Search Worlds Without End

The newly disvovered planet Corazon has just been opened to prospecters, and ruthless Senator Bartholomew wants only one man to stake a claim for him. but this man--veteran explorer Captain Henry--will have no part of the venture. As conqueror of several planets, and now 135 years old, he longs for retirement and relaxation. blackmailed, however, by the Senator, into rejuvenation treatments and committed to the new mission, hendry shrewdly devises his own scheme for revenge...

The world designated 49381D is a small backwater planet inhabited by simple agrarians. The Galactic Expansion Service has an agent posted there to slowly bring the native species under the auspices of the Galactic community.

But the new Sector Chief, Harb Mallard, is a man of action. In less than two years he has attained his present rank and he is in a hurry to proceed even higher. With a display of false bravado backed up by hidden technological wonders, Harb Mallard infiltrates a warlike faction of the native population. He intends to rise swiftly to a position of power and then present the Galactic Expansion Service with a fully converted population in record time.
But what Harb doesn't know is enough to cost him his sanity. The ultimate lesson is learned too late, for the end is always a direct result of the means.

Shafts driven deep into the Earth's hot core utilized that buried energy to run the world's power station. That broadcast energy alone kept the food factories running. Without those factories and that power, the hungry, overpopulated planet could not survive.

But the cost was high, for the power broadcasts had a terrifying side-effect. While they were on, the human race was unable to stay wake.

Among the rare few with immunity to the sleep compulsion was the astronaut Rafe Arnaul Harald, one of the six who had been training on the Moon for the first star voyage. But now, unless humanity could conquer the dark power that was using the sleep phenomenon to paralyze society, that flight might never be made.

To defeat the unknown masters of the sleeping world, Rafe had only the help of a crippled girl, a wolf with a very special ability, and the unique talents of his own mind and body.

They were humanity's hope - the first young people selected to leave Earth for study in the Galactic Federation. But something went wrong in deep space. Terribly wrong.

Suddenly Jim Rawlins, Ellen Bouvier, Curt Harrington, and the squirrel-like Alien philosopher Peep were castaways, stranded on the quarantined planet of Quebahr - with no training, and little hope of rescue. Between them and the Federation's emergency beacon were primitive Mauregs, aggressive Walats, lizard-like Noifs - plus danger, conspiracy and the mystery of an impending high-tech war on a backward peaceful planet.

Without warning, the future of the two worlds - Earth and Quebahr - depended on three young humans' ability to adapt and survive.

In 2007 A.D. (a 2007 with huge interstellar spaceships and some highly fanciful technology) humanity discovers Ruml people. The extremely intelligent and technologically adept Ruml (think humanoid bears) had previously come into contact with six other planets and "colonized" them. From the human perspective the Ruml appear violent and animalistic.

On a patrol a Ruml named Kator discovers a human space wreck decked "bait" -- an virus impregnated earthworm. The virus allows Jason Barchar, a zoologist, to enter Kator's mind and see what he sees and feel what he feels.

Hugo Award winning novelette. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, August 1980. The story can also be found in the anthologies Day of the Tyrant (1985) edited John F. Carr and J. E. Pournelle and The Hugo Winners, Volume 5: (1980-82) (1986), edited by Isaac Asimov.

A hidden labyrinth beneath the Canadian wilderness where dwarfish Lords and Ladies ride humans like horses - and plot the final downfall of mankind. Bart Dybig is a "Steed", but one gifted with mental and physical abilities unsuspected by those who have enslaved him. Soon, he vows, he will surprise the Lords and escape to the world above - if there's a world to go back to.

For the Earth Lords are building a doomsday device of unimaginable power to completely destroy mankind. Only Bart and his strange heritage can stop them.

Jens Wylie would never leave Earth, but his heart was with the brave men and women of the first Mars Expedition, enchanted by the siren song of the stars. As U.S. Undersecretary of Space, he thought he could share some small part of that bold adventure. But as the mission progressed, Jens saw the sure signs of imminent disaster, a mission failure that could bring Earth's Space program to a halt. He knew that he must risk his future, and maybe even his life, to keep humanity on the road to the stars-the only question was whether he had the courage to do it.

The ancient starship La Chasse Gallerie is found drifting perilously in space. Despite heavy damage from alien Laagi warships, incredibly the ship is till intact and the voice of its pilot, Raoul Penard, comes through loud and clear.

But Petard died over one hundred years ago.

On Earth, frantic investigation reveals that Petard may be dead but his mind is very much alive, merged with the ship itself. The staggering potential of this evolutionary breakthrough compels the scientists to embark on a technological journey of astonishing discovery.

