Search Worlds Without End

There is a world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse. Such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organization with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers?

Among those operatives are Temudjin Oh, of mysterious Mongolian origins, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice under snow; Adrian Cubbish, a restlessly greedy City trader; and a nameless, faceless state-sponsored torturer known only as the Philosopher, who moves between time zones with sinister ease. Then there are those who question the Concern: the bandit queen Mrs. Mulverhill, roaming the worlds recruiting rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, under sedation and feigning madness in a forgotten hospital ward, in hiding from a dirty past.

There is a world that needs help; but whether it needs the Concern is a different matter.

In the not-too-distant future, competing giant fast food factions rule the world. Leonard works for Neetsa Pizza, the Pythagorean pizza chain, in a lonely but highly surveilled home office, answering calls on his complaints hotline. It's a boring job, but he likes it — there's a set answer for every scenario, and he never has to leave the house. Except then he starts getting calls from Marco, who claims to be a thirteenth-century explorer just returned from Cathay. And what do you say to a caller like that? Plus, Neetsa Pizza doesn't like it when you go off script.

Meanwhile, Leonard's sister keeps disappearing on secret missions with her "book club," leaving him to take care of his nephew, which means Leonard has to go outside. And outside is where the trouble starts.

A dazzling debut novel wherein medieval Kabbalists, rare book librarians, and Latter-Day Baconians skirmish for control over secret mystical knowledge, and one Neetsa Pizza employee discovers that you can't save the world with pizza coupons.

Louis Sacchetti is a poet and pacifist imprisoned for refusing to enlist in the war against Third World guerillas. Sacchetti and the other inmates are used in perverse scientific experiments, and Sacchetti is infected with a germ that raises intelligence to incredible heights while causing decay and death.

Emi Vargas, whose parents helped save the world, is tired of being told how lucky she is to have been born after the climate crisis. But following the public assassination of a dozen climate criminals, Emi's mother, Kristina, disappears as a possible suspect, and Emi's illusions of utopia are shattered. A determined Emi and her father, Larch, journey from their home in Nuuk, Greenland to New York City, now a lightly populated storm-surge outpost built from the ruins of the former metropolis. But they aren't the only ones looking for Kristina.

Thirty years earlier, Larch first came to New York with a team of volunteers to save the city from rising waters and torrential storms. Kristina was on the frontlines of a different battle, fighting massive wildfires that ravaged the western United States. They became part of a movement that changed the world--The Great Transition--forging a new society and finding each other in process.

Alternating between Emi's desperate search for her mother and a meticulously rendered, heart-stopping account of her parents' experiences during The Great Transition, this novel beautifully shows how our actions today determine our fate tomorrow.

In a near-future France, François, a middle-aged academic, is watching his life slowly dwindle to nothing. His sex drive is diminished, his parents are dead, and his lifelong obsession -- the ideas and works of the nineteenth-century novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans -- has led him nowhere. In a late-capitalist society where consumerism has become the new religion, François is spiritually barren, but seeking to fill the vacuum of his existence.

And he is not alone. As the 2022 Presidential election approaches, two candidates emerge as favourites: Marine Le Pen of the Front National, and Muhammed Ben Abbes of the nascent Muslim Fraternity. Forming a controversial alliance with the mainstream parties, Ben Abbes sweeps to power, and overnight the country is transformed. Islamic law comes into force: women are veiled, polygamy is encouraged and, for François, life is set on a new course.

Submission is both a devastating satire and a profound meditation on isolation, faith and love. It is a startling new work by one of the most provocative and prescient novelists of today.

Gumshoe Conrad Metcalf has problems-not the least of which are the rabbit in his waiting room and the trigger-happy kangaroo on his tail. Near-future Oakland is an ominous place where evolved animals function as members of society, the police monitor citizens by their karma levels, and mind-numbing drugs such as Forgettol and Acceptol are all the rage. In this brave new world, Metcalf has been shadowing the wife of an affluent doctor, perhaps falling a little in love with her at the same time. But when the doctor turns up dead, our amiable investigator finds himself caught in the crossfire in a futuristic world that is both funny-and not so funny.

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, January-February 2018, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld, Issue 149, February 2019. The story is included in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year: Volume Thirteen (2019), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Four (2019), edited by Neil Clarke.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Fighting has spread across the Middle East and Central Asia to the borders of China. In the US, refugees from climate-change disaster subsist in FEMA camps. Images of official executions circulate on the Internet like al Qaeda videos. State agencies sponsor conspiracy theories as cover-ups. As the troops of the last superpower stand astride the last of the oil, China and Russia aren't the only states considering their options: certain nations of Old Europe are quietly preparing for the worst.

James Travis is a middle-aged middle manager in a software company. He has a son in the army, a daughter in a peace-protest camp outside a USAF base, and a compromising relationship with a foreign intelligence service. When his cover is blown hours before a nuclear explosion destroys the base, Travis, his son, and his daughter are all in serious trouble. And as the spooks and disinformation specialists focus their efforts on his capture, Travis knows that all it will take is one mistake and his only memorial will be another grainy video on... The Execution Channel.

An audacious, darkly glittering novel about art, fame, and ambition set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, from the author of three highly-acclaimed previous novels.

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as The Travelling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.

When I was younger I didn't know a thing about death. I thought it meant stillness, a body gone limp. A marionette with its strings cut. Death was like a long vacation – a going away. Not this.

Storms and flooding are worsening around the world, and a mysterious immune disorder has begun to afflict the young. Sophie Perella is about to begin her senior year of high school in Toronto when her little sister, Kira, is diagnosed. Their parents' marriage falters under the strain, and Sophie's mother takes the girls to Oxford, England, to live with their Aunt Irene. An Oxford University professor and historical epidemiologist obsessed with relics of the Black Death, Irene works with a Centre that specializes in treating people with the illness. She is a friend to Sophie, and offers a window into a strange and ancient history of human plague and recovery. Sophie just wants to understand what's happening now; but as mortality rates climb, and reports emerge of bodily tremors in the deceased, it becomes clear there is nothing normal about this condition – and that the dead aren't staying dead. When Kira succumbs, Sophie faces an unimaginable choice: let go of the sister she knows, or take action to embrace something terrifying and new.

A financially comfortable but troubled young London author, Alex Hargreaves stumbles across the work of an unknown writer from the early 1990s, Vernon Crane, and presuming the missing Crane is dead, decides to pass the work off as his own. The problem is that the novel he wishes to plagiarize has been split among Crane's disparate and scattered group of friends, all of whom, twenty years later, are struggling with the demands of a life in a Britain in which current trends toward inequality and the concentration of political power have accelerated. Hargreave's mission to track down Crane's work sets in motion a series of encounters alternately tragic, redemptive and liberating and threatens to destroy Hargreaves own world in the process.

Combining the best elements of a literary thriller and speculative fiction, Resolution Way is a bleakly humorous satire on contemporary Britain, a meditation on the power of the past, the forces that shape our lives and the ways in which the possibility of the miraculous still remains.

Humanity is returning to the moon, but this time the mission is Japanese, and in private hands for commercial purposes. The year is 2025 and Otaba General Construction—a firm that has built structures to survive the Antarctic and the Sahara—has received its most daunting challenge yet. Sennosuke Touenji, the chairman of one of the world's largest leisure conglomerates, wants a moon base fit for civilian use, and he wants his granddaughter Tae to be his eyes and ears on the harsh lunar surface. Tae and Otaba engineer Aomine head to the moon where adventure, trouble, and perhaps romance await.

Rebecca Wright has reclaimed her life, finding her way out of her grief and depression following a personal tragedy years ago. She spends her days working in customer support for the internet dating site where she first met her husband. But she has a strange, persistent sense that everything around her is somewhat off-kilter: she constantly feels as if she has walked into a room and forgotten what she intended to do there; on TV, the President seems to be the wrong person in the wrong place; her dreams are full of disquiet.

Meanwhile, her husband's decade-long dedication to his invention, the causality violation device (which he would greatly prefer you not call a "time machine") has effectively stalled his career and made him a laughingstock in the physics community. But he may be closer to success than either of them knows or can possibly imagine.

Mira is a trust fund baby playing at making it on her own as a Brooklyn barista. When Benji, her tech startup boyfriend, dumps her out of the blue, she decides a little revenge vandalism is in order. Mira updates his entry on Verity, Benji's Wikipedia-style news aggregator, to say the two have become engaged. Hours later, he shows up at her place with an engagement ring. Chalk it up to coincidence, right?

Soon after, Benji's long-vanished co-founder Chandra shows up asking for Mira's help. She claims Verity can nudge unlikely events into really happening -- even change someone's mind. And Chandra insists that Verity -- and Mira's newly minted fiance -- can't be trusted.

In R. J. Pineiro's The Fall, a sci-fi thriller, a man jumps from the upper-most reaches of the atmosphere and vanishes, ending up on an alternate Earth where he died five years earlier.

Jack Taylor has always been an adrenaline junkie. As a federal contractor, he does dangerous jobs for the government that fall out of the realm of the SEALS and the Marines. And this next job is right up his alley. Jack has been assigned to test an orbital jump and if it works, the United States government will have a new strategy against enemy countries.

Despite Jack's soaring career, his personal life is in shambles. He and his wife Angela are both workaholics and are on the verge of getting a divorce. But the night before his jump, Jack and Angela begin to rekindle their romance and their relationship holds promise for repair. Then comes the day of Jack's big jump. He doesn't burn up like some predicted--instead, he hits the speed of sound and disappears.

Jack wakes up in an alternate universe. One where he died during a mission five years earlier and where Angela is still madly in love with him. But in this world, his boss, Pete, has turned to the dark side, is working against him, and the government is now on his tail. Jack must return to his own world but the only way for him to do that is to perform another orbital jump. This time is more difficult though--no one wants to see him go.

Jack's adrenaline is contagious--The Fall will keep readers on the edges of their seats, waiting to find out what crazy stunt Jack will perform next and to learn the fate of this charming, daredevil hero.

Richard Blanzac, a San Francisco-based rare book dealer, opens a box of consignment items and encounters the unexpected: there, among an assortment of literary rarities, he discovers a manuscript in verse, an Ace Double Novel, and a scattering of very old cigarette butts. These commonplace objects serve as catalysts for an extraordinary -- and unpredictable -- adventure.

Without warning, Blanzac finds himself traversing a "circle of discontinuity" that leads from the present day to the San Francisco of 1957. Caught up in that circle are an ancient Sumerian deity, a forgotten Beat-era poet named Sophie Greenwald, and an apocalyptic cult in search of the key to absolute non-existence.

One of the frequently referenced items in this story is an Ace Double published in, or just before, 1957 with Seconds of Arc on one side and What Vast Image on the flip side. Both stories are by Daniel Gropeshaw. Later in the story, we learn the author name is an anagram, and a pseudonym, for Sophia Greenwald. While Salvage and Demolition author Tim Powers often weaves his stories around established facts, Sophia Greenwald and her stories are apparently fictional.

Page 6 of the Subterranean Press edition has a black and white photograph of the contents of a cardboard box that includes a copy of the Ace Double Seconds of Arc by "Daniel Gropeshaw." The cover on the book shown in the photograph is the same as the one for the story A Man Called Destiny in the Ace Double D-311. The photograph also shows the book's spine with What Vast Image being visible as the other title, though the artist forgot to flip it. Page 13 describes the flip side of the fictional Ace Double as "green and yellow -- giant lizards chasing men in a jungle with What Vast Image in lurid lettering across the top." This description does not match the flip side of Ace D-311. Assuming it's not entirely fictional, the author may be describing the cover of The Mind Monsters on the Ace double G-602 or Eye of the Monster on the Ace Double F-147.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and author of A Deadly Wandering comes a pulse-pounding technological thriller - as ingenious as the works of Michael Crichton and as urgent and irresistible as an episode of 24 - in which one man has three days to prevent annihilation: the outbreak of World War III.

Computer genius Jeremy Stillwater has designed a machine that can predict global conflicts and ultimately head them off. But he's a stubborn guy, very sure of his own genius, and has wound up making enemies, and even seen his brilliant invention discredited.

There's nowhere for him to turn when the most remarkable thing happens: his computer beeps with warning that the outbreak of World War III is imminent, three days and counting.

Alone, armed with nothing but his own ingenuity, he embarks on quest to find the mysterious and powerful nemesis determined to destroy mankind. But enemies lurk in the shadows waiting to strike. Could they have figured out how to use Jeremy, and his invention, for their own evil ends?

Before he can save billions of lives, Jeremy has to figure out how to save his own...

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Swamplandia!, and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, an imaginative and haunting novella about an insomnia epidemic set in the near future.

A crisis has swept America. Hundreds of thousands have lost the ability to sleep. Enter the Slumber Corps, an organization that urges healthy dreamers to donate sleep to an insomniac. Under the wealthy and enigmatic Storch brothers the Corps' reach has grown, with outposts in every major US city. Trish Edgewater, whose sister Dori was one of the first victims of the lethal insomnia, has spent the past seven years recruiting for the Corps. But Trish's faith in the organization and in her own motives begins to falter when she is confronted by "Baby A," the first universal sleep donor, and the mysterious "Donor Y."

Sleep Donation explores a world facing the end of sleep as we know it, where "Night Worlds" offer black market remedies to the desperate and sleep deprived, and where even the act of making a gift is not as simple as it appears.

This Nebula-winning and Hugo-nominated novelette was collected in Out of the Everywhere and Other Extraordinary Visions (1981) and Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (1990) and anthologized in The 1978 Annual World's Best SF (1978), Nebula Winners Thirteen (1980), Armageddons (1999) and Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology (2015).

Read this story online for free at the Sci Fiction archive.

Ditmar Award winning short story. It originally appeared in the anthology Sprawl (2010), edited by Alisa Krasnostein. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 16 (2011), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection The Bride Price (2013).

The #1 New York Times bestselling author returns with a visionary technothriller about climate change.

Neal Stephenson's sweeping, prescient new novel transports readers to a near-future world where the greenhouse effect has inexorably resulted in a whirling-dervish troposphere of superstorms, rising sea levels, global flooding, merciless heat waves, and virulent, deadly pandemics.

One man has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as "elemental." But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied?

As only Stephenson can, Termination Shock sounds a clarion alarm, ponders potential solutions and dire risks, and wraps it all together in an exhilarating, witty, mind-expanding speculative adventure.

From Bruce Sterling, bestselling author of Heavy Weather and Holy Fire, comes this startling, disturbing, and darkly comic vision of the future of America. It is the story of a once great nation coming apart at the seams while an unending spectacle of politics, science, sex, and corruption has everyone too busy to notice....

It's November 2044, an election year, and the state of the Union is a farce. The federal government is broke, cities are privately owned, the military is shaking down citizens in the streets, and Wyoming is on fire. The last place anyone expects to find an answer is the nation's capital.

Washington has become a circus and no one knows that better than Oscar Valparaiso. A master political spin doctor, Oscar has been in the background for years, doing his best to put the proper spin on anything that comes up. Now he wants to do something quite unusual in politics. He wants to make a difference. But Oscar has a skeleton in his closet: a grotesque and unspeakable scandal that haunts his personal life.

He has one unexpected ally: Dr. Greta Penninger. She is a gifted neurologist at the bleeding edge of the neural revolution. Together Oscar and Greta know the human mind inside and out. And they are about to use that knowledge to spread a very powerful message: that it's a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It's an idea whose time has come...again. And once again so have its enemies: every technofanatic, government goon, and reactionary laptop assassin in America.

Like all revolutionaries, Oscar and Greta might not survive to change the world, but they're determined to put a new spin on it.

Winner of six Nebula and five Hugo awards, Connie Willis is one of the most acclaimed and imaginative authors of our time. Her startling and powerful works have redefined the boundaries of contemporary science fiction. Here in one volume are twelve of her greatest stories, including double award-winner "Fire Watch," set in the universe of Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, in which a time-traveling student learns one of history's hardest lessons. In "A Letter from the Clearys," a routine message from distant friends shatters the fragile world of a beleaguered family. In "The Sidon in the Mirror," a mutant with the unconscious urge to become other people finds himself becoming both killer and victim. Disturbing, revealing, and provocative, this remarkable collection of short fiction brings together some of the best work of an incomparable writer whose ability to amaze, confound, and enlighten never fails.

Table of Contents

• Fire Watch - (1982)
• Service for the Burial of the Dead - (1982)
• Lost and Found - (1982)
• All My Darling Daughters - (1985)
• The Father of the Bride - (1982)
• A Letter from the Clearys - (1982)
• And Come from Miles Around - (1979)
• The Sidon in the Mirror - (1983)
• Daisy, in the Sun - (1979)
• Mail Order Clone - (1982)
• Samaritan - (1978)
• Blued Moon - (1984)

Brothers Harry and Jack leave Manchester for New York City for their annual weekend getaway. But upon arrival, they find a silent, deserted JFK, where the few ground crew they can spot have all been slaughtered.

Harry and Jack are military veterans, but they've never encountered anything like this.

As they witness the carnage and stumble across murderous madmen in a post-apocalyptic New York City, it becomes clear that escape is the only option--that is, if there is anywhere sane to escape to...

The 47North edition is a revised edition: This edition of First Activation includes editorial revisions.

The time--a future closer than we know. Where groups of extraterrestrial aliens have become familiar members of our society.

The place--Los Angeles. Still a town of fast times and hard crime, touching every life form inside the city limits.

The cops--Sykes, earthman, and Francisco, alien. Facing a menace meaner than the meanest streets on their beat. Fighting an enemy as terrifying as the darkest forces in a vast, unfathomable universe. Battling back with the best--and the deadliest--of both their worlds.

Los Angeles, the present. Rookie detective Matt Sikes begins his first murder investigation and stumbles onto a deadly conspiracy that threatens his life, his daughter and his world. At the same time, onboard a nightmarish starship hurtling toward the Earth's sun, Stangya Soren'tzahh-- a courageous Tenctonese slave destined to become Detective George Francisco-- is swept into his peoples' last desperate struggle for freedom against the ruthless and mysterious Overseers. When the great ship lands on Earth, the future of the Tenctonese and all humanity depends on two unlikely heroes, Matt and George-- who must work together for the first time to prevent a disaster that could destrroy both their peoples.

On July 31, 1991, the final episode of "Alien Nation, "Green Eyes" aired, ending the series with a blockbuster finale and an exciting cliffhanger.

