Search Worlds Without End

Table of Contents:

• An Introduction to Allen Steele - essay by Kevin J. Anderson
• Introduction: Coming of Age - essay by Allen Steele
• Walking on the Moon - (1992)
• Free Beer and the William Casey Society - (1989)
• The Return of Weird Frank - (1991)
• Sugar's Blues - (1992)
• The Flying Triangle - (1998)
• Live from the Mars Hotel - (1988)
• The War Memorial - (1995)
• Zwarte Piet's Tale - (1998)
• The Weight - (1995)
• Kronos - (1996)
• The Death of Captain Future - (1995)
• The Exile of Evening Star - (1999)
• 0.0G Sex: A User's Guide - (1999)
• Working for Mister Chicago - (1995)
• Shepherd Moon - (1994)
• Appendix #1: "Near Space" Timeline - essay by Allen Steele
• Appendix #2: Space Station and Spacecraft Designs - interior artwork by Allen Steele

Hugo Award winning and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, October 1995. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection (1996), edited by Gardner Dozois, The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century (2001), edited by Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenberg and The Space Opera Renaissance (2006), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. It is included in the collection Sex and Violence in Zero-G (1999).

Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appears in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 1998. The story is included in the collection Sex and Violence in Zero-G: The Complete 'Near Space' Stories (1999).

Winner of the Locus Best First Novel Award

Popeye Hooker knows that space isn't all it's cracked up to be. A former fisherman who takes a job building low orbital stations to escape a failed relationship, he finds that in space, construction work is still a grind. And when they aren't building the space stations that will usher humanity into the stars, Sam Sloane and the rest of the beamjacks get high, blast the Grateful Dead, and stare through telescopes at the world they left behind. But life in orbit is about to get much more interesting.

Nestled among the life support equipment that keeps them alive and the entertainment systems that keep them happy, the beamjacks find something astonishing. Turns out, their home isn't just a space station -- it's a giant antenna designed to spy on every inhabitant of Earth. It's the greatest privacy invasion ever perpetrated, and the beamjacks won't stand for it.

They may not be pioneers, but these roughnecks are about to become revolutionaries.

Sheriff John Bigthorn's job of keeping the peace on "Clarke County," Earth's first orbiting space colony, seems simple enough--until a frantic young woman fleeing her gangster boyfriend seeks refuge there, bringing with her a secret that holds the key to the colony's destruction or liberation.

A tale of subversion and riot on a moon-based mining operation. The author also wrote "Orbital Decay", "Clarke County" and "Space".

The Face. The City. We saw them first in 1976, when the Viking probe flew by the rust-colored desert planet of Mars. Now, the questions will be answered.

"This is the story of the last day of my life, and everything that happened after that." Back in print after a decade, A King of Infinite Space is the final volume of Allen Steele's award-winning Near-Space series, and a cult-favorite among readers. Ranging from a Lollapalooza concert of 1995 to the asteroid belt of 2099, it's the tale of a young man who dies, becomes reborn, and crosses the solar system in search of his lost love... and grows to be a better man, despite himself.