Trapped in the confines of their fragile lifeship, a tiny band of aliens and humans faces the awesome challenge of survival after the mysterious explosion of a giant spaceship.

Giles Steel, a member of Earth's master race, assumes responsibility for erupting tempers, the dwindling food supply... and the saboteur whose ugly work has already begun!

When Earth is contacted by galactic civilization, our heroic couplet - diplomat Tom Parent, and his linguist wife, Lucy - prove themselves to be just the pair to tour the galaxy representing Earth and learning the whys and wherefores of galactic civilization. There's only one tiny catch to this grand tour - on Tom and Lucy's performance hinges our acceptance by the rest of the galaxy as a civilized world rather than as ward of some more "advanced" species. (You don't want Earth to become a Galactic ward.).

The only hope for mankind's survival after the contamination of the Earth lay in the Pritcher Mass, a psychic forcefield construction out beyond the orbit of Pluto. Created by the efforts of individuals with extraordinary paranormal powers, the Mass was designed to search the universe for a new habitable planet.

Chaz Sant knew he had the kind of special ability to contribute effectively to the building of the Mass, but somehow the qualifying tests were stacked against him. Then he learned that he had become the special target of an insidious organization that fattened on the fears of the last cities of the world. His confrontation with this organization, their real motives and his unexpected reactions, were to touch off the final showdown for mankind's last enterprise.

The earth has become a veritable Utopia...

By the middle of the twenty-first century the World Economic Council supplies the basic needs of every individual. And for those people who want to increase their personal value and effectiveness in society, there is Reninase-47, an intelligence-stimulating drug. In rare cases, however, R-47 does massive damage to the mind; in even fewer cases it creates a supergenius--an "R-Master."

None of this interests Etter Ho, who clings fiercely to his independence, to his right simply to wander the oceans in his sloop Sarah--until his brother Wally takes R-47 and becomes a statistic on the negative side of the ledger. Now Wally's body lies encased in a cryogenic capsule, his life processes suspended. Etter, as an ordinary citizen, cannot afford the medical procedure which might revive his brother.

As a step toward obtaining the status required to help Wally, Etter takes R-47 himself--freakishly emerging as an R-Master. It is a position of apparently unrestricted privilege, but when he asks to contact other R-Masters, the only one who will speak to him is an old man named Malone, a recluse with the cryptic word MOGOW scrawled across his door.

Through contact with Malone, Etter begins to realize that the World Economic Council has created, not a Utopia, but a perpetual prison for mankind. His investigation of this prison brings discovery of what really crippled Wally's mind--and the price Etter himself must pay to reclaim man's future.

Note: The Tor edition is most likely expanded from the original publication.

Table of Contents:

• Whatever Gods There Be - (1961)
• Hilifter - (1963)
• Building on the Line - (1968)
• The Christmas Present - (1958)
• 3-Part Puzzle - (1962)
• On Messenger Mountain - (1964)
• The Catch - (1959)
• Jackal's Meal - (1969)
• The Mousetrap - (1952)

It is tomorrow. The lines of time change ravage the earth. Where they pass, water and earth are transformed into past and future, wreaking havoc, destruction, and annihilation with never-before-experienced natural disasters. Mankind is all but extinguished, only a handful of survivors remain.

Marc Despard is a man who will not---cannot---yield. Fury locks him into a private war with the universe as he finds himself committed to his own destruction as his only way to victory. He comes to a lonely discovery of self that teaches humbleness, wisdom and, finally, the courage to let himself be loved.

The Girl is a victim of the Time Storm. She has been wounded so deeply that at first nothing will make her speak, but in the end, she chooses to send what is essentially herself beyond the limits of the universe, to bring Despard the understanding that will set him free.

The leopard is untrained and deadly, the insane victim of Time gone mad---who loves Despard and the Girl with an unjudging love that transcends space and time. Finally, he reaches out from beyond death itself to touch those two who mean more to his wild and savage soul than all that ever was or will be. You will never forget them.

After the collapse of civilization, when the social fabric of America has come apart in bloody rags, when every man's hand is raised against another, and only the strong survive. "Jeebee" Walther was a scientist, a student of human behavior, who saw the Collapse of the world economy coming, but could do nothing to stop it. Now he must make his way across a violent and lawless America, in search of a refuge where he can keep the spark of knowledge alive in the coming Dark Age. He could never make it on his own, but he has found a companion who can teach him how to survive on instinct and will. Jeebee has been adopted by a great Gray Wolf.

