Search Worlds Without End

'Tis done.

The world is a most confused and unsteady place -- especially London, center of finance, innovation, and conspiracy -- in the year 1714, when Daniel Waterhouse makes his less-than-triumphant return to England's shores. Aging Puritan and Natural Philosopher, confidant of the high and mighty and contemporary of the most brilliant minds of the age, he has braved the merciless sea and an assault by the infamous pirate Blackbeard to help mend the rift between two adversarial geniuses at a princess's behest. But while much has changed outwardly, the duplicity and danger that once drove Daniel to the American Colonies is still coin of the British realm.

No sooner has Daniel set foot on his homeland when he is embroiled in a dark conflict that has been raging in the shadows for decades. It is a secret war between the brilliant, enigmatic Master of the Mint and closet alchemist Isaac Newton and his archnemesis, the insidious counterfeiter Jack the Coiner, a.k.a. Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds. Hostilities are suddenly moving to a new and more volatile level, as Half-Cocked Jack plots a daring assault on the Tower itself, aiming for nothing less than the total corruption of Britain's newborn monetary system.

Unbeknownst to all, it is love that set the Coiner on his traitorous course; the desperate need to protect the woman of his heart -- the remarkable Eliza, Duchess of Arcachon-Qwghlm -- from those who would destroy her should he fail. Meanwhile, Daniel Waterhouse and his Clubb of unlikely cronies comb city and country for clues to the identity of the blackguard who is attempting to blow up Natural Philosophers with Infernal Devices -- as political factions jockey for position while awaiting the impending death of the ailing queen; as the "holy grail" of alchemy, the key to life eternal, tantalizes and continues to elude Isaac Newton, yet is closer than he ever imagined; as the greatest technological innovation in history slowly takes shape in Waterhouse's manufactory.

Everything that was will be changed forever...

The System of the World is the concluding volume in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, begun with Quicksilver and continued in The Confusion.

In a future of near-instantaneous global travel, of abundant provision for the needs of all, a future in which no one living can remember an actual war... a long era of stability threatens to come to an abrupt end. For known only to a few, the leaders of the great Hives, nations without fixed location, have long conspired to keep the world stable, at the cost of just a little blood. A few secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction can ever dominate, and the balance holds.

And yet the balance is beginning to give way. Mycroft Canner, convict, sentenced to wander the globe in service to all, knows more about this conspiracy the than he can ever admit. Carlyle Foster, counselor, sensayer, has secrets as well, and they burden Carlyle beyond description. And both Mycroft and Carlyle are privy to the greatest secret of all: Bridger, the child who can bring inanimate objects to life.

This collection of short stories by H. G. Wells is the most comprehensive yet, and showcases the hugely fertile imagination of the great author, whose ideas and storylines remain hugely relevant to this day.

Table of Contents:

• 3 - The Stolen Bacillus - (1894) - short story
• 9 - The Flowering of the Strange Orchid - (1894) - short story
• 16 - In the Avu Observatory - (1894) - short story
• 22 - The Triumphs of a Taxidermist - (1894) - short story
• 26 - A Deal in Ostriches - (1894) - short story
• 30 - Through a Window - (1894) - short story
• 37 - The Temptation of Harringay - (1895) - short story
• 42 - The Flying Man - (1895) - short story
• 48 - The Diamond Maker - (1894) - short story
• 55 - Aepyornis Island - (1894) - short story (variant of Æpyornis Island)
• 65 - The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes - (1895) - short story
• 74 - The Lord of the Dynamos - non-genre - (1894) - short story
• 82 - The Hammerpond Park Burglary - (1894) - short story
• 89 - The Moth - (1895) - short story
• 98 - The Treasure in the Forest - (1894) - short story
• 107 - The Plattner Story - (1896) - short story
• 124 - The Argonauts of the Air - (1895) - short story
• 135 - The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham - (1896) - short story (variant of The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham)
• 150 - In the Abyss - (1896) - short story
• 164 - The Apple - (1896) - short story
• 171 - Under the Knife - (1896) - short story
• 183 - The Sea Raiders - (1896) - short story (variant of The Sea-Raiders)
• 192 - Pollock and the Porroh Man - (1895) - short story
• 206 - The Red Room - (1896) - short story
• 214 - The Cone - non-genre - (1895) - short story
• 224 - The Purple Pileus - (1896) - short story
• 234 - The Jilting of Jane - (1894) - short story
• 241 - In the Modern Vein: An Unsympathetic Love Story - (1894) - short story
• 250 - A Catastrophe - (1895) - short story
• 258 - The Lost Inheritance - (1896) - short story
• 264 - The Sad Story of a Dramatic Critic - (1895) - short story
• 272 - A Slip Under the Microscope - (1896) - short story
• 291 - The Crystal Egg - (1897) - short story
• 306 - The Star - (1897) - short story
• 316 - A Story of the Stone Age - (1897) - novella
• 363 - A Story of the Days to Come - (1899) - novella
• 436 - The Man Who Could Work Miracles - (1898) - short story
• 453 - Filmer - (1901) - short story
• 468 - The Magic Shop - (1903) - short story
• 478 - The Valley of Spiders - (1903) - short story
• 488 - The Truth About Pyecraft - (1903) - short story
• 497 - Mr Skelmersdale in Fairyland - (1903) - short story
• 509 - The Inexperienced Ghost - (1902) - short story
• 520 - Jimmy Goggles the God - (1898) - short story
• 531 - The New Accelerator - (1901) - short story
• 543 - Mr Ledbetter's Vacation - (1898) - short fiction (variant of Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation)
• 558 - The Stolen Body - (1898) - short story
• 572 - Mr Brisher's Treasure - (1899) - short fiction (variant of Mr. Brisher's Treasure)
• 581 - Miss Winchelsea's Heart - (1898) - short story
• 596 - A Dream of Armageddon - (1901) - short story
• 621 - The Door in the Wall - (1906) - short story
• 636 - The Empire of the Ants - (1905) - short story
• 650 - A Vision of Judgment - (1899) - short story (variant of A Vision of Judgement)
• 656 - The Land Ironclads - (1903) - novelette
• 675 - The Beautiful Suit - non-genre - (1909) - short story
• 679 - The Pearl of Love - (1925) - short story
• 683 - The Country of the Blind - (1904) - novelette
• 704 - The Reconciliation - (1895) - short story
• 710 - My First Aeroplane - [Little Mother - 1] - (1910) - short story
• 720 - Little Mother Up the Mörderberg - [Little Mother - 2] - (1910) - short story
• 730 - The Story of the Last Trump - (1915) - short story
• 743 - The Grisly Folk - (1921) - essay
• 757 - A Tale of the Twentieth Century: For Advanced Thinkers - (1887) - short fiction (variant of A Tale of the Twentieth Century)
• 762 - Walcote - (1898) - short story
• 769 - The Devotee of Art - (1888) - short fiction
• 779 - The Man with a Nose - (1894) - short fiction
• 783 - A Perfect Gentleman on Wheels - (1897) - short fiction
• 793 - Wayde's Essence - (1895) - short fiction
• 802 - A Misunderstood Artist - (1894) - short fiction
• 806 - Le Mari Terrible - (1895) - short story
• 810 - The Rajah's Treasure - (1896) - short story
• 821 - The Presence by the Fire - (1897) - short story
• 827 - Mr Marshall's Doppelganger - (1897) - short fiction (variant of Mr. Marshall's Doppelganger)
• 837 - The Thing in No. 7 - (1894) - short story
• 843 - The Thumbmark - (1894) - short story
• 850 - A Family Elopement - (1894) - short fiction
• 855 - Our Little Neighbour - (1895) - short fiction
• 863 - How Gabriel Became Thompson - (1894) - short fiction
• 872 - How Pingwill Was Routed - (1895) - short fiction
• 876 - The Loyalty of Esau Common: A Fragment - (1902) - short fiction (variant of The Loyalty of Esau Common)
• 891 - The Wild Asses of the Devil - (1915) - short story
• 901 - Answer to Prayer - (1937) - short story
• 904 - The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper - (1932) - short story
• 921 - The Country of the Blind (Revised Version) - (1939) - short fiction (variant of The Country of the Blind (revised))
• 951 - Introduction to The Country of the Blind and Other Stories - (1911) - essay (variant of Introduction (The Country of the Blind and Other Stories))
• 956 - Introduction to Revised Version of "The Country of the Blind" - (1939) - essay (variant of Introduction (The Country of the Blind))

