Search Worlds Without End

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, August 3, 1981. There are no other known publications available at this time.

Tim Ryan can't shake the feeling that he is different from other teens, and not in a good way. For one thing, he seems to have his own personal poltergeist that causes fires and sets him up to be arrested for shoplifting.

As a result Tim has been sent to live on a rundown farm on a remote island off the coast of Australia with his crazy grandmother, a woman who seems to talk to the local spirits, and who refuses to cushion Tim from facing his difficulties. To make matters worse, Tim is expected to milk cows, chase sheep, and hunt fish with a spear.

But he's been exiled to an island alive with ancient magic--land magic that Tim can feel in his bones, and sea magic that runs in his blood. If Tim can face down the danger from drug runners, sea storms, and the deadly threat of a seal woman who wishes to steal him away for a lingering death in the land of Faery, he may be able to claim the mysterious changeling heritage that is his birthright, and take hold of a legacy of power beyond any he has ever imagined.

A boy and his mother move to the kingdom of Chaan. They learn many lessons about oneness and individuality and in the end they choose the harmony of the East and accept the restrictions as well as the warmth of belonging.

When Apollo Kagwa's father disappeared, all he left his son were strange recurring dreams and a box of books stamped with the word IMPROBABILIA. Now Apollo is a father himself--and as he and his wife, Emma, are settling into their new lives as parents, exhaustion and anxiety start to take their toll. Apollo's old dreams return and Emma begins acting odd. Irritable and disconnected from their new baby boy, at first Emma seems to be exhibiting signs of postpartum depression, but it quickly becomes clear that her troubles go even deeper. Before Apollo can do anything to help, Emma commits a horrific act--beyond any parent's comprehension--and vanishes, seemingly into thin air.

Thus begins Apollo's odyssey through a world he only thought he understood, to find a wife and child who are nothing like he'd imagined. His quest, which begins when he meets a mysterious stranger who claims to have information about Emma's whereabouts, takes him to a forgotten island, a graveyard full of secrets, a forest where immigrant legends still live, and finally back to a place he thought he had lost forever.

This captivating retelling of a classic fairy tale imaginatively explores parental obsession, spousal love, and the secrets that make strangers out of the people we love the most. It's a thrilling and emotionally devastating journey through the gruesome legacies that threaten to devour us and the homely, messy magic that saves us, if we're lucky.

Since the day her father's fishing boat returned without him, Peri and her mother have mourned his loss. Her mother sinks into a deep depression and spends her days gazing out at the sea. Unable to control her anger and sadness any longer, Peri uses the small magic she knows to hex the sea. And suddenly into her drab life come the King's sons-changelings with strange ties to the underwater kingdom-a young magician, and, finally, love.

Stories of humans metamorphosing into something else--from vampires to aliens to animals--fill modern fantasy and science fiction. Now a modern master of fantastic literature has collected together ten captivating pieces from his modern and ancient menagerie.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Brian Stableford
• Changelings - (1994) - shortstory
• Coming to Terms with the Great Plague - (1997) - shortstory
• Inside Out - (1997) - novelette
• After the Stone Age - (2004) - shortfiction
• The Oracle - (1999) - novelette
• The Tour - (1998) - shortstory
• Victims - (2000) - shortfiction
• The Serpent - (1995) - shortfiction
• Tread Softly - (2002) - shortstory
• Degrees of Separation - (2002) - shortstory with John B. Ford

WFA nominated short story. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, January 1994. The story can also be found in the anthology Modern Classics of Fantasy (1997), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collections A Geography of Unknown Lands (1997), Tales of Old Earth (2000) and The Best of Michael Swanwick (2008).

Welland was less than a slave. Slaves are human, and he was wolf, allowed to assume human form only when it suited the sorceress Daria.

Daria kept an army of changelings - mostly wolf but some lynx or weasel, a bear or two, and at least one rat. She used them to hunt and kill. And sometimes to pretend to be human, so she could pretend to be a lady.

