Search Worlds Without End

Hugo Award winning and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July 1985. The story can also be found in the anthologies The New Hugo Winners, Volume II: (1986-88) (1992), edited by Isaac Asimov and Cthulhu 2000: A Lovecraftian Anthology (1995), edited by Jim Turner. It is included in the collections Frost and Fire (1989) and Nine Black Doves (2009).

An 'ordinary' fourteen year-old, James Wiley has lost his scientist father to a parallel world in the darkbands. With the help of Becky, his sister with magic powers, Barry the exchange student and Uncle George, the werewolf, James goes in search of his parent. But he must take care: for if there just happens to be a full moon at the wrong moment, James's itchy palms might lead him into trouble...

Snuff is a watchdog, and together with his master they walk the streets of Soho at night looking for evil. Halloween is a particulary busy time for them, as well as for Greymalk the cat, Nightwind the owl and for all the other animals, as they accompany their various masters about their business.

Hugo Award nominated story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1963. The story can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fourteenth Series (1965), edited by Avram Davidson
• 10th Annual Edition: The Year's Best S-F (1965), edited by Judith Merril
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One (1970), edited by Robert Silverberg
• The Great SF Stories 25 (1963) (1992), edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg
• Fourth Planet from the Sun: Tales of Mars from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (2005) edited by Gordon Van Gelder

It is included in the collections Four for Tomorrow (1967), The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth (1971) and Threshold (2009).

Read or listen to the full story for free at Escapepod.

A new entity is being born. Its cells are microprocessors, its soul lives in data banks from Wall Street to Red Square. It is neither good nor evil. But it is very dangerous. The Angra Oil Corporation thinks it is just another resource to be used up....

Coils: The story of a man and a woman trapped in the battle between a soulless corporation and the soul of a new machine.

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Magazine of Horror, Winter 1966/67. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 (1993), edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery, and Treasures of Fantasy (1997) edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. It is included in the collections The Last Defender of Camelot (1980) and Power & Light (2009).

Set on a faraway world, the seminal tale of a battle between Ancient Egyptian gods, Creatures of Light and Darkness is a grand display of the imagination, wit, and audacious genius that has placed Zelazny eternally alongside Heinlein, Asimov, Phillip K. Dick, and other legendary genre masters.

Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Galaxy Magazine, October 1967. The story can also be found in the collections The Last Defender of Camelot (1980) and This Mortal Mountain (2009). It was later expanded ot the full novel Damnation Alley (1969).

An artist searches for God so he can paint his portrait in Philip K. Dick's collaboration with Roger Zelazny.

After World War III, the Servants of Wrath cult deified the mysterious Carlton Lufteufel, creator of the doomsday weapon that wiped out much of humanity. But to worship the man, they need an image of him as a god, and no one has ever seen him. So the high priests send a limbless master painter named Tibor McMasters into the wilderness on a mission to find Lufteufel and capture his likeness. Unfortunately for Tibor, the nation's remaining Christians do not want him to succeed and are willing to kill to ensure that the so-called Deus Irae remains hidden. This hallucinatory tale through a nuclear wasteland asks what price the artist must pay for art and tries to figure out just what makes a god.

This short story originally appeared in Magazine of Horror, Summer 1966, and was reprinted in New Worlds SF, October 1966, and Lightspeed, January 2018. It can also be found in the anthologies:

• New Worlds of Fantasy (1967), edited by Terry Carr
• The Traps of Time (1968), edited by Michael Moorcock
• Trips in Time (1977), edited by Robert Silverberg
• The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fiction (1980), edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh
• A Treasury of Modern Fantasy (1981), edited by Terry Carr and Martin H. Greenberg

The story is included in the collections The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth (1971) and Power & Light (2009).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

In our world, called the Verite, he is a Scottish laird, an engineer, and a master of virtual reality design. In the computer-generated universe of Virtu, created by the crash of the World Net, he is a living legend. Scientist and poet with a warrior's soul, Donnerjack strides like a giant across the virtual landscape he helped to shape. And now he has bargained with Death himself for the return of love.

The Lord of Entropy claimed Ayradyss, Donnerjack's beloved dark-haired lady of Virtu, with no warning, leaving a hole in the Engineer's heart. But Death offered to return her to him for a price: a palace of bones...and their first-born child. Since offspring have never before resulted from any union of the two worlds, Donnerjack accepts Death's conditions--and leads his reborn lover far from the detritus and perpetual twilight of Deep Fields to his ancestral Scottish lands, hoping to build a sanctuary and a self for Ayradyss in the first world.

But there is no escaping, because cataclysmic change is taking place in Virtu. A bizarre new religion is sweeping through this ever-shifting universe where the homely can be virtually beautiful, the lame can walk and the blind can see. Now it's threatening to spill over into Verite. And its credo is a call for a different kind of order. For all the ancient myths still occupy Virtu. And the Great Gods on Mt. Meru are amassing great armies in anticipation of the time when a vast computer system attempts to take over the reality that constructed it.

Fred Cassidy, thirteen years an undergraduate and an acrophiliac, joins Professor Paul Byler in a search for their laboratory replica of an alien artifact of interest to more than one interstellar community.

A retired hunter of alien zoo specimens, William Blackhorse Singer, the last Navajo on a future Earth, has come to what he sees as the end of his life. The world Government calls upon him for aid in protecting an alien diplomat from a powerful and hostile member of his own species. Knowing both the importance of the task and his inability to handle it on his own. Singer goes to confront his greatest conquest with a strange bargain. A shape-shifting alien, the last of his species, sits in a special cage at an institute dedicated to the study of extra-terrestrial beings. Most frequently he projects the aspect of a one-eyed catlike creature, but he can appear as almost anything.

In the mild climate of a decades-long Maunder minimum—a recurring cessation in sunspot activity—humankind has explored the solar system and expanded to the farthest planets. No one is prepared when the Sun awakes with a massive flare that has been a million years in development deep within the stellar core. Its burst of electromagnetic energy, followed by a shower of ionized particles, rips across the system with devastating results. A team of astronomers led by the indomitable Sultana Carr reestablishes the science of solar physics and helps to heal the devastation.

Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in New Worlds, March 1966, the first US publication was in Fantastic, September 1966. It is included in the anthologies World's Best Science Fiction: 1967, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, and Alpha 1 (1970), edited by Robert Silverberg. It is included in the collections The Last Defender of Camelot (1980) and Power & Light (2009).

A Rose for Ecclesiastes Up into the nountains now. Far. The sky was a bucket of ice in which no moons floated. The going became steeper, and the little donkey protested. I whipped him withthe throttle and went on. Up. Up. I spotted a green, unwinking star, and felt a lump in my throat. The encased rose beat against my chest like an extra heart. The donkey brayed, long and loudly, then began to cough. I lashed him some more and he died. I threw the emergency brake on and got out. I began to walk. So cold, so cold it grows. Up here. At night? Why? Why did she do it? Why flee the campfire when night comes on? And I was up, down, around, and through every chasm, gorge, and pass, with my long-legged strides and an ease of movement never known on Earth. Barley two days remain, my love, and though has forsaken me. Why? I crawled under overhangs. I leaped over ridges. I scraped my knees, an elboe. I heard my jacket tear. No answer, Malann? Dou you really hate your people this much? Then I'll try someone else. Vishnu, you're the Preserver. Preserve her, please! Let me find her. Jehovah? Adonis? Osiris? Thammuz? Manitou? Legba? Where is she? I ranged far and high, and I slipped. Stones ground underfoot and I dangled over an edge. My fingers so cold. It was hard to grip the rock. I looked down. Twelve feet or so. I let go and dropped, landed rolling. Then I heard her scream.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1967) - essay by Theodore Sturgeon
• The Furies - (1965)
• The Graveyard Heart - (1964)
• The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth - (1965)
• A Rose for Ecclesiastes - (1963)

also publised as A Rose for Ecclesiastes

Table of Contents:

• An Exorcism, of Sorts - (1989) - essay
• Permafrost - (1986) - novelette
• LOKI 7281 - (1984) - shortstory
• Dreadsong - (1985) - shortstory
• Itself Surprised - (1984) - novelette
• Dayblood - (1985) - shortstory
• Constructing a Science Fiction Novel - (1984) - essay
• The Bands of Titan - (1986) - shortstory
• Mana from Heaven - (1983) - novelette
• Night Kings - (1986) - shortstory
• Quest's End - (1987) - shortstory
• 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai - (1985) - novella
• Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Writer's View - (1985) - essay

Nebula Award winning novella.

Charles Render is a shaper, one of a small number of psychotherapists qualified, by his granite will and ultra-stability, to use the extraordinary device that enables him to to participate in, and control, his patients' dreams. But this is a dangerous therapy for the therapist and only his armour-plated integrity protects Render from too deep an involvement in the mental worlds of the damaged people he seeks to help. But then, Eileen Shallot, another therapist who is blind, asks him to help her 'see' by transferring from his mind to hers a world of colour and light. Render agrees but suddenly finds himself obsessed with Eileen and drawn into fantasies which, she controls.

The story originally appeared in Amazing Stories, January 1965 and February 1965. It has been reprinted many times. It can be found in the anthologies:

• Nebula Award Stories 1965, edited by Damon Knight
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume III (1981), edited by Arthur C. Clarke and George W. Proctor
• The Best of the Nebulas (1989), edited by Ben Bova
• The Science Fiction Century (1997), edited by David G. Hartwell

The story is included in the collections:

• The Last Defender of Camelot (1980)
• Tor Double #12: He Who Shapes/The Infinity Box (1989), with Kate Wilhelm
• Threshold (2009)

The novella was expanded into the full novel The Dream Master (1976).

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, November 1975. The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Award Stories 11 (1976), edited by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Best of Analog (1978), edited by Ben Bova, and The Hugo Winners, Volume 4: (1976-79), edited by Isaac Asimov. It is included in the collections My Name is Legion (1976), Unicorn Variations (1983) and Last Exit to Babylon (2009). Is is half of Tor Double #21: Home is the Hangman/We, In Some Strange Power's (1990, with Samuel R. Delany).

They're going to have a devil of a time trying to catch the sharpest thief in hell....

The great wars between gods and demons began five millennia ago--and ended with the demons' crushing defeat and banishment from their homeland. The demon race would have surely perished in the empty dimension of their exile had they not found a secret conduit to a safe and hidden plane...called Earth.

Greatest among the demons was Kai Wren--the Godslayer and Lord Demon--a master swordsman, dreamer, and glassblower who can contain entire universes in bottles of his creation; a legendary warrior who once, long ago, singlehandedly destroyed a god. But now, Kai Wren must seek vengeance for the murder of his devoted human servant, and he fears that this one death heralds the crumbling of a peace that has reigned for a thousand years.

Forced into a series of uncomfortable alliances, Kai Wren strives to preserve the Demon Realms. But his heart has become his fatal weakness, growing soft during years of peace. He has given trust where trust should not be given, only to discover that among his closest companions are those who will betray him--even destroy him--unless he can regain that which once made him LORD DEMON.

He had destroyed his punchcards and changed his face. There was no credit card, birth record, or passport for him in the International Data Bank. His names were many... any he chose. His occupation was taking megarisks in the service of a vast global detective agency. His interworld assignments were highly lucrative, incalculably vital, and terrifyingly deadly. And more often then not, his life was a living hell!

Table of Contents:

• The Eve of RUMOKO - (1969)
• 'Kjwalll'kje'k'koothaïlll'kje'k - (1973)
• Home is the Hangman - (1975)

Hugo Awared winning and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Omni, April 1986. The story can also be found in the anthologis The 1987 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, The New Hugo Winners, Volume II: (1986-88) (1992), edited by Isaac Asimov, and Omni Visions Two (1994), edited by Ellen Datlow. It is included in the collections Frost and Fire (1989), The Last Defender of Camelot (2002), and Nine Black Doves (2009).

Half finished upon Bester's death, and completed by Zelazny, "Psychoshop" envisions a commercial establishment that attracts customers ranging from Edgar Allan Poe to a sorcerer intent on fabricating the Beast of Revelations.

The Road runs from the unimaginable past to the far future, and those who travel it have access to the turnoffs leading to all times and places--even to the alternate time-streams of histories that never happened. Why the Dragons of Bel'kwinith made the Road--or who they are--no one knows. But the Road has always been there and for those who know how to find it, it always will be!

One of the most influential SFF writers of modern times, Roger Zelazny wrote across a wide range of subgenres and themes, experimenting with form and story with mastery. He won many awards throughout his lifetime, including six Hugo awards, three Nebula awards and two Locus awards. He has inspired many of today's great SFF authors.

This brand new collection contains some of his short stories and novellas, collected together with a new introduction from acclaimed author Lisa Tuttle.

Stories in this collection are:

• A Rose for Ecclesiastes
• The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth (winner of the 1966 Nebula Award for best novelette)
• Divine Madness
• For a Breath I Tarry The Great Slow Kings
• He Who Shapes
• Permafrost (winner of the 1987 Hugo Award for best novelette)
• Corrida
• The Last Defender of Camelot (winner of the 1980 Balrog Award for short fiction)
• The Keys to December
• LOKI 7281
• Damnation Alley
• Home is the Hangman (winner of the 1976 Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novella)

As children they met and built sand castles on a beach out of space and time: Edgar Perry, Little Annie, and Edgar Allan Poe.... Fifteen years later, Perry meets Annie again, all grown up and beautiful - and in the real world. She warns him of his mortal peril, then flees for Europe on a mysterious black ship.

Perry is recruited by a fabulously wealthy man to follow that ship to Europe where he meets the famed detective Auguste Dupin, has an encounter with a Maelstrom and a black raven, has a run in with a Pit and a Pendulum, and lives many more of the stories his alter ego, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote. He and Poe have exchanged places: Perry will thrive in the dark, romantic world where lead can be transmuted to gold, ravens can speak, orangutans can commit murder, and beautiful women are easy to come by; while Poe is now doomed to live out his life a misfit, and end as a pauper, a drunk, and a genius....

Nebula Award winning and Hugo Award nominated novelette.

The biggest fish in the solar system swims the seas of Venus, and no one has caught it yet. Pursuit of this monster has cost more than one person a fortune, some their lives. Carlton Davits had his chance at it and failed. Now cosmetics queen Jean Luharich is putting together a high-tech fishing expedition, and she wants Carlton along. As bait. But just what is she fishing for?

The story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1965. It can also be found in thet anthologies:

• The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 15th Series (1966), edited by Edward L. Ferman
• Nebula Award Stories 1965 (1966), edited by Damon Knight
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume III (1983), edited by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Best of the Nebulas (1989), edited by Ben Bova
• The Good Old Stuff: Adventure SF in the Grand Tradition (1998), edited by Gardner Dozios.

