Search Worlds Without End

In the sleepy English countryside at the dawn of the Victorian Era, life moves at a leisurely pace in the tiny town of Wall--a secluded hamlet so named for an imposing stone barrier that surrounds a fertile grassland. Armed sentries guard the sole gap in the bulwark to keep the inquisitive from wandering through, relaxing their vigil only once every nine years, when a market fair unlike any other in the world of men comes to the meadow.

Here in Wall, young Tristran Thorn has lost his heart to beautiful Victoria Forester. But Victoria is cold and distant--as distant, in fact, as the star she and Tristran see fall from the sky on a crisp October evening. For the coveted prize of Victoria's hand, Tristran vows to retrieve the fallen star and deliver it to his beloved. It is an oath that sends the lovelorn swain over the ancient wall, and propels him into a world that is strange beyond imagining.

But Tristran is not the only one seeking the heavenly jewel. There are those for whom it promises youth and beauty, the key to a kingdom, and the rejuvenation of dark, dormant magics. And a lad compelled by love will have to keep his wits about him to succeed and survive in this secret place where fallen stars come in many guises--and where quests have a way of branching off in unexpected directions, even turning back upon themselves in space and in time.

Save one world. Doom her own.

Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artifacts to alien civilizations - until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life as a graduate student of anthropology, but she's haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future.

Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can't refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction. Except no one has seen it in living memory, and they aren't the only ones hunting for it.

Maya sets out on a breakneck quest through a universe teeming with strange life and ancient ruins. But the farther she goes, the more her visions cast a dark shadow over her team of friends new and old. Someone will betray her along the way. Worse yet, in choosing to save one species, she may condemn humanity and Earth itself.

Collection of Morgan Llywelyn's finest stories, including:

• Veronica's Gift
• Porch Swing
• A View of Wickerwork
• Getting Ahead
• A Cook is Born
• At Night
• The Man Who Killed the Last Great Auk
• Their Son
• The Mistletoe Bough
• Princess
• Me, Tree
• The Sanhedron
• Ego
• Untitled
• The Plum Tree
• This is My Beloved
• Do This, Do That

Slip into a lush world of magic, stardust, and monsters...

For centuries, the Everlys have seen their best and brightest disappear, taken as punishment for a crime no one remembers, for a purpose no one understands. Their tormentor, a woman named Penelope, never ages, never grows sick -- and never forgives a debt.

Violet Everly was a child when her mother left on a stormy night, determined to break the curse. When Marianne never returns, Penelope issues an ultimatum: Violet has ten years to find her mother, or she will take her place. Violet is the last of the Everly line, the last to suffer. Unless she can break the curse first.

Mayfield was the typical college town. Nothing too unusual ever happened there until a mysterious comet was suddenly observed by the scientists on College Hill.

And then one day the modified engine on Ken Maddox's car began overheating mysteriously. By morning it didn't run at all.

Art's Garage, local headquarters for hot-rodders, was soon so full of cars that wouldn't run, that Ken's science club began working in the garage after school. It didn't take long for the club to discover that all the moving parts on these stalled cars had fused together. Soon all machinery had stopped in Mayfield. There was no longer any light or power anywhere. This mysterious creeping paralysis was spreading.

The copper-yellow glow of the comet seemed to have brought the whole world to a grinding halt. Airplanes, trains, generators and heavy machinery were immobilized. Finally man was left with only a few primitive tools and communication became possible only by means of amateur radio. In the resulting chaos parts of Mayfield were burned and looted by hunger-crazed mobs that stole and killed as they advanced.

Here is science fiction at its thrilling best. A startling and thought-provoking book that shows how human nature might react to catastrophe.

Technos

Dumarest has traced the lost planet of Earth to one remote corner of the galaxy, but he still lacks its precise co-ordinates. Somewhere on the cyber-dominated police-world of Technos lives the mysterious woman who can help him. And the only way to find her is to become a slave...

A Scatter of Stardust

Collection containing:

• The Bells of Acheron - (1957) - shortstory
• Anne - (1966) - shortstory
• Return Visit - (1958) - shortstory
• The Shrine - (1960) - shortstory
• Survival Demands! - (1972) - shortstory
• Little Girl Lost - (1955) - shortstory
• The Eyes of Silence - (1957) - shortstory
• Enchanter's Encounter - (1959) - novelette

Perilous dawn... Major Perry Rhodan, commander of the spaceship "Stardust", found more than anyone had expected might exist on the moon - for he became the first man to make contact with another sentient race! The Arkonides had come from a distant star, and they possessed a knowledge of science and philosophy that dwarfed mankind's knowledge. But these enormously powerful alien beings refused to cooperate with the people of Earth - unless Perry Rhodan could pass the most difficult test any human being had ever faced...

Table of Contents:

• Introducing Perry Rhodan and His Electric Personality - essay by Forrest J. Ackerman
• Enterprise Stardust - [Perry Rhodan: The Third Power (German) - 1] - novella by K. H. Scheer
• The Third Power - [Perry Rhodan: The Third Power (German) - 2] - novella by Clark Darlton [as by Walter Ernsting]

Hugo Award nominated story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1971. The story can also be found in the anthologies The 1972 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha and The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 20th Series (1973), edited by Edward L. Ferman. It is included in the collection The Stardust Voyages (1975).

Neither here nor there, but long ago...

Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land--at the cost of sacrificing all jinn.

With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan's oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie's past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything--her enemy, her magic, even her own past--is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality.