Search Worlds Without End

The millennium draws to a close. Nini light years from Earth, a white dwarf star dies a violent and spectacular death. Sirus B has gone supernova hurtling a nightmare of global devastation toward our unsuspecting planet at astonishing speed.

Robert E. Howard killed himself on June 11, 1936. He was thirty years of age. Because of his talent and because of the sheer bulk of his writing - achieved in so short a period of time - Howard has attracted a contemporary following that is devoted to his bigger-than-life characters: Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, Breckinridge Elkins...

For the first time, information is available that provides a close observance of the man himself during his final years.
Novalyne Price and Robert E. Howard spent hours riding over the central Texas countryside, and Howard talked enthusiastically and at length about the characters he created, his dreams of the future, his interest in history, and his belief that he had lived other lives.

Novalyne Price, the one girl whom he dated, kept journals, diaries, and wrote short story-like essays of the conversations she had with Robert E. Howard and other members of the Cross Plains community. When Howard died, she held on to the journals, thinking that someday she would write about him. One Who Walked Alone is the culmination of that dream.

Here is an astonishing and remarkable link with the past! Novalyne Price Ellis has written of Robert E. Howard as she knew him. This is not a second hand account.

A short-story collection from one of America's brightest young talents. In one of these intensely imaginative stories a young woman's furniture walks out on her. In another, the narrator feels compelled to deliver a takeout order that has incorrectly been phoned in to her. In a third, the petty details of a property transaction illuminate the complicated dependences and loves of a family. Following spiralling paths towards utterly logical, entirely absurd conclusions, Galchen's creations occupy a dreamlike dimension, where time is fluid and identities are best defined by the qualities they lack. The tales in this groundbreaking collection are secretly in conversation with canonical stories, allowing the reader the pleasure of discovering familiar favourites in new guises. Here 'The Lost Order' covertly recapitulates James Thurber's 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty', while 'The Region of Unlikeness' playfully mirrors Jorge Luis Borges's 'The Aleph'. By turns realistic, fantastical and lyrical, all these marvellously uneasy stories share a deeply emotional core and are written in dryly witty, pitch-perfect prose. Whether exploring the tensions in a mother-daughter relationship or the finer points of time travel, Galchen is a writer of eye-opening ingenuity.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, Issue 103, December 2018.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Celestial giants don't go peacefully. They tear themselves to pieces, unleashing a tsunami of ultra high-energy radiation. Eight years ago and eight light years away, a supermassive star died and tonight its supernova shockwave will finally reach Earth. Dark skies will shine bright as a new star blooms in the heavens and within a year everyone over the age of thirteen will be dead, their chromosomes irreversibly damaged.

And so the countdown begins.

Parents apprentice their children and try to pass on the knowledge they'll need to keep the world running.

But the last generation may not want to carry the legacy of their parents' world. And though they imagine a better, brighter future, they may not be able to escape humanity's darker instincts.

The western democracies are disintegrating, scarred by violence and gripped with fear of terrorist attacks. Trying to find solutions to today's problems, Julia Stretton and other specialists at the Wessex Project have created a virtual reality projection of a utopian future where all current issues have been resolved - how did they achieve it? But on entering Wessex, they lose all memory of their 'real' lives outside, and as they move back and forth the lines between dream and reality become obscured. When Julia's ex-lover, the sadistic Paul Mason, joins the project, he has a sinister plan to take the Wessex projection to a new and terrifying level...

Hollywood actress Jeanette Marchand was beautiful, talented, beloved by audiences. During a time of personal crisis, she declares she is going to take a vacation in England, to explore the possibilities of working in London, before returning to the USA.

She never returned to the USA. She never even left the airport. At least -- no-one saw her leave.

Years later, a young film student finds himself digging deeper into her disappearance. Where did she go? Was she really dead? Who was the mysterious man who sat beside her on the flight across from New York?

Ben Matson lost someone he loved in the 9/11 attacks. Or thinks he did - no body has been recovered, and she shouldn't have been on that particular plane on that day. But he knows she was.

The world has moved on from that terrible day. Nearly 20 years later, it has faded into a dull memory for most people. But a chance encounter rekindles Ben's interest in the event, and the inconsistencies that always bugged him. Then the announcement of the recovery of an unidentified plane crash sets off a chain of events that will lead Ben to question everything he thought he knew.

Thoughtful, impeccably researched and dazzling in its writing, this is Ben's story, the story of what happened to his fiancé, and the story of all that happened on 9/11.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1979) - essay by Christopher Priest
• An Infinite Summer - (1976) - novelette
• Whores - (1978) - shortstory
• Palely Loitering - (1979) - novelette
• The Negation - (1978) - novelette
• The Watched - (1978) - novella

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1978) - essay by Christopher Priest
• The Very Slow Time Machine - (1978) - novelette by Ian Watson
• Is That What People Do? - (1978) - shortstory by Robert Sheckley
• Amphitheatre - (1978) - shortstory by Bob Shaw
• The Negation - (1978) - novelette by Christopher Priest
• The Greening of the Green - (1978) - shortstory by Harry Harrison
• Mutability - (1978) - shortstory by Thomas M. Disch
• One Afternoon at Utah Beach - (1978) - shortstory by J. G. Ballard
• A Chinese Perspective - (1978) - novella by Brian W. Aldiss

Christopher Priest is one of the most acclaimed writers of both SF and literary fiction at work today. Here, for the first time in almost twenty years, is a collection of his short work. Largely previously uncollected, ranging from the horrific to the touching, the science fictional to the realist, these stories are a perfect demonstration of the breadth and power of Priest's writing.

Eleven stories are included, along with commentary and reflection from the author. Within these pages you will discover the stage magic-inspired horror of "The Head and the Hand", the timeslip accidents of "futouristic.co.uk", the impossible romance of "Palely Loitering" and the present-day satire of "Shooting an Episode".

Contents:

• First - essay
• The Head and the Hand - (1972) - short story
• A Dying Fall - (2006) - short story
• I, Haruspex - (1998) - novelette
• Palely Loitering - (1979) - novelette
• An Infinite Summer - [Dream Archipelago] - (1976) - novelette
• The Ament - (1985) - short story
• The Invisible Men - (1974) - short story
• The Stooge - (2010) - short story
• futouristic.co.uk - (2009) - short story
• Shooting an Episode - (2017) - novelette
• The Sorting Out - (2008) - short story
• Last - essay

A petty thief known as John Smith was arrested for fraudulent behavior in 1877. He tricked women into thinking he was rich, then stole their belongings and vanished. His guilt was obvious.

In 1852, Adler and Adolf Beck's father died on an expedition to a glacier, and their lives separated. One became a respected climate scientist, one a successful opera singer touring the world. Or so he claimed. But both remained in touch, if only to share the mysterious voices only they could hear.

Charles Ramsey also has a twin. It is 2050, and Greg is a journalist reporting on the climate-change inspired conflicts around the world. When Charles is made redundant from his job as a profiler for the police and sent home with a new experimental chip in his head, he is urged by his brother to explore a little-known aspect of their family history.

All of these people are connected. All of their lives will intersect. And the climate of their world will keep on changing.

Fugue - a glimpse into the future of Britain.

At a time when the country is caught by civil conflict between a right-wing government and the liberal element, a third group arrives – refugee Africans from a continent devastated by nuclear attack. The country is ripe for a three-way civil war. Total breakdown in communications quickly follows and a nightmare situation grips the community.

Alan Whitman, the central character of this frightening story, represents the view of the man-in-the-street. How will he cope with this situation when he has opted out all his life, from political, personal and moral decisisons?

In a laboratory deep under the Antarctic ice, Wentik is experimenting with mind-affecting drugs. Suddenly he is transported into the Brazilian jungle of the 22nd century.

The world has been devastated by nuclear weapons and poison gas. Only South America has survived, yet vestiges of one of the war gases remain to create 'The Disturbances' and threaten the social order. Wentik must return to his own time, to find out how the gas and its antidote were produced. But he is transported to the wrong time slot.

The War has already begun. The holocaust gathers momentum. Wentik must decide whether to escape into the future or stay to die in his own time...

BSFA winning and Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1979. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction Novellas of the Year #2 (1980), edited by Terry Carr, The Mammoth Book of Time Travel SF (2013), edited by Mike Ashley and As Time Goes By (2015), edited by Hank Davis. It is included in the collection An Infinite Summer (1979).

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1974) - essay
• The Head and the Hand - (1972) - short story
• Fire Storm - (1970) - short story
• Double Consummation - (1970) - short story
• A Woman Naked - (1974) - short story
• Transplant - (1974) - short story
• Breeding Ground - (1970) - short story
• Sentence in Binary Code - (1971) - short story
• The Perihelion Man - (1969) - novelette
• The Run - (1966) - short story
• Real-Time World - (1971) - novelette

Awards: nominated for Hugo Award - Best non-fiction, 1994

An enquiry into the facts behind the non-appearance of a science fiction anthology called The Last Dangerous Visions, a project that was originally announced in 1971 but which was never in fact completed or delivered to the publisher, let alone published. Constantly hyped and boasted about by its editor, Harlan Ellison, and frequently promised for imminent completion, the incontinently overlength book has been subjected to years of editorial procrastination. As contributors began to ask when their work would be appearing, Mr Ellison announced false publication dates at regular intervals, and produced untrue testimony from hapless acquaintances saying (apparently under duress) that they had personally seen the completed manuscript. None of this was true and could not be, and none of it would in fact matter but for two things.

Firstly, a lot of writers have seen their stories held in limbo for several years (and in most cases for decades). Secondly, many writers who tried to recover their work to have it properly published have been treated abusively by Mr Ellison. Examples of his bullying tactics abound, and many are reported by the victims in the pages of this book. For this latter reason, and the understandable wish to enjoy a quiet life, most of the contributors have preferred to abandon their stories. To this day the manuscripts (most of them produced on typewriters!) remain somewhere in the depths of Mr Ellison's house. Of course, in the forty years (plus) that this storm in a teacup has been continuing, some of the writers have given up writing altogether and a large number of them have died without seeing their work in print.

Christopher Priest's short book on the subject was written more than twenty years ago in the spirit of investigative journalism, and treated the matter as one of professional concern. Even as long ago as that, Mr Ellison's unfinished project had become scandalous. Priest contacted many of the victims direct and assembled a collection of letters, reports, personal accounts and experiences, and from these mounted a dispassionate account of the rudeness, inefficiency and waste of time that have characterized dealings with Mr Ellison. This book is the only published critical account of the saga of incompetence and untruths. On publication, an attempt at a lawsuit of course followed. Mr Ellison is someone who never misses a chance to proclaim his commitment to free speech, except when the freedom is exercised about him.

In spite of Mr Ellison's attempts to persuade people that The Book on the Edge of Forever has vanished without trace, it remains available.

Amazon publishes a number of notably partisan reviews, both pro and con the book, and extracts can be read in the reviews section of this website. One of these (headlined Meanspirited Jealousy) takes partisanship to a new high, or low: signed only as being written by "A reader", it bears all the hallmarks of Mr Ellison's own unmistakable writing style: florid overstatement and a fog of half-truths intended to cloud the issue. Well worth a visit to witness the great man in action, a rare sight. (The whole thing can be read on the reviews page for this title; see link above.)

British-born Teresa Simons returns to England after the death of her husband, an FBI agent, who was killed by an out-of-control gunman while on assignment in Texas. A shocking coincidence has drawn her to the run-down south coast town of Bulverton, where a gunman's massacre has haunting similarities to the murders in Texas. Desperate to unravel the mystery, Teresa turns to the virtual reality world of Extreme Experience, ExEx, now commercially available since she trained on it in the US. The best and worst of human experience can be found in ExEx, and in the extremes of violence Teresa finds that past and present combine ...

Cameraman Richard Grey's memory has blanked out the few weeks before he was injured in a car bomb explosion. When he is visited by a girl who seems to have been his lover, his attempts to recall the forgotten period produce an odyssey through France and conflicting accounts of what happened. When Susan Kewley speaks to him of that time, he finds himself glimpsing a terrible twilight world - the world of "the glamour".

The city is winched along a track through a devastated land full of hostile tribes. Tracks must be freshly laid ahead of the city and carefully removed in its wake. Rivers and mountains present nearly insurmountable challenges to the ingenuity of the city's engineers. But if the city does not move, it will fall farther and farther behind the "optimum," slipping into the crushing gravitational field that has transformed life on earth. The only alternative to the city's forward progress is death.

The secret directorate that governs the city makes sure that its inhabitants know nothing of this. Raised in common in creches, nurtured on synthetic food, prevented above all from venturing outside the closed circuit of the city, they are carefully sheltered from the dire necessities that have come to define human existence. And yet, for all that, the city is in crisis. The people are growing restive, the population is dwindling, and the rulers know that, for all their efforts, slowly but surely the city is slipping ever farther behind the optimum.

Helward Mann is a member of the city's elite. Better than anyone, he knows the risks the city runs, how tenuous is its continued existence, how essential it is that discipline be maintained. And yet, as he is about to discover, the world is even stranger than he dreamed.

In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the course of a fraudulent seance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose one another.

Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magicians' craft can command--the highest misdirection and the darkest science.

Blood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations... to descendants who must, for their sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them.

THE QUIET WOMAN stitches together a horrifyingly plausable near-future dystopian Britain and a typically Priestian account of an individual lost in the blurred boundaries between the real and the imagined. It is a novel that bears comparison with the work of Kazuo Ishiguro and A.S. Byatt as well as that of John Wyndham.

In a country that has lost its way memories of past lives are distracting Alice Stockton. Living alone after the break up of her marriage she makes a precarious living as a biographer yet finds herself powerfully and inexplicably influenced by the lives of others.

A novel of uncertain personal histories and literary mystery set in a disturbingly real dystopian Britain, THE QUIET WOMAN is vintage Christopher Priest.

THE SEPARATION is the story of twin brothers. Rowers in the 1936 Olympics, they meet Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy; one joins the RAF, and captains a Wellington; he is shot down after a bombing raid on Hamburg and becomes Churchill's aide-de-camp; his twin brother, a pacifist, works with the Red Cross, rescuing bombing victims in London. But this is not a straightforward story of the Second World War: this is an alternate history: the two brothers - both called J.L. Sawyer - live their lives in alternate versions of reality.

In one, the Second World War ends as we imagine it did; in the other, thanks to efforts of an eminent team of negotiators headed by Hess, the war ends in 1941. THE SEPARATION is an emotionally riveting story of how ordinary people can make a difference; it's a savage critique of Winston Churchill, the man credited as the saviour of Britain and the Western World, and it's a story of how one perceives and shapes the past.

The year is 1893, and the workaday life of a young commercial traveller is enlivened by his lady friend when she takes him to the laboratory of Sir William Reynolds, who is building a Time Machine. It is but a small step into futurity, the beginning of a series of adventures that culminate in a violent confrontation with the most ruthless intellect in the Universe.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Other Earths (2009), edited by Nick Gevers and Jay Lake. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 15 (2010), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

Donovan is a world of remarkable wealth, a habitable paradise of a planet. It sounds like a dream come true. But Donovan's wealth comes at a price.

When the ship Turalon arrives in orbit, Supervisor Kalico Aguila discovers a failing colony, its government overthrown and the few remaining colonists now gone wild. Donovan offers the chance of a lifetime, one that could leave her the most powerful woman in the solar system. Or dead.

Planetside, Talina Perez is one of three rulers of the Port Authority colony--the only law left in the one remaining town on Donovan. With the Corporate ship demanding answers about the things she's done in the name of survival, Perez could lose everything, including her life.

For Dan Wirth, Donovan is a last chance. A psychopath with a death sentence looming over his head, he can't wait to set foot on Port Authority. He will make one desperate play to grab a piece of the action--no matter who he has to corrupt, murder, or destroy.

Captain Max Taggart has been The Corporation's "go-to" guy when it comes to brutal enforcement. As the situation in Port Authority deteriorates, he'll be faced with tough choices to control the wild Donovanians. Only Talina Perez stands in his way.

Just as matters spiral out of control, a ghost ship, the Freelander, appears in orbit. Missing for two years, she arrives with a crew dead of old age, and reeks of a bizarre death-cult ritual that deters any ship from attempting a return journey. And in the meantime, a brutal killer is stalking all of them, for Donovan plays its own complex and deadly game. The secrets of which are hidden in Talina Perez's very blood.

Supervisor Kalico Aguila has bet everything on a fragile settlement far south of Port Authority. There, she has carved a farm and mine out of wilderness. But Donovan is closing in. When conditions couldn't get worse, a murderous peril descends out of Donovan's sky--one that will leave Kalico bleeding and shattered.

Talina Perez gambles her life and reputation in a bid to atone for ruthlessly murdering a woman's husband years ago. Ironically, saving Dya Simonov may save them all.

Lieutenant Deb Spiro is losing it, and by killing a little girl's pet alien, she may have precipitated disaster for all. In the end, the only hope will lie with a "lost" colony, and the alien-infested reflexes possessed by Security Officer Talina Perez.

On Donovan, only human beings are more terrifying than the wildlife.

Corporate assassin Tamarland Benteen's last hope is the survey ship Vixen. With a load of scientists aboard under the supervision of Dr. Dortmund Weisbacher, Vixen is tasked with the first comprehensive survey of the newly discovered planet called Donovan. Given that back in Solar System, Boardmember Radcek would have Benteen's brain dissected, he's particularly motivated to make his escape.

The transition that should have taken Vixen years is instantaneous. Worse, a space ship is already orbiting Donovan, and, impossibly, human settlements have been established on the planet. For Dortmund Weisbacher, this is a violation of the most basic conservation tenets. Donovan is an ecological disaster.

Down on Donovan, Talina Perez takes refuge in the ruins of Mundo Base with the wild child, Kylee Simonov. But the quetzals are playing their own deadly game: one that forces Talina and Kylee to flee farther into the wilderness. Too bad they're stuck with Dortmund Weisbacher in the process.

Back in Port Authority, Dan Wirth discovers that he's not the meanest or deadliest man on the planet. Tamarland Benteen is making his play for control of PA. And in the final struggle, if Benteen can't have it, he'll destroy it all.

The fourth book in the thrilling Donovan sci-fi series returns to a treacherous alien planet where corporate threats and dangerous creatures imperil the lives of the colonists.

Where does one put a messianic cult of practicing cannibals? That becomes the question when Ashanti appears in Donovan's skies. She was designed for no more than four years in space. It's taken ten. The crew has sealed the transportees onto a single deck--and over the years, the few survivors down there have become monsters. Led by the messiah, Batuhan, they call themselves the Unreconciled.

Supervisor Kalico Aguila settles them at remote Tyson Station. With the discovery of a wasting disease among the Unreconciled, it's up to Kalico, Dya Simonov, and Mark Talbot to try and deal with the epidemic. Only Batuhan has plans of his own--and Kalico and her people are to be the main course.

Talina Perez has brokered an uneasy truce with the quetzal molecules that float in her blood. Now, she, young Kylee Simonov, a quetzal named Flute, and a clueless nobleman named Taglioni rush to save Kalico's vanished party.

But as always, Donovan is playing its own deadly game. Lurking in the forest outside Tyson Base is an old and previously unknown terror that even quetzals fear. And it has already begun to hunt.

The Maritime Unit had landed in paradise. After a terrifying 10-year transit from Solar System aboard the Ashanti, the small band of oceanographers and marine scientists were finally settled. Perched on a reef five hundred kilometers out from shore, they were about to embark on the first exploration of Donovan's seas. For the 22 adults and nine children, everything is new, exciting, and filled with wonder as they discover dazzling sea creatures, stunning plant life, and fascinating organisms.

But Donovan is never what it seems; the changes in the children were innocuous - oddities of behavior normal to kids who'd found themselves in a new world. Even then it was too late. An alien intelligence, with its own agenda, now possesses the children, and it will use them in a most insidious way: as the perfect weapons.

How can you fight back when the enemy is smarter than you are, and wears the face of your own child?

Welcome to Donovan.

Three years after Ashanti spaced for Solar System, Turalon reappears in the Donovanian sky. The Corporation has returned. Donovan's wealth is a lure for the powerful families who control the Board. Unburdened by morals, they are bringing their battle for supremacy to Port Authority and a showdown that could tear The Corporation apart.

Much to her disgust, Falise Taglioni has been chosen to ensure that her family emerges triumphant; she comes with instructions for her brother, Dek. After all, she could always manipulate him to her will. And she will again, even if she has to destroy Talina Perez in the process. And if her war with the Grunnels, Xian Chans, and Radceks destroys Port Authority in the process? Who cares?

But nothing on Donovan is static, and in the three years since Ashanti's departure, life on the planet has hardened Kalico Aguila and the scrappy inhabitants of Port Authority. Life in the bush breeds a different kind of human, genetically altered, tough, and self-reliant. And on Donovan, determining who is predator, and who is prey has never been easy.

Meanwhile, for Kylee Simonov and her bonded quetzal, Flute, there will be a final comeuppance. Because on Donovan, blood vendetta needs to be paid. And then she's going to town. After which, nothing will be the same.

Curt Siodmak was a writer who was always ahead of his time. Today there are many writers who are comfortable in both print and film; there is also frequent overlap between science fiction and horror. But Siodmak was doing all this -- and doing it well -- before anyone else.

He helped bring real science fiction to the movies (The Magnetic Monster, Riders to the Stars) and television (with scripts for Men into Space and Science Fiction Theatre). But his greatest fame as a scriptwriter was in the field of horror, with his creation of the character forever linked with Lon Chaney, Jr., The Wolf Man.

How appropriate that his greatest novel should be the basis of three legitimate film versions and endless variations in other movies and television shows. Donovan's Brain is one of the most influential novels of our times.

Dr. Patrick Cory is a scientist who, unable to save the life of W.H. Donovan after a plane crash, keeps his brain alive through an illegal experiment.

The story provides an examination of human evil that is impossible to forget. W.H. Donovan is much more than one of the world's richest men. He is a megalomaniac even before Cory keeps his brain alive in the tank. Once freed of the distractions of the flesh, the will to power is all that drives the brain. It is able to communicate with Dr. Cory through telepathy, but that is only the beginning. Soon it begins to take over the scientist who keeps it alive. Possessed by the mind of Donovan, Cory finds himself helpless to fight the plans of the tycoon. Cory remains aware as he follows orders, becoming more and more like Donovan. His wife is helpless, his assistant is helpless, to stop Donovan's Brain!

In a world at war, the Dream Archipelago is a neutral zone, and therefore an alluring prospect to the young men on both sides of the conflict. In this interlinked collection of short stories and novellas, Christopher Priest explores war, relationships and forms of reality. Each tale is a truimph of quiet, steady craftsmanship, a model of ingenious design and subtle implication, and as a group they further enrich each other by interlocking cleverly, symmetrically and sometimes sinisterly.

• The Equatorial Moment (1999)
• The Negation (1978)
• Whores (1978)
• The Trace of Him (2008)
• The Cremation (1978)
• The Miraculous Cairn (1980)
• The Watched (1978)
• The Discharged (2002)
• Original Appearances (2009)

The 2009 edition is the revised and expanded version of a collection originally published in 1999.

Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1978. The story can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction Novellas of the Year #1 (1979), edited by Terry Carr. It is included in the collections An Infinite Summer (1979) and The Dream Archipelago (1999).

Peter Sinclair is tormented by bereavement and failure. In an attempt to conjure some meaning from his life, he embarks on an autobiography, but he finds himself writing the story of another man in another, imagined, world whose insidious attraction draws him even further in...

Reality is illusory and magical in the stunning new literary SF novel from the multiple award-winning author of The Prestige-for fans of Haruki Murakami and David Mitchell.

A tale of murder, artistic rivalry, and literary trickery; a Chinese puzzle of a novel where nothing is quite what it seems; a narrator whose agenda is artful and subtle; a narrative that pulls you in and plays an elegant game with you. The Dream Archipelago is a vast network of islands. The names of the islands are different depending on who you talk to, their very locations seem to twist and shift. Some islands have been sculpted into vast musical instruments, others are home to lethal creatures, others the playground for high society. Hot winds blow across the archipelago and a war fought between two distant continents is played out across its waters.