The story is included in the collections:

• Four for Tomorrow (1967)
• The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth (1971)
• Threshold (2009)

Here are strange, beautiful stories covering the full spectrum of the late Roger Zelazny's remarkable talents. In Doors of His Face, The Lamp of His Mouth, Zelazny's rare ability to mix the dream-like, disturbing imagery of fantasy with the real-life hardware of science fiction is on full display. His vivid imagination and fine prose made him one of the most highly acclaimed writers in his field.

Table of Contents

Stories in the original edition:

• "The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth", winner of the 1965 Nebula Award for Best Novelette
• "The Keys to December"
• "Devil Car"
• "A Rose for Ecclesiastes"
• "The Monster and the Maiden"
• "Collector's Fever"
• "This Mortal Mountain"
• "This Moment of the Storm"
• "The Great Slow Kings"
• "A Museum Piece"
• "Divine Madness"
• "Corrida"
• "Love Is An Imaginary Number"
• "The Man Who Loved the Faioli"
• "Lucifer"

Stories added in later editions:

• "The Furies"
• "The Graveyard Heart"

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, July 1974, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, Issue 104, January 2019. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction of the Year #4 (1975), edited by Terry Carr, Nebula Award Stories Ten (1975), edited by James Gunn, and The Road to Science Fiction 3: From Heinlein to Here (1979), also edited by James Gunn. It is included in the collections The Last Defender of Camelot (1980) and This Mortal Mountain (2009).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in New Worlds, August 1966. The story can aslo be found in World's Best Science Fiction: 1967, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction (1980), edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg, Explorers: SF Adventures to Far Horizons (2000), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Worldmakers: SF Adventures in Terraforming (2001), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collections The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth (1971) and Power & Light (2009).

Table of Contents: (note that the ToC of the 2002 iBooks book with the same title is almost entirely different)

• Introduction - (1980) - essay by Roger Zelazny
• Passion Play - (1962)
• Horseman! - (1962)
• The Stainless Steel Leech - (1963)
• A Thing of Terrible Beauty - (1963)
• He Who Shapes - (1965)
• Comes Now the Power - (1966)
• Auto-da-Fé - (1967)
• Damnation Alley - (1967)
• For a Breath I Tarry - (1966)
• The Engine at Heartspring's Center - (1974)
• The Game of Blood and Dust - (1975)
• No Award - (1977)
• Is There a Demon Lover in the House? - (1977)
• The Last Defender of Camelot - (1979)
• Stand Pat, Ruby Stone - (1978)
• Halfjack - (1979)

A shard of semiprecious agate, a fragment of the Stone, links the time of the Crusades and the Knight Templar Thomas Amnet with the twenty-first century world of jazz pianist Tom Gurden. Both must battle the spirit of a dead Hashishiyun magi and assassin to unravel the betrayal that led the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem to its defeat at Hattin. By overcoming chaos in his own time, Gurden heals the breach that has divided the Holy Land for a millennium.

This short story originally appeared in VB Tech Journal, June 1995, and was reprinted in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1995. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF (1996), edited by David G. Hartwell. The story is included in the collection The Road to Amber (2009).

Conrad Nomikos has a long, rich personal history that he'd rather not talk about and a job he'd rather not do. Escorting an alien grandee on a tour around a shattered post-nuclear war Earth is not something he relishes, especially when he becomes central to an intrigue determining Earth's future.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1966. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 16th Series (1967), edited by Edward L. Ferman, A Day in the Life (1972) edited by Gardner Dozois, Modern Classics of Science Fiction (1991), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: 60th Anniversary Anthology (2009), edited by Gordon Van Gelder. It is included in the collections The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth (1971) and Power & Light (2009).

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in If, March 1967. The story can also be found in the anthologies This Side of Infinity (1972) edited by Terry Carr and Worlds of If: A Retrospective Anthology (1986), edited by Joseph D. Olander, Martin Harry Greenberg and Frederik Pohl. It is included in the collections The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth (1971) and This Mortal Mountain (2009).

In TO DIE IN ITALBAR, the galaxy is in chaos, with people falling prey to an unidentifiable disease. Only one man has the ability to help - a man who can heal or kill with a touch. Known only as 'Mr. H', he is being sought after by everyone, but for vastly different reasons. Even Francis Sandow is seeking him, and may be the only one with a clue as to who H really is... In the bonus novel 'A Dark Travelling', James Wiley is an 'ordinary' 14-year-old who has lost his scientist father to a parallel world in the darkbands. With the help of Becky, his sister with magical powers, Barry the exchange student and Uncle George, the werewolf, James goes in search of his parent. But he must take care: for if there just happens to be a full moon at the wrong moment, James's itchy palms might lead him into trouble...

Hugo Award winning novelette. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, April 13, 1981. the story can also be found in the anthologies Unicorns! (1982) edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, Pawn to Infinity (1982), edited by Fred and Joan Saberhagen, The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 8 (1982) edited by Arthur W. Saha, The Hugo Winners, Volume 5: (1980-82) (1986), edited by Isaac Asimov, and The Fantasy Hall of Fame (1998), edited by Robert Silverberg. It is included in the collections Unicorn Variations (1983) and Last Exit to Babylon (2009).

