Search Worlds Without End

Winner of the Homer Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.

Ballerina Lucia del Mar has two great passions: dance, which consumes most of her waking hours, and the World Wide Web, which brings the outside world into her tightly regimented life. Lucia's two passions collide when a White House performance and reception leads to an encounter with handsome Moroccan businessman Rashid al-Jazari, creator of a brilliant technology that has set the Internet rumor mill afire.

A second, seemingly chance meeting with Rashid will plunge Lucia into a deadly world of desire and intrigue. For although his work has implications she cannot foresee, there are those who do understand and would turn its great power to their own destructive purposes. As she is drawn deeper and deeper into Rashid's life and work, cut off from the outside world, she finds herself becoming more attracted to him. But is her seclusion within Rashid's well-guarded Moroccan home intended to ensure her safety...or her silence? And is it already too late to stop the terrible consequences his new technology could unleash?

The Hard Way Up

Collection including:

• With Good Intentions - shortstory by A. Bertram Chandler
• The Subtracter - (1969) - novelette by A. Bertram Chandler
• The Tin Messiah - (1972) - shortstory by A. Bertram Chandler
• Sleeping Beauty - (1970) - novelette by A. Bertram Chandler
• The Wandering Buoy - (1970) - shortstory by A. Bertram Chandler
• The Mountain Movers - (1971) - novelette by A. Bertram Chandler
• What You Know - (1971) - novelette by A. Bertram Chandler

The Veiled World

Shamryke Odell, save the worlds!

The war that is destroying the ancient Empire of Saramyr is reaching its apocalyptic conclusion. The Weavers have stepped from the shadows and seized control, the capital is a haunted nightmare, and the land is ridden by pestilence. Terrifying demons, immune to all but magic, have been unleashed on the cities and the armies of the resistance movement. And the Aberrant hordes are seemingly without end. As the final madness of the Weavers takes hold, their tactics become ever more crazed and bloody, with thousands dying on both sides. Someone must stop the Weavers, someone must discover what lies at the bottom of the cavernous pits that they have dug across Saramyr.

The official new novel set in the world of Dishonored, the award-winning video game.

Billie Lurk has acheived the impossible: the Outsider has fallen. But now the Void is unbalanced, and the fate of the world is at stake.

From Tyvia to Serkonos, mysterious rifts in the fabric of reality have appeared--portals into the Void, with the potential to tear the world apart. Billie's search for the source of their instability sends her far from Dunwall, to a city cut in half by a rift, and to a kingdom recovering from civil war, where an uneasy truce reigns. A former assassin, smuggler, and bounty hunter, Billie's a born survivor, and she's the only one who can set things right--but to do so she must confront her own past, with world-altering results.

When an ancient gold bear is found walled up in a dilapidated St. Petersburg bathhouse, researcher Daniel St. Clair and his frosty colleague Em Hayward set out for the university in Arkhangelsk to verify its age. Along the way they are mysteriously set adrift. Maps are suddenly useless. Lost and exhausted they turn north, sinking even deeper into the secrets and terrors of the Russian landscape.

Daniel's lost love, the wild and beautiful Rosa Kovalenka, fears the worst when Daniel goes missing and resolves to find him. To do so will mean confronting her past and secrets that she has fought to suppress. The only way to save him is to go forward, where she encounters the haunted Chenchikov clan, a family with their own shadowy tangle of grief, desire, and treachery.

In the unknowable, impenetrable Russian forest, Rosa meets an enigmatic wanderer who is full of tales and riddles of times past. Who might hold the key to Rosa and Daniel's future--or the destruction of their world.

In 1945, the technology of death was mastered, and mankind entered an era that could be its last. But Nature evolves its own defense, and children with amazing mental talents have been born. They are the metapsychic operants--and they have the power to rule the world. An amazing new series from the author of The Saga of Pliocene Exile.

Beyond the Veil is the second volume in an annual, non-themed horror series of entirely original stories, showcasing the very best short fiction that the genre has to offer, and edited by Mark Morris. This new anthology contains 20 original horror stories, 16 of which have been commissioned from some of the top names in the genre, and 4 of which have been selected from the 100s of stories sent to Flame Tree during a 2-week open submissions window.

Contents:

• The God Bag - short fiction by Christopher Golden
• Caker's Man - short fiction by Matthew Holness
• The Beechfield Miracles - short fiction by Priya Sharma
• Clockwork - short fiction by Dan Coxon
• Soapstone - short fiction by Aliya Whiteley
• The Dark Bit - short fiction by Toby Litt
• Provenance Pond - short fiction by Josh Malerman
• For All the Dead - short fiction by Angeline Adams and Remco van Straten
• The Girl in the Pool - short fiction by Bracken MacLeod
• Nurse Varden - short fiction by Jeremy Dyson
• If, Then - short fiction by Lisa L. Hannett
• Aquarium Ward - short fiction by Karter Mycroft
• A Mystery for Julie Chu - short fiction by Stephen Gallagher
• Away Day - short fiction by Lisa Tuttle
• Polaroid and Seaweed - short fiction by Peter Harness
• Der Geisterbahnhof - short fiction by Lynda E. Rucker
• Arnie's Ashes - short fiction by John Everson
• A Brief Tour of the Night - short fiction by Nathan Ballingrud
• The Care and Feeding of Household Gods - short fiction by Frank J. Oreto
• Yellowback - short fiction by Gemma Files