In "Green Eyes" the Newcomers were faced with a deadly new bacteria created by a ruthless group of humans called Purists, who were determined to rid the Earth of the alien Tenctonese. As the story closed, all of the "Alien Nation characters were in crisis, and the Francisco family was infected with the bacteria, facing certain death.

This story was never resolved... until now. "Dark Horizon" was a two-hour "Alien Nation script commissioned by Twentieth Century Fox. The story would have resolved the cliffhanger and kicked off "Alien Nation's second seacon. With the final cancellation of the series, the script was put away and fans were left with their questions unanswered. Pocket Books is now proud to present a novelization by critically acclaimed science fiction author K. W. Jeter, of the entire action-packed story that began with "Green Eyes" and ended with "Dark Horizon."

As the story opens, George Francisco and Matthew Sikes stand watch over George's family, while the Earth faces a new threat. A ruthless Overseer has come from space to recover the Tenctonese slaves, and he will stop at nothing to see that the Newcomers-- as well as the entire human race-- are enslaved forever.

While investigating the truth behind the reports of the birth of the first half-human, half-Tenctonese child, Matthew Sikes finds himself increasing drawn to his Tenctonese friend, Cathy.

"The Change" is one of a small number of scripts developed by the producers and staff of "Alien Nation" -- scripts never televised because of the show's early demise. A piece of history for "Alien Nation" fans, "the Change" provides an incredible glimpse at an "Alien Nation" story that never was.

Critically acclaimed science fiction novelist Barry B. Longyear brings to life an exciting story in which Newcomer police detective George Francisco undergoes a startling metamorphosis that will either mean his death or the beginning of a new life. In the midst of this time of change, George must also face a vicious, unstoppable killer from his past who has sworn a deadly revenge on George and everyone he cares for...

Detective Matthew Sikes and his Newcomer partner George Francisco must track down a missing human journalist, named Micky Cass, who has gone undercover as a Newcomer to expose racism and discrimination against the Tenctonese. From the beginning, the journalist's articles about his experiences ignited fierce controversy. When Micky Cass disappears, the controversy explodes and violence wracks the city. It is now up to Sikes and Francisco to solve a case that has the entire city caught in a grip of hate.

Finally, as the city burns, Matt Sikes must go undercover as a Newcomer and place himself at the center of the worst violence Los Angeles has ever known...

In an all-new "Alien Nation novel, a chance encounter with a mysterious woman from his past propels Detective Matt Sikes into an investigation of a lethal Newcomer drug, and forces the woman he loves to risk her life for someone she's never even met. Meanwhile, tension mounts between Sikes and his Newcomer partner, George Francisco, as each is forced to deal with the range of emotions evoked by this unusual case. As they delve deeper into the intricate maze of L.A.'s illegal drug market, Fransicso and Sikes discover that some Newcomers will do anything to assimilate into human society-- even face the horrifying and deadly consequences that could destroy them all.

On a business trip to Pittsburgh, detective Matthew Sikes and his Newcomer partner, George Francisco, stumble on what appears to be an unusual homicide. It isn't long before the case leads them to a frightening world of abuse and violence that set in motion the series of horrifying murders born of an unremiting hate-- murders that target only the innocent. With bodies piling up and time running out, Sikes and Francisco must race against the clock to stop the killing-- and face a terrifying monster from beyond the stars!

The pregnancy of Newcomer Cathy Frankel by her human boyfriend, Matt Sikes, ignites tensions city-wide as extremist groups who fear the implications of the birth of the first half-human/half-Newcomer child threaten Cathy's safety. The danger escalates when the medical facility treating Cathy is attacked, forcing her into seclusion. Meanwhile, George Francisco is drawn into a Newcomer cult headed by a mysterious messianic figure. Obsessed with the cult, George quits the police force to devote all his time to his new religion. Now with his partner gone, Sikes must defend his newborn baby from a hostile band of criminals determined to destroy anyone who's different-- even an innocent child.

This short story originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September 2014. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection (2015), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story was later incorporated in the fixup novel Central Station (2016).

Behind the seemingly innocuous facade of St. Mary's Institute of Historical Research, a different kind of academic work is taking place. Just don't call it "time travel" -- these historians "investigate major historical events in contemporary time." And they aren't your harmless eccentrics either; a more accurate description, as they ricochet around history, might be unintentional disaster-magnets.

From Tudor England to the burning city of Persepolis, from a medieval St. Mary's under siege to Victorian Rushford and a very nasty case of gaol fever, Max is struggling to keep her private life intact. There's an ambitious programme hindered by giant teapots, plus Mrs. Midgely's objection to dead hamsters in her airing cupboard, and Mr. Markham's stubborn refusal to reveal his exact marital status.

And as if that's not enough -- the unfortunately not leprosy-laden Malcolm Halcombe is back. Admittedly, none of this is the most secure platform from which to launch an initiative to bring down the renegade Clive Ronan, but hey -- what's the worst that could happen?

Greg Bear's powerfully written, brilliantly inventive novels combine cutting-edge science and unforgettable characters, illuminating dazzling new technologies--and their dangers. Now, in Darwin's Radio, Bear draws on state-of-the-art biological and anthropological research to give us an ingeniously plotted thriller that questions everything we believe about human origins and destiny--as civilization confronts the next terrifying step in evolution.

A mass grave in Russia that conceals the mummified remains of two women, both with child--and the conspiracy to keep it secret... A major discovery high in the Alps: the preserved bodies of a prehistoric family--the newborn infant possessing disturbing characteristics... A mysterious disease that strikes only pregnant women, resulting in miscarriage. Three disparate facts that will converge into one science-shattering truth.

Molecular biologist Kaye Lang, a specialist in retroviruses, believes that ancient diseases encoded in the DNA of humans can again come to life. But her theory soon becomes chilling reality. For Christopher Dicken--a "virus hunter" at the Epidemic Intelligence Service--has pursued an elusive flu-like disease that strikes down expectant mothers and their offspring. The shocking link: something that has slept in our genes for millions of years is waking up.

Now, as the outbreak of this terrifying disease threatens to become a deadly epidemic, Dicken and Lang, along with anthropologist Mitch Rafelson, must race against time to assemble the pieces of a puzzle only they are equipped to solve. An evolutionary puzzle that will determine the future of the human race... If a future exists at all.

