published in Asimov's Science Fiction, the novella explored what might happen had England become the equivalent of Nazi Germany. The novella went on to become a finalist for the 1999 Hugo Award and took home both the 1999 World Fantasy Award and the 1999 Sidewise Award for Alternate History, but has never been published in its original form... until now.

Locus and Strugeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, September 2016. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 2 (2017), edited by Neil Clarke, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eleven (2017), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection (2017), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017, edited by Rich Horton.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay by Michael Swanwick
• Ellen O'Hara - (1995) - novelette
• Green - (1990) - novelette
• Starship Day - (1995) - short story
• The Giving Mouth - (1991) - novelette
• The Perfect Stranger - (1991) - novelette
• Tirkiluk - (1995) - novelette
• Papa - (1993) - novelette
• 1/72nd Scale - (1990) - novelette
• Marnie - (1991) - novelette
• Grownups - (1992) - novella

Hollywood, 1940. It's the Golden Age of the Feelies. All one-time actor and unlicensed matrimonial private eye Clark Gable has to do is impersonate a wealthy scriptwriter for a few hours, and sign the contract for the biopic of the inventor of a device which has changed entertainment forever. What could go wrong? Already, he's seeing ghosts - but that's nothing unusual. Europe is devastated by war and America is sleep-walking into Fascism - but what's that got to do with him? By turns wry and romantic, but always gripping, multi-award winning writer Ian R MacLeod's latest novel is a dazzling collision of science, fantasy and history. Like the feelies themselves, Wake Up and Dream is film noir with Technicolor wraiths.

Sturgeon and World Fantasy Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 2007. The story can also be found in the anthology Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition, edited by Rich Horton. It is included in the collections Journeys (2010) and Snodgrass and Other Illusions: The Best Short Stories of Ian R. MacLeod (2013).

Aether rules the world. Aether drives the engines, the telegraphs, the very lights of London.

Through the power of aether, and through the secrets and mysteries of the guilds that wield it, England has created a mighty Industrial Age. It is a place of enchanted gardens and grimy terraces, smokestack factories and fantastic beasts. Yet in this great age of the world, Robert Borrows, the insignificant son of a Lesser Toolmaker, holds the key to the world's future.

Raised in the Yorkshire town of Bracebridge, a place dominated by the pounding of mighty subterranean engines, Robert witnesses the dark side of aether when his mother is transformed into a changeling; less than human, terrible to see. Fleeing to London, he re-encounters the beautiful, mercurial and mysterious Anna Winters, who he first met on a trip to a strange white palace in happier times. Roaming the vast, Brobdignagian city, all colours, smells and danger, exploring its myriad social layers, from petty criminals and revolutionaries to salon mistresses and opium dreamers, he discovers secrets that will lead him back towards the clouded hills of Bracebridge and the deepest mysteries of aether. For all is not well in England's green and pleasant land. This Age is ending, in fire and death...

A dazzling melange of Charles Dickens, Mervyn Peake and Edward Rutherfurd, The Light Ages is the story of a time of wonders and delights, mysteries and nightmares. Events both great and small are mirrored in the life of Robert Borrows, an ordinary man born into extraordinary times. Richly detailed, joyous, visionary - World Fantasy Award-winner, Ian R MacLeod, has produced a tour-de-force of imaginative fiction.

Darkness encroaches upon the Age of Light as Ian R. MacLeod's "electrifying" (Interzone) epic continues.