Search Worlds Without End

A seriously down on her luck unlicensed Stalktown PI named Louise "Lou" Meagher ekes out a sparse living solving petty crimes. She is chronically broke, clinically dead, and nervous about being evacuated from her home planet, Kestrel, which in nine days time will be hit by an unstoppable doomsday rock, known as the Bloody Bastard. But Lou takes on one last case: helping a cybernetically enhanced canine named Dog, locate his former master, a defective biological android boy known only as Kid....

Matthew Flamen, the last of the networks' spoolpigeons, is desperate for a big story. He needs it to keep his audience - and his job. And there is no shortage of possibilities: the Gottschalk cartel is fomenting trouble among the knees in order to sell their latest armaments to the blanks; which ties in nicely with the fact that something big is brewing with the X Patriots; and it looks as if the inconceivable is about to happen and that one of Britain's most dangerous revolutionaries is going to be given a visa to enter America. And then there's the story that just falls into his lap. The one that suggests that the respected Director of the New York State Mental Hospital is a charlatan...

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Introduction (Monitor Found in Orbit)
• 9 - The True Worth of Ruth Villiers - short story
• 28 - The Manya - [Finistelle] - short story
• 44 - Hold My Hand, My Love! - short story
• 63 - Beneath Still Waters - short story
• 83 - The Unsavory Episode of Mrs. Hector Powell-Challenger - short story
• 96 - Monitor Found in Orbit - short story
• 114 - The Mind Prison - short story
• 138 - R26/5/PSY and I - novelette
• 154 - Esmeralda - short story

The stuff that dreams are made of...

Marlowe lived a life of fantasy while out in the real world a robot proxy contributed to the economy on his behalf. Marlowe's thing was the Forties and Bogart, and he was true to the image--down to the trench coat and the dingy "office" where he lived with his cat, Greenstreet. But he had never had a real case until a leggy looker dressed to the nines--Forties style--asked him to find her missing sister.

Suddenly he was on the run for his life, a pawn in a high stakes game for the control of off-Earth development. All Marlowe wanted was to return to his own comfortable world of make-believe. But first he would have to take good hard look at reality--for if couldn't find a way for both sides to win, everyone would lose...

The global war on terror has a new front--the very edge of outer space.

In the year 2020, Kazumi Kimura, proprietor of shooting star forecast website Meteor News, notices some orbiting space debris moving suspiciously. Rumors spread online that the debris is actually an orbital weapon targeting the International Space Station. Halfway across the world, at NORAD, Staff Sergeant Darryl Freeman begins his investigation of the debris. At the same time, billionaire entrepreneur Ronnie Smark and his journalist daughter prepare to check into an orbital hotel as part of a stunt promoting private space tourism. Then Kazumi receives highly sensitive information from a source claiming to be an Iranian scientist. And so begins an unprecedented international battle against space-based terror that will soon involve the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, NORAD, and the CIA.

This short story first appeared in Omni in July 1983. It was later reprinted in Gibson's collection Burning Chrome, and in Mirrorshades, edited by Bruce Sterling.

Authorized by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate, this brand-new collection of 26 Sherlock Holmes stories takes place in Holmes' own era, in our present time, and in the future. All the tales contain some science fiction or fantasy element, and all remain true to the spirit and personality of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous and enduring creation.

Contents:

• 1 - Introduction: The Detective Who Refused to Die (Sherlock Holmes in Orbit) - essay by Mike Resnick
• 7 - The Musgrave Version - (1995) - short story by George Alec Effinger
• 18 - The Case of the Detective's Smile - short story by Mark Bourne
• 27 - The Adventure of the Russian Grave - short story by William Barton and Michael Capobianco
• 38 - The Adventure of the Field Theorems - novelette by Vonda N. McIntyre
• 69 - The Adventure of the Missing Coffin - short story by Laura Resnick
• 82 - The Adventure of the Second Scarf - short story by Mark Aronson
• 102 - The Phantom of the Barbary Coast - novelette by Frank M. Robinson
• 135 - Mouse and the Master - short story by Brian M. Thomsen
• 146 - Two Roads, No Choices - short story by Dean Wesley Smith
• 164 - The Richmond Enigma - short story by John DeChancie
• 184 - A Study in Sussex - short story by Leah A. Zeldes
• 191 - The Holmes Team Advantage - short story by Gary Alan Ruse
• 208 - Alimentary, My Dear Watson - short story by Lawrence Schimel
• 213 - The Future Engine - novelette by Byron Tetrick
• 237 - Holmes Ex Machina - (1995) - short story by Susan Casper
• 245 - The Sherlock Solution - short story by Craig Shaw Gardner
• 255 - The Fan Who Molded Himself - short story by David Gerrold
• 268 - Second Fiddle - short story by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• 287 - Moriarty by Modem - (1995) - short story by Jack Nimersheim
• 303 - The Greatest Detective of All Time - short story by Ralph Roberts
• 319 - The Case of the Purloined L'Isitek - short story by Josepha Sherman
• 328 - The Adventure of the Illegal Alien - short story by Anthony R. Lewis
• 334 - Dogs, Masques, Love, Death: Flowers - short story by Barry N. Malzberg
• 344 - You See But You Do Not Observe - short story by Robert J. Sawyer
• 363 - Illusions - short story by Janni Lee Simner
• 368 - The Adventure of the Pearly Gates - short story by Mike Resnick

The stories contained in this volume demonstrate the unique and unpredictable imagination, style and vision that earned R.A. Lafferty the 1990 World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1991) - essay by Damon Knight
• Old Foot Forgot - (1970) - short story
• All Pieces of a River Shore - (1970) - short story
• Bright Coins in Never-Ending Stream - (1978) - short story
• Flaming Ducks and Giant Bread - (1974) - novelette
• The Hole on the Corner - (1967) - short story
• The Skinny People of Leptophlebo Street - (1975) - short story
• Continued on Next Rock - (1970) - novelette
• Entire and Perfect Chrysolite - (1970) - short story
• Great Day in the Morning - (1975) - short story
• The Hand with One Hundred Fingers - (1976) - short story
• One at a Time - (1968) - short story
• Royal Licorice - (1974) - short story
• And Name My Name - (1974) - short story
• Fall of Pebble-Stones - (1977) - short story
• Configuration of the North Shore - (1969) - short story
• Dorg - (1972) - short story
• When All the Lands Pour Out Again - (1971) - short story
• Interurban Queen - (1970) - short story
• The Only Tune That He Could Play - (1980) - short story

The year is 2009. For Kip Dawson, winning a passenger seat on American Space Adventure's spacecraft is a dream come true. One grand shot of insanity and he can return to earth fulfilled. But the thrill of the successful launch turns to terror when a micrometeorite penetrates the capsule, leaving the radios as dead as the pilot. Reality hits: Kip isn't going home.

With nothing to do but wait for his doomed fate, Kip writes his epitaph on the ship's laptop computer, unaware that an audience of millions has discovered it and is tracking his every word on the Internet. As a massive struggle gets underway to rescue him, Kip has no idea that the world can hear his cries -- or that his heroism in the face of death may sabotage his best chance of survival.

SPACE FROGMEN!

Officiall there was no war. Yet men were dying, planes were battling, and the struggle for the conquest of space was going on day and night on a life-or-death basis. For it was common -- though unpublicized -- knowledge that when one of the two great powers got into a position to strike a total blow without risk, the Cold War would be over.

Now the Russian space lead had taken a fatal turn -- they had three controlled H-Bomb Sputniks circling the Earth ready to drop when and where they wished.

America could be wiped out in a matter of minutes, unless those BOMBS IN ORBIT could be disarmed. There was only one way to do that. Send men up in a satellite of our own to pull the Red fangs.

The story of that attempt, one fo the most tensely exciting ari-space adventures of the very near future, is a novel that cannot be put down until the last taut page.

A captured human officer leads his fellows in an escape from an alien-dominated prison planet.

Though Ajax Calkins was wealthy enough to buy anything on earth his heart desired, the one thing he wanted most was strictly forbidden. That was a world of his own - a planet, however small, which would be his private kingdom in the sky. The Earth-Mars Space Administration stood in his path. They would tolerate no such 18th Century derring-do in the commercial and workaday planetary channels of the 21st Century. Empire-building was out.

But when an offer from a bearded stranger opened the way to just such an adventure, Ajax leapt at the chance. In his luxury spacecraft Destiny he shot out through the inner planets to the tiny world that waited a king - and, unwittingly to a monster outer-planet empire that waited a detonator for cosmic war.

High Crimes Call for High Punishment

It is the twenty-first century. Convicts are sentenced to asteroids that move in ever-widening solar orbits, timed to return when their terms run out. But a few ambitious administrators discover that small "errors" in velocity can rid them of selected groups altogether: the hardcore violent, the mentally defective, and especially the political dissidents. Enduring the black vise of interstellar space-time, these human rejects--men and women mixed together--create their own Darwinian societies, struggling to survive.

Back on Earth, a handful of sympathetic and curious scientists have not forgotten these lost citizens. When a technological breakthrough makes it possible to overtake these scattered asteroids, a courageous team sets out to go where none has willingly gone before. What they discover in these "brute orbits" is both provocative and moving--a startling vision of humanity you will never forget.

Mayday Orbit

Shout it to the stars.

No Man's World

Beyond the star curtain.

Destiny's Orbit

Though Ajax Calkins was wealthy enough to buy anything on earth his heart desired, the one thing he wanted most was strictly forbidden. That was a world of his own - a planet, however small, which would be his private kingdom in the sky. The Earth-Mars Space Administration stood in his path. They would tolerate no such 18th Century derring-do in the commercial and workaday planetary channels of the 21st Century. Empire-building was out.

But when an offer from a bearded stranger opened the way to just such an adventure, Ajax leapt at the chance. In his luxury spacecraft Destiny he shot out through the inner planets to the tiny world that waited a king - and, unwittingly to a monster outer-planet empire that waited a detonator for cosmic war.

Times Without Number

Traveling backwards in time, Don Miguel had to undo the errors and interruptions o f other time-interlopers; he had to preserve the present. Even the most insignificant nudging of the past could entirely alter his world! And he suspected that this had already happened: that a maniacal genius crazed with a desire for nationalist vindication had plotted to alter the victorious outcome of the Spanish Armada of 1588 - thus changing recorded history and perhaps even imperiling the mighty Spanish Empire of 1988!

If Don Miguel did not successfully intercede, when he came back to the present he might find a different world... a different time... a time in which he probably didn't even exist!

Alternate Orbits

Collection containing:

• Hall of Fame - (1969) - novelette (variant of The Kinsolving's Planet Irregulars)
• The Sister Ships - novelette (variant of Sister Ships)
• The Man Who Sailed the Sky - novelette
• The Rub - (1970) - novelette

The Dark Dimensions

Strange things happen near the Rim of Space. John Grimes meets John Grimes in a tale from the outside of time and space.