The Islanders serves both as an untrustworthy but enticing guide to the islands; an intriguing, multi-layered tale of a murder; and the suspect legacy of its appealing but definitely untrustworthy narrator. It shows Christopher Priest at the height of his powers and illustrates his undiminished power to dazzle.

A photographer returns to a near-future Britain after the death of his wife in a terrorist incident in Afghanistan. And finds that Britain has, itself, been suffering terrorist attacks. But no-one knows quite what is happening or how. Just that there are similarities between what killed the photographer's wife and what happened in West London. Soon he is drawn into a hall of mirrors at the heart of government.

In the First World War a magician is asked to travel to the frontline to help a naval aerial reconnaissance unit hide its planes from the German guns. On the way to France he meets a certain H.G. Wells. In the Second World War on the airfields of Bomber Commands there is also an obsession with camouflage, with misdirection. With deceit.

And in a garden, an old man raises a conch shell to his ear and initiates the first Adjacency.

In the latest novel from one of the UK's greatest writers we return to the Dream Archipelago, a string of islands that no one can map or explain.

Alesandro Sussken is a composer, and we see his life as he grows up in a fascist state constantly at war with another equally faceless opponent. His brother is sent off to fight; his family is destroyed by grief. Occasionally Alesandro catches glimpses of islands in the far distance from the shore, and they feed into his music - music for which he is feted.

But all knowledge of the other islands is forbidden by the junta, until he is unexpectedly sent on a cultural tour. And what he discovers on his journey will change his perceptions of his country, his music and the ways of the islands themselves.

Playing with the lot of the creative mind, the rigours of living under war and the nature of time itself, this is Christopher Priest at his absolute best.

Todd Fremde is an author, a writer of police procedurals and criminal mysteries. Invited to the remote island of Dearth, far across the Dream Archipelago, to talk at a conference, he finds himself caught up in a series of mysteries. How can Dearth claim to be completely crime-free, yet still have an armed police force? Why are they so keen for him to appear, but so dismissive when he arrives? Is his sense of time confused, or is something confusing happening to time itself?

And how does this all connect with a murder committed on his home island, ten years before, and seemingly forgotten?

Fremde's investigation and research will lead him to some dangerous conclusions...

Before the Dawn Cataclysm, Moander the Darkbringer corrupted Tyche, Goddess of Luck. In a desperate attempt to preserve Tyche's goodness, the gods clove her in twain, creating two daughter goddesses: Tymora, Lady Luck; and Beshaba, Lady Doom. In the eons since then, the two sisters have existed in total enmity.

Now a great power has hatched a mad scheme to re-create the goddess Tyche by reuniting Tymora and Beshaba, regardless of the potentially calamitous consequences.

In a decision fraught with godly intrigue, Joel, the Rebel Bard, priest of Finder, is chosen to uncover whoever is behind the abduction of the sister goddesses. Aided by his old allies, Holly Harrowslough and Jas, and his new friend, the kender Emilo Haversack, Joel must find a way to prevent the merger of Tymora and Beshaba before disaster overtakes the luckless Realms.

The Forgotten Realms meet Dragonlance meet Planescape in a heart-stopping adventure that spans three worlds.

Her name is Alias, and she is in big trouble.

She is a sell-sword, a warrior-for-hire, and an adventuress. She awoke with a series of twisting, magical blue sigils inscribed on her arms and no memory of where she got them.

Determined to learn the nature of the mysterious tattoo, Alias joins forces with an unlikely group of companions: the halfling bard, Ruskettle, the southern mage, Akabar, and the oddly silent lizard-man, Dragonbait. With their help, she discovers that the symbols hold the key to her very existence.

But those responsible for the sigils aren't keen on Alias's continued good health. And if the five evil masters find her first, she may discover all too soon their hideous secret.

High fantasy doesn't get better than this--revisit the classic Forgotten Realms in this 2nd book of the Finder's Stone Trilogy by veteran authors Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb.

More than a hunk of junk, the Wyvern's Spur has moldered in a crypt for fifteen generations until now. The Wyvernspur family's powerful heirloom has been stolen, and grand wizard and patriarch Drone Wyvernspur is the first to fall to the ancient item's curse. The family fool, Giogi, is left to find it, but even recovering the spur cannot guarantee his clan's safety. Fortunately, the famous halfling bard Olive Ruskettle and a mysterious and talented mage named Cat are determined to help. But when betrayal and enchantment threaten Giogi's progress, he must invoke the spur's awesome might... or become its next victim!

High fantasy adventure takes a turn with mystery in the final title in the Finder's Stone Trilogy by Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak.

When the Harpers judged the Nameless Bard responsible for the death of his apprentices, they sentenced him to exile and obscurity. Now the Harpers are reconsidering their decision, but with the arrival of the monster Grypht, Nameless's new trial dissolves in a string of disappearances and murder. It is up to the bard's friends, Alias the swordswoman, Akabar the mage, Dragonbait the paladin, and Ruskettle the thief, to prove one enemy is behind all the chaos--the ancient evil god, Moander the Darkbringer. Unless Alias and her companions can find Nameless and convince him to sacrifice some of his precious power, Moander will return to claim the Realms.

Given that the suns of Draco stretch almost sixteen light years from end to end, it stands to reason that the cost of transportation is the most important factor of the 32nd century. And since Illyrion is the element most needed for space travel, Lorq von Ray is plenty willing to fly through the core of a recently imploded sun in order to obtain seven tons of it. The potential for profit is so great that Lorq has little difficulty cobbling together an alluring crew that includes a gypsy musician and a moon-obsessed scholar interested in the ancient art of writing a novel.

What the crew doesn't know, though, is that Lorq's quest is actually fueled by a private revenge so consuming that he'll stop at nothing to achieve it.

In the grandest manner of speculative fiction, Nova is a wise and witty classic that casts a fascinating new light on some of humanity's oldest truths and enduring myths.

Years after Ed Chianese's fateful trip into the Kefahuchi Tract, the tract has begun to expand and change in ways we never could have predicted - and, even more terrifying, parts of it have actually begun to fall to Earth, transforming the landscapes they encounter.