A YOUNG HERO JOURNEYS BEYOND THE EDGE OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE IN A DESPERATE BID TO SAVE THE GALAXY FROM THE POWERS OF EVIL

ADVENTURE BEYOND THE STARS

Jayce Artan is a dock rat on a poor fringe world where he takes every job he can and prize-fights to earn enough money to get off world. When he's hired to guide a boat crewed by an interstellar mafia, he comes face to face with an ancient power--the Veil--that was pivotal to a civil war that ended decades ago.

Jayce is "Attuned" to this power and was almost killed by agents of the dead and defeated Tyrant who nearly enslaved the galaxy. He's rescued by an Adept of the Paragon order, warrior scholars that study the power and seek to keep any from upsetting the balance that keeps all life in order.

Jayce is given the chance to journey beyond the Veil and into another dimension where he can claim a stone of immense power and return it to base reality and wield it as a weapon against the Tyrant. The world beyond the Veil is nothing like what Jayce knows, and he'll be opposed by insidious evil, self-doubt, and sabotage from the very people who are supposed to help him.

While beyond the Veil, Jayce learns that a Conjunction is nigh, an event that could sunder the galaxy if evil forces succeed. Jayce must claim a Veil stone deep in the other dimension before the Tyrant's agents can beat him to the prize.

The Alpha Quadrant is mired in crisis.

Within the United Federation of Planets, a terrorist strike on the shipyards of Mars has led to the shutdown of all relief efforts for millions of Romulans facing certain doom from an impending supernova. But when the USS Titan is drawn into a catastrophic incident on the Romulan-Federation border, Captain William Riker, his family, and his crew find themselves caught between the shocking secrets of an enigmatic alien species and the deadly agenda of a ruthless Tal Shiar operative. Forced into a wary alliance with a Romulan starship commander, Riker and the Titan crew must uncover the truth to stop a devastating attack--but one wrong move could plunge the entire sector into open conflict!

Although her kingdom has lived in peace for many years, the queen has always feared the day the Usurper would return to plunge her city into darkness. Even as she rejoices the birth of her first child, she sees signs of impending danger. Her husband and his army have vanished in the wilderness.

With only a short time left to reinforce the kingdom's defense, her faithful general masterminds a strategy to keep the city safe, against great odds. But even when the Usurper's victory may seem to be complete, the mysterious veil of snows hides a symbol of undying hope.

The Veil of Snows is a moving and powerful tale about the light of the human spirit, a light that can never be wholly extinguished.

Princess Théra once known as Empress Üna of Dara; yielded the throne to her younger brother in order to journey to Ukyu-Gondé to war with the Lyucu, and has crossed the impenetrable Wall of Storms with a fleet of ships and ten thousand people. Constantly facing adversity, she faces new challenges by doing the most interesting thing and not letting the past dictate the present

In Dara, the Lyucu leadership bristles with rivalries as power and perspectives change between the remains of the Dandelion courts. Here, mothers and daughters, Empress and Pékyu alike, nurture the seeds of plans that will take years to bloom. As the conquerors and the conquered jockey for position in these new regimes, tradition gives way to new justifications for power.

Having staked his claim as a master of epic fantasy with The Ring of Five Dragons, Eric Van Lustbader now returns to his world of Kundala to unearth new riches of wonder and excitement in this second volume of The Pearl Saga.

With the help of her friends, Riane, the prophesied redeemer known as the Dar Sala-at, saved Kundala from annihilation, preserving natives and V'ornn invaders alike. Together, the companions avenged terrible crimes and secured the Ring of Five Dragons, but their struggles have only just begun.

The Ring averted doomsday, yet it did not open the magical Storehouse Door as expected. That sorcerous treasury remains sealed because of the spell cast by Giyan and her sister to migrate Annon Ashera's male V'ornn psyche into Riane's dying Kundalan female body. By combining them into a single being, it saved them both and fulfilled the prophecy that the Dar Sala-at would be "born at both ends of the cosmos." But the spell also breached the Abyss, releasing daemons imprisoned there aeons ago by the Goddess Miina who could wreak havoc on Kundala. Now the fiends must be vanquished, not only so the quest for the Pearl can continue, but to save Giyan, who has been possessed by the archdaemon Horolaggia. Their only hope is the fabled Veil of A Thousand Tears.