This essay collection explores the life and work of science fiction doyen Ray Bradbury from a variety of perspectives. Noting the impact of the Southwest on Bradbury, some of the essays analyze Bradbury's southwest metaphors: colonial pollution of a pristine ecology, the impacts of a colonial invasion upon an indigenous population, the meeting of cultures with different values and physical aspects. Other essays view Bradbury via the lens of post-colonialism, drawing parallels between such works as The Martian Chronicles and real-life colonialism and its effects. Another essay views Bradbury sociologically, analyzing border issues in his 1947 New Yorker story "I See You Never," written long before the issue of Mexican deportees appeared on the American literary horizon. From the scientific side, four essays by astronomers document how Bradbury formed the minds of many budding scientists with his vision. On August 22, 2012, the Martian landing site of the Curiosity rover in the Gale Crater was named "Bradbury." This honor shows that Bradbury forms a significant link between the worlds of fiction and planetary science.

Table of Contents:

• Monsters in Orbit - novel
• The World Between - (1953) - novelette
• The Moon Moth - (1961) - novelette
• Brain of the Galaxy - (1951) - novelette (variant of The New Prime)
• The Devil on Salvation Bluff - (1955) - shortstory
• The Men Return - (1957) - shortstory

Ada Lamarr may have gotten to the spaceship wreck first, but looter's rights won't get her far when she's got a hole in the side of her ship and her spacesuit is almost out of air. Fortunately for her, help arrives in the form of a government salvage crew--and while they reluctantly rescue her from certain death, they are not pleased to have an unexpected passenger along on their classified mission.

But Ada doesn't care--all that matters to her is enjoying their fine food and sweet, sweet oxygen--until Rian White, the government agent in charge, starts to suspect that there's more to Ada than meets the eye. He's not wrong--but he's so pretty that Ada is perfectly happy to keep him paying attention to her--at least until she can complete the job she was sent to pull off. But as quick as Ada is, Rian might be quicker--and she may not be entirely sure who's manipulating who until it's too late...

Ada had no intention whatsoever to continue working for the rebel group that hired her to retrieve the government's plans for a nanobot climate cleaner if they weren't willing to pay her for it, but then they offer a different perk: an undercover mission to a charity gala where Rian will be in attendance. Rian, meanwhile, has volunteered his services for the gala believing that the rare items up for auction will attract Ada's eye. Hoping to catch her in the act and pin her with a punishable crime, Rian has no idea Ada's really after.

In a high-stakes game of theft and deception, Ada plays to win... and Rian will do anything to stop her.

Maseo Kaytu's squad is yanked from a much-deserved furlough by an emergency deployment off-planet. But why is Command sending grunts into the "Big Empty"? Without CAVs, without backup--hell, without gravity--the squad is more vulnerable than ever. Tasked with a mission that only they can complete, they track the enemy across the killing vastness of space, from a bizarre interplanetary warehouse to the hidden heart of a research habitation...and beyond.

But the enemy is tracking them, too. Scanning, calculating, preparing. Kaytu joined the military to redeem the bad choices of his past, yet now--trapped in hostile territory--he learns that soldiers face the hardest choices of all.

Set to embark on NASA's first expedition to the outer planets, the crew of the spacecraft Magellan learns someone else has beaten them by a few decades: a top-secret Soviet project codenamed Arkangel.

Now during their long race to the Kuiper Belt, astronauts Jack Templeton and Traci Keene must unwind a decades-old mystery buried in the pages of a dead cosmonaut's journal. The solution will challenge their beliefs about the nature of humanity, and will force the astronauts to confront the question of existence itself. And the final answer lies at the edge of the Solar System, waiting to change everything.

Five years ago, astronaut Jack Templeton took the spacecraft Magellan to the farthest reaches of our solar system, never to be heard from again.

Until now.

When the Magellan suddenly reappears where an undiscovered planet was suspected to be, it poses more questions than answers. How did Jack survive all this time? Can he make it back to Earth before his life support runs out? And what is the object long thought to be the elusive "Planet Nine"?

In a race against time, Jack's former crewmate Traci Keene spearheads a desperate effort to outfit a rescue mission. But she has competition. Agencies of both American and foreign governments have their own agendas, and saving rogue astronauts isn't among them.

And at the edge of all that is known, a gateway to the unknown awaits.

Island One, the U.S.'s first space colony and symbol of an American Renaissance, is in trouble. Low morale, shoddy workmanship, unexplained malfunctions and avoidable accidents have become a way of life. Is it the Russians? Home-grown anti-technologists? Arabs afraid of cheap solar power from Space--or something even more sinister? When the President ordered secret agent Peter Kapitz to find out what was going on, Peter's first discovery is that the Soviets are indeed involved. His second is that they are not alone.

He will probably not live to make a third.

Winner of the Locus Best First Novel Award

Popeye Hooker knows that space isn't all it's cracked up to be. A former fisherman who takes a job building low orbital stations to escape a failed relationship, he finds that in space, construction work is still a grind. And when they aren't building the space stations that will usher humanity into the stars, Sam Sloane and the rest of the beamjacks get high, blast the Grateful Dead, and stare through telescopes at the world they left behind. But life in orbit is about to get much more interesting.

Nestled among the life support equipment that keeps them alive and the entertainment systems that keep them happy, the beamjacks find something astonishing. Turns out, their home isn't just a space station -- it's a giant antenna designed to spy on every inhabitant of Earth. It's the greatest privacy invasion ever perpetrated, and the beamjacks won't stand for it.

They may not be pioneers, but these roughnecks are about to become revolutionaries.

Table of Contents:

• A Sort of Introduction - essay by Damon Knight
• The Secret Place - (1966) - short story by Richard McKenna
• The Loolies Are Here - (1966) - short story by Ruth Allison and Jane Rice
• The Doctor - (1967) - short story by Theodore L. Thomas
• Baby, You Were Great! - (1967) - short story by Kate Wilhelm
• The Hole on the Corner - (1967) - short story by R. A. Lafferty
• I Gave Her Sack and Sherry - [Alyx] - (1967) - novelette by Joanna Russ
• Mother to the World - (1968) - novelette by Richard Wilson
• Don't Wash the Carats - (1968) - short story by Philip José Farmer
• The Planners - (1968) - short story by Kate Wilhelm
• The Changeling - (1968) - short story by Gene Wolfe
• Passengers - (1968) - short story by Robert Silverberg
• Shattered Like a Glass Goblin - (1968) - short story by Harlan Ellison
• The Time Machine - (1969) - novelette by Langdon Jones
• Look, You Think You've Got Troubles - (1969) - short story by Carol Carr
• The Big Flash - (1969) - novelette by Norman Spinrad
• Jim and Mary G - (1970) - short story by James Sallis
• The End - (1970) - short story by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Continued on Next Rock - (1970) - novelette by R. A. Lafferty
• The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories - (1970) - short story by Gene Wolfe
• Horse of Air - (1970) - short story by Gardner Dozois
• One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty - (1970) - short story by Harlan Ellison
• Rite of Spring - (1970) - short story by Avram Davidson
• The Bystander - (1970) - short story by Thom Lee Wharton
• The Encounter - (1970) - novelette by Kate Wilhelm
• Gleepsite - (1971) - short story by Joanna Russ
• Binaries - (1971) - short story by James Sallis
• Al - (1972) - short story by Carol Emshwiller
• Live, from Berchtesgaden - (1972) - short story by George Alec Effinger

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Damon Knight
• 5 Eggs - (1966) - shortstory by Thomas M. Disch
• How Beautiful With Banners - (1966) - shortstory by James Blish
• Kangaroo Court - (1966) - novelette by Virginia Kidd
• Splice of Life - (1966) - shortstory by Sonya Dorman
• Staras Flonderans - (1966) - shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• The Deeps - (1966) - shortstory by Keith Roberts
• The Disinherited - (1966) - shortstory by Poul Anderson
• The Loolies Are Here - (1966) - shortstory by Ruth Allison and Jane Rice
• The Secret Place - (1966) - shortstory by Richard McKenna

Table of Contents:

• The Doctor - (1967) - shortstory by Theodore L. Thomas
• Baby, You Were Great! - (1967) - shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• Fiddler's Green - (1967) - novella by Richard McKenna
• Trip, Trap - (1967) - novelette by Gene Wolfe
• The Dimple in Draco - (1967) - shortstory by R. S. Richardson
• I Gave Her Sack and Sherry - (1967) - novelette by Joanna Russ
• The Adventuress - (1967) - novelette by Joanna Russ
• The Hole on the Corner - (1967) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• The Food Farm - (1967) - shortstory by Kit Reed
• Full Sun - (1967) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss

Table of Contents:

• Mother to the World - novelette by Richard Wilson
• Bramble Bush - (1968) - novelette by Richard McKenna
• The Barbarian - (1968) - novelette by Joanna Russ
• The Changeling - (1968) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Why They Mobbed the White House - (1968) - shortstory by Doris Pitkin Buck
• The Planners - (1968) - shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• Don't Wash the Carats - (1968) - shortstory by Philip José Farmer
• Letter to a Young Poet - (1968) - shortstory by James Sallis
• Here Is Thy Sting - (1968) - novelette by John Jakes

Table of Contents:

• Windsong - (1968) - novelette by Kate Wilhelm
• Probable Cause - (1968) - novella by Charles L. Harness
• Shattered Like a Glass Goblin - (1968) - shortstory by Harlan Ellison
• This Corruptible - (1968) - novelette by Joan Matheson
• Animal - (1968) - shortstory by Carol Emshwiller
• One at a Time - (1968) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• Passengers - (1968) - shortstory by Robert Silverberg
• Grimm's Story - (1968) - novella by Vernor Vinge
• A Few Last Words - (1968) - shortstory by James Sallis

Table of Contents:

• Winter's King - (1969) - novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Big Flash - (1969) - novelette by Norman Spinrad
• The Roads, the Roads, the Beautiful Roads - (1969) - shortstory by Avram Davidson
• Look, You Think You've Got Troubles - (1969) - shortstory by Carol Carr
• Paul's Treehouse - (1969) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Somerset Dreams - (1969) - novelette by Kate Wilhelm
• The Time Machine - (1969) - novelette by Langdon Jones
• Configuration of the North Shore - (1969) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• The History Makers - (1969) - shortstory by James Sallis
• Winston - (1969) - shortstory by Kit Reed
• The Rose Bowl-Pluto Hypothesis - (1969) - shortstory by R. S. Richardson
• The Price - (1969) - novelette by C. Davis Belcher

Table of Contents:

