Search Worlds Without End

The art of writing great science fiction is that it challenges the imagination, pushing it to extreme limits and in this anthology, selecting some of the best modern science fiction from the last fifty years, twenty leading authors of the genre ask the question 'What if...?' and then give their own very personal views of the changes and surprises which may befall humanity in the centuries to come. In Ulla, Ulla Eric Brown recounts the first manned Martian expedition and discovers that H. G. Wells may have been right after all. In The Infinite Assassin Greg Egan polices the dimensions, seeking those who are taking over their alternate selves. Geoffrey A. Landis takes us into the depths of a black hole in Approaching Perimelasma. Is the ultimate Utopia heaven or hell? Robert Sheckley finds out in the classic A Ticket to Tranai. These and other stories by James White, Eric Frank Russell, Robert Reed, H. Beam Piper and H. Chandler Elliot make this one of the most entertaining and thought-provoking science fiction anthologies in lightyears.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: The Next Step - essay by Mike Ashley
• Ulla, Ulla - (2002) - short story by Eric Brown
• Deathday - (1991) - novelette by Peter F. Hamilton
• The Infinite Assassin - (1991) - short story by Greg Egan
• Anachron - (1954) - short story by Damon Knight
• Firewatch - (1982) - novelette by Connie Willis
• At the 'Me' Shop - (1995) - novelette by Robert Reed
• Vinland the Dream - (1991) - short story by Kim Stanley Robinson
• A Ticket to Tranai - (1955) - novelette by Robert Sheckley
• The Exit Door Leads In - (1979) - short story by Philip K. Dick
• What Have I Done? - (1952) - short story by Mark Clifton
• Finis - (1906) - short story by Frank Lillie Pollock
• The Last Days of Earth: Being the Story of the Launching of the "Red Sphere" - (1901) - short story by Geo. C. Wallis
• Approaching Perimelasma - (1998) - novelette by Geoffrey A. Landis
• The Pen and the Dark - (1966) - novelette by Colin Kapp
• Inanimate Objection - (1954) - novelette by H. Chandler Elliott
• The Very Pulse of the Machine - (1998) - short story by Michael Swanwick
• High Eight - (1965) - novelette by Keith Roberts
• Shards - (1962) - short story by Brian W. Aldiss
• Except My Life³ - (1991) - novelette by John Morressy
• Into Your Tent I'll Creep - (1957) - short story by Eric Frank Russell
• A Death in the House - (1959) - short story by Clifford D. Simak
• Refugium - short story by Stephen Baxter

Twenty-three spellbinding tales of sorcery, wizardry and witchcraft, of the ceaseless battle between good and evil.

From dark lords and epic clashes between the forces of good and evil to a child's struggle to control magical powers for the first time this wonderfully varied collection comprises stories by the most outstanding writers of fantasy: A. C. Benson, James Bibby, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Louise Cooper, Ralph Adams Cram, Peter Crowther, Esther M. Friesner, Tom Holt, Doug Hornig, Diana Wynne Jones, Michael Kurland, Tim Lebbon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Richard A. Lupoff, Michael Moorcock, John Morressy, Tim Pratt, David Sandner, Lawrence Schimel and Mike Resnick, Darrell Schweitzer, Clark Ashton Smith, Steve Rasnic Tem and Robert Weinberg.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword: Spellbound - essay by Mike Ashley
• Ten Things I Know About the Wizard - (1983) - short story by Steve Rasnic Tem
• Villaggio Sogno - novelette by Richard A. Lupoff
• The Game of Magical Death - (1987) - short story by Doug Hornig
• The Infestation - short story by Tom Holt
• The Witch's Bicycle - (2002) - novelette by Tim Pratt
• The Sage of Theare - juvenile - (1982) - novelette by Diana Wynne Jones
• Timekeeper - (1990) - novelette by John Morressy
• The Double Shadow - (1933) - short story by Clark Ashton Smith
• The Rite Stuff - novelette by Michael Kurland
• Master of Chaos - (1964) - short story by Michael Moorcock
• Seven Drops of Blood - (1992) - short story by Robert Weinberg
• To Become a Sorcerer - (1991) - novelette by Darrell Schweitzer
• No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince - (1895) - short story by Ralph Adams Cram
• The Bones of the Earth - (2001) - short story by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Closed Window - (1903) - short story by A. C. Benson
• Disillusioned - (1995) - short story by Mike Resnick and Lawrence Schimel
• In the Realm of Dragons - (1998) - novelette by Esther M. Friesner
• Forever - novelette by Tim Lebbon
• The Wizard of Ashes and Rain - (2001) - short story by David Sandner
• The Walker Behind - (1987) - short story by Marion Zimmer Bradley
• The Last Witch - short story by James Bibby
• Last Rites (excerpt from Star Ascendant) - (1994) - short fiction by Louise Cooper
• The Eternal Altercation - novelette by Peter Crowther

Jules Verne, one of the founding fathers of science fiction, was the author of such thrilling and perennial favorites as Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, as well as more than sixty other novels of adventure and exploration. One hundred years after his death, this magnificent new collection celebrates Verne's amazing vision. A host of today's top science fiction authors pay homage to Verne's genius with a series of stories inspired by his groundbreaking imagination and original characters.

In this anthology are extraordinary voyages of discovery and adventure from the four corners of the globe, and even within it. Following the tradition of Verne's original tales, Ian Watson tells of a journey deep into the center of the Earth, where Verne himself does battle with occultist Nazis, and Adam Roberts takes us to latter-day California, where a descendant of Verne's character Hector Servadac is preparing for the end of the world as we know it. These and many more compelling adventures add up to an anthology that will introduce a new generation to the wonder of Jules Verne and delight readers already familiar with the master.

Contents:

• Introduction: Return to the Centre of the Earth - (2005) - essay by Mike Ashley
• A Drama on the Railway - (2005) - shortstory by Stephen Baxter
• Jehan Thun's Quest - (2005) - novelette by Brian Stableford
• Six Weeks in a Balloon - (2005) - shortstory by Eric Brown
• Londre au XXIe Siècle - (2005) - shortstory by James Lovegrove
• Giant Dwarfs - (2005) - novelette by Ian Watson
• Cliff Rhodes and the Most Important Journey: A Land at the End of the Working Day Story - (2005) - novella by Peter Crowther
• The True Story of Barbicane's Voyage - (2005) - novelette by Laurent Genefort (trans. of Le véritable voyage de Barbicane 1999)
• Columbiad - (1996) - shortstory by Stephen Baxter
• Tableaux - (2005) - novelette by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
• The Secret of the Nautilus - (2005) - novelette by Michael Mallory
• Doctor Bull's Intervention - (2005) - novelette by Keith Brooke
• The Very First Affair - (2005) - novelette by Johan Heliot
• Eighty Letters, Plus One - (2005) - shortstory by Kevin J. Anderson and Sarah A. Hoyt
• The Adventurers' League - novelette by Justina Robson
• Hector Servadac, fils - (2005) - novelette by Adam Roberts
• The Mysterious Iowans - (2005) - novelette by Paul Di Filippo
• Old Light - (2005) - shortstory by Tim Lebbon
• The Selene Gardening Society - (2005) - shortstory by Molly Brown
• A Matter of Mathematics - (2005) - novelette by Tony Ballantyne
• The Secret of the Sahara - novelette by Richard A. Lupoff
• The Golden Quest - (2005) - shortstory by Sharan Newman
• The True Story of Wilhelm Storitz - (2005) - shortstory by Michel Pagel
• The Shoal - (2005) - shortstory by Liz Williams

Here are 25 stories of science fiction that push the envelope, by the biggest names in an emerging new crop of high-tech futuristic SF - including Charles Stross, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton and Neal Asher. High-tech SF has made a significant comeback in the last decade, as bestselling authors successfully blend the super-science of 'hard science fiction' with real characters in an understandable scenario. It is perhaps a reflection of how technologically controlled our world is that readers increasingly look for science fiction that considers the fates of mankind as a result of increasing scientific domination. This anthology brings together the most extreme examples of the new high-tech, far-future science fiction, pushing the limits way beyond normal boundaries.

Table of Contents:

• Extreme Science Fiction - essay by Mike Ashley
• Anomalies - (2001) - short story by Gregory Benford
• ... And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon - (2003) - short story by Paul Di Filippo
• Crucifixion Variations - (1998) - novelette by Lawrence Person
• The Pacific Mystery - novelette by Stephen Baxter
• Flowers from Alice - (2003) - short story by Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow
• Merlin's Gun - (2000) - novelette by Alastair Reynolds
• Death in the Promised Land - (1995) - novella by Pat Cadigan
• The Long Chase - (2002) - short story by Geoffrey A. Landis
• Waterworld - (1994) - novelette by Stephen L. Gillett, Ph.D. and Jerry Oltion
• Hoop-of-Benzene - novelette by Robert Reed
• The New Humans - (1909) - novelette by B. Vallance
• The Creator - (1935) - novelette by Clifford D. Simak
• The Girl Had Guts - (1957) - novelette by Theodore Sturgeon
• The Region Between - (1970) - novella by Harlan Ellison
• The Days of Solomon Gursky - (1998) - novella by Ian McDonald
• Wang's Carpets - (1995) - novelette by Greg Egan
• Undone - (2001) - novelette by James Patrick Kelly
• Judgment Engine - (1995) - novelette by Greg Bear
• Stuffing - short story by Jerry Oltion

Here is the future of fantasy--25 short stories from top contemporary writers. This collection embraces all the newest forms of fantasy in vogue, from urban fantasy and extreme dystopian fiction, to alternate history and entire new fantasy worlds.

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Beyond the Impossible - essay by Mike Ashley
• 5 - Senator Bilbo - short story by Andy Duncan
• 23 - Sandmagic - novelette by Orson Scott Card
• 43 - Dream a Little Dream for Me ... - novelette by Peter Crowther
• 71 - Lost Wax - short story by Leah Bobet
• 81 - Save a Place in the Lifeboat for Me - novelette by Howard Waldrop
• 107 - I Am Bonaro - short story by John Niendorff
• 113 - The Old House Under the Snow - novelette by Rhys Hughes
• 149 - Banquet of the Lords of Night - short story by Liz Williams
• 161 - Charlie the Purple Giraffe Was Acting Strangely - short story by David D. Levine
• 171 - Master Lao and the Flying Horror - novelette by Lawrence Person
• 205 - Using It and Losing It - short story by Jonathan Lethem
• 215 - The All-At-Once Man - novelette by R. A. Lafferty
• 237 - Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani - short story by William Hope Hodgson
• 257 - Boatman's Holiday - short story by Jeffrey Ford
• 275 - The Detweiler Boy - novelette by Tom Reamy
• 317 - The Fence at the End of the World - short story by Melissa Mia Hall
• 325 - Elric at the End of Time - novelette by Michael Moorcock
• 373 - Cup and Table - short story by Tim Pratt
• 391 - I, Haruspex - novelette by Christopher Priest
• 435 - Radio Waves - novelette by Michael Swanwick
• 461 - Tower of Babylon - novelette by Ted Chiang
• 491 - Jack Neck and the Worry Bird - novelette by Paul Di Filippo
• 513 - The Dark One - novelette by A. A. Attanasio
• 541 - A Ring of Green Fire - short story by Sean McMullen

Many readers are attracted to science fiction for that singular moment when a story expands your imagination, enabling you to see something in a new light. Not all SF works this way! This volume collects the very best of it that does, with 25 of the finest examples of mind-expanding and awe-inspiring science fiction.

The storylines range from a discovery on the Moon that opens up vistas across all time to a moment in which distances across the Earth suddenly increase and people vanish. These are tales to take you from the other side of now to the very end of time - from today''s top-name contributors including Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Silverberg, Gregory Benford and Robert Reed.

Table of Contents:

• vii - Acknowledgments (The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF) - (2009) - essay by uncredited
• ix - Introduction: That Sense of Wonder - (2009) - essay by Mike Ashley
• 1 - Out of the Sun - (1958) - short story by Arthur C. Clarke
• 9 - The Pevatron Rats - (2009) - novelette by Stephen Baxter
• 30 - The Edge of the Map - [Susanna and Ivo] - (2006) - short story by Ian Creasey
• 47 - Cascade Point - (1983) - novella by Timothy Zahn
• 105 - A Dance to Strange Musics - (1998) - novelette by Gregory Benford
• 131 - Palindromic - (1997) - short story by Peter Crowther
• 156 - Castle in the Sky - (2009) - novelette by Robert Reed
• 191 - The Hole in the Hole - [Wilson Wu and Irving - 1] - (1994) - novelette by Terry Bisson
• 224 - Hotrider - (1991) - short story by Keith Brooke
• 237 - Mother Grasshopper - (1997) - short story by Michael Swanwick
• 255 - Waves and Smart Magma - (2009) - novelette by Paul Di Filippo
• 282 - The Black Hole Passes - [Eight Worlds] - (1975) - novelette by John Varley
• 309 - The Peacock King - (1965) - short story by Larry McCombs and Ted White
• 325 - Bridge - [Cities in Flight] - (1952) - novelette by James Blish
• 355 - Anhedonia - (2009) - novelette by Adam Roberts
• 380 - Tiger Burning - (2006) - novelette by Alastair Reynolds (variant of Tiger, Burning)
• 407 - The Width of the World - (1983) - short story by Ian Watson
• 421 - Our Lady of the Sauropods - (1980) - short story by Robert Silverberg
• 438 - Into the Miranda Rift - (1993) - novella by G. David Nordley
• 504 - The Rest Is Speculation - (2009) - short story by Eric Brown
• 524 - Vacuum States - (1988) - short story by Geoffrey A. Landis

Contents:

• The End of All Things - (2010) - essay by Mike Ashley
• When We Went to See the End of the World - (1972) - shortstory by Robert Silverberg
• The End of the World - (2002) - shortstory by Sushma Joshi
• The Clockwork Atom Bomb - (2005) - shortstory by Dominic Green
• Bloodletting - (1994) - shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth - (2006) - novelette by Cory Doctorow
• The Rain at the End of the World - (1999) - shortstory by Dale Bailey
• The Flood - (1998) - shortstory by Linda Nagata
• The End of the World Show - (2006) - shortstory by David Barnett
• Fermi and Frost - (1985) - shortstory by Frederik Pohl
• Sleepover - (2010) - novelette by Alastair Reynolds
• The Last Sunset - (1996) - shortstory by Geoffrey A. Landis
• Moments of Inertia - (2004) - novelette by William Barton
• The Books - shortstory by Kage Baker
• Pallbearer - (2010) - novella by Robert Reed
• And the Deep Blue Sea - (2005) - shortstory by Elizabeth Bear
• The Meek - (2004) - shortstory by Damien Broderick
• The Man Who Walked Home - (1972) - shortstory by James Tiptree, Jr.
• A Pail of Air - (1951) - shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• Guardians of the Phoenix - (2010) - novelette by Eric Brown
• Life in the Anthropocene - (2010) - shortstory by Paul Di Filippo
• Terraforming Terra - (1998) - novelette by Jack Williamson
• World Without End - (2010) - shortstory by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
• The Children of Time - (2005) - shortstory by Stephen Baxter
• The Star Called Wormwood - (2004) - shortstory by Elizabeth Counihan

This thought-provoking collection not only takes us into the past and the future, but also explores what might happen if we attempt to manipulate time to our own advantage.

These stories show what happen once you start to meddle with time and the paradoxes that might arise. It also raises questions about whether we understand time, and how we perceive it. Once we move outside the present day, can we ever return or do we move into an alternate world? What happens if our meddling with Nature leads to time flowing backwards, or slowing down or stopping all together? Or if we get trapped in a constant loop from which we can never escape. Is the past and future immutable or will we ever be able to escape the inevitable?

These are just some of the questions that are raised in these challenging, exciting and sometimes amusing stories by Kage Baker, Simon Clark, Fritz Leiber, Paul Levinson, Christopher Priest, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Robert Silverberg, Michael Swanwick, John Varley and many others.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Time After Time - essay by Mike Ashley
• Caveat Time Traveler - (2009) - short story by Gregory Benford
• Century to Starboard - (2004) - short story by Liz Williams
• Walk to the Full Moon - (2002) - novella by Sean McMullen
• The Truth About Weena - (1998) - novelette by David J. Lake
• The Wind Over the World - (1996) - novelette by Steven Utley
• Scream Quietly - (2005) - short story by Sheila Crosby
• Darwin's Suitcase - (2007) - short fiction by Elisabeth Malartre
• Try and Change the Past - (1958) - short story by Fritz Leiber
• Needle in a Timestack - (1983) - short story by Robert Silverberg
• Dear Tomorrow - short fiction by Simon Clark
• Time Gypsy - (1998) - novelette by Ellen Klages
• The Catch - (2004) - novelette by Kage Baker
• Real Time - (1989) - short fiction by Lawrence Watt-Evans
• The Chronology Protection Case - (1995) - novelette by Paul Levinson
• Women on the Brink of a Cataclysm - (1994) - novelette by Molly Brown
• Legions in Time - (2003) - novelette by Michael Swanwick
• Coming Back - (1982) - short story by Damien Broderick
• The Very Slow Time Machine - (1978) - novelette by Ian Watson
• After-Images - (1983) - short story by Malcolm Edwards
• "In the Beginning, Nothings Lasts ..." - (2007) - short fiction by Mike Strahan
• Traveller's Rest - (1965) - short story by David I. Masson
• Twember - (2012) - short story by Steve Rasnic Tem
• The Pusher - (1981) - short story by John Varley
• Palely Loitering - (1979) - novelette by Christopher Priest
• Red Letter Day - (2010) - short story by Kristine Kathryn Rusch