A fiercely intelligent, utterly enthralling novel of adventure and ideas, genetics and evolution, a fast-paced thriller that is grounded in the timeless human themes of struggle, loss, and redemption, Darwin's Radio is sure to become one of the most talked-about books of the year.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology Universe 9 (1979), edited by Terry Carr. It can also be found in the anthologies The 1980 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, and The Best Science Fiction of the Year #9 (1980). It is included in the collections Blue Champagne (1986) and The John Varley Reader (2004).

Master Sergeant Reed Beckham has led his Delta Force Team, codenamed Ghost, through every kind of hell imaginable and never lost a man. When a top secret Medical Corps research facility goes dark, Team Ghost is called in to face their deadliest enemy yet--a variant strain of Ebola that turns men into monsters.

After barely escaping with his life, Beckham returns to Fort Bragg in the midst of a new type of war. As cities fall, Team Ghost is ordered to keep CDC virologist Dr. Kate Lovato alive long enough to find a cure. What she uncovers will change everything.

Total extinction is just on the horizon, but will the cure be worse than the virus?

The dust from Dr. Kate Lovato's bioweapon has settled. Projections put death counts in the billions. Her weapon was supposed to be the endgame, but it turned a small percentage of those infected with the Hemorrhage Virus into something even worse.

Survivors call them Variants. Irreversible epigenetic changes have transformed them into predators unlike any the human race has ever seen. And they are evolving.

The fractured military plans Operation Liberty--a desperate mission designed to take back the cities and destroy the Variant threat. Master Sergeant Reed Beckham agrees to lead a strike team into New York City, but first he must return to Fort Bragg to search for the only family he has left.

As Operation Liberty draws closer, Kate warns Beckham that Team Ghost won't just face their deadliest adversary yet, they may be heading into a trap...

humans are losing the war. Master Sergeant Reed Beckham and the survivors of 1st Platoon must battle through the tunnels--where they make a grisly discovery.

Dr. Kate Lovato is working on a new bioweapon to destroy the Variants when a derelict Navy Destroyer crashes into the Connecticut shoreline carrying yet another threat.

As the doomsday clock ticks down and military bases fall across the country, the human race enters the age of extinction. Will they prevail--or will mankind vanish off the face of the planet?

Central Command is gone, the military is fractured, and the surviving members of Team Ghost, led by Master Sergeant Reed Beckham, have been pushed to the breaking point.

Betrayed by the country they swore to defend and surrounded by enemies on all sides, Team Ghost has one mission left: protect Dr. Kate Lovato and Dr. Pat Ellis while they develop a weapon to defeat the Variants once and for all. But after a grisly discovery in Atlanta, Kate and Ellis realize their weapon might not be able to stop the evolution of the monsters.

Joined by unexpected allies and facing a new threat none of them saw coming, the survivors are running out of time to save the human race from extinction.

Almost seven weeks have passed since the Hemorrhage Virus ravaged the world. The remnants of the United States military have regrouped and relocated Central Command to the George Washington Carrier Strike Group. It's here, in the North Atlantic, that President Jan Ringgold and Vice President George Johnson prepare to deploy a new bioweapon and embark on the final mission to take back the country from the Variants.

With his home gone and his friends kidnapped, Master Sergeant Reed Beckham and his remaining men must take drastic measures to save what's left of the human race.

The newly christened leader of Delta Force Team Ghost, Master Sergeant Joe Fitzpatrick arrives in Normandy over 70 years after Allied Forces joined the fight against the Nazis. The war to free survivors and eradicate pockets of adult Variants and their offspring is underway by the European Unified Forces. But as the troops push east, rumors of a new type of monster spread through the ranks. Fitz and his new team quickly realize that the fight for Europe might be harder than anyone ever imagined.

Back in the States, Captain Reed Beckham and Dr. Kate Lovato are settling into a new life on Plum Island. Across the United States, the adult Variants have all been wiped out, and the juveniles are on the run. But the survivors soon realize there are other monsters at home, and they may be human.

An army advances...

In Europe, Master Sergeant Joe Fitzpatrick and Team Ghost return from a mission deep into enemy territory only to find that the Variant army has grown stronger, and they are advancing toward the EUF's stronghold in Paris.

On the brink of Civil War...

Back in the United States, President Ringgold and Dr. Kate Lovato are on the run. The Safe Zone Territories continue to rally behind the ROT flag, leaving Ringgold more enemies than allies. But there are still those who will stand and fight for America. Captain Rachel Davis and Captain Reed Beckham will risk everything to defeat ROT and save the country from collapsing into Civil War.

Nature or nurture? Neither. Discover a bold new way to raise a child in this unsettling story of the near future by the New York Times bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow.

When Sam's wife first tells him about Vitek, a twenty-first-century fertility lab, he sees it as the natural next step in trying to help their future child get a "leg up" in a competitive world. But the more Sam considers the lives that his child could lead, the more he begins to question his own relationships and the choices he has made in his life.

In the twenty-first century, a battered world is ruled by a crafty old tyrant, Genghis II Mao IV Khan. The Khan is ninety-three years old, his life systems sustained by the skill of Mordecai Shadrach, a brilliant young surgeon whose chief function is to replace the Khan's worn-out organs. Within the vast tower-complex, the most advanced equipment is dedicated to three top-priority projects, each designed to keep the Khan immortal. Most sinister of these is Project Avatar, by which the Khan's mind and persona are to be transferred to a younger body.

Shadrach makes the unsettling discovery that it is his body that is to be used. His friends beg him to flee, but he refuses to panic.Instead, and with startling composure, he evolves a dangerous plan that could change the face of the earth or, if it backfires, mean the end of life.

"Shadrach in the Furnace" is at once a broad, sweeping novel and a harsh, abrasive, irreverent book about a life-and-death battle between two titans - one the epitome of evil, the other a paragon of idealism - in a society pushed to extremes.

Intervention sets the scene for Julian May's new trlogy of the Galactic Milieu. This has been split into two books: The Surveillance (containing Prologue, The Surveillance, and The Disclosure) and The Metaconcert, containing The Intervention and Epilogue.

For 60 000 years the five races of the Galactic Milieu have watched and waited for the time when human mental development on Earth is ready for the Intervention...