Collection of short works includes an introduction by the author and:

• Unicorn Variation (1981)
• The Last of the Wild Ones [Sam Murdock] (1981)
• Recital (1981)
• The Naked Matador (1981)
• The Parts That Are Only Glimpsed: Three Reflexes (1978, essay)
• Dismal Light [Francis Shadow] (1968)
• Go Starless in the Night (1979)
• But Not the Herald (1965)
• A Hand Across the Galaxy (1967)
• The Force That Through the Circuit Drives the Current (1976)
• Home is the Hangman[Nemo] (1975)
• Fire and/or Ice (1980)
• Exeunt Omnes (1980)
• A Very Good Year... (1979)
• My Lady of the Diodes (1970)
• And I Only Am Escaped to Tell Thee (1981)
• The Horses of Lir (1981)
• The Night Has 999 Eyes (1964)
• Angel, Dark Angel (1967)
• Walpurgisnacht (1981)
• The George Business (1980)
• Some Science Fiction Parameters: A Biased View (1975, essay)

He was the greatest telepath the world has ever known. he was Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and a Children of the Earth terrorist all rolled into one...He was Dennis Guise, idiot child, whose mind had been suffocated and nearly obliterated by a universe of other people's thoughts...And he was Earth's last hope against an enemy that had created the human race but would destroy it all again if Dennis Archimedes Leonardo Jean Jacques Humanity Guise could not meet this enemy on its own terms and win.

The story opens in a post-apocalyptic Southern California, in a hellish world shattered by nuclear war decades before. Several police states have emerged in place of the former United States. Hurricane-force winds above five hundred feet prevent any sort of air travel from one state to the next, and sudden, violent, and unpredictable storms make day-to-day life a mini-hell. Hell Tanner, an imprisoned killer, is offered a full pardon in exchange for taking on a suicide mission--a drive through "Damnation Alley" across a ruined America from Los Angeles to Boston--as one of three vehicles attempting to deliver an urgently needed plague vaccine.

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Introduction: Themes, Variations, and Imitations - essay
• 5 - Deadboy Donner and the Filstone Cup - (1988) - short story
• 25 - Kalifriki of the Thread - [Kalifriki] - (1989) - novelette
• 57 - Devil Car - [Sam Murdock] - (1965) - short story
• 77 - The Last of the Wild Ones - [Sam Murdock] - (1981) - short story (variant of Last of the Wild Ones)

Earth is long since dead. On a colony planet, a band of men has gained control of technology, made themselves immortal, and now rules their world as the gods of the Hindu pantheon. Only one dares oppose them: he who was once Siddhartha and is now Mahasamatman. Binder of Demons. Lord of Light.

The story is set, like many Zelazny pure-SF novels, a few centuries in the future. The narrator, a Mafia assassin named Angelo di Negri, has been revived from suspended animation by the mostly legitimate successors of the criminal organization, and given a mission to assassinate a scientist on a fortified facility on an otherwise uninhabited planet.

Contains:

• Passage to Dilfar
• Thelinde's Song
• The Bells of Shoredan
• A Knight for Merytha
• The Palaces of Aache
• A City Divided
• The White Beast
• Tower of Ice
• Devil and the Dancer
• Garden of Blood
• Dilvish the Damned

Waves of changing magic blow across the land surrounding Castle Timeless, because Tualua, the ancient magical being bound into the service of the sorceror Jelerak, has gone mad. And Jelerak has vanished to parts unknown. Opportunistic, rival sorcerers vie to seize the powers inherent in the castle. Among the travelers arriving at Castle Timeless are Arlata, Weleand, and Dilvish who claim to want Tualua's power for good, and to search for vengence....

Centuries in the future, Francis Sandow is the only man alive who was born as long ago as the 20th century. His body is kept young and in perfect health by advanced scientific methods; he has amassed such a fortune that he can own entire planets; and he has become a god. No, not a god of Earth, but one of the panetheon of the alien Pei'ans: he is Shimbo of Darktree, Shrugger of Thunders. Yet he doesn't believe that his personality has merged with the ancient consciousness of Shimbo, that he really can call down the skies upon his enemies. The time comes, however, when Francis Sandow must use these powers against the most dangerous antagonist in the universe: another Pei'an god -- Shimbo's own enemy, Belion. And Belion has no doubt whatever of his own powers....

Charles Render is a shaper, one of a small number of psychotherapists qualified, by his granite will and ultra-stability, to use the extraordinary device that enables him to to participate in, and control, his patients' dreams. But this is a dangerous therapy for the therapist and only his armour-plated integrity protects Render from too deep an involvement in the mental worlds of the damaged people he seeks to help. But then, Eileen Shallot, another therapist who is blind, asks him to help her 'see' by transferring from his mind to hers a world of colour and light. Render agrees but suddenly finds himself obsessed with Eileen and drawn into fantasies which, she controls.

A riotous new fantasy series that will challenge the funniest the field has to offer--from the creator of the bestselling Amber series and one of the genre's legendary humorists. Azzy Elbub, demon, has his sights set on the Millenial Evil Deeds Award, given to the being whose acts do the most toward reshaping the world. But his evil plans go far astray. . . .