Not far from Moneytown, in a neighborhood of underground clubs, body-modification chop shops, adolescent contract killers, and sexy streetwalking Monas, you'll find the Saudade Event Site: a zone of strange geography, twisted physics, and frightening psychic onslaughts - not to mention the black and white cats that come pouring out at irregular intervals.

Vic Serotonin is a "travel agent" into and out of Saudade. His latest client is a woman who's nearly as unpredictable as the site itself - and maybe just as dangerous. She wants a tour just as a troubling new class of biological artifacts are leaving the site - living algorithms that are transforming the world outside in inexplicable and unsettling ways. Shadowed by a metaphysically inclined detective determined to shut his illegal operation down, Vic must make sense of a universe rapidly veering toward a virulent and viral form of chaosand a humanity almost lost.

Tensions are rising between the Quatrans and the Specters, and the Quatra Fleet is gearing up for an epic fight. With a galaxy on the brink of war and loyalties divided, the friendship of four cadets will be tested.

Orelia has been arrested for espionage, and her future is looking bleak... until the Quatrans make her a surprising offer that could save her life--and the lives of everyone in the galaxy.

Reeling from his breakup, Arran finds comfort in a sympathetic boy from Loos, someone who understands how hard it can be to fit in. But is it enough for Arran to forget his heartbreak?

Cormak's position at the Academy is finally secure. But when someone discovers his treasonous secret, it jeopardizes everything he's fought for, including his relationship with the person he cares about most.

And Vesper is ready to become a superstar officer... until she uncovers a conspiracy that shakes her faith in the Quatra Fleet to its core.

As secret machinations come to light, these cadets will be forced to overcome their differences and band together to restore peace to their worlds.

Once Ananke was an experimental military spacecraft. But a rogue computer virus transformed it -- her -- into something much more: a fully sentient artificial intelligence, with all the power of a god -- and all the unstable emotions of a teenager.

Althea, the ship's engineer and the last living human aboard, nearly gave her life to save Ananke from dangerous saboteurs, forging a bond as powerful as that between mother and daughter. Now she devotes herself completely to Ananke's care. But teaching a thinking, feeling machine -- perhaps the most dangerous force in the galaxy -- to be human proves a monumental challenge. When Ananke decides to seek out Matthew Gale, the terrorist she regards as her father, Althea learns that some bonds are stronger than mortal minds can understand -- or control.

Drawn back toward Earth by the quest, Althea and Ananke will find themselves in the thick of a violent revolution led by Matthew's sister, the charismatic leader Constance, who will stop at nothing to bring down a tyrannical surveillance state. As the currents of past decisions and present desires come into stark collision, a new and fiery future is about to be born.

15 bold new departures by the greatest masters and fastest rising stars of science ficiton.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1970) - essay by Harry Harrison
• The Big Connection - (1970) - shortstory by Robin Scott Wilson
• A Happy Day in 2381 - (1970) - shortstory by Robert Silverberg
• Terminus Est - (1970) - shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg
• Hexamnion - (1970) - shortstory by Chan Davis
• And This Did Dante Do - (1967) - poem by Ray Bradbury
• The Higher Things - (1970) - shortstory by John R. Pierce
• Swastika! - (1970) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• The HORARS of War - (1970) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Love Story in Three Acts - (1970) - shortstory by David Gerrold
• Jean Duprès - (1970) - novelette by Gordon R. Dickson
• In the Pocket - (1970) - shortstory by K. M. O'Donnell
• Mary and Joe - (1962) - shortstory by Naomi Mitchison
• Faces & Hands - (1970) - novelette by James Sallis
• The Winner - (1970) - shortstory by Donald E. Westlake
• The Whole Truth - (1970) - shortstory by Piers Anthony

Table of Contents:

• The Poet in the Hologram in the Middle of Prime Time - (1972) - shortstory by Edward Bryant
• Introduction - (1972) - essay by Harry Harrison
• Zirn Left Unguarded, the Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead - (1972) - shortstory by Robert Sheckley
• "East Wind, West Wind" - (1972) - novelette by Frank M. Robinson
• The Sumerian Oath - (1972) - shortstory by Philip José Farmer
• Now+n Now-n - (1972) - novelette by Robert Silverberg
• Two Odysseys Into the Center - (1972) - shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg
• Darkness - (1972) - shortstory by André Carneiro (trans. of A Escuridão 1963)
• On the Wheel - (1972) - shortstory by Damon Knight
• Miss Omega Raven - (1972) - shortstory by Naomi Mitchison
• The Poet in the Hologram in the Middle of Prime Time - (1972) - shortstory by Edward Bryant
• The Old Folks - (1972) - shortstory by James E. Gunn
• The Steam-Driven Boy - (1972) - shortstory by John Sladek
• I Tell You, It's True - (1972) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• And I Have Come Upon This Place by Lost Ways - (1972) - novelette by James Tiptree, Jr.
• The Ergot Show - (1972) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Harry Harrison
• Welcome to the Standard Nightmare - shortstory by Robert Sheckley
• The Expensive Delicate Ship - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• Dreaming and Conversions: Two Rules by Which to Live - shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg
• Breakout in Ecol 2 - shortstory by David R. Bunch
• The Cold War... Continued - novelette by Mack Reynolds
• The Factory - shortstory by Naomi Mitchison
• The Defensive Bomber - shortstory by Hank Dempsey
• Endorsement, Personal - shortstory by Dean McLaughlin
• The National Pastime - novelette by Norman Spinrad
• The Ultimate End - shortstory by Dick Glass
• Pity the Poor Outdated Man - shortstory by Philip Shofner
• The Exhibition - shortstory by Scott Edelstein
• Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind - novelette by Philip José Farmer

Table of Contents:

• The Monsters of Ingratitude IV - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• Songs of War - novelette by Kit Reed
• Protective Temporal Strike - shortstory by Gerard E. Giannattasio
• Making It All the Way into the Future on Gaxton Falls of the Red Planet - shortstory by Barry N. Malzberg
• Slaves of Time - novelette by Robert Sheckley
• Singular - shortstory by Bill Garnett
• Too Long at the Fair - shortstory by Edward Wellen
• Not a Petal Falls - shortstory by Richard Bireley
• My Affair With Science Fiction - essay by Alfred Bester
• Out of the Waters - shortstory by Naomi Mitchison
• Side View of a Circle - shortstory by Michael Addobati
• Beyond the Cleft - novelette by Tom Reamy
• Our Lady of the Endless Sky - shortstory by Jeff Duntemann
• Afterword - essay by Harry Harrison

The Perfect Servant (NOT!)