A hundred years in our future, the first expedition from Earth reaches Alpha Centauri only to discover a vast human empire, long-established and sternly ruled by the aristocratic High-born. In a stroke Earth becomes merely another primitive outpost, its people dubbed "wolflings" by the rulers of the Throne World. Painstakingly chosen and meticulously trained, Jim Keil was sent merely to observe conditions on the Throne World.

Alien Art

On the planet Arcadia, a young man and woman and a swamp otter join together to haul the otter's eleven hundred pound statue overland to meet the deadline of a prospective buyer from another planet.

Arcturus Landing

Quarantine...Ever since Earth's first starship crept out on sublight drive a hundred years ago and was met by an emissary of the Galactic Federation, man has lived as a prisoner in the solar system. The Federation decreed that unless man could demonstrate his technological maturity and leave the solar system via a faster-than-light drive, he would not leave it at all. All Earth knows the test that man must pass to win Galactic Citizenship and the freedom of the stars; the FTL drive is every physicist's top priority. But what they cannot know is that they work against both an alien time-limit and human sabotage - and time is running out. Unless John Parent's star-drive project is successful, mankind will remain trapped in the solar system, forever...

Alien from Arcturus

Ever since Earth's first starship crept out on sub-light drive a hundred years ago and was met by an emissary of the Galactic Federation, man has lived as a prisoner in the solar system. The Federation decreed that unless man could demonstrate his technological maturity and leave the solar system via a faster-than-light drive, he would not leave it at all.

All Earth knows the test that man must pass to win Galactic Citizenship and the freedom of the stars; the FTL Drive is every physicist's top priority. But what they cannot know is that they work against both an alien time-limit and human sabotage--and time is running out. Unless John Parent's star-drive project is successful, mankind will remain trapped in the solar system, forever...

Atom Curtain

He broke the barrier to a continent in exile. For two hundred and seventy years America had been totally cut off from the rest of the world by an impenetrable wall of raging atomic fury. To the frightened countries of the Old World, what had once been the greatest of all powers was now the most fearful of all mysteries. No man ached to know what lay behind that frightful barrier more than Emmett O'Hara, restless air-sentinel of the International Patrol--whose American ancestors had been stranded in Britain the day the Atom Curtain was raised. Then, on December 20, in the year 2230, while on routine patrol, O'Hara did the impossible. He broke through the barrier--and lived!

Delusion World

There had to be a reason why that isolated human colony had been able to survive right in the heart of the stars held by mankind's implacable enemies. But nobody had been able to get to the quaintly named Dunroamin to find out.

If they had a secret defense, it could be the answer to a hundred planets' prayers. And feliz Gebrod realized as he came in for a crash landing that he'd know the secret soonenr than he'd expected.

Except that what he encountered was a life-and-death riddle that had nothing to do with stellar defense. It was this: how can two mutually irreconcilable Uropias occupy the same space at the same time?

Spacial Delivery

In the good old days when you were dispatched to rescue a maiden distressed by monsters, they usually gave you a suit of armor and a mighty steed.

Well, times have changed: John Tardy didn't volunteer to do battle for maiden fair; he didn't know about the battle until he was in it. And no suit of armor either on Dilbia, it's bare hands even when your opponent has the size, strength and temperament of a hungry Kodiak bear.

John Tardy, a very competent Earthman, figured all that could have been worked out, if only he could have arrived at the fight aboard a magnificent charger, or on his own two feet, or any way other than Spacial Delivery.

The Crossroads of Time

Anothe instalment of Blake Walker's adventures on alternate Earths. Blake, a 1950s citizen of our own Earth is accidentally caught up in the chase for a telepathic psychopath who is looking for an alternate Earth to rule.

Mankind on the Run

Kil and Ellen Bruner were Class-A citizens, labelled as privileged and stable by the Key that every man, woman and child wore in the well-ordered world created after the Lucky War. Then Ellen vanished, and suddenly all Kil's privilege isn't enough to bring her back to him. The layers of intrigue he is able to unwrap show him only the beginning of a great plot against established society--a plot that somehow involves Ellen.

For the first time he feels doors closing around him, hears the official silence of the World Police, feels the great weight of authority's disapproval, and learns what it means to be a man alone. His desperate search for his wife will cost him everything he thought he believed in as he digs ever deeper into the ugly reality behind the façade of his world's peace and security, and finds himself at last.

THE GENETIC GENERAL

Title variant of Dorsai!

Donal Graeme was from The Dorsai, a small planet whose major export was well-trained, fearless military mercenaries. On the day he reached adulthood, he was ready to go out among the star systems and make his name. He paused for a moment, pondering the strange, indefinable force that seemed to drive him to his unknown destiny.