As the twentieth century draws to its end, phenomenal mental powers are displayed by 'operants' all across our planet... They can 'farspeak' one another telepathically. They can build mental shields and they are capable of coercion by power of mind.

One of there is Rogatien Remillard, a dealer in secondhand books, whose memories - written a century on - form the core of this chronicle. They tell of a world where the mind has become a weapon; and of two brothers, each possessed of extraordinary powers - one a peace-bringer, the other an advocate of evil...

Here is the compelling story of the launching of Prometheus -- Earth's first true spaceship -- and of the men who made it happen.

Dirk Alexson:
Chronicler of the greatest space adventure of all time, he was chosen to immortalize the incredible story of the men and their heroic mission.

Sir Robert Derwent:
Direct-General of Interplanetary -- London Headquarters for the international space-flight project -- he was the man who got the mission off the ground and into the pages of history.

Professor Maxton:
The world's leading atomic engineer, he designed the huge ship's drive units and he waited with the rest of the world to see if the project would be a success.

Human crisis in a computer world.

Rear cover synopsis:

"Bohn, the omnipotent computer whose flashing circuits and messianic pronouncements dictate what tomorrow will--or will not--be.

But Matthew Oliver is flesh and blood and full of questions--not nearly as certain as the machine he's appointed to serve.

And the right hand of science seldom knows what the left hand is doing..."

334, the city street address of a place where time pivots forward and backward, is the setting of a unique odyssey through human history.

Dr. Bloodmoney is a post-nuclear-holocaust masterpiece filled with a host of Dick's most memorable characters: Hoppy Harrington, a deformed mutant with telekinetic powers; Walt Dangerfield, a selfless disc jockey stranded in a satellite circling the globe; Dr. Bluthgeld, the megalomaniac physicist largely responsible for the decimated state of the world; and Stuart McConchie and Bonnie Keller, two unremarkable people bent the survival of goodness in a world devastated by evil. Epic and alluring, this brilliant novel is a mesmerizing depiction of Dick's undying hope in humanity.

Philip K Dick's classic dystopian novel set in the future where the remaining human survivors on Earth must gamble for their future with aliens from Titan, one of the moons circling Saturn.

Roaming the pristine landscape of Earth, cared for by machines and aliens, the few remaining humans alive since the war with Titan play Bluff, allowing them to win or lose property and also form new marriages in order to maximise the remote chance some pairings will produce a child. When Pete Garden, a particularly suicidal member of the Pretty Blue Fox game-playing group, loses his current wife and his deed to Berkeley, he stumbles upon a far bigger, more sinister version of the game.

The telepathic, slug-like Vugs of Titan are the players and at stake is the Earth itself. The Game-Players of Titan is a brilliantly conceived vision of a future dystopia, full of imaginative detail, moments of pure humour and thought-provoking musings on the nature of perception, as the seemingly straightforward narrative soon turns into a tumultuous nightmare of delusion, precognition and conspiracy.

Sir Julius Vogel Award-winning and Aurealis and Ditmar-nominated Novella

She took her helmet off.
That's where it starts; that's where it ends.
That's all there is.

Tanja Morgenstein, daughter of a wealthy industrialist and a geochemist, is dead from exposure to Titan's lethal, chilled atmosphere, and Guerline Scarfe must determine why.

Ella Patel -- thief, con-artist and smuggler -- is in the wrong place at the wrong time. One night, on the border of a demilitarized zone run by the body-swapping alien invaders, she happens upon a man and woman being chased by a group of assailants. The man freezes, leaving the woman to fight off five attackers at once, before succumbing. As she dies, to both Ella and the man's surprise, the sparkling light that rises from the woman enters Ella, instead of the man. She soon realizes she's been inhabited by Io, a low-ranking Quasing who was involved in some of the worst decisions in history. Now Ella must now help the alien presence to complete her mission and investigate a rash of murders in the border states that maintain the frail peace.

With the Prophus assigned to help her seemingly wanting to stab her in the back, and the enemy Genjix hunting her, Ella must also deal with Io's annoying inferiority complex. To top it all off, Ella thinks the damn alien voice in her head is trying to get her killed. And if you can't trust the voices in your head, who can you trust?

Named one of science fiction's 100 best books by noted genre editor David Pringle, Thomas M. Disch's On Wings of Song is at once allegory, social satire, political fable, and brilliantly written science fiction of the ultimate out-of-body experience. In Disch's dazzlingly imagined future America, Daniel Weinraub dreams of escaping the repressive midwest of the mid-twenty-first century through an electronic device with which the user takes flight into cyberspace when activated with a quasi-musical code called "The Symphonette." Daniel's adventures take him from Iowa's God-fearing police state and its "correctional" labor camps for the sinful to Manhattan's mean streets and "cyberspatial flight paths."

A two-man mission to Venus fails and is aborted. When it returns, the Captain is missing and the other astronaut, Harry M. Evans, is unable to explain what has happened. Or, conversely, he has too many explications. His journal of the expedition -- compiled in the mental institution to which NASA has embarrassedly committed him -- offers contradictory stories: he murdered the Captain, mad Venusian invaders murdered the Captain, the Captain vanished, no one was murdered and the Captain has returned in Evans' guise....

As the explanations pyramid and as the supervising psychiatrist's increasingly desperate efforts to get a straight story fail, it becomes apparent that Evans's madness and his inability to explain what happened are expressions of humanity's incompetence at the enormity of space exploration.

Contents:

• 9 - The Moon Is Hell! - novel by John W. Campbell, Jr.
• 147 - The Elder Gods - (1973) - novella by John W. Campbell, Jr. and Arthur J. Burks

THE ENEMY IS INSIDE US.

The SymboGen-designed parasites were created to relieve humanity of disease and sickness. But the implants in the majority of the world's population began attacking their hosts, turning them into a ravenous horde.

Now those who do not appear to be afflicted are being gathered for quarantine as panic spreads, but Sal and her companions must discover how the parasites are taking over their hosts, what their eventual goal is and how they can be stopped.

All of his short life, Paavo Deshin has seen ghosts. The same two ghosts who have now approached him on the school playground, ghosts who look older and actually smell bad. Paavo's cry for help brings the authorities, a few lawyers, and Retrieval Artist Miles Flint, who learns some secrets about the ghosts -- and about Paavo's parents. This short stand-alone science fiction novel in the Retrieval Artist series received a Special Mention from the prestigious international UPC contest.