The last Millennial contest--between the forces of Good and Evil for control of the universe--didn't work out quite so well for Evil and its rooters. But it's time for the next round, and this time the demon Mephistopheles is carrying the ball for the forces of Darkness. But all is not as it seems. The harried archdemon mistakenly signs up a medieval cutpurse names Mack the Club, thinking him the learned Dr. Faust. The demon Azzie, still stinging from the Evil's last defeat (and not being chosen to head the current effort), takes events into his own claws. And the pious angel Michael--well, let's just say some of his tactics in the titanic struggle to come are not quite cricket.

On a devilish sabbatical in Europe, Azzie discovers that morality plays are all the rage. He decides to strike back by producing an "immorality play", in which seven nondescript human pilgrims will be allowed by magic to attain their hearts' desires. But the forces of Good are determined to close the play before it opens. New characters suddenly start roaming the stage, such as a Grateful Dead-listening Cyclops, and Azzie's own protagonists begin changing their hearts' desires on the slightest whim. This is one theatrical production that could do without an angel - and there's even worse news waiting in the wings...

Challenging convention with the SF nonconformist

Roger Zelazny combined poetic prose with fearless literary ambition to become one of the most influential science fiction writers of the 1960s. Yet many critics found his later novels underachieving and his turn to fantasy a disappointment. F. Brett Cox surveys the landscape of Zelazny's creative life and contradictions. Launched by the classic 1963 short story "A Rose for Ecclesiastes," Zelazny soon won the Hugo Award for Best Novel with …And Call Me Conrad and two years later won again for Lord of Light. Cox looks at the author's overnight success and follows Zelazny into a period of continued formal experimentation, the commercial triumph of the Amber sword and sorcery novels, and renewed acclaim for Hugo-winning novellas such as "Home Is the Hangman" and "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai." Throughout, Cox analyzes aspects of Zelazny's art, from his preference for poetically alienated protagonists to the ways his plots reflected his determined individualism.

Clear-eyed and detailed, Roger Zelazny provides an up-to-date reconsideration of an often-misunderstood SF maverick.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1968) - essay by Roger Zelazny
• The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D - (1967) - short story by J. G. Ballard
• Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes - (1967) - novelette by Harlan Ellison
• Mirror of Ice - (1967) - short story by Gary Wright
• Aye, and Gomorrah - (1967) - short story by Samuel R. Delany
• Gonna Roll the Bones - (1967) - novelette by Fritz Leiber
• Behold the Man - (1966) - novella by Michael Moorcock
• Weyr Search - (1967) - novella by Anne McCaffrey
• Afterword (Nebula Award Stories No. 3) - (1968) - essay by Roger Zelazny
• Nebula Awards 1967 - essay by uncredited
• Roll of Honour (Nebula Award Stories No. 3) - essay by uncredited
• 1966 Nebula Awards - essay by uncredited
• 1965 Nebula Awards - essay by uncredited

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Galaxy Magazine, June 1965. The story can be found in the anthology Door to Anywhere (1970), edited by Frederik Pohl and the collections The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth (1971) and Power & Light (2009).

This is the first guide to the works of this well-known SF writer. When Roger Zelazny exploded on the science fiction in 1962, it was not with a whimper, but a bang. The fallout was a shower of simile, symbol, and allusion. Images fresh and new burst in fields of variegated color. Rich tapestries full of mythic characters and beasts unfolded in poetic excapes from reality-and always with great style. Yoke, a close friend of Zelazny's since they shared a desk in the first grade, here delineates the author's work, from his very first explorations of fantasy through such classics as Lord of Light, Home is the Hangman, and the magestic Amber series.

Amber is the one real world, of which all others including our own Earth are but Shadows. Amber burns in Corwin's blood. Exiled on Shadow Earth for centuries, the prince is about to return to Amber to make a mad and desperate rush upon the throne.

From Arden to the Pattern deep in Castle Amber which defines the very structure of Reality, Corwin must contend with the powers of his eight immortal brothers, all Princes of Amber. His savage path is blocked and guarded by eerie structures beyond imagining impossible realities forged by demonic assassins and staggering Forces that challenge the might of Corwin's superhuman fury.

Seeking vengeance against his usurping brother, Eric, Corwin, the rightful heir to the throne, ventures into the dark world of Shadow in order to gather ammunition, and is distracted by a beautiful and mysterious woman.

Accepting the responsibilities as ruler to the world of Amber, Corwin finds himself the target of sibling treachery, and must seek guidance in a land of visions, where a sinister prediction foretells his doom.

King Oberon has vanished and Shadow menaces the perfect realm of Amber. Family blood has been spilled on the magic pattern that created Amber. To save themselves from the dagger-wielding hand that stabs across the nebulous boundaries of the parallel worlds, the remaining Princes - led by the superhuman Lord Corwin - must find the murderous traitor in their midst... and discover the source of the black road that unites the one true world of Amber with the multidimensional realm of Shadow.

Corwin finds his world dissolving around him when his father Oberon, disguised as Corwin's friend, steals the Jewel of Judgment so that he may defeat the evil Brand, in a conclusion to the first Amber series.

In the continuation of the Amber chronicles, Corwin, Prince of Amber, exiled to Earth because of an ancient feud with his brothers, must battle his way back to the perfect world of Amber, the center of reality.

Merle Corey escapes from prison into Amber, a world of wonders and confusions where friends and foes are sometimes indistinguishable, where a man is out to kill him and a woman to help him.

Merle Corey, son of the great Prince Corwin of Amber, has been pursued through shadow by unknown enemies and left trapped in an Alice in Wonderland world - a bar with the Mad Hatter serving and the Cheshire Cat grinning malevolently. In a dramatic escape from a monstrous Jabberwock, Merle embarks upon a fantastic adventure, leading him back to the Court of Amber and finally to a confrontation at the Keep of Four Worlds, and here he learns the strange secrets of the Courts of Chaos and their role in his destiny.

Confronting his deadliest enemy in a reincarnated Julia, his former lover, Merlin of Amber is forced to choose between the Patterns of Amber and Chaos while continuing his search for his father, Corwin.

On the brink of achieving the crown of Chaos, Merlin, aka Merle Corey, is challenged with silencing a murderous discord between Amber and Chaos and freeing a captive royal father who is under a villain's spell.

One of the most revered names in sf and fantasy, the incomparable Roger Zelazny was honored with numerous prizes--including six Hugo and three Nebula Awards--over the course of his legendary career. Among his more than fifty books, arguably Zelazny's most popular literary creations were his extraordinary Amber novels. The Great Book of Amber is a collection of the complete Amber chronicles--featuring volumes one through ten--a treasure trove of the ingenious imagination and phenomenal storytelling that inspired a generation of fantasists, from Neil Gaiman to George R.R. Martin.

Contians all ten Chronicles of Amber novels.

Amber is the one real world, casting infinite reflections of itself -- Shadow worlds, that can be manipulated by those of royal Amberite blood. But the royal family is torn apart by jealousies and suspicion; the disappearance of the Patriach Oberon has intensified the internal conflict by leaving the throne apparently up for grabs.

In a hospital on the Shadow Earth, a young man is recovering from a freak car accident; amnesia has robbed him of all his memory, even the fact that he is Corwin, Crown Prince of Amber, rightful heir to the throne -- and he is in deadly peril . . .

This omnibus edition contains five books, Nine Princes in Amber, The Guns of Avalon, Sign of the Unicorn, The Hand of Oberon and The Courts of Chaos, which together make up the first half of Roger Zelazny's finest work of fantasy and an undisputed classic of the genre.

In all the universe, Amber is the only true world. All others are Shadows, playthings for Amber's royal family -- sibling rivals who vault between worlds using tarot-like Trump cards and walk the labyrinthine Pattern, which confers the power to manipulate reality. Far removed from his native land, Merlin, son of Corwin of Amber and Dara of Chaos, has tried to build himself a normal Earthly life -- a life free of the cabals, vendettas and feuds that have torn his family apart. And he's done quite well for himself... except when it comes to April 30th. Because on that day, every year for the past eight years, someone -- or something -- has tried to kill him. Gunshots. Fires. Gas leaks. Car accidents. This year's attempt comes in the form of a huge, dog-like beast that tears his former girlfriend to bits -- and tries to do the same to him. Somebody must have it in for him, but who?

Contains Chronicles of Amber novels 6-10.

Amber is the one real world, casting infinite reflections of itself - Shadow worlds, that can be manipulated by those of royal Amberite blood. But the royal family is torn apart by jealousies and suspicion; the disappearance of the Patriarch Oberon has intensified the internal conflict by leaving the throne apparently up for grabs.

In a hospital on the Shadow Earth, a young man is recovering from a freak car accident; amnesia has robbed him of all his memory, even the fact that he is Corwin, Crown Prince of Amber, rightful heir to the throne - and he is in deadly peril...

The five books, Nine Princes in Amber, The Guns of Avalon, Sign of the Unicorn, The Hand of Oberon and The Courts of Chaos, together make up The Chronicles of Amber, Roger Zelazny's finest work of fantasy and an undisputed classic of the genre.

Merlin is a Prince of Chaos and Amber, Corwin's son and heir. He has grown up knowing that his legacy is to one day follow in his father's footsteps, live up to his father's legend.

When Corwin goes missing, that day comes far sooner than he could ever have expected. Merlin must find his own identity as the ruler of the worlds, and discover what kind of King he wants to be. Will he be a warrior like his father, or embrace his own path as a hacker-magician?

A generation after Corwin's rise to the throne, Merlin is aided by powers beyond anything Corwin could have imagined. The epic magic from The Chronicles of Amber is wielded alongside sentient computers, a vorpal sword, and the ghosts of those who came before.

Featuring the Locus award-winning Trumps of Doom, the Locus nominated Blood of Amber and Sign of Chaos, and the final two novels Knight of Shadows and Prince of Chaos, The Second Chronicles of Amber continues the epic story of Amber and the Shadow worlds.