Now, after six years of desperate exploits, Donal once again felt that hidden power that no living being could explain.

Time had run out! The great far-flung worlds of Man had played their planetary politics and now their two warring camps wer on the eve of a fantastic final reckoning. Suddenly, now, Donal knew his destiny; that he was the one man among the stars in a position to stop the mechanism behind this suicidal struggle. To do it, he had to tackle the impossible and conquer the invincible!

TIME TO TELEPORT

They called their secret society, simply, *Members of the Human Race,* but the majority of humanity preferred to call them *The Inhumans.* That's because it was generally believed that they were a vicious masked gang of mutators, vivisectionists, and monster-makers.

In fact, it had gotten to the point where the world government, that amazing non-national association of services which had abolished war, was about to outlaw and destroy them. If the government acted-and its spokesman, Anthony Sellars, was ready to-it might be the first armed conflict in nearly a century. But it would be scarcely more than a police action: the entire "respectable" world against a hideout bunch of crackpots.

Except, as Sellars was to find out, how do you go about collaring people who can walk through walls?

Time to Teleport

They called their secret society Members of the Human Race, but the majority of humanity preferred to call them "the Inhumans." That's because it was generally believed that they were a vicious masked gang of vivisectionists, mutators, and monster-makers.

Delusion World

There had to be a reason why that isolated human colony had been able to survive mankind's implacable enemies. But nobody had been able to get to the quaintly named Dunroamin to find out.

If they had a secret defence, it could be the answer to a hundred planets' prayers. And Feliz Gebrod realized as he came in for a crash landing that he'd know the secret sooner than he'd expected.

Except that what he encountered was a life-and-death riddle that had nothing to do with stellar defence. It was this: how can two mutually irreconcilable Utopias occupy the same space at the same time?

Originally appeared in Ace Double F-119 in 1961.

In the good old days when you were dispatched to rescue a maiden distressed by monsters, they usually gave you a suit of armor and a mighty steed.

Well, times have changed: John Tardy didn't volunteer to do battle for maiden fair; he didn't know about the battle until he was in it. And no suit of armor either on Dilbia, it's bare hands even when your opponent has the size, strength and temperament of a hungry Kodiak bear.

John Tardy, a very competent Earthman, figured all that could have been worked out, if only he could have arrived at the fight aboard a magnificent charger, or on his own two feet, or any way other than Spacial Delivery.

Bill Waltham has a sneaking suspicion that a few important details were purposely withheld from him when he receives his assignment to the planet Dilbia. At first, the project - to teach the planet's bear-like inhabitants basic agricultural skills - seems a straightforward, though boring, undertaking for a young engineer on the rise.

But Bill immediately senses a very keen hostility from the Dilbians toward interfering humans. And in trying to solve a major crisis on the planet, he finds himself involved in a knock-down, drag-out brawl that has all the undertones of a David-and-Goliath battle revisited.

It could almost have been Earth - or so thought Ensign Alexander Braithwaite Jones, who crash-landed on the planet Taka, 500 light-years from the Solar System. Then he met the Hokas, a race of teddy-bear-like aliens, with the astounding ability to transform outdated Earth stories into riotous real life adventures.

From the guns and slang of an Old West saloon to a hair-raising drug bust in Victorian England led to the by a button-nosed, pipe-puffing Hokan Sherlock Holmes, the Hokas demand that Alex Jones live it all along with them.

Suddenly his ordinary military career is changed into a crazy world of intergalactic adventure, as he tries, without much success, to bring his furry, alien charges along the road to civilization, sanity, and a m ore respectable social rating in the Interbeing League.

Table of Content:

• The Sherrif of Canyon Gulch
• Don Jones
• In Hoka Signo Vinces
• The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound
• Yo Ho Hoka!
• The Tiddleywink Warriors
• Incredibly Secret

Charlie Stuart, young scion of the Scottish royal family, long nourished a secret desire for adventure - an escape from his dreary books, his sheltered life. When his father realized that, for Charlie to grow into the full Stuart heritage he must face the rigors of the real world, the young man's dreams had a chance of coming true.
But Charlie's private fantasies had never included Talyina, a planet 200 light-years from earth and ruled by a ruthless usurper. And he had never envisioned himself as a galactic savior. Yet, young Charlie, late the classroom dreamer, suddenly found himself the only man in the galaxy capable of averting inter-planetary war!

One Hoka is a threat to human sanity. Two Hokas are a menace to civilization. And three Hokas... Heaven help the galaxy, in this hilarious science fiction adventure from two of the best writers in the genre.

Table of Contents:

• Prologue - (1983) - essay by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Joy in Mudville - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Undiplomatic Immunity - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Full Pack (Hokas Wild) - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• "The Bear that Walks Like a Man": An Ursanoid Stereotype in Early Interbeing Era Poplular Culture by S*ndr* M**s*| - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• The Napoleon Crime - (1983) - novella by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson

One Hoka is a threat to human sanity. Two Hokas are a menace to civilization. And three Hokas... Heaven help the galaxy, in this hilarious science fiction adventure from two of the best writers in the genre.

Table of Contents:

• Prologue - shortstory by Gordon R. Dickson and Poul Anderson
• The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch - (1951) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude I - shortstory by Gordon R. Dickson and Poul Anderson
• Don Jones - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude II - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• In Hoka Signo Vinces - (1953) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude III - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound - (1953) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude IV - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Yo Ho Hoka! - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude V - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• The Tiddlywink Warriors - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Interlude VI - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Joy in Mudville - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Undiplomatic Immunity - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Mysterious Message - (1957) - shortstory by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson

If a human thinks he's Napoleon, it's time to get out a straitjacket. But when a Hoka thinks he's Napoleon, you'd better believe it! Just remember that with Hokas, reality is merely optional....

Table of Contents:

• Full Pack (Hokas Wild) - (1957) - novelette by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• The Napoleon Crime - (1983) - novella by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson
• Star Prince Charlie - (1975) - novel by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1978) - essay by Gordon R. Dickson
• A Crowd of Shadows - (1976) - shortstory by Charles L. Grant
• Breath's a Ware That Will Not Keep - (1975) - shortstory by Thomas F. Monteleone
• Tricentennial - (1976) - shortstory by Joe Haldeman
• In the Bowl - (1975) - novelette by John Varley
• Science Fiction in the Marketplace - (1978) - essay by Algis Budrys
• The Academic Viewpoint - (1978) - essay by James E. Gunn
• The Bicentennial Man - (1976) - novelette by Isaac Asimov
• Houston, Houston, Do You Read? - (1976) - novella by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Nebula Awards, 1975, 1976: Win, Place, and Show - (1977) - essay by uncredited

Trapped... The Outposters, a token band of specially trained experts, were given the task of guiding the exiled colonists in their harsh new environment and protecting them from the treachery of the enemy Meda V'Dans.

But the problems seemed insurmountable. For Earth was indifferent to her superfluous population and supply lines ran thin. The colonists were considered disposable "garbage."

But one young Outposter, Mark Ten Roos, had an old score to settle with the Meda V'Dans. Years ago they had killed his parents and now they had crippled his adopted father.

His plan was a daring challenge to the system. But could he change the odds...?

Patrick Joya lifted his head to scan the southern sky and saw a dark bluish shape flicker against the clouds. Growing larger and larger the object undulated like a wide piece of cloth carried along a moving current of water. He could hear the babble of voices around him swelling to a mounting groan of panic. The sound went racing like a cresting wave back toward the Terminal where the thousands there would be lifting their gaze skyward. Another Space Swimmer, Pat thought with sinking heart. It seemed as if it intended to swallow up the sky - for the brightness of day had blackened into night.

When the Sea-Born cadets walk out of space academy in protest, the stage is set for the long impending clash between the sea and land. Can these two races co-operate, or will they destroy each other first?

Shane, a gifted linguist, has spent his life learning the language of the old and powerful alien race that has conquered Earth. He has learned it so well that the interstellar masters, old hands at enslaving planets, regard him as a valuable servant.

But Shane has a secret. One day, in a rebellious moment, he invented The Pilgrim: a mysterious figure who incites rebellion and vanishes unseen, leaving a distinctive icon behind him.

Now the human underground is preparing to rebel. Shane knows how hopeless their rebellion will be. He knows, as well, that he will be unable to keep himself from taking part.

The best of the best from a legendary master of science fiction, the first of two volumes.

The Best of Gordon R. Dickson, Volume I, gathers together fourteen stories, predominantly from the first half of legendary science fiction and fantasy writer Gordon R. Dickson's career, ranging from the early 1950s through the 1960s, including tales dragons, dolphins, aliens, werewolves, mutants and humans trying to make sense of an infinitely bewildering universe. A maiden aunt is suddenly given superpowers. An alien who looks like a large, sentient rabbit makes ominous announcement which make no sense from behind an impenetrable force shield. Humans besieged by an alien enemy refuse, against all reason, to give up fighting. And much more, in stories running the gamut from exciting adventure to stark tragedy to hysterical comedy. Plus the never before published "Love Story," written for Harlan Ellison's legendary, but never published anthology, The Last Dangerous Visions. And stay tuned for The Best of Gordon R. Dickson, Volume II, with another generous display of Dickson's virtuosity, covering his brilliant career from 1970s to the century's end.