It fits right after the full novel Duplicate Effort in the timeline, but stands alone.

Samuil Petrovitch is a survivor.

He survived the nuclear fallout in St. Petersburg and hid in the London Metrozone - the last city in England. He's lived this long because he's a man of rules and logic.

For example, getting involved = a bad idea.

But when he stumbles into a kidnapping in progress, he acts without even thinking. Before he can stop himself, he's saved the daughter of the most dangerous man in London.

And clearly saving the girl = getting involved.

Now, the equation of Petrovitch's life is looking increasingly complex.

Russian mobsters + Yakuza + something called the New Machine Jihad = one dead Petrovitch.

But Petrovitch has a plan - he always has a plan - he's just not sure it's a good one.

Kirito awakens in a vast, fantastical forest filled with towering trees. In his search for clues to the truth of his surroundings, he encounters a young boy who seems to know him. He ought to be a simple NPC, but the depth of his emotions seem no different than a human. As they search for the boy's parents, Kirito finds a peculiar memory returning to him. A memory from his own childhood, of this boy and a girl, too, with golden hair, and a name he should have never forgotten--Alice.

Kirito has wound up in another mysterious fantasy world again. In this VRMMO-ish place, the first person he meets is the young boy Eugeo. Kirito can hardly believe Eugeo's an NPC when seeing his rich emotions and thoughts and ends up heading to the capital, Centria.

Two years later, Kirito and Eugeo have become First Order initiates of the North Centria Imperial Discipline Sword Academy and have been taken under the wing of their seniors, Soltirina and Golgoth. As they train and learn, they do nothing but strive to become one of the highest keepers of peace and order in the human realm, the Integrity Knights.

Aiming to reach the center of the Axiom Church that controls the capital, the two break past numerous obstacles to try and become one of the elite Greater Master Swordsmen, a title that only twelve people lay claim to in the whole academy!

It's been two years since Kirito entered another mysterious fantasy world and met the boy named Eugeo. At the Northern Centoria Master Swordsmanship Academy, the two of them have advanced to become upper rank trainee swordsmen. Now they spend their days training, aiming to one day earn the rank of Integrity Knight, the greatest peacekeepers in the human world. Soon, appropriate for their new ranks, both Kirito and Eugeo are assigned apprentices and they all deepen their bonds while perfecting their bodies and minds. But suddenly, an evil rears its head and threatens their peaceful lives. Eugeo tries to draw his sword to fight but he finds himself helpless as a message appears in words he can't read. They say--SYSTEM ALERT.

Eugeo has finally met Alice again, but she's no longer the same girl he once knew, now calling herself an Integrity Knight. Even worse, the reason for Alice's unexpected return is to capture Kirito and Eugeo!

After Kirito and Eugeo are separated in the Central Cathedral, Eugeo continues his quest alone-until he encounters a legendary hero he's admired since childhood. Can Eugeo defeat him alone...?

After getting separated, Kirito and Eugeo have continued their struggle to reach the 100th floor of Central Cathedral--Eugeo in hopes of restoring Alice to her true self, and Kirito for the sake of the Underworld. But on the 99th floor, Kirito must first face a heartrendingly familiar Integrity Knight...

Adminstrator's defeat has come at a heavy cost: The death of Eugeo as well as the mental decline of Kirito. Six months after the epic battle atop Central Cathedral, Kirito spends his days in the Underworld wheelchair-bound; bereft of emotion or even a will to live. Although Alice and Bercouli do what they can to help him, it isn't long before the armies of the dark territory are start to move in earnest. The "Final Stress Test" has begun. But will Kirito be ready?

Gabriel Miller-assuming the identity of Emperor Vecta, the god of darkness-prepares to invade the human lands with his army of fifty thousand. Defending these lands are the remaining Integrity Knights, led by Commander Bercouli, and an army one-tenth the size of the enemy's! Meanwhile, Kirito, still out of commission, is left in the care of primary trainees Ronie and Tiese. And back in the Dark Territory, Dee Eye Ell, the chancellor of the dark mages guild, threatens to vanquish the Human Guardian Army by launching a large-scale magical attack of her own. But in the midst of the chaos, the one who appears to turn the tide of battle is none other than... Asuna?!

The Priestess of Light, Alice. If we sacrifice all members of the army of darkness, she will be within our grasp...

It is the second day of the final stress test. The army of darkness, driven to desperation by the coordinated onslaught at the hands of the Integrity Knights, has begun to retaliate with incredibly reckless tactics. Critter, who had been observing the events of the Underworld from the outside, has successfully created a gateway for the masses under the guise of an invitation for "A limited-time beta test for a new VRMMO in production." This digital invite has bolstered the forces of the army of darkness by over fifty thousand people.

Asuna, unable to compete with such a level reinforcement, begins to sink into depair. But all is not lost! Two new deities of the Underworld will descend to lend their aid: The Blazing White Solus and the Earthmother Terraria. And the ones in possession of these super-accounts are none other than Sinon and Leafa!

The second day of the final stress test rages on. Lisbeth, Silica, and Asuna push through the pain as they hold out against the Dark Army. But their efforts fall short as Kirito is captured by PoH, the former leader of Laughing Coffin! With PoH's twisted heart set on subjecting Kirito to the culmination of several years' vengeance, he prepares to end him once and for all. But when hope seems lost, a voice cries out in Kirito's heart. The voice of the person he lived with, laughed with, and fought with for years. The voice of his best friend...Grabbing hold of that light in the darkness, the Black Swordsman awakens...

Set in post-apocalyptic 2018, John Connor is the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright, a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past.

As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynets operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind.

It's just a little later than now and Lola Hart is writing her life in a diary. She's a nice middle-class girl on the verge of her teens who schools at the calm end of town. A normal, happy, girl. But in a disintegrating New York she is a dying breed. War is breaking out on Long Island, the army boys are flamethrowing the streets, five Presidents have been assassinated in a year. No one notices any more. Soon Lola and her family must move over to the Lower East side - Loisaida - to the Pit and the new language of violence of the streets. The metamorphosis of the nice Lola Hart into the new model Lola has begun...

Scions have no limits. Scions do not die. And Scions do not disappear.