He looked like a cross between a dragon and a catfish, and he could bend iron bands into pretzels with a flick of his hand. But what Zdim the mild-mannered demon really was, was a scholar of logic and philosophy. That's why when Zdim was drafter for a year's servitude on the mortal plane he felt that a monumental administrative error had been made.

And even though Zdim resolved to be absolutely obedient and to do exactly what he was told, the wizard who employed him soon agreed.

Jorian, ex-king of Xylar, has had enough adventures to last a lifetime. But when his brother Kerin, youngest son of Evor the Clockmaker, commits an indescretion with Adeliza, a neighbor's daughter, he is packed off on a hasty quest to uncover the secret of an advanced clock escapement for the family firm. A pragmatic, cautious sort, he preps for his journey with a crash course from his experienced brother in useful skills -- swordsmanship and foreign tongues, of course, but also lying and burglary. He is hampered and sometimes aided by the sprite Belinka, commissioned by the calculating Adeliza to ensure Kerin's faithfulness.

Kerin's goal takes him east across the Inner Sea, the Sea of Sikhon and the Eastern Ocean to the empire of Kuromon, where he is promised the secret in return for a magical fan lost centuries before. It has the property of making whatever it is waved at disappear without a trace. Along the way he must contend with a treacherous sea captain and his suspicious navigator, the duplicitous sorcerer Pwana, and the pirate crew of Malgo, who has a grudge against Kerin's family.

A more pleasant complication is Nogiri, a princess of the island empire of Salimor, whom Kerin has liberated (much to the displeasure of Belinka) from the pirates. Kerin returns her to Salimor only to lose her to the nefarious designs of Pwana, and a dire fate from which she can only be preserved by a daring rescue -- on roller skates!

Finally Kuromon is reached and negotiations are concluded satisfactorily, but only at the cost of an unexpected regime change by fan...

King Jorian was rather attached to his head. Hence, he felt his promise to seal the Kist of Avlen, a treasure trove of ancient manuscripts on magic, was little enough a price to pay for a chance to escape his own beheading.

But when the quest pitted him against one peril after another - a murderous wizard and his giant squirrel, a castle full of executioners, a marauding troop of ape men, and a voluptuous 500-year-old princess who was also a serpent - Jorian wondered if he'd made a good bargain!

The Best Mislaid Plans.

Wizardly schemes, Jorian knew went oft a-gley. But this time the wizard's plan seemed simple. Since ancient prophecy foretold that the clocks would save Iraz, Jorian must repair the great tower clocks that his father had built.

If everything went well, Karadur could then plan the rescue of Jorian's beloved wife, Queen Estrildis from Xylar.

And Jorian would be appointed Clockmaster of Iraz, a position that would require him to break a pirate siege, placate an amorous priestess, and stay at least one step ahead of the Royal Guard of Xylar - where he was still wanted as the star sttraction of a royal beheading!

Never Trust a Demon.

Three years earlier, Jorian had been the crowned King of Xylar. But the laws of Xylar decreed that each randomly chosen King must be beheaded at the end of a five-year reign. Jorian had a prejudice against losing his head. With the aid of the aged wizard Karadur, he managed to flee.

Unfortunately he had not been able to bring his beloved wife, Queen Estrildis, with him, nor had he yet been able to find a means of freeing her from the palace in Xylar City.

Now, however, he felt that his luck was about to change. He and the aged wizard Karadur were being flown through the night air in a great copper bathtub, powered by a demon under Karadur's control. Ahead of them lay Xylar City. There, while the demon kept the bathtub hovering above the palace, Jorian could let down a rope and rescue Estrildis.

It should have been a foolproof scheme...

When a bomb explodes in the bustling Commonwealth capital city of Salaam, responsibility is quickly claimed by an extremist independence movement. But after a former comrade, an ex-spy with his own agenda, is implicated in the attack, Simon Kovalic and his team of covert operatives are tasked with untangling the threads of a dangerous plot that could have implications on a galactic scale. And the deeper Kovalic digs, the more he'll uncover a maze of secrets, lies, and deception that may force even the most seasoned spy to question his own loyalties.

*36:00:00*

The clock activates so suddenly in my mind, my head involuntarily jerks a bit to the side. The fog vanishes, dissipated in an instant as though it never was. Memories come slotting into place, their edges sharp enough to leave furrows, and suddenly I know. I know exactly who I am.

My name is Lia Johansen, and I was named for a prisoner of war. She lived in the Tiersten Internment Colony for two years, and when they negotiated the return of the prisoners, I was given her memories and sent back in her place.

And I am a genetically engineered human bomb.

Lia Johansen was created for only one purpose: to slip onto the strategically placed New Sol Space Station and explode. But her mission goes to hell when her clock malfunctions, freezing her countdown with just two minutes to go. With no Plan B, no memories of her past, and no identity besides a name stolen from a dead POW, Lia has no idea what to do next. Her life gets even more complicated when she meets Michael Sorenson, the real Lia's childhood best friend.

Drawn to Michael and his family against her better judgment, Lia starts learning what it means to live and love, and to be human. It is only when her countdown clock begins sporadically losing time that she realizes even duds can still blow up. If she wants any chance at a future, she must find a way to unlock the secrets of her past and stop her clock. But as Lia digs into her origins, she begins to suspect there's far more to her mission and to this war, than meets the eye. With the fate of not just a space station but an entire empire hanging in the balance, Lia races to find the truth before her time -- literally -- runs out.

When the Protostar crash-lands in a peculiar star system, the crew ends up separated and Dal and Gwyn must work together to find their missing crewmates. They don't have much time, though: the nearby star is destabilized and in danger of creating a supernova. Then Dal and Gwyn discover evil droids patrolling the area, and they look just like the Watchers back in Tars Lamora. How will Dal and Gwyn confront this nightmare from their past... and prevent an explosion in their near future?