The first in a six-volume series, Volume 1: Threshold contains all of Zelazny's short works from his early years through the mid 1960s--a period of experimentation and growth that flowered into gems such as "A Rose for Ecclesiastes," "The Graveyard Heart," "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth," and "He Who Shapes." The stories in this series are enriched by editors' notes and Zelazny's own words, taken from his many essays, describing why he wrote the stories and what he thought about them in retrospect.

The second in a six-volume series, Volume 2: Power & Light covers the mid 1960s, Zelazny's most prolific period, where he continued to incorporate mainstream literary qualities and added a wealth of mythological elements into powerful stories such as "The Furies," "For a Breath I Tarry," "This Moment of the Storm," "Comes Now the Power," "Auto-Da-Fé," and the Hugo-winning novel ...And Call Me Conrad. The stories in this series are enriched by editors' notes and Zelazny's own words, taken from his many essays, describing why he wrote the stories and what he thought about them in retrospect.

The third in a six-volume series, Volume 3: This Mortal Mountain contains Zelazny's short works from the late 1960s and early 1970s, Zelazny's breadth of interests developed into a variety of styles displayed in such rich stories as "This Mortal Mountain," "The Steel General," "Damnation Alley," "The Man Who Loved the Faioli," and the Hugo and Nebula-nominated "The Engine at Heartspring's Center". The stories in this series are enriched by editors' notes and Zelazny's own words, taken from his many essays, describing why he wrote the stories and what he thought about them in retrospect.

The fourth in a six-volume series, Volume 4: Last Exit to Babylon contains Zelazny's short works from the late 1970s and early 1980s when Zelazny's popularity opened new markets for his work. He continued to produce highly-crafted stories, such as the popular "The Last Defender of Camelot," the Hugo-winning "Unicorn Variation," and the Hugo and Nebula-winning "Home is the Hangman." The stories in this series are enriched by editors' notes and Zelazny's own words, taken from his many essays, describing why he wrote the stories and what he thought about them in retrospect.

The fifth in a six-volume series, Volume 5: Nine Black Doves contains Zelazny's short works from the 1980s, when Zelazny's mature craft produced the Hugo-winning and Nebula-nominated stories, "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai" and "Permafrost," and other entertaining stories such as "Kalifriki of the Thread," "Dilvish, the Damned," and his first two Wild Cards stories about Croyd Crenson, "The Sleeper" and "Ashes to Ashes."

The last in a six-volume series Volume 6: The Road To Amber, the last in the series, covers the final five years of Zelazny's career in the early 1990s, when he reached for new ideas and continued familiar themes with stories such as "Godson" and "Godson: A Play in Three Acts," two more Wild Cards stories ("Concerto for Siren and Serotonin" and "The Long Sleep"), and a linked sequence of five Amber stories leading to planned but unwritten Amber novels.

He Who Shapes:

Charles Render is a shaper, one of a small number of psychotherapists qualified, by his granite will and ultra-stability, to use the extraordinary device that enables him to to participate in, and control, his patients' dreams. But this is a dangerous therapy for the therapist and only his armour-plated integrity protects Render from too deep an involvement in the mental worlds of the damaged people he seeks to help. But then, Eileen Shallot, another therapist who is blind, asks him to help her 'see' by transferring from his mind to hers a world of colour and light. Render agrees but suddenly finds himself obsessed with Eileen and drawn into fantasies which, she controls.

The Infinity Box:

Suppose you could enter the mind of a beautiful woman; see what she sees, feel what she feels, and control her completely.

Home is the Hangman::

A sentient space-exploration robot, lost years before, has apparently returned to Earth. One of its original designers has died under suspicious circumstances. Has the Hangman returned to kill its creators? The hero must find the Hangman and stop it, and time is running out.

We, In Some Strange Power's Employ, Move On A Rigorous Line:

This is the story of a group of futuristic outlaw bikers who don't want to join the world order symbolized by Global Power's electric grid.

Elegy For Angels And Dogs:

A sequal to The Graveyard Heart: Decades later, the Set survives, still powerful, still glittery, still coolly apart from the common man. But history, all but unnoticed by these ageless celebrants, has brought war to the Solar System, along with incredible new scientific developments. Lamoral aspires to seize control of the Set, but how long can any of them afford to ignore the ever-changing future through which they dance?

The Graveyard Heart:

Decadent and aloof, the Part Set are the ultimate "in" crowd, cheating time via cryogenic cold-bunks, waking only for their spectacular entertainments and private scandals. What a way to live! Alvin Moore wants in, partly for the prestige, partly for the love of the beautiful Leota. But even as he schemes to win the approval of the Set, he has no idea of the intrigues, betrayals, and heartbreak that await him. For in a society without time, without want, the pursuit of pleasure can be a deadly business...

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.

Pol Detson, son of Lord Det of Rondoval, has come home. He is now a powerful sorceror of unsurpassed natural ability - in a world where the power of magic is the only kind that matters. But Pol is still an untrained talent, a 'MADWAND'. To take control of his powers, to rule in his father's place, he must survive arduous training and a fantastic initiation into the rites of sorcery. As friends, Pol has one dragon and one thief. As enemies he has the most powerful wizards of the land. And at least one of them wants him dead.