Brama was once a thief who dreamed of riches. Now he's the Torn Man, a broken soul who could have all the riches he wants, except he no longer yearns for it. He's chosen instead to live in the poorest quarter of Sharakhai with the very creature who tortured him mercilessly, a powerful ehrekh known as Rümayesh. Brama's life changes forever when he stumbles across a woman named Jax, an intriguing young foreigner fleeing assassins from her homeland. Brama has feared to use Rümayesh's power, but asks her now to help save Jax from her fate. Rümayesh, who seems curiously fascinated by Jax, agrees. Brama has little time to wonder over Rümayesh's sudden and unexpected interest, for his fate soon becomes entangled with Jax's. As a drug lord learns of Brama's sapphire, and the assassins close in, Brama fights to save Jax, preventing him from focusing on what may be the biggest threat of all: Rümayesh herself.

In this enthralling new tale from bestselling author Christopher Golden, one man is drawn into a realm just across the veil from our own, where every captivating myth and fairy tale is true, the vanished exist - and every fear is founded....

Yielding to his father's wishes, Oliver Bascombe abandoned his dream of being an actor and joined the family law firm. Now he will marry a lovely young woman bearing the Bascombe stamp of approval. But on the eve of his wedding, a blizzard sweeps in - bringing with it an icy legend who calls into question everything Oliver believes about the world and his place in it....

Pursued by a murderous creature who heeds no boundaries, Jack Frost needs Oliver's help to save both himself and his world - an alternate reality slowly being displaced by our own. To help him, Oliver Bascombe, attorney-at-law, will have to become Oliver Bascombe, adventurer, hero - and hunted. So begins a magnificent journey where he straddles two realities...and where, even amid danger, Oliver finds freedom for the very first time.

For centuries they lived amongst us. The frightful and wondrous, the angelic and bloodthirsty. Living in a reality just beyond the Veil, humanity's myths and legends are caught in a struggle for their very survival--against hunters far more powerful than they are.

Into this struggle has stepped a New England lawyer who once wanted to be an actor--a man who both longs for the mortal woman he was to marry and is desperate to rescue the sister who's been taken hostage. Neither hero nor warrior, Oliver Bascombe now finds himself brandishing a magical sword, walking in the company of a woman who sometimes appears as a fox and a man made of pure ice, and dueling with albino giants and winged killers. For in the world of the Borderkind--and the realms that exist beyond it--Oliver is discovering just how vulnerable are humankind's myths, the dire consequences of their extinction, and the reason he was chosen to save them....

Bestselling author Christopher Golden brings his epic, innovative trilogy, the Veil, to an astonishing conclusion as the mythic realm of heroes and monsters becomes the site of humanity's last--and greatest--showdown.

In the world of the legendary, every myth and folktale is real. That is what Oliver Bascombe learned on the other side of the Veil, where humanity's legends have hidden away for centuries. But even legends have legends, and Oliver has learned of a prophecy that many believe he and his sister, Collette, have come to the Two Kingdoms to fulfill. Before they can discover the truth, the Bascombe siblings must help to stop an apocalyptic war that threatens to destroy the Two Kingdoms, unravel a conspiracy, and prevent a powerful sorcerer from severing the world of humans from the realm of the legendary forever.

But first Oliver will have to plot an escape from an impregnable palace dungeon where he and his allies have been imprisoned... for regicide.

As old heroes and friends ally themselves for one last battle, even older enemies stand arrayed against them. Is humanity ready to face its legends head-on? For Oliver Bascombe, the price may be dearer than even he could ever imagine.

When a Rankan messenger is killed in Tyse, Randal, the Stepsons' pet wizard, must read the dead man's mind. What Randal learns brings Niko back from the Misty Isles of Bandara and forces Tempus and his Stepsons into an alliance unholy even by Tysian standards--with Cime the mage killer; Aškelon, lord of dreams; and the Rankan Third Commando, a fighting unit so cruel it gives even the Stepsons pause. Together with Tempus' long-lost daughter, and his elemental lover, Jihan, they must venture beyond accursed Wizardwall itself to battle the Mygdonian Alliance and Roxane's Nisibisi witchcraft.

The intrepid Band (whose central core is Tempus' beloved Stepsons) must figure out who among the Tysian locals, Rankan soldiers, and Mygdonian defectors they can trust--before it's too late. But in a world where a witch can turn a warrior into a flea, where gemstone frogs can rain from the sky, where no one is ever what he seems, where loyalties and ensured by curses, wizardry, and the favor of warring gods... only the immortal Tempus can guarantee an army's success. And not even Tempus can tell the good guys from the bad in Tyse, where everyone plays both ends against the middle--or if the price of victory against Mygdonia will be his Stepsons' souls in their battle

The balance of power is shifting, with bold new alliances, unknown invaders, and the rumored return of the galaxy's ancient masters. When black-ops spy Amina Azad saves a Hacan ambassador from assassination, she draws him into her investigation of a vast conspiracy: unseen forces are destabilizing the whole galaxy, at the worst possible time. Pursued by agents from dozens of other factions, they can only make progress by allying with their apparent enemies. But even they might be compromised--duped into action by a secret puppet-master. How can they trust an alliance when they can't trust themselves?

Witnessing a spacial manifestation that changes the view of the sky from a starry universe to a mirror image of the Earth, UFO researcher's son Cornell Novak begins a journey that takes him into an alien world.