• The Second Inquisition - (1970) - novelette by Joanna Russ
• Remembrance to Come - (1970) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• How the Whip Came Back - (1970) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Goslin Day - (1970) - shortstory by Avram Davidson
• Maybe Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, Was a Little Bit Right - (1970) - shortstory by Robin Scott Wilson
• The Chosen - (1970) - shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• Entire and Perfect Chrysolite - (1970) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• Sunburst - (1970) - shortstory by Roderick Thorp
• The Creation of Bennie Good - (1970) - shortstory by James Sallis
• The End - (1970) - shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin
• A Cold Dark Night with Snow - (1970) - shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• Fame - (1970) - shortstory by Arthur Jean Cox
• Debut - (1970) - shortstory by Carol Emshwiller
• Where No Sun Shines - (1970) - shortstory by Gardner Dozois
• The Asian Shore - (1970) - novelette by Thomas M. Disch

Table of Contents:

• The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories - (1970) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• In the Queue - (1970) - shortstory by Keith Laumer
• Continued on Next Rock - (1970) - novelette by R. A. Lafferty
• Eyebem - (1970) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Jim and Mary G - (1970) - shortstory by James Sallis
• Old Foot Forgot - (1970) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• The Pressure of Time - (1970) - novelette by Thomas M. Disch
• Woman Waiting - (1970) - shortstory by Carol Emshwiller
• The Living End - (1970) - shortstory by Sonya Dorman
• To Sport with Amaryllis - (1970) - shortstory by Richard Hill
• April Fool's Day Forever - (1970) - novelette by Kate Wilhelm
• A Dream at Noonday - (1970) - shortstory by Gardner Dozois

Table of Contents:

• Horse of Air - shortstory by Gardner Dozois
• One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty - shortstory by Harlan Ellison
• Rite of Spring - shortstory by Avram Davidson
• The Bystander - shortstory by Thom Lee Wharton
• All Pieces of a River Shore - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• Sonya, Crane Wessleman, and Kittee - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Tablets of Stone - shortstory by Liz Hufford
• Starscape with Frieze of Dreams - [Spacewhale] - shortstory by Robert F. Young
• The Book - shortstory by Robert E. Margroff and Andrew J. Offutt
• Inside - shortstory by Carol Carr
• Right Off the Map - shortstory by Pip Winn
• The Weather on the Sun - novelette by Theodore L. Thomas
• The Chinese Boxes - shortstory by Graham Charnock
• A Method Bit in "B" - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Interurban Queen - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• The Encounter - novelette by Kate Wilhelm

Table of Contents:

• Heads Africa Tails America - (1971) - shortstory by Josephine Saxton
• What We Have Here Is Too Much Communication - (1971) - shortstory by Leon E. Stover
• Dominant Species - (1971) - shortstory by Kris Neville
• The Toy Theater - (1971) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Stop Me Before I Tell More - (1971) - shortstory by Robert Thurston
• Gleepsite - (1971) - shortstory by Joanna Russ
• Binaries - (1971) - shortstory by James Sallis
• Lost in the Marigolds - (1971) - novelette by Lee Hoffman and Robert E. Toomey, Jr.
• Across the Bar - (1971) - shortstory by Kit Reed
• The Science Fair - (1971) - shortstory by Vernor Vinge
• The Last Leaf - (1971) - shortstory by W. Macfarlane
• When All the Lands Pour Out Again - (1971) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• Only the Words Are Different - (1971) - shortstory by James Sallis
• The Infinity Box - (1971) - novella by Kate Wilhelm

Table of Contents:

• The Fifth Head of Cerberus - (1972) - novella by Gene Wolfe
• Jody After the War - (1972) - shortstory by Edward Bryant
• Al - (1972) - shortstory by Carol Emshwiller
• Now I'm Watching Roger - (1972) - shortstory by Alexei Panshin
• Whirl Cage - (1972) - shortstory by Jack Dann
• A Kingdom by the Sea - (1972) - novelette by Gardner Dozois
• Christlings - (1972) - shortstory by Albert Teichner
• Live, from Berchtesgaden - (1972) - shortstory by George Alec Effinger
• Dorg - (1972) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• Gantlet - (1972) - shortstory by Richard E. Peck
• The Fusion Bomb - (1972) - novelette by Kate Wilhelm

Table of Contents:

• Alien Stones - (1972) - novelette by Gene Wolfe
• Counterpoint - (1972) - shortstory by Joe Haldeman
• Dissolve - (1972) - shortstory by Gary K. Wolf
• Doucement, S'il Vous Plaît - (1972) - shortstory by James Sallis
• Down by the Old Maelstrom - (1972) - shortstory by Edward Wellen
• Dune's Edge - (1972) - shortstory by Edward Bryant
• Father's in the Basement - (1972) - shortstory by Philip José Farmer
• Good-Bye, Shelley, Shirley, Charlotte, Charlene - (1972) - shortstory by Robert Thurston
• I Remember a Winter - (1972) - shortstory by Frederik Pohl
• Machines of Loving Grace - (1972) - shortstory by Gardner Dozois
• New York Times - (1972) - shortstory by Charles Platt
• Old Soul - (1972) - shortstory by Steve Herbst
• On the Road to Honeyville - (1972) - shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• Spectra - (1972) - shortstory by Vonda N. McIntyre
• The Chrystallization of the Myth - (1972) - shortstory by John Barfoot
• The Drum Lollipop - (1972) - shortstory by Jack Dann
• The Summer of the Irish Sea - (1972) - shortstory by Charles L. Grant
• They Cope - (1972) - shortstory by David J. Skal
• Things Go Better - (1972) - shortstory by George Alec Effinger
• To Plant a Seed - (1972) - shortstory by Hank Davis

Table of Contents:

• Shark - (1973) - shortstory by Edward Bryant
• Direction of the Road - (1973) - shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Windows in Dante's Hell - (1973) - shortstory by Michael Bishop
• Serpent Burning on an Altar - (1973) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• Woman in Sunlight with Mandolin - (1973) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• The Young Soldier's Horoscope - (1973) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• Castle Scene with Penitents - (1973) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• The Red Canary - (1973) - shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• What's the Matter with Herbie? - (1973) - novelette by Mel Gilden
• Pinup - (1973) - shortstory by Edward Bryant
• The Genius Freaks - (1973) - shortstory by Vonda N. McIntyre
• Burger Creature - (1973) - shortstory by Stepan Chapman
• Half the Kingdom - (1973) - shortstory by Doris Piserchia
• Continuing Westward - (1973) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Arcs & Secants - (1973) - essay by uncredited

Table of Contents:

• The Scream - (1974) - novelette by Kate Wilhelm
• Young Love - (1974) - novelette by Grania Davis
• And Name My Name - (1974) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• Going West - (1974) - shortstory by Edward Bryant
• My Friend Zarathustra - (1974) - shortstory by James Sallis
• Therapy - (1974) - shortstory by Gary K. Wolf
• Gardening Notes from All Over - (1974) - shortstory by W. Macfarlane
• Idio - (1974) - shortstory by Doris Piserchia
• Fantasy's Profession - (1974) - shortstory by Albert Teichner
• Spring Came to Blue Ridge Early This Year - (1974) - shortstory by Charles Arnold
• Creation of a Future World in the Tracer - (1974) - shortstory by Steve Herbst
• Coils - (1974) - shortstory by John Barfoot
• Time Bind - (1974) - shortstory by Sonya Dorman
• Everybody a Winner, the Barker Cried - (1974) - shortstory by Charles L. Grant
• Naked and Afraid I Go - (1974) - shortstory by Doris Piserchia
• Teeth - (1974) - shortstory by Grace Rooney
• Troika - (1974) - shortstory by Stepan Chapman
• Black Sun - (1974) - shortstory by Dennis Etchison
• The Mouth Is for Eating - (1974) - shortstory by William F. Orr
• Flash Point - novelette by Gardner Dozois
• Arcs & Secants - (1974) - essay by uncredited

Table of Contents:

• They Say - (1974) - essay by Damon Knight
• Tin Soldier - (1974) - novella by Joan D. Vinge
• Reasonable People - (1974) - shortstory by Joanna Russ
• Royal Licorice - (1974) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• Book Reviews - (1974) - essay by Damon Knight
• Review: Billion Year Spree by Brian W. Aldiss - (1974) - review by Damon Knight
• Review: Imaginary Worlds by Lin Carter - (1974) - review by Damon Knight
• The Stars Below - (1974) - shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin
• A Brother to Dragons, a Companion of Owls - (1974) - novelette by Kate Wilhelm
• The Bridge Builder - (1974) - shortstory by Gary K. Wolf
• Winning of the Great American Greening Revolution - (1974) - shortstory by Murray F. Yaco
• Forlesen - (1974) - novelette by Gene Wolfe
• The Memory Machine - (1974) - essay by Damon Knight
• Arcs & Secants - (1974) - essay by Damon Knight

Table of Contents:

• They Say (Orbit 15) - (1974) - essay by Damon Knight
• Flaming Ducks and Giant Bread - (1974) - novelette by R. A. Lafferty
• Pale Hands - (1974) - shortstory by Doris Piserchia
• Why Booth Didn't Kill Lincoln - (1974) - shortstory by Edward Wellen
• If Eve Had Failed to Conceive - (1974) - shortstory by Edward Wellen
• Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - (1974) - novella by Kate Wilhelm
• Melting - (1974) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• In the Lilliputian Asylum: A Story in Eight Poems & an Interrogation - (1974) - poem by Michael Bishop
• Ernie - (1974) - shortstory by Lowell Kent Smith
• The Memory Machine (Orbit 15) - (1974) - essay by Damon Knight
• Live? Our Computers Will Do That for Us - (1974) - shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss
• Ace 167 - (1974) - shortstory by Eleanor Arnason
• Biting Down Hard on Truth - (1974) - novelette by George Alec Effinger
• Arcs & Secants - (1974) - essay by Damon Knight

Table of Contents:

• They Say - (1975) - essay by Damon Knight
• Mother and Child - (1975) - novella by Joan D. Vinge
• The Skinny People of Leptophlebo Street - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• A Brilliant Curiosity - (1975) - novelette by Doris Piserchia
• Phoenix House - (1975) - shortstory by Jesse Miller
• Jack and Betty - (1975) - shortstory by Robert Thurston
• Prison of Clay, Prison of Steel - (1975) - shortstory by Henry-Luc Planchat
• Heartland - (1975) - shortstory by Gustav Hasford
• Sandial - (1975) - shortstory by Moshe Feder
• The Memory Machine - (1975) - essay by uncredited
• In Donovan's Time - (1975) - shortstory by Charles L. Grant
• Ambience - (1975) - shortstory by David J. Skal
• Binary Justice - (1975) - shortstory by Richard Bireley
• The House by the Sea - (1975) - shortstory by Eleanor Arnason
• Euclid Alone - (1975) - novelette by William F. Orr
• Arcs & Secants - (1975) - essay by uncredited

Table of Contents:

