Search Worlds Without End

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A TROUBLED MAN

The world of Chimeras is very like our own. But for one difference. In Christopher Evans' evocatively portrayed land, some people have an incredible gift. They can create dazzling works of art from the nothingness of the space before them. Moving statues of incandescent gold shimmer into life, literally out of the air. The very best artists conjure wonderful pageants of soldiers glorious in battle or rich Lords helping the common man. They bring a little magic into the drudgery of the peasants' lives - and re-write history into the bargain.

Table of Contents:

• 5 - Transmutations - [Vendavo 1] - novelette
• 42 - Birth-Rites - [Vendavo 2] - novelette
• 81 - The Bridge - [Vendavo 3] - novelette
• 121 - The Wailing Woman - [Vendavo 4] - novelette
• 145 - Artefacts - [Vendavo 5] - novelette
• 169 - Coda - [Vendavo 6] - short story

David Chen severed his family ties to become a virtual reality artist on the Net. Jewel Martina left an impoverished family in the 'burbs to become a medical aid, on her way to becoming a VR deal-broker in the economic network that spanned the world. When Jewel saves David's partner's life, it becomes clear someone wanted him dead. There is trouble brewing on the Net, and as Jewel and David are caught up in it, they search the Net, the flesh world, and their own unhappy pasts for some answers. Nothing was ever as it seemed on the Net, where illusion was the rule of the game--but for Jewel and David, the difference beween real and virtual was a matter of life and death....

From the author of Dogland, a dark new vision of the future of gene-splicing and artificial intelligence

Will Shetterly has created a dark and intriguing future for this novel, a world of genetic engineering and cloning where human and animal genes can be melded to create chimeras, more often referred to as critters. These beings are human, for all practical purposes. They think, they feel, they love, and they dream. But they still have some of the qualities of the animals that they are bred from.

Most importantly, they are not granted the rights of humans. They are property. Slavery has been revived in America.

But there is also a movement for Abolition, for the granting of legal rights to chimeras. Zoe Domingo is a jaguar-woman, created to be a sex-slave. Instead, she became the property of an abolitionist, and was freed, though she remained as her former owners companion. But on a trip to Los Angeles, Zoes mentor is murdered under violent and mysterious circumstances, and Zoe is accused of the crime.

Chimerascope [ki-meer-uh-skohp] -- a story of many parts...

A young artist hungers to draw you.
A dinner conversation takes three lifetimes to finish.
A geologist faces a planet-sized, eons-old puzzle to save her crew.
The hero of the Fall of Earth must choose between love and revenge.
A mysterious dancer leads a businessman to a most exclusive nightclub.
A man is born each day into a new life--only to die each night.
A sentient aurora threatens the last of humanity.
A Norse god's bar in Toronto hosts an unplanned family reunion.
A woman descends into insanity--or is it the end of the world?
A house as big as the world.

Chimerascope is Doug's first full collection of short fiction, containing sixteen of his best stories, including an award winner, a Best New Horror selection, and eight award finalists. Sixteen stories of fantasy and science fiction that take you from love in fourteenth-century Japan to humanity's last stand, from virtual reality to the end of reality, from alien drug addictions to a dinner where a man loses everything.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Julie E. Czerneda
• Author's Introduction - essay
• Scream Angel - (2003) - novelette
• The Red Bird - (2001) - shortstory
• By Her Hand, She Draws You Down - (2001) - shortstory
• New Year's Eve - (1998) - shortfiction
• The Boys Are Back In Town - (2000) - shortstory
• State of Disorder - (1999) - shortstory
• Nothing - shortstory
• Symphony - (1999) - shortfiction
• Out of the Light - (2007) - shortfiction
• Enlightenment - (2004) - shortstory
• The Last Ride - (2006) - shortstory
• Jigsaw - (2004) - shortstory
• The Dancer at the Red Door - (2007) - novelette
• 16 - Going Harvey in the Big House - (2005) - novelette
• A Taste Sweet and Salty - (2006) - shortfiction
• Memories of the Dead Man - (2005) - shortstory

Romy escapes her hardscrabble upbringing when she becomes courtesan to the Shadow Lord, a revolutionary noble who brings laws and comforts once reserved for the wealthy to all. When her brother, Neri, is caught thieving with the aid of magic, Romy's aristocratic influence is the only thing that can spare his life - and the price is her banishment.