Sergeant Ted Regan has a problem. A son of one of the great corporate families, a Scion, has gone missing at the front. He should have been protected by his Ironclad--the lethal battle suits that make the Scions masters of war--but something has gone catastrophically wrong.

Now Regan and his men, ill equipped and demoralised, must go behind enemy lines, find the missing Scion, and uncover how his suit failed. Is there a new Ironclad-killer out there? And how are common soldiers lacking the protection afforded the rich supposed to survive the battlefield of tomorrow?

Cayce Pollard is an expensive, spookily intuitive market-research consultant. In London on a job, she is offered a secret assignment: to investigate some intriguing snippets of video that have been appearing on the Internet. An entire subculture of people is obsessed with these bits of footage, and anybody who can create that kind of brand loyalty would be a gold mine for Cayce's client. But when her borrowed apartment is burgled and her computer hacked, she realizes there's more to this project than she had expected.

Still, Cayce is her father's daughter, and the danger makes her stubborn. Win Pollard, ex-security expert, probably ex-CIA, took a taxi in the direction of the World Trade Center on September 11 one year ago, and is presumed dead. Win taught Cayce a bit about the way agents work. She is still numb at his loss, and, as much for him as for any other reason, she refuses to give up this newly weird job, which will take her to Tokyo and on to Russia. With help and betrayal from equally unlikely quarters, Cayce will follow the trail of the mysterious film to its source, and in the process will learn something about her father's life and death.

Dispatched to Africa to combat an unknown disease, Lieutenant Skyler Luiken instead becomes an eyewitness, and sole survivor, of the outbreak of a deadly global plague. As the world falls apart, Skyler races to find his family, in the hopes that something of the life he knew can survive this devastating infection.

This novelette constitutes approximately the first third of the novella The Dire Earth.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

A hundred miles north of Alaska, a US Coast Guard vessel discovers a sunken submarine at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. It has no national identification and doesn't match the records of any known vessel. Deep within, researchers find evidence of a scientific experiment that will rewrite our basic understanding of the human race.

In Atlanta, Dr. Peyton Shaw is awakened by the phone call she has dreaded for years. As the CDC's leading epidemiologist, she's among the first responders to outbreaks around the world. It's a lonely and dangerous job, but it's her life--and she's good at it. This time, she may have met her match.

In Kenya, an Ebola-like pathogen has infected two Americans. One lies at death's door. With the clock ticking, Peyton assembles her team and joins personnel from the Kenyan Ministry of Health and the WHO. What they find in the remote village is beyond their worst fears. As she traces the origin of the pathogen, Peyton begins to believe that there is more to this outbreak--that it may be merely the opening act in a conspiracy with far reaching consequences.

In Berlin, Desmond Hughes awakens in a hotel room with no memory of how he got there or who he is. On the floor, he finds a dead security guard from an international pharmaceutical company. His only clue leads him to Peyton Shaw--a woman who seems to know him, but refuses to tell him how. With the police searching the city for him, Desmond desperately tries to piece together what happened to him. To his shock and horror, he learns that he may be involved in causing the outbreak--and could hold the only key to stopping it.

As the pathogen spreads around the world, Peyton and Desmond race to unravel the conspiracy behind the pandemic--and uncover secrets some want to keep buried. With time running out, they face an unimaginable decision.

In 2003, the first human genome was sequenced. It was a breakthrough of historic proportions, but only one scientist knows the full truth of what lies buried in our DNA. That secret will change everything we thought we knew about our past. And our future.

Dr. Paul Kraus has spent his career searching for what he calls humanity's lost tribes--human ancestors who have gone extinct. When Kraus compares the DNA samples of the lost tribes with our own, he discovers a pattern of changes. A code. He believes he knows what the code is, but the technology doesn't exist to fully decode it. To protect the secret, Kraus hides his work and disappears.

For years, the secret remains buried. When Kraus dies mysteriously, his work is lost forever.

Now the technology exists to finally unravel the code buried in the human genome. The race to find Kraus's research has begun, and one group will do anything to find it.

Dr. Peyton Shaw and her mother have obtained part of Kraus's research--and a cryptic message that could lead to the remaining pieces. They soon learn that finding those pieces may be more dangerous than anyone imagined. But there's no choice. His work is the key to stopping a global conspiracy--and an event that will change humanity forever.

The ultimate secret, buried in the human genome, will change our very understanding of what it means to be human. For Peyton, finding it may come at an incredible price. She must weigh the lives of strangers against those she loves: Desmond Hughes and her mother. With time running out, Peyton makes a fateful choice--one that can never be undone.

Matteo Alacrán was not born; he was harvested.

His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium--a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt's first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster--except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself.

As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patrón's power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacrán Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn't even suspect.

From the writer whose name is synonymous with the science of robotics comes five decades of robot visions-36 landmark stories and essays, plus three rare tales-gathered together in one volume .

Jacob Kelley's family is turned upside down when an old friend turns up, waving a gun and babbling about an alien quantum intelligence. The mystery deepens when the friend is found dead in an underground bunker... apparently murdered the night he appeared at Jacob's house. Jacob is arrested for the murder and put on trial.

As the details of the crime slowly come to light, the weave of reality becomes ever more tangled, twisted by a miraculous new technology and a quantum creature unconstrained by the normal limits of space and matter. With the help of his daughter, Alessandra, Jacob must find the true murderer before the creature destroys his family and everything he loves.

The year is 2067. The city of Rosewater is chaotic, vibrant and full of life - some of it extra-terrestrial.

The charismatic mayor, Jack Jacques, has declared Rosewater a free state, independent to Nigeria. But the city's alien dome is dying. Government forces await its demise, ready to destroy Rosewater's independence before it has even begun.

And in the city's quiet suburbs, a woman wakes with no memory of who she is - with memories belonging to something much older and much more alien.

Life in the newly independent city state of Rosewater isn't everything its citizens were expecting...

Mayor Jacques finds that debts incurred during the insurrection are coming back to haunt him. Nigeria isn't willing to let Rosewater go without a fight. And among the city's alien inhabitants, a group has emerged who murder humans to provide bodies for their takeover.

Operating across spacetime, the xenosphere and international borders, it is up to a small group of hackers and criminals to prevent the extraterrestrial advance. The fugitive known as Bicycle Girl, Kaaro and his old handler Femi, may be humanity's last line of defence.