• They Say - (1975) - essay by Damon Knight
• The Anthropologist - (1975) - shortstory by Kathleen M. Sidney
• The Man with the Golden Reticulates - (1975) - shortstory by Felix C. Gotschalk
• The Steel Sonnets - (1975) - shortstory by Jeff Duntemann
• Toto, I Have a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore - (1975) - shortstory by Jeff Millar
• Autopsy in Transit - (1975) - shortstory by Stepan Chapman
• House - (1975) - shortstory by John Barfoot
• Fun Palace - (1975) - shortstory by Raylyn Moore
• When We Were Good - (1975) - shortstory by David J. Skal
• The Memory Machine - (1975) - essay by Damon Knight
• Which in the Wood Decays - (1975) - shortstory by Seth McEvoy
• Great Day in the Morning - (1975) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• The Maze - (1975) - shortstory by Stuart Dybek
• Quite Late One Spring Night - (1975) - shortstory by John Michael Curlovich
• Under the Hollywood Sign - (1975) - novelette by Tom Reamy
• Arcs & Secants - (1975) - essay by Damon Knight

Table of Contents:

• They Say - (1976) - essay by Damon Knight
• Ladies and Gentlemen, This Is Your Crisis - (1976) - shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• The Hand with One Hundred Fingers - (1976) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• Meathouse Man - (1976) - novelette by George R. R. Martin
• Rules of Moopsball - (1976) - shortfiction by Gary Cohn
• Who Was the First Oscar to Win a Negro? - (1976) - shortstory by Craig Strete
• In Pierson's Orchestra - (1976) - shortstory by Kim Stanley Robinson
• The Memory Machine - (1976) - essay by Damon Knight
• Mary Margaret Road-Grader - (1976) - shortstory by Howard Waldrop
• The Family Winter of 1986 - (1976) - shortstory by Felix C. Gotschalk
• The Teacher - (1976) - shortstory by Kathleen M. Sidney
• Coming Back to Dixieland - (1976) - novelette by Kim Stanley Robinson
• A Modular Story - (1976) - shortstory by Raylyn Moore
• The M&M Seen as a Low-Yield Thermonuclear Device - (1976) - shortstory by John Varley
• The Eve of the Last Apollo - (1976) - novelette by Carter Scholz
• Arcs & Secants - (1976) - essay by Damon Knight

Table of Contents:

• They Say - (1977) - essay by Damon Knight
• Lollipop and the Tar Baby - (1977) - novelette by John Varley
• State of Grace - (1977) - shortstory by Kate Wilhelm
• Many Mansions - (1977) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• The Veil Over the River - (1977) - novelette by Felix C. Gotschalk
• Fall of Pebble-Stones - (1977) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• The Memory Machine - (1977) - essay by Damon Knight
• Tomus - (1977) - shortstory by Stephen Robinett
• Under Jupiter - (1977) - novelette by Michael W. McClintock
• To the Dark Tower Came - (1977) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Vamp - (1977) - novelette by Mike Conner
• Beings of Game P-U - (1977) - shortstory by Phillip Teich
• Night Shift - (1977) - shortstory by Kevin O'Donnell, Jr.
• Going Down - (1977) - shortstory by Eleanor Arnason
• The Disguise - (1977) - novella by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Arcs & Secants - (1977) - essay by Damon Knight

Table of Contents:

• They Say - (1978) - essay by uncredited
• Moongate - (1978) - novella by Kate Wilhelm
• The Novella Race - (1978) - shortstory by Pamela Sargent
• Bright Coins in Never-Ending Stream - (1978) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• The Synergy Sculpture - (1978) - shortstory by Terrence L. Brown
• The Memory Machine - (1978) - essay by uncredited
• The Birds Are Free - (1978) - shortstory by Ronald Anthony Cross
• A Right-Handed Wrist - (1978) - shortstory by Stepan Chapman
• "They Made Us Not to Be and They Are Not" - (1978) - novelette by Philippa C. Maddern
• Seven American Nights - (1978) - novella by Gene Wolfe
• Arcs & Secants (Orbit 20) - (1978) - essay by uncredited

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: About Fifteen Years of Orbit - (1980) - essay by Damon Knight
• Love, Death, Time, and Katie - (1980) - shortstory by Richard Kearns
• The Greening - (1980) - shortstory by Eileen Roy
• Abominable - (1980) - shortstory by Carol Emshwiller
• Underwood and the Slaughterhouse - (1980) - shortstory by Raymond G. Embrak
• Hope - (1980) - shortstory by Lelia Rose Foreman
• The Mother of the Beast - (1980) - shortstory by Gordon Eklund
• Robert Fraser: The Xenologist as Hero - (1980) - shortstory by Sydelle Shamah
• Persephone - (1980) - shortstory by Rhondi A. Vilott Salsitz
• The Smell of the Noose, The Roar of the Blood - (1980) - novelette by John Barfoot
• And the TV Changed Colors When She Spoke - (1980) - shortstory by Lyn Schumaker
• The Only Tune That He Could Play - (1980) - shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
• Survivors - (1980) - shortstory by Rita-Elizabeth Harper
• On the North Pole of Pluto - (1980) - novella by Kim Stanley Robinson

At the frozen edge of the solar system lies a hidden treasure which could spell their fortune or their destruction--but only if they survive each other first.

Marcus Warnoc has a little problem. His asteroid mining ship--his inheritance, his livelihood, and his home--has been hijacked by a pint-sized corporate heiress with enough blackmail material to sink him for good, a secret mission she won't tell him about, and enough courage to get them both killed. She may have him dead to rights, but if he doesn't turn the tables on this spoiled Martian snob, he'll be dead, period. He's not giving up without a fight.

He has a plan.

Miranda Foxgrove has the opportunity of a lifetime almost within her grasp if she can reach it. Her stolen spacecraft came with a stubborn, resourceful captain who refuses to cooperate--but he's one of the few men alive who can snatch an unimaginable treasure from beneath the muzzles of countless railguns. And if this foulmouthed Belter thug doesn't want to cooperate, she'll find a way to force him. She's come too far to give up now.