Weiland hated the lie almost as much as he hated the truth. Then he met a burglar, a thief named Shile, who offered to help him steal what he had never owned. His own troubled soul...

With a new introduction by Karen Russell, the 40th anniversary edition of The Changeling is a visionary fairy tale and a work of mythic genius by one of our best writers.

Forty years later, The Changeling is no less haunting and no less visionary than the day it was published, but it has only become clearer that Joy Williams is a virtuosic stylist and a singular thinker--a genius in every sense of the word.

When we first meet Pearl--young in years but advanced in her drinking--she's on the lam, sitting at a hotel bar in Florida, throwing back gin and tonics with her infant son cradled in the crook of her arm. But her escape is brief, and the relief she feels at having fled her abusive husband, and the Northeastern island his family calls home, doesn't last for long. Soon she's being shepherded back. The island, for Pearl, is a place of madness and pain, and her round-the-clock drinking spurs on the former even if it dulls the latter. And through this lens--Pearl's fragile consciousness--readers encounter the horror and triumph of both childhood and motherhood in a new light.

With language that flits between exuberance and elegy, the plainspoken and the poetic, Joy Williams has blended, as Rick Moody writes, "the arresting improbabilities of magic realism, with the surrealism of the folkloric revival... and with the modernist foreboding of Under the Volcano" and created something entirely original and entirely consuming.

Vanguard from Alpha

The spy team from Earth knew they were looking for trouble when they secretly landed in Luna Area 101 - dangerous Rosk territory. But the fearless trio got more than they bargained for at the hands of these hostile guests of Earth. Tyne and Murray escaped with their lives. The third man was dead, and Tyne suspected that Murray had murdered him in cold blood.

Ready to confront him with his charge, Tyne discovered that Murray had disappeared somewhere in the banned area. But when he followed him, he discovered something vastly more dangerous than Murray's guilt or innocence--the Rosks threatened imminent invasion of Earth. And only Tyne now held the secret that could deflect their hordes of death.

The Changeling Worlds

On the gold-symbol world of Beresford's Planet, Richard Kirby lived in total luxury. As a member of "The Set" his life was a never-ending round of planetary party-hopping. The only restriction imposed on him - that he never put down on any world marked with a red or black symbol - was something that he had always accepted without question.

That is until his brother Alec was murdered in cold blood! Alec had been an undercover agent to these forbidden planets, and in order to avenge him, Kirby had to find out for himself what was really happening there.

But with the start of his investigation, Kirby found out quickly that the authorities meant business when they said "Hands off!" The secret they were protecting was of vital importance, and it now became a matter of life and death, not only to Kirby, but to all the inhabitants of the Changeling Worlds.

In the mid-21st century, all genetic experimentation has been outlawed. But when a desperate dying man takes an illegal gene therapy drug, he unleashes a worldwide plague that rewrites the DNA of everyone he encounters.

All her life, Maggie Hines has dreamed of a city quite unlike Wichita Falls, Texas, where she lives. Her parents have always denied the city exists, but as she comes of age she finds her way there and discovers the truth about herself and her family.

Changeling is a coming of age story. And it's not about faeries.

Neef is a changeling, a human baby stolen by fairies and replaced with one of their own. She lives in "New York Between," a parallel Manhattan of elves, fairies, demons, and mythological spirits. Neef has always been protected by her (rat) nursemaid,Astris, until she winds up breaking Fairy Law. Now, unless she can meet the challenge of the Lady of Central Park, she'll be sacrificed to the bloodthirsty Wild Hunt. But Neef is a native New Yorker, streetwise and sharp, and she's determined to beat the rap.

Neef, the official Changeling of Central Park, has survived a life-threatening quest, but that's nothing compared to her first experiences at Changeling school. At Miss Van Loon's, she meets her counterparts from all over Manhattan, learns the basics of diplomacy, and, of course, gets in trouble. This time Neef must recover the Magic Mirror, or else New York Harbor's Mermaid Queen will turn all of the city's fresh water to salt—and everything will die.

Mabily "Mab" Jones is just a twenty-something, over-educated, under-employed New Yorker trying to survive as a private eye's unpaid intern... or is she? Once a powerful fairy, but tricked by the Fairy Queen into human form, Mab is forced to face her changeling past when investigating a missing person case at a modern speakeasy.

Obadiah Savage bootlegs fairy Elixir to human customers thirsting for a magical fix. But when Mab and Obadiah become joint suspects in a crime they didn't commit, the only way to prove their innocence is to travel back to the fairy realm. And when Mab confronts the Fairy Queen and learns the depth of her betrayal, she must decide if the fate of the fey world is worth destroying the lives of the humans she's come to love.

The River flowed through all the land, deep and unstoppable, a god in his own right. His head was in the mountains; his arms embraced the outlands; his body lay at the core of all the civilized realms; and his legs stretched on to the distant sea. Dark and sluggish, he rolled unchallenged, dreaming his own invincible might and glory into stark reality.

Everywhere he touched, the River God held dominion. And in Nhol, the fabled city at the heart of the world, an emperor ruled as the living aspect of the god, presiding over the splendors and intrigues of a prosperous land and a glittering court.

Hezhi was an imperial princess; her blood carried the seeds of the River's power. When her favorite cousin disappeared, Hezhi searched throughout the sumptuous palace with its ghosts and priests, giants and courtiers, and frightening creatures of wizardry. And the magic within her began to grow; soon it must attract dangerous attention. Hezhi's anxious quest ripened into a desperate fight for her own life--a battle she could not hope to win alone.

Small wonder that the princess wished for a hero.

And far away, a hero's journey began...

A mythic tale of magic, passion, and primal power.

In the rich and tragic world beyond the River, magic springs from the elements--and danger, fear, and friendship each wait to claim their place in the grand design of life . . .

Everywhere the River God touched, he ruled. But the world beyond his reach was a dangerous riot of gods, ghosts, and strange spirits. And in that ominous otherworld, Hezhi--the River's own daughter--fought to master the magic that was her birthright. Spurned, the River bent all his might and slumbrous cunning to the task of reclaiming his wayward child.

Only the Blackgod saw a way for Hezhi to defeat the River once and for all.

But the Blackgod was a creature of mystery and--perhaps--of limitless duplicity. To trust him might be the most perilous choice young Hezhi could make . . .

In the world's most magical metropolis where spirits run noodle shops and cash-strapped dragons stage photo-ops for tourists, people still think fairies are nothing but stories, and that's exactly how the fairies like it. It's a lot easier to feast on humanity's dreams when no one believes you exist. But while this arrangement works splendidly for most fair folk, Lola isn't one of the lucky ones.

She's a changeling, a fairy monster made just human enough to dupe unsuspecting parents while fairies steal their real child. The magic that sustains her was never meant to last past the initial theft, leaving Lola without a future. But thanks to Victor Conrath, a very powerful--and very illegal--blood mage, she was given the means to cheat death.

For a price.

Now the only changeling ever to make it to adulthood, Lola has served the blood mage faithfully, if reluctantly, for twenty years. Her unique ability to slip through wards and change her shape to look like anyone has helped make Victor a legend in the DFZ's illegal-magic underground. It's not a great life, but at least the work is stable... until her master vanishes without a trace.

With only a handful left of the pills that keep her human, Lola must find Victor before she turns back into the fairy monster she was always meant to be. But with a whole SWAT team of federal paladins hunting her as a blood-mage accomplice, an Urban Legend on a silent black motorcycle who won't leave her alone, and a mysterious fairy king with the power to make the entire city dream, Lola's chances of getting out of this alive are as slender as a silver thread.

Standing up to Victor was only the beginning.

Three weeks ago, Lola put her soul on the line to save her sister and stop an abusive blood mage from making himself a god. But while she managed to derail the worst of Victor's plans, the rest of the world still sees her old master as the hero. To make matters worse, the Nightmare King Alberich has entirely escaped his prison and is now leading the Wild Hunt on a rampage of fear and chaos across the skies of Europe.

With Alberich playing the villain, it's only a matter of time before Victor convinces all of humanity that his abusive magic is their only hope. Lola's not about to let him get his dirty hands on that kind of power. But while she's free to fight him, Simon and the Black Rider are still trapped under the blood mage's boot. Lola will have to break them both out before she can take Victor down, but her former master's plans are far from finished. He's playing a game none of them can predict for a prize no one yet understands, and once all of his pieces are in place, the future of the world will hang on the edge of a golden sword.

No Victor lasts forever.

Victor thought he won when he became the Hero. He thought he won when he took over the DFZ. He thought he'd made himself untouchable.

He's wrong.

Lola isn't the sad little monster she used to be. She has a plan, she has allies, she has more magic than she ever dreamed possible. Killing one blood mage should be easy with an entire fairy kingdom at her fingertips, but Victor didn't make himself a god by playing fair, and his bag of tricks is far from empty. Taking him down will require everything Lola and her friends can bring, but if there's one thing Lola's always been, it's determined. No matter the cost, no matter what it takes, she will see this through.

To the bloody end.

The planet was Earth. The time was fifty thousand years from now. Magic and witchcraft worked and the Old Science didn't.

Why this was so nobody knew - it had always been that way during the long tyranny of the Empire of the East. During that same period there had always been little bands of rebels using fragments of white magic against the demonic armies. Rolf was the latest of these rebels - and he had on his side the mysterious power known as Ardneh.

Gregory Roarke - former bounty hunter, former Trailblazer, current agent for the ultra-secret Icarus Group - has received a new assignment: locate a suspected but as-yet undiscovered teleportation portal on the backwater colony world of Alainn.

The rival Patth are also searching for the device, and have considerably more resources at their disposal. Fortunately, Roarke has Selene and her incredibly sensitive Kadolian sense of smell. On paper, it should be a straightforward enough job.

But that was before there was a murder in the small town of Bilswift... and another one... and the discovery that the Patth are already on the scene and have narrowed the search to a heavily forested area in the hills and mountains east of town.

Most disturbing of all is the discovery that one of Selene's people, a Kadolian teenaged boy named Tirano, is working at one of Bilswift's fish markets. A boy who may have lost his parents before his proper socialization was completed. A boy who may be connected to both the murders and the Patth.

A boy who may be the potentially dangerous wild card that the Kadolians call changelings.

BEYOND ROBOT CITY AWAITS A BRAVE NEW GALAXY OF ROBOTS AND ALIENS

A man without a memory, tied by blood to a city of robots. At his side, a mysterious woman whose life and memory he saved, whose love he has won for a second time.

His name is Derec. Now he must answer the call of a besieged city on an alien planet. His new challenge is to protect a fantastic metropolis of robots from wolf-like beings who stalk the perimeters and threaten its destruction!

For the first time in his distinguished career, Isaac Asimov has opened up his world of robots to challenge today's hottest new science fiction talents. The traps Asimov has set for them will astound you. In a mystery governed by the Laws of Robotics, the finest minds in science fiction enter the most futuristic landscape in robot history!

Welcome to Robot city.

We're the D'Artigo Sisters: Half-human, half-Faerie, we're savvy operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. But our mixed-blood heritage short-circuits our talents at all the wrong times. My sister Camille is a wicked-good witch whose magic is as unpredictable as the weather. My sister Menolly is a vampire trying to get the hang of being undead. And me? I'm Delilah. When I'm under stress, I transform into a tabby cat - and a series of violent murders is really getting me bent out of shape...

