Search Worlds Without End

It is the twenty-first century. Earth's space program is thriving, with a colony in place in the Moon. And then an incredible discovery is made on the lunar farside. A massive structure is being erected by living machines--microscopically small, intelligent, unstoppable, consuming whatever they touch. All who come near them die horribly. Meanwhile, the mysterious structure continues to grow, expand, take shape. And its creators begin to multiply....

Is this the first strike in an alien invasion from the stars? Or has human nanotech experimentation gone awry, triggering a long-predicted disaster? As riots rage across a panicked Earth, scientