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Sturgeon Award nominated novella.

In the novella Gypsy, a few visionary scientists, chosen and nurtured by an eccentric billionaire undertake humankind's most expansive adventure--a generations-long voyage to a distant planet.

The story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November-December 2015. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 1 (2016), edited by Neil Clarke, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection (2016), edited by Gardner Dozois, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2016, edited by Paula Guran, and The Final Frontier (2018), edited by Neil Clarke. It is included in the colledtion Gypsy Plus (2015).

This novelette was combined with its sequel, "Common Sense", to form "Orphans of the Sky" in 1963.

The gigantic, cylindrical generation ship Vanguard, originally destined for "Far Centaurus", is cruising without guidance through the interstellar medium as a result of a long-ago mutiny that killed most of the officers. Over time, the descendants of the surviving loyal crew have forgotten the purpose and nature of their ship and lapsed into a pre-technological culture marked by superstition. They come to believe the "Ship" is the entire universe, so that "To move the ship" is considered an oxymoron, and references to the Ship's "voyage" are interpreted as religious metaphor. They are ruled by an oligarchy of "officers" and "scientists". Most crew members are simple illiterate farmers, seldom or never venturing to the "upper decks" where the "muties" (an abbreviation of "mutants" or "mutineers") dwell. Among the crew, all identifiable mutants are killed at birth.

It first appeared in the May, 1941 Issue of Astounding Science Fiction, available on Internet Archives.

The universe has less than a century left... unless Spock can change history.

The Enterprise is summoned to transport a dangerous criminal from starbase prison to a rehabilitation center: brilliant physicist, Dr. Georges Mordreaux, accused of promising to send people back in time - then killing them instead. But when Mordreaux escapes, bursts onto the bridge and kills Captain Kirk, Spock must journey back in time to avert disaster - before it occurs.

Now there's more at stake than just Kirk's life. Mordreaux's experiments have thrown the entire universe into a deadly time warp. Spock is fighting time... and the universe is closing in on itself with the relentless squeeze of the Entropy Effect.

AURORA tells the incredible story of our first voyage beyond the solar system.

Our voyage from Earth began generations ago.

Now, we approach our destination.

A new home.

AURORA.

In 2088, humankind is at last ready to explore beyond Earth's solar system. But one uncertainty remains: Where do we go?

Astrophysicist Reggie Straifer has an idea. He's discovered an anomalous star that appears to defy the laws of physics, and proposes the creation of a deep-space mission to find out whether the star is a weird natural phenomenon, or something manufactured.

The journey will take eons. In order to maintain the genetic talent of the original crew, humankind's greatest ambition--to explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy--is undertaken by clones. But a clone is not a perfect copy, and each new generation has its own quirks, desires, and neuroses. As the centuries fly by, the society living aboard the nine ships (designated Convoy Seven) changes and evolves, but their mission remains the same: to reach Reggie's mysterious star and explore its origins--and implications.

A mosaic novel of discovery, Noumenon--in a series of vignettes--examines the dedication, adventure, growth, and fear of having your entire world consist of nine ships in the vacuum of space. The men and women, and even the AI, must learn to work and live together in harmony, as their original DNA is continuously replicated and they are born again and again into a thousand new lives. With the stars their home and the unknown their destination, they are on a voyage of many lifetimes--an odyssey to understand what lies beyond the limits of human knowledge and imagination.

Table of Contents:

• Through Darkest Adolescence with Lois McMaster Bujold, or, Thank You, But I Already Have a Life - (1996) - essay by Lillian Stewart Carl
• Adventure of the Lady on the Embankment - (1996) - novelette
• Barter - (1985) - shortstory
• Garage Sale - (1987) - shortstory
• The Hole Truth - (1986) - shortstory
• Dreamweaver's Dilemma - (1996) - novelette
• The Mountains of Mourning - (1989) - novella
• My First Novel - (1996) - essay
• Beyond Genre Barriers - (1996) - essay
• The Unsung Collaborator - (1996) - essay
• Allegories of Change: The "New" Biotech in the Eye of Science Fiction - (1989) - essay
• Biolog - (1996) - essay
• Awards - (1996) - essay
• American Bibliography - (1996) - essay
• Answers - (1996) - essay
• Miles Naismith Vorkosigan: His Universe and Times - (1996) - essay with Michael Bernardi
• Timelines (Dreamweaver's Dilemma) - (1996) - interior artwork by Suford Lewis
• Towards a Genealogy of Lord Miles Vorkosigan and Other Persons of Interest - (1996) - essay by Suford Lewis
• A Pronunciation Guide to Names and Places - (1996) - essay by Suford Lewis

Long out of print, the science fiction masterpiece by Hugo Award winning writer James Blish

Originally published as four volumes nearly fifty years ago, Cities in Flight brings together the famed "Okie novels" of science fiction master James Blish. Named after the migrant workers of America's Dust Bowl, these novels convey Blish's "history of the future," a brilliant and bleak look at a world where cities roam the Galaxy looking for work and a sustainable way of life.

In the first novel, They Shall Have Stars, man has thoroughly explored the Solar System, yet the dream of going even further seems to have died in all but one man. His battle to realize his dream results in two momentous discoveries -- anti-gravity and the secret of immortality. In A Life for the Stars, it is centuries later and antigravity generations have enabled whole cities to lift off the surface of the earth to become galactic wanderers. In Earthman, Come Home, the nomadic cities revert to barbarism and marauding rogue cities begin to pose a threat to all civilized worlds. An armada of renegade cities attempts to destroy Earth, their ancient birthplace. In the final novel, A Clash of Cymbols (The Triumph of Time), history repeats itself as the cities once again journey back in to space making a terrifying discovery which could destroy the entire Universe. A serious and haunting vision of our world and its limits, Cities in Flight marks the return to print of one of science fiction's masterpieces.

A starship hurtles through the emptiness of space. Its destination-unknown. Its purpose-a mystery.

Now, one man wakes up. Ripped from a dream of a new home-a new planet and the woman he was meant to love in his arms-he finds himself wet, naked, and freezing to death. The dark halls are full of monsters but trusting other survivors he meets might be the greater danger.

All he has are questions-- Who is he? Where are they going? What happened to the dream of a new life? What happened to Hull 03?

All will be answered, if he can survive the ship.

HULL ZERO THREE is an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride through the darkest reaches of space.

Two reporters looking for a story in the outer reaches of the Solar System come upon a derelict spaceship. Inside, they find the only inhabitant, a beautiful young woman who has been imprisoned for a thousand years in suspended animation, suspended but aware for the whole time. Together they set off on a grand adventure across the vastness of space and time in a search for a race known as the Cosmic Engineers on a mission to save the universe. Originally published as a short novel in Astounding Stories in 1939 and later expanded in this 1950 version, Cosmic Engineers shows the scope and imagination of one of science fictions true masters, Clifford Simak.

Originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in 1939.

They called themselves the Galileo Club -- not a bad name for a group of space-minded young men who had high hopes of putting one of their homemade rocket ships in orbit.

But it wasn't until they teamed up with Doc Cargraves that their impossible dream became an incredible reality. Suddenly the three Earthbound youths and their mentor were hurtling through space, heading for the barren wasteland of the Moon. Or so they thought.

They were totally unaware that the dark crater shadows concealed a threat beyond their wildest imaginings . . . a threat from which only a mircale could save them!

The god Ptath is flung into the far future by a deadly rival and given the mind of a 20th century man. Stranded in this alien world, he must fight to regain his powers before the rival goddess sends the world spinning into chaos and darkness.

A CITY LAUNCHES ITSELF INTO THE GALAXY!

The noise was horrifying. He had never heard anything even a fraction as loud, but there could be no doubt about what it was: the city's spindizzies were sounding the alert.

Then the whole city seemed to be rocking heavily, like a ship in a storm. At one instant, the street ended in nothing but sky; at the next, he was staring at a wall of sheared earth, its rim looming cliff-like, fifty feet or more above the new margin of the city; then the blank sky was back again...

Circling the solar sphere in search of new worlds and high adventure

Captain James Kirk - Assigned to the top position in Space Service - Starship Command - Kirk alone must make decisions in his contact with other worlds that can affect the future course of civilization throught the Universe.

Science Officer Spock - Inheriting a precise logical thinking pattern from his father, a native of the planet Vulcanis, Mr. Spock maintains a dangerours Earth trait... an intense curiousity about things of alien origin.

Yeoman Rand - Easily the most popular member of the crew, the truly "out-of-this-world" blonde has drawn the important assignment of secretary to the Captain on her fist mission in deep space.

With a crew of 400 skilled specialists, the mammoth spacs ship Enterprise blasts off for intergalactic intrigue in the unexplored realms of outer space.

The Skylark of Space is one of the earliest novels of interstellar travel. Originally serialized in 1928 in the magazine Amazing Stories, it was first published in book form in 1946 by The Buffalo Book Co. The Skylark of Space is often categorized as the first literary space opera (in the complimentary sense), complete with protagonists perfect in mind, body, and spirit, who fight against villains of absolute evil.

The Skylark of Space is available to read free on-line from Project Gutenberg.

The incredible staship Skylark Three has fought the Fenachone Supermen to a standstill, and Richard Seaton has gone back to his first love - exploration. Roaming the galaxy, he discovers a world of disembodied intelligences; a world of four dimensions where time was insanely distorted and matter obeyed no terrestrial laws, where 3-dimensional intellects were barely sufficient to thwart invisible mentalities! Meanwhile, the villainous DuQuesne is allying himself with the remnants of the Fenachrone, and planning his next attack...

In this exhilarating sequel to The Skylark of Space, momentous danger again stalks genius inventor and interplanetary adventurer Dr. Richard Seaton. Seaton's allies on the planet Kondal are suffering devastating attacks by the forces of the Third Planet. Even worse, the menacing and contemptuous Fenachrones are threatening to conquer the galaxy and wipe out all who oppose them. And don't forget the dastardly machinations of Seaton's arch-nemesis, DuQuesne, who embarks on a nefarious mission of his own. Against such vile foes and impossible odds, how is victory possible?

Featuring even more technological wizardry, alien worlds, and all-out action than its predecessor, Skylark Three is hailed by many as the imaginative high point of the Skylark series.

A pioneer of the space opera, E. E. "Doc" Smith (1890–1965) profoundly influenced the development of American science fiction. Smith's books include the classic Lensman series. Jack Williamson is the author of numerous classic novels, including The Humanoids and Terraforming Earth. He has been inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

In this first collaboration by science fiction masters Larry Niven (Ringworld) and Gregory Benford (Timescape), the limits of wonder are redrawn once again as a human expedition to another star system is jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense artifact in interstellar space: a bowl-shaped structure half-englobing a star, with a habitable area equivalent to many millions of Earths...and it's on a direct path heading for the same system as the human ship.

A landing party is sent to investigate the Bowl, but when the explorers are separated--one group captured by the gigantic structure's alien inhabitants, the other pursued across its strange and dangerous landscape--the mystery of the Bowl's origins and purpose propel the human voyagers toward discoveries that will transform their understanding of their place in the universe.