She has a plan.

They're about to find out that a plan is a list of things that won't happen.

Fleeing Elizabeth Lindstrom's anger at the death of her son, Vance Garamond, a flickerwing commander, leaves the solar system far behind. Pursued by Earth's space fleet, Garamond finds a vast, alien-built spherical structure which might just change the destiny of the human race.

Two hundred years ago mankind found Orbitsville, a vast sphere whose habitable inner surface comprised living space equivalent to five billion Earths. The resulting migration was enthusiastic - and nearly total.

Earth itself is a backwater now, a place with which the people of Orbitsville maintain only marginal contact. But just because it's backward doesn't mean it isn't dangerous.

Orbitsville is the scene of two of Bob Shaw's most successful novels and is possibly the most gigantic artefact ever dreamed up by an SF writer - a vast hollow world completely enclosing its sun, habitable across its entire inner surface. At the end of ORBITSVILLE DEPARTURE the whole world was shifted to an alternative universe. In a conclusion which is both stunning and moving, ORBITSVILLE JUDGEMENT tells what happens next...

Seeking freedom from their oppressive government on Earth, a ragtag group of idealists embark on a perilous journey to found a new world light-years from home

On a future Earth, gone are the halcyon days of the early space program, when the universe held endless promise and excitement. Overcrowded, ruled by a corrupt autocracy, and plagued by vast economic inequalities, life on Earth has become nightmarish, and the promise of a world beyond the planet is diminishing rapidly as the government begins shuttering its interstellar efforts.

But for a small band of rebels called Constitutionalists, escaping into the vast universe beyond is the only hope. And so off they set for a distant planet where they can start over, building a new society on the principle of liberty, testing the very limits of human capability. Their years-long trip is not without its tribulations, from internecine conflict on the ship to ambiguous pleas from Earth to return.

Their destination, an Earth-like planet called Rustum, is twenty light-years away, and through every treacherous moment of the journey they know that their most harrowing trials are yet to come when they finally reach their new home.

For the last thirty years, the survivors of the collapse has tried to exist Earthside. Space colonies like the Flying Duthman offer the last and best hope for the mother planet's future; the adolescents on board the Dutchman really are humanity's last hope, but knowing is a heavy burden - especially for Mel who has plans of her own.

Reports of a strange, new habitable planet have reached the Twenty Planets of human civilization. When a team of scientists is assembled to investigate this world, exoethnologist Sara Callicot is recruited to keep an eye on an unstable crewmate. Thora was once a member of the interplanetary elite, but since her prophetic delusions helped mobilize a revolt on Orem, she's been banished to the farthest reaches of space, because of the risk that her very presence could revive unrest.

Upon arrival, the team finds an extraordinary crystalline planet, laden with dark matter. Then a crew member is murdered and Thora mysteriously disappears. Thought to be uninhabited, the planet is in fact home to a blind, sentient species whose members navigate their world with a bizarre vocabulary and extrasensory perceptions.

Lost in the deep crevasses of the planet among these people, Thora must battle her demons and learn to comprehend the native inhabitants in order to find her crewmates and warn them of an impending danger. But her most difficult task may lie in persuading the crew that some powers lie beyond the boundaries of science.

Lovelace was once merely a ship's artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has to start over in a synthetic body, in a world where her kind are illegal. She's never felt so alone.

But she's not alone, not really. Pepper, one of the engineers who risked life and limb to reinstall Lovelace, is determined to help her adjust to her new world. Because Pepper knows a thing or two about starting over.

Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that, huge as the galaxy may be, it's anything but empty.

A famously disappointing minor royal and the Emperor's least favorite grandchild, Prince Kiem is summoned before the Emperor and commanded to renew the empire's bonds with its newest vassal planet. The prince must marry Count Jainan, the recent widower of another royal prince of the empire.

But Jainan suspects his late husband's death was no accident. And Prince Kiem discovers Jainan is a suspect himself. But broken bonds between the Empire and its vassal planets leaves the entire empire vulnerable, so together they must prove that their union is strong while uncovering a possible conspiracy.

Their successful marriage will align conflicting worlds.

Their failure will be the end of the empire.

Rich socialite, inveterate flirt, and walking disaster Tennalhin Halkana can read minds. Tennal, like all neuromodified "readers," is a security threat on his own. But when controlled, readers are a rare asset. Not only can they read minds, but they can navigate chaotic space, the maelstroms surrounding the gateway to the wider universe.

Conscripted into the military under dubious circumstances, Tennal is placed into the care of Lieutenant Surit Yeni, a duty-bound soldier, principled leader, and the son of a notorious traitor general. Whereas Tennal can read minds, Surit can influence them. Like all other neuromodified "architects," he can impose his will onto others, and he's under orders to control Tennal by merging their minds.

Surit accepted a suspicious promotion-track request out of desperation, but he refuses to go through with his illegal orders to sync and control an unconsenting Tennal. So they lie: They fake a sync bond and plan Tennal's escape.

Their best chance arrives with a salvage-retrieval mission into chaotic space?to the very neuromodifcation lab that Surit's traitor mother destroyed twenty years ago. And among the rubble is a treasure both terrible and unimaginably powerful, one that upends a decades-old power struggle, and begins a war.

Tennal and Surit can no longer abandon their unit or their world. The only way to avoid life under full military control is to complete the very sync they've been faking.

Can two unwilling weapons of war bring about peace?