Now back in Beggar's Ring, she has just her wits and her own long-hidden sorcery to help her and Neri survive. But when a plot to overthrow the Shadow Lord and incite civil war is uncovered, only Romy knows how to stop it. To do so, she'll have to rely on newfound allies - a swordmaster, a silversmith, and her own thieving brother. And they'll need the very thing that could condemn them all: magic.

Romy and her three partners in crime - a sword master, a silversmith, and her thieving brother - have embraced their roles as the Shadow Lord's agents, using their forbidden magic to accomplish tasks his other spies cannot.

Now, the Shadow Lord needs them to infiltrate the home of the Mercediaran Ambassador and prevent him from obtaining information that would lead to all-out war with Cantagna's most dangerous enemy.

To succeed, they will have to resurrect long-buried secrets, partner with old enemies, and once again rely on the very magics that could get them sentenced to death.

Catagna has been shaken to its core.

The philosophists insist that a disastrous earthquake has been caused by an ancient monster imprisoned below the earth, who can only be freed with magic. In every street and market, the people of Catagna are railing against magic-users with a greater ferocity than ever before, and magic hunters are everywhere.

Meanwhile, Romy has been dreaming.

Every night, her dreams are increasingly vivid and disturbing. Every day, she struggles to understand the purpose of the Chimera's most recent assignment from the Shadow Lord.

As Romy and the others attempt to carry out their mission, they find themselves plunged into a mystery of corruption and murder, myth and magic, and a terrifying truth: the philosophists may have been right all along.

The final book in Mira Grant's terrifying Parasitology trilogy.

The outbreak has spread, tearing apart the foundations of society, as implanted tapeworms have turned their human hosts into a seemingly mindless mob.

Sal and her family are trapped between bad and worse, and must find a way to compromise between the two sides of their nature before the battle becomes large enough to destroy humanity, and everything that humanity has built... including the chimera.

The broken doors are closing. Can Sal make it home?

Escaped Germline soldiers need to be cleaned up, and Stan Resnick is the best man for the job. A job that takes him to every dark spot and every rat hole he can find.

Operatives from China and Unified Korea are gathering escaped or stolen Russian and American genetics, and there are reports of new biological nightmares: half-human things, bred to live their entire lives encased in powered armor suits.

Stan fights to keep himself alive and out of prison while he attempts to capture a genetic, one who will be able to tell them everything they need to know about this new threat, the one called "Project Sunshine."

Chimera is the third and final volume of The Subterrene War Trilogy which tells the story of a single war from the perspective of three different combatants.

Coren Lanra is the head of security for DyNan Manual Industries. A former Special Service agent, he's never cared for bureaucracy, piracy, or deception. And he hates mysteries.

Lanra's troubles begin with the death of Nyom Looms, daughter of DyNan president Rega Looms, during an ill-fated mission to smuggle illegal immigrants from Earth to the colony Nova Levis - all were apparently murdered, but why?

The only clue might be contained within the positronic brain of a robot that had accompanied the victims, but it has been deactivated, and Lanra is denied access to its memories. With the help of roboticist Derec Avery and Auroran ambassador Ariel Burgess, Lanra searches for the identity of a killer, before more lives are lost.

Everything's for hire - even magic.

If you need something done, Cloke's one of the best; a mercenary with some unusual talents and an attitude to match. But when she's hired by a virtual construct to destroy the other copies of himself, and the down payment is a new magical skill, she knows this job is going to be a league harder than anything she's ever done.