Cadet Jean-Luc Picard is struggling through his first year at the Academy. He's near the top of his classes, right behind Roger Wells. Jean-Luc is determined to do everything better and bigger than Roger. But privately he has doubts. And the lack of communciation from home only reminds him of how badly he left things with his father.

Then Jean-Luc and his friend, Marta, discover they've been selected to fly with the Nova Command team, a special training mission through the solar system. Jean-Luc tries to ignore the presence of Roger, but the pressure builds between the two cadets. When the mission leader falls ill and the ship receives a distress call, Jean-Luc and the other cadets must decide whether to obey orders or attempt a rescue as the ship heads for disaster.

With a dangerous blend of chemistry and magic, secret agent Lee has the ability to change bodies - his own, or with anyone he chooses. Also able to time travel, he finds himself forced to use his skills to defeat a team of priests, who are using mind control to produce their own private slave race. Dead soldiers, African street urchins, evil doctors, corrupt judges and monsters from the mythology of history and science all feature in Lee's terrifying adventure.

A surreal space odyssey, The Soft Machine is the first book in Burrough's innovative 'cut-up' trilogy - followed by Nova Express and The Ticket That Exploded - and a ferocious assault on hype, poverty, war and addiction in all its forms.

Inspector Lee and the Nova Police have been forced to engage the Nova Mob in one final battle for the planet. This is Burroughs's nightmare vision of scientists and combat troops, of Johnny Yen's chicken-hypnotizing and green Venusian-boy-girls, of ad men and conmen whose destructive language has spread like an incurable disease; a virus and parasite that takes over every human body.

One of Burroughs's most approachable works, The Ticket That Exploded is the climax of his innovative 'cut-up' Nova trilogy - following The Soft Machine and Nova Express - and is an enthralling and frightening image of the future.

The most ferociously political and prophetic book of the Cut-Up Trilogy, Nova Express fires the reader into a textual outer space to show us our burning planet and to reveal the operations of the Nova Mob in all their ugliness. As with The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded, William Burroughs deploys his cut-up methods to make a visionary demand that we take back the world that has been stolen from us.

Edited and introduced by renowned Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris, this new edition reveals how Nova Express was cut from an extraordinary wealth of typescripts to create startling new forms of poetic possibility. The third book of Burroughs' linguistically prophetic 'cut-up' trilogy - following The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded - Nova Express is a hilarious and Swiftian parody of bureaucracy and the frailty of the human animal.

Scorpia Kaiser has always stood in Corvus's shadow until the day her older brother abandons their family to participate in a profitless war. However, becoming the heir to her mother's smuggling operation is not an easy transition for the always rebellious, usually reckless, and occasionally drunk pilot of the Fortuna, an aging cargo ship and the only home Scorpia has ever known.

But when a deal turns deadly and Corvus returns from the war, Scorpia's plans to take over the family business are interrupted, and the Kaiser siblings are forced to make a choice: take responsibility for their family's involvement in a devastating massacre or lay low and hope it blows over.

Too bad Scorpia was never any good at staying out of a fight.

The Kaiser Family helped the Nova Vita system avoid a catastrophic multi-planet war, one that the Kaisers might have accidentally caused in the first place. In their wake, two planets have been left devastated by ancient alien technology.

Now, the Kaisers try to settle into their new lives as tenuous citizens of the serene water planet, Nibiru, but Scorpia Kaiser can never stay still. So, she takes another shady job. One that gives her a ship where spaceborn like her belong.

But while Scorpia is always moving forward, Corvus can't seem to leave his life as a soldier behind. Every planet in the system is vying to strip his razed home planet Titan of its remaining resources, and tensions are high. The Kaisers will need to discover the truth behind what happened on Gaia and Titan, or Corvus will be forced again to fight in an unwinnable war -- and this time, all of Nova Vita is at stake.

Scorpia is finally back among the stars, far away from the memories of the war she and her family started--and ended--on Nibiru. Her first order as captain of the Memoria is to keep her crew safe, and she is all too happy not to get involved in dangerous political games for once.

Corvus is haunted by what he experienced at the hands of the Titan attack, and he's just as eager for a new beginning. He knows that not all Titans are built for war, and that the system can find peace, even as Deva and Pax begin to rattle their sabers.

Though the Kaisers may be responsible for diverting a multi-planet war, the planetary leaders are wary of the knowledge they hold. Better to lock them up and keep their dark secrets hidden. But the Kaisers are the only ones who know the truth about the threat of the ancient world-ending alien weapons rooted in each planet--and they may be the only ones who can save the system from total annihilation.

In Stealing Light, Dakota discovered the Shoal's dark and dangerous secret, now she works towards stopping not only the spread of this knowledge, but also the onset of the Nova war.

Found adrift near a Bandati colony world far away from Consortium space, Dakota and Corso find themselves prisoners of the Bandati.

It becomes rapidly clear to them, that the humanity's limited knowledge of the rest of the galaxy - filtered through the Shoal - is direly inaccurate. The Shoal have been fighting a frontier war with a rival species, the Emissaries, with their own FTL technology for over fifteen thousand years.

Realising that the Shoal may be the Galaxy's one chance at sustained peace, Dakota is forced to work with Trader to prevent the spread of deadly knowledge carried on board the Magi ships. But it seems that the Nova War is inevitable.

When the star Zarathustra went nova, the desperate survisors spread out in all directions. Those that found habitable worlds were few, and after hundreds of years the Zarathustra Refugee Planets were either forgotten or in quarantine. Colonising a new planet requires much more than just settling on a newly discovered island of Old Earth. New planets were different in thousands of ways - any of those differences could mean death and disaster to a human settlement. And sometimes, refugees from another planet had to be brutal. For the inhabitants of Carrig, new arrivals brought invincible death guns - and their ruthless, all-powerful tyranny...

Now published in one volume, these brilliant novels once again show John Brunner to be a true master of science fiction writing.

Table of Contents:

• Polymath (1974) aka Castaways' World (1963)
• The Avengers of Carrig (1969) aka Secret Agent of Terra (1962)
• The Repairmen of Cyclops (1965)