Search Worlds Without End

Ensign Flandry is a classic character in the history of science fiction. This definitive omnibus of three Flandry adventures will delight Anderson's legion of fans. After the first flowering of the Terran Empire, which has grown increasingly decadent and corrupt, other civilizations in the galaxy threaten to take over the Terran's worlds. In this scenario steps the debonair, tough and pessimistic Dominic Flandry, half-Hans Solo, half-James Bond and a hero for the ages!

The Barbarians in their long ships waited at the edge of the Galaxy, waited for the ancient Terran Empire to fall, while tow men struggled to save it: ex-Admiral McCormac, forced to rebel against a corrupt Emperor, and Starship Commander Flandry, the brilliant young officer who served the Imperium even as he scorned it.

Trapped between them was the woman they both loved, but couldn't share: the beautiful Kathryn, whose single world could decide the fate of a billion suns.

This is the second in the Dominic Flandry series (often compared to C. S. Forester's Hornblower series except in space). Here Flandry has been promoted to Lieutenant and has a duty to the empire to explore a dark and treasure laden moon. Yet within the desolate peaks and valleys of that strange world of ice and shadow, Flandry found more than he bargained for. The planet swarmed with a hideous race of strange, inhuman creatures controlled by a deranged and brilliant computer brain. Each, like a piece of a bizarre and vicious chess game was programmed to kill.

Aeneas is the powder keg of the universe, a frontier planet where rebellion is a way of life--and death. Smarting under the thumb of the Terran Empire after an almost successful war against Imperial rule, the Aeneans are swept up in a fanatical religious movement that promises the return of the Elder

(Amazon.com)

Contents:

• Tiger by the Tail
• Warriors from Nowhere
• Honorable Enemies
• Hunters of the Sky Cave

Contents:

• The Game of Glory
• A Message in Secret
• The Plague of Masters

Raconteur, bon vivant, troubleshooter for the decaying Terran Empire, Dominic Falndry doesn't crave further danger in the service of galactic unity.

But duty calls, so it's back to the spaceways for the most elegant Special Agent is a hundred star systems--straight into the well-laid plans of his lifelong enemy Aycharaych.

Win or lose, though, the long night of human civilization is coming and Flandry knows it. How many more battles can he stand to win in a losing cause? And how many planets will die meanwhile?

With A STONE IN HEAVEN Poul Anderson has brought the career of Dominic Flandry full cycle. From the beginning Flandry has piece by piece mortgaged his soul that the long night of galactic barbarism might be held off just a little longer. Now, face to face with his personal long night, Flandry is offered one last chance for love and honor in a universe he has come to believe holds neither...

Contents:

• Prologue by Sandra Miesel
• The Star Plunderer
• Outpost of Empire
• A Tragedy of Errors
• The Sharing of Flesh
• Starfog
• A Chronology of Technic Civilization by Sandra Miesel

Now that Dominic Flandry is of an age more suited to deciding the fate of empires from behind the throne, others must take up the challenge of courting danger on strange planets filled with still stranger creatures. So begins the career of Diana and her faithful Tigery companion.

Originally appeared in Ace Double F-209 (1963).

The inhabitants of Gwydion are a peaceful race with no weapons let alone concept of hatred or war. Every item on the planet has a mythological meaning to them. All except for one of the plants that grows nearly everywhere. The two main characters have arrived from different planets. One is from a libertarian culture while the other is from a capitalistic culture. They both fall in love with the same woman and are determined to find out why the Gwydions act the way they do.