Widely regarded as one of the true classics of science fiction, Star Maker is a poetic and deeply philosophical work. This 1937 successor to Last and First Men offers another entrancing speculative history of the future. The story details the mental journey of an unnamed narrator who is transported not only to other worlds but also other galaxies, intelligent star clusters, mingles amoung alien races and continues on to parallel universes, until he eventually becomes part of the "cosmic mind."

First published in 1937, Olaf Stapledon's descriptions of alien life are a political commentary on human life in the turbulent inter-war years. The book challenges preconceived notions of intelligence and awareness, and ultimately argues for a broadened perspective that would free us from culturally ingrained thought and our inevitable anthropomorphism.

This is the first scholarly edition of a book that influenced such writers as C.S. Lewis, Doris Lessing, and Arthur C. Clarke. Jorge Luis Borges called this work "a prodigious novel."

Being a Time Courier was one of the best jobs Judson Daniel Elliott III ever had. It was tricky, though, taking group after group of tourists back to the same historic event without meeting yourself coming or going. Trickier still was avoiding the temptation to become intimately involved with the past and interfere with events to come. The deterrents for any such actions were frighteningly effective. So Judson Daniel Elliott played by the book. Then he met a lusty Greek in Byzantium who showed him how rules were made to be broken... and set him on a family-history-go-round that would change his past and his future forever!

High above the planet Harmony, the Oversoul watches. Its task, programmed so many millennia ago, is to guard the human settlement on this planet--to protect this fragile remnant of Earth from all threats. To protect them, most of all, from themselves.

The Oversoul has done its job well. There is no war on Harmony. There are no weapons of mass destruction. There is no technology that could lead to weapons of war. By control of the data banks, and subtle interference in the very thoughts of the people, the artificial intelligence has fulfilled its mission.

But now there is a problem. In orbit, the Oversoul realizes that it has lost access to some of its memory banks, and some of its power systems are failing. And on the planet, men are beginning to think about power, wealth, and conquest.

A prominent turn-of-the-century social critic and lecturer, Charlotte Perkins Gilman is perhaps best known for her short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," a chilling study of a woman's descent into insanity, and Women and Economics, a classic of feminist theory that analyzes the destructive effects of women's economic reliance on men.

In Herland, a vision of a feminist utopia, Gilman employs humor to engaging effect in a story about three male explorers who stumble upon an all-female society isolated somewhere in South America. Noting the advanced state of the civilization they've encountered, the visitors set out to find some males, assuming that since the country is so civilized, "there must be men." A delightful fantasy, the story enables Gilman to articulate her then-unconventional views of male-female roles and capabilities, motherhood, individuality, privacy, the sense of community, sexuality, and many other topics.

Decades ahead of her time in evolving a humanistic, feminist perspective, Gilman has been rediscovered and warmly embraced by contemporary feminists. An articulate voice for both women and men oppressed by the social order of the day, she adeptly made her points with a wittiness often missing from polemical writings.

Secrets Lie Within The Earth

"Tell me frankly what you saw in that chasm: I am sure it was something strange and terrible. Confide in me."

The engineer long endeavoured to evade my inquiries. But at last, he spoke.

"I will tell you all. A steady brilliant light. I left the cage and clambered down. As I drew nearer and nearer to the light, the chasm became wider, and at last I saw, to my unspeakable amaze, a broad level road at the bottom of the abyss, illumined as far as the eye could reach by what seemed artificial gas-lamps placed at regular intervals, as in the thoroughfare of a great city; and I heard confusedly at a distance a hum as of human voices. I know, of course, that no rival miners are at work in this district. Whose could be those voices? What human hands could have levelled that road and marshalled those lamps?"

"You will descend again?"

"I ought, yet I feel as if I durst not."