Someone's been slaughtering the Weres of the Rainier Puma Pride, and my sisters and I have been enlisted to investigate by Zachary Lyonnesse, golden boy of the werepumas. Right away we smelled demon trouble, and we tracked it directly into the snare of the Hunters Moon Clan, sworn enemies of Puma Pride. But there's more than Were rivalry at work. It's that old demon Shadow Wing who is setting a deadly snare for the pumas. We have to find out why, which means a visit one to of the Immortals. Unfortunately, for my sisters and me, our half-human blood is just enough to put us in mortal danger.

At the Wayfarer Inn, a portal to Otherworld and the local hangout for humans and beasties alike, our fellow operative Jocko's been murdered. Every clue points to Shadow Wing, the soul-munching, bad-ass leader of the Subterranean Realms. He's made it clear that he aims to raze humankind to the ground, turning both Earth and Otherworld into his private playground. Our assignment: keep Shadow Wing and his minions from creeping into Earth via the Wayfarer. The demons figure they're in like Flynn. After all, with only my 'bumbling' sisters and me standing in the way, how can they miss? But we've got a secret for them: faulty wiring or not, nobody kicks ass like the D'Artigo girls.

Control. Precision. Family. These are the principles that drive Silver Mercant. At a time when the fledgling Trinity Accord seeks to unite a divided world, with Silver playing a crucial role as director of a worldwide emergency response network, wildness and chaos are the last things she needs in her life. But that's exactly what Valentin Nikolaev, alpha of the StoneWater bears, brings with him.

Valentin has never met a more fascinating woman. Though Silver is ruled by Silence--her mind clear of all emotion--Valentin senses a whisper of fire around her. That's what keeps him climbing apartment buildings to be near her. But when a shadow assassin almost succeeds in poisoning Silver, the stakes become deadly serious... and Silver finds herself in the heart of a powerful bear clan.

Her would-be assassin has no idea what their poison has unleashed...

Security specialist Bowen Knight has come back from the dead. But there's a ticking time bomb in his head: a chip implanted to block telepathic interference that could fail at any moment--taking his brain along with it. With no time to waste, he should be back on land helping the Human Alliance. Instead, he's at the bottom of the ocean, consumed with an enigmatic changeling...

Kaia Luna may have traded in science for being a chef, but she won't hide the facts of Bo's condition from him or herself. She's suffered too much loss in her life to fall prey to the dangerous charm of a human who is a dead man walking. And she carries a devastating secret Bo could never imagine...

But when Kaia is taken by those who mean her deadly harm, all bets are off. Bo will do anything to get her back--even if it means striking a devil's bargain and giving up his mind to the enemy...

Kidnapped as a young girl, her psychic powers harnessed by a madman, Memory lives a caged and isolated existence... until she comes face-to-face with a wolf. Labelled an empath by her bad-tempered rescuer, Memory knows that her 'gift' is nothing so bright. It is a terrible darkness that means she will always be hunted.

But Memory is free now and she intends to live. A certain growly wolf can just deal with it.

Alexei prefers to keep his packmates at bay, the bleak history of his family a constant reminder that mating, love, hope is not for him. But Memory, this defiant and fearless woman who stands toe-to-toe with him awakens the most primal part of his nature--and soon, he must make a choice: risk everything or lose Memory to a murderous darkness that wants to annihilate her from existence...

Alpha wolf Selenka Durev's devotion to her pack is equaled only by her anger at anyone who would harm those under her care. That currently includes the empaths who've flowed into her city for a symposium that is a security nightmare, a powder keg just waiting for a match.

Ethan Night is an Arrow who isn't an Arrow. Numb and disengaged from the world, he's loyal only to himself. Assigned as part of the security force at a world-first symposium, he carries a dark agenda tied to the power-hungry and murderous Consortium. Then violence erupts and Ethan finds himself crashing into the heart and soul of an alpha wolf.

Mating at first sight is a myth, a fairytale. Yet Selenka's wolf is resolute: Ethan Night, broken Arrow and a man capable of obsessive devotion, is the mate it has chosen. Even if the mating bond is full of static and not quite as it should be. Because Selenka's new mate has a terrible secret, his mind surging with a power that is a creature of madness and death...

A world devastated by change, where two people defined by their aloneness hold the fate of the Psy in their hands....

Termed merciless by some, and a robotic sociopath by others, Payal Rao is the perfect Psy: cardinal telekinetic, CEO of a major conglomerate, beautiful--and emotionless.

For Canto Mercant, family and loyalty are everything. A cardinal telepath deemed "imperfect" by his race due to a spinal injury, Canto cares for the opinions of very few--and ruthlessly protects those he claims as his own. Head of intel for the influential Mercant family, he prefers to remain a shadow in the Net, unknown and unseen. But Canto is also an anchor, part of a secretive designation whose task it is to stabilize the PsyNet. Now that critical psychic network is dying, threatening to collapse and kill the entire Psy race with it.

To save those he loves, Canto needs the help of a woman bound to him by a dark past neither has been able to forget. A woman who is the most powerful anchor of them all: Payal Rao. Neither is ready for the violent inferno about to ignite in the PsyNet... or the passionate madness that threatens to destroy them both.

Into the hearts of two fractured people in a world on the brink of a psychic Armageddon...

Silence has fallen. The Psy are free to feel emotion. Free to love. But Silence was never a prison for Ivan Mercant. The biggest threat to his future lies dormant in his brain--a psychic monster that wants only to feed. And now, the brutal leash he's kept on that monster is slipping. He prepared for this day, for the end of Ivan Mercant... but that was before he met Lei.

As primal as she is human, this wild changeling brings color into his life, laughter to his soul. Then the dream shatters in a rain of blood, in silent bodies in the snow. Lei is gone. Vanished without a trace... until he meets strangely familiar eyes across a busy San Francisco street.

Soleil Bijoux Garcia is a healer who has lost everything. She exists in a world of desolate aloneness... till the day she finds herself face-to-face with a lethal stranger. The animal who is her other half knows this man, but her memories are tattered fragments. Sorrow and a need for vengeance are all that drive her. Her mission? To kill the alpha of the DarkRiver leopard pack.

But fate has other plans. Soon, a deadly soldier who believes himself a monster and a broken healer might be all that stand between life and death for the entire Psy race....

StoneWater bears Pavel and Yakov Stepyrev have been a unit since birth, but now Pavel's life is veering in a new direction, his heart held in the hands of Arwen Mercant, a Psy empath - and the only man who has ever brought Pavel to his knees.

This is it. A point of irrevocable change. For Pavel... for Arwen... for Yakov... and for another pair of twins whose bond has a far darker history.

A low-Gradient Psy, Theodora Marshall is considered worthless by everyone but her violently powerful twin, Pax. She is the sole person he trusts in their venomous family to investigate a hidden and terrible part of their family history - an unregistered rehabilitation Centre established by their grandfather.

Places of unimaginable pain designed to psychically wipe minds, leaving the victims shells of their former selves, the Centres are an ugly vestige of the Psy race's Silent past. But this Centre was worse. Far, far worse. And now Theo must uncover the awful truth - in the company of a scowling bear named Yakov, who isn't about to take a Marshall at face value... especially a Marshall who has turned his dreams into chilling nightmares.

Because Yakov is the great-grandson of a foreseer, and he has seen Theo die in an unstoppable surge of blood. Night after night after night...

Daughter of two ruthless high-Gradient telepaths, Auden Scott is not the child her Psy parents wanted or expected, even before her brain injury. Her thoughts are scattered, her memories fuzzy - or just terrifyingly blank. The only thing she knows for certain is that she must protect her unborn baby... a baby she has no recollection of conceiving and who draws an unnerving depth of interest from her dead mother's closest associates.