Hugo Award winning story. It originally appeared in Galaxy Magazine, October 1964. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Hugo Winners, Volume 2: (1963-70) (1971), edited by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg Presents the Great SF Stories: 1964 (2002), edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg. It is included in the collection Beginnings (1988) and was expanded to the full novel Soldier, Ask Not (1967).

This is the original version of The Final Encyclopedia, which was later republished in greatly expanded and revised versions in The Final Encyclopedia Volumes 1 and 2.

The Childe Cycle, also known as the Dorsai series, is Gordon R. Dickson's future history of humankind and its ultimate destiny.

In The Final Encyclopedia the human race is split into three Splinter cultures: the Friendlies, fanatic in their faith; the truth-seeking Exotics; and the warrior Dorsai. But now humanity is threatened by the power-hungry Others, whose triumph would end all human progress.

Hal Mayne is an orphan who was raised by three tutors: an Exotic, a Friendly, and a Dorsai. He is the only human capable of uniting humanity against the Others. But only if he is willing to accept his terrifying destiny... as savior of mankind.

Throughout the Fourteen Worlds of humanity, no race is as feared and respected as the Dorsai. The ultimate warriors, they are known for their deadly rages, unbreakable honor, and fierce independence. No man rules the Dorsai, but their mastery of the art of war has made them the most valuable mercenaries in the known universe.

Donal Graeme is Dorsai, taller and harder than any ordinary man. But he is different as well, with talents that maze even his fellow Dorsai. And once he ventures out into the stars, the future will never be the same....

Life on Earth is good. Disease is checked, hunger ended, and war and suffering abolished, with liberty and justice and a high standard of living for all.

But Paul Formain, a strangely gifted young engineer, doesn't believe a word of it.

So he comes to Walter Blunt's Chantry Guild, whose motto is "Destruct!" and whose stated goal is the end of civilization. There are Alternate Laws at work in the world, says the Chantry Guild; Walter Blunt has pledged his life to them, and to the principle of destruction as a positive force.

Even more disturbingly, the Alternate Laws appear to work.

After centuries of hope and progress, and the triumph of science, something strange is happening to mankind. And whatever it is, it's going to be big.

On the sixteen colonized worlds, mankind had changed, evolved into something that was slightly more than human...and slightly less. Men of War on the Dorsai worlds, men of Faith on the Friendly Worlds of Harmony and Association, men of Science, the Exotics of Kultis and Mara, and the Splinter cultures which had produced even stranger new talents.

Those who knew said it was the Dorsai who supplied soldiers to the sixteen worlds. The Friendlies supplied cannon fodder, common soldiers who could be relied on to obey orders at all times.

But even cannon fodder can sometimes produce genius. Jamethon Black is a true soldier, and a true man of faith. Now he must face a deadly enemy--an enemy whose defeat will forever separate Black from the only woman he has ever loved.

It's obvious that Cletus Graeme--limping, mild-mannered scholarly--doesn't belong on a battling field, but instead at a desk working on his fourth book on battle strategy and tactics. But Bakhalla has more battlefields than libraries, and Graeme sees his small force of Dorsai--soldiers of fortune--as the perfect opportunity to test his theories. But if his theories or his belief in the Dorsai lead him astray, he's a dead man.

The Dorsai are the finest soldiers ever trained to fight and win against all odds. The Spirit of Dorsai is an illumination of the heart and soul of the planet Dorsai and its people, showing with epic clarity and unforgettable vision how why the Dorsai fight and live. It tells of the beginning when the first Dorsai was former by mercenaries willing to fight other's battles to buy freedom for their own homes. It tells how even children and old men fought for the dream of Dorsai. From the mouth of Amanda Morgan, direct descendant of two illustrious women who bore her name, the full story is told in all its splendour.

There are many legends on the planet of the Dorsai, the breeding ground for heroes. Here are two of them.

The Childe Cycle, also known as the Dorsai series, is Gordon R. Dickson's future history of humankind and its ultimate destiny. Now one of its central novels return to print in a two-volume corrected edition.

In The Final Encyclopedia the human race is split into three Splinter cultures: the Friendlies, fanatic in their faith; the truth-seeking Exotics; and the warrior Dorsai. But now humanity is threatened by the power-hungry Others, whose triumph would end all human progress.

Hal Mayne is an orphan who was raised by three tutors: an Exotic, a Friendly, and a Dorsai. He is the only human capable of uniting humanity against the Others. But only if he is willing to accept his terrifying destiny... as savior of mankind.

A towering landmark of future history, The Final Encyclopedia is a novel every SF fan needs to own.

The Childe Cycle, also known as the Dorsai series, is Gordon R. Dickson's future history of humankind and its ultimate destiny. Now one of its central novels return to print in a two-volume corrected edition.

In The Final Encyclopedia the human race is split into three Splinter cultures: the Friendlies, fanatic in their faith; the truth-seeking Exotics; and the warrior Dorsai. But now humanity is threatened by the power-hungry Others, whose triumph would end all human progress.

Hal Mayne is an orphan who was raised by three tutors: an Exotic, a Friendly, and a Dorsai. He is the only human capable of uniting humanity against the Others. But only if he is willing to accept his terrifying destiny... as savior of mankind.

A towering landmark of future history, The Final Encyclopedia is a novel every SF fan needs to own.

Dorsai Amanda Morgan has made it to earth with disturbing news--the Younger Worlds intend to attack Earth, unless she and mysterious Chantry Guild can prevent it.

In the sequel to The Final Encyclopedia, Bleys Ahrens, raised alone by his unhappy Exotic mother and cast out from society, finds his niche in life with Dahno, his half-brother.

Bleys Ahrens is now a political power on the planet Association, home of the Friendlies. His people--his Others, not Dorsai or Friendly or Exotic, but hybrids--are in place on all the new worlds, and are ready to take his message to the greater human public.

But within his inner circle is Henry McLean, Soldier of God, and a True Faith-Holder. Henry fears for the soul of his nephew Bleys, and while he guards, he also watches, and judges.

And beyond Bleys Ahrens' control is Hal Mayne: the one man in all the human worlds who might successfully challenge Bleys in his bid for power. For Hal Mayne is the true culmination of the Cycle's grand design. Bleys would give anything to convert Hal Mayne to his cause--or failing that, to destroy him.

Gordon R. Dickson's "Childe Cycle" of novels depicting the future of the human race has been one of the grand epics of science fiction. At the time of his death in 2001, Dickson was writing Antagonist, the tale of Bleys Ahrens' turn toward darkness. Now Dickson's assistant David W. Wixon has brilliantly finished the long-awaited book, working from Dickson's copious notes. Antagonist is a fitting capstone to one of the most ambitious series in SF history.

The Childe Cycle is the story of a new human evolution: the development of a real, hardwired sense of "responsibility" shared by all human beings. Donal Graeme was a Dorsai, a mercenary soldier, and also a mutant gifted with insight into the path forward for the human race. Through his gifts Donal would come to bend time and live three lifetimes—and, in the process, run into problems he had not expected: first, his own flaws, and second, the existence of another mutant, Bleys Ahrens.

Following Young Bleys and Other, Antagonist advances the story of the formidably powerful Bleys Ahrens. Bleys is a man with a clear vision of the struggle in which he's involved -- but an increasingly deficient sense of human values. He and his organization, the Others, are tracking down an elusive interplanetary opposition. Meanwhile, Bleys' own intricate conspiracies and devisings, and his quest for power, which began with the best of motives, have become something darker and fiercer.

He's committed to his plans. They may bring about the advent of Homo superior. And they may destroy the human race.

Through no fault of his own, the once human Jim Eckert had become a dragon. Unfortunately, his beloved Angie had remained human. But in this magical land anything could happen. To make matter worse, Angie had been taken prisoner by an evil dragon and was held captive in the impenetrable Loathly Tower. So in this land where humans were edible and beasts were magical -- where spells worked and logic didn't -- Jim Eckert had a big, strange problem.

In the sequel to The Dragon and the George, Sir James Eckert is transformed back into the shape of a dragon. Now he must learn to control his magical abilities and truly become the Dragon Knight--which carries some responsibilities he hadn't counted on.

Sir James, the Dragon Knight, faces his most terrifying challenge in the nearly indestructible Hollow Men, spirits of the dead who reside in empty suits of armor.

As France prepares for war against England, Jim Eckert, the Dragon Knight--a twentieth-century college professor transported to an alternate medieval England--discovers that he is all that stands between England and utter destruction.

In the middle of the Earl of Somerset's lavish Christmas feast, the fortress is attacked by an army of land-hungry trolls and a band of traitors, and brave Dragon Knight Sir James undertakes a mission that no one can win.

Gordon R. Dickson continues his acclaimed saga of a twentieth-century American transformed into a Dragon Knight - and transported into a fantastic medieval adventure!

The Dragon Knight's journey to the Holy Land is supposed to be a simple quest... but pirates, sea giants, and the legendary Djinn threaten to make his voyage the most dangerous odyssey known to man - and dragon.

As a young mathematician, Jim Eckert was transported to a parallel medieval world where he found he had the ability to transform himself into a large but none-too-bright dragon named Gorbash. Long since settled, Jim--now the Baron de Bois de Malencontri et Riveroak--must once again assume the form of the Dragon Knight to save the enchanted realm.

After their final battle, legend tells us, Arthur and his knights went to Lyonesse, the land under the sea. Now Lyonesse is threatened by a resurgence of the Dark Powers, those mindless malevolent forces that struggle to stop the course of History.

And Jim Eckert--the Dragon Knight--and his friends are called upon to stop them.

Arthur and his knights are proud, too; too proud to easily accept help from Jim Eckert and his allies. But they will have help--from Jim in his dragon form, from knight-in-armor Sir Brian Neville-Smyth, from the brilliant archer Dafydd ap Hywel, and from one small hobgoblin.

The result is a wild ride: Arthurian fantasy adventure as only Gordon R. Dickson could tell it.

Jim Eckert, the Dragon Knight, must now confront the three disasters that lie in wait for any visitor to the English Middle Ages: war, plague, and Plantagenets.

The plagues is caused by a covert invasion of shape-shanging goblins with plague-tipped spears that seek to take over the world. Meanwhile, Eckert's castle is invaded by Plantagenets: Edward III, his son Edward the Black Prince, and Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent.

Against the background of a full-scale human-versus-goblin war, these worthies move in a swirl of intrigue and dynastic tension. And, as usual, it's up to the Jim Eckert, in all his scaly glory, to make sure good triumphs in the end!

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Of War and Codes and Honor - [The Harriers] - novella by Gordon R. Dickson and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
• 121 - Into the Hot and Moist - [The Harriers] - novella by Steve Perry
• 181 - Tonight We Improvise - [The Harriers] - novella by Shariann Lewitt

Table of Contents:

• 1 - The Noble Savages - [The Harriers] - novella by David Drake
• 51 - Down Among the Dead Men - [The Harriers] - novella by Gordon R. Dickson and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
• 217 - Mission of Mercy - [The Harriers] - short story by Christopher Stasheff
• [238] - The Children's Hour (excerpt) - short fiction by Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Stirling

What's a father to do with a son like Jamie? Good-hearted, hot-blooded, quick to make both friends and enemies, he is too much of a firebrand to stay at home. The King's heart almost broke when he banished his favorite son, but Jamie the Red's adventures were only beginning!

Naked to the Stars:

During an action on the third planet from Arcturus, soldier Cal Truent woke up in the hospital with a sixteen-hour hole in his memory. No one knows what it is that Cal has forgotten, but his superiors can't take the chance that it might be something deadly to his fellow soldiers -- and to Earth. Somehow Cal means to seek out whatever it is that his mind is resisting...

The Alien Way:

One man is mentally linked to an alien who is spearheading an invasion of Earth; a group of soldiers fight to win new space for Earth; and a small group of men fight against a machine that controls all life.

Dive into adventure in the last unknown territory on Earth - the sea. Join Robby Hoenig and a cast of characters as unusual as any ever met on a distant planet...

In the first Robby Hoenig adventure, Secret Under the Sea, an aquatic visitor from another world is threatened by a criminal gang...

Gordon R. Dickson's Robby Hoenig adventures are timeless young adult stories in the tradition of Arthur C. Clarke's Dolphin Island.

Dive into adventure in the last unknown territory on Earth - the sea. Join Robby Hoenig and a cast of characters as unusual as any ever met on a distant planet...

In the second Robby Hoenig adventure, Secret Under Antarctica, a scientific expedition becomes a race to stop a terrorist plot for world-wide disaster, buried beneath the ice of the South Pole...

Gordon R. Dickson's Robby Hoenig adventures are timeless young adult stories in the tradition of Arthur C. Clarke's Dolphin Island.

Dive into adventure in the last unknown territory on Earth - the sea. Join Robby Hoenig and a cast of characters as unusual as any ever met on a distant planet...

In the third Robby Hoenig adventure, Secret Under the Caribbean, the key to a baffling puzzle - and the truth about a mysterious monster - are locked inside a sunken Spanish ship...

Gordon R. Dickson's Robby Hoenig adventures are timeless young adult stories in the tradition of Arthur C. Clarke's Dolphin Island.