Leopard alpha Remi Denier is a man driven by the primal instinct to protect. Protect his pack, protect his allies... and protect the mysterious woman who has become a most unlikely neighbor. With eerie eyes that see too much and a scent that alters in ways disturbing and impossible, Auden Scott is the enemy... but nothing about this strange Psy is what it seems, and Remi's feline heart is as fascinated by her as his human half.

Then Auden asks Remi to help her shatter the wall of secrets that is the Scott bloodline. What they unearth will reveal a nightmare beyond imagination. This time, the battle is to the death...

Into a dying star!

Beneath the roiling surface of Betelgeuse, scientists anxiously await the one man essential to the success of Starmuse, the greatest engineering project in human history. But on Kantano's World, Willard Ruskin battles invisible agents for control of his life, his physical form, and even his memories. Drawn into a conflict from which not even death will free him, Ruskin must find a way to reach Betelgeuse before his enemies sabotage Starmuse--and humanity's future among the stars. A harrowing journey from inside the human cell... to the mind of a dying star.

BETRAYAL. ASSASSINATION. KIDNAPPING. AND THAT'S JUST THE BEGINNING... For years, an uneasy truce has settled over Blue Isle. But in a series of betrayals, that truce gets shattered. First with an assassination. And then with the destruction of all hope that the warrior Fey and the people of Blue Isle will ever experience peace. Human, half-human, Fey, it becomes impossible to tell hero from villain, impossible to figure out who wants to heal Blue Isle--and who wants to destroy it. The most surprising book of The Fey saga, with a twist so powerful the rest of the series hinges on that one moment, The Changeling alters everything from the balance of power to the very nature of power itself.

In The Hostage Prince, Prince Aspen and midwife's apprentice Snail tried to prevent the Seelie War by making a perilous journey to Aspen's father's kingdom. Their journey started the war instead. Chased by two armies, Aspen and Snail find refuge with the actors of Professor Odds' traveling troupe, dodging soldiers, Border Lord berserkers, a hungry troll, and assorted dwarfs, drows, lycants, boggles, and a cloaked spy. Will they make it out? Is any place safe for the two of them? And who, exactly, is the mysterious Professor Odds, who seems to have his own hidden powers and agenda? Fast-paced and funny, The Last Changeling, the second book of the Seelie Wars trilogy, is the perfect way to introduce newly fledged readers to fantasy.

In Powers That Be, Power Lines and Power Play bestselling authors Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough told the story of a sentient planet, Petaybee. In Changelings, the first of a new series of novels, they return to Petaybee. Ronan Born for Water Shongili and Murel Monster Slayer Shongili are the twin son and daughter of Yana Maddock and Sean Shongili. Born on Petyabee, their destiny is deeply intertwined with the sentient planet that is their home. For Ronan and Murel are more than human. Like their father, each can transform into a seal and converse telepathically with the planet's creatures - such as the friendly otter whose life they save one day from a pack of ravenous wolves.

But the twins' bravery has unforeseen results when a visiting scientist witnesses their startling metamorphosis and becomes obsessed with their capture. To protect their children, Sean and Yana send them to stay with a powerful family friend on an orbiting space station. But no one realizes how curious Ronan and Murel are to discover the origins of their shape-shifting talent - and that their search for knowledge will place them squarely in the path of peril.

Meanwhile Petaybee is changing - and much faster than an ordinary planet's natural evolution. It appears that portions of the sea are heating up and a landmass is suddenly rising from the depths. To investigate the startling occurrence, Sean heads out to the open water in his seal form. But the newly unstable region holds untold mysteries - and the potential for disaster.

In Changeling, the people had long suffered under Det Morson's power. When at last, the wizard Mor joined the fight, Det and his infamous Rondoval castle were destroyed. But the victory was not complete, for the conquerors found a baby amidst the rubble: Det's son, Pol. Unwilling to kill the child, Mor took him to a world where the ways of magic were considered mere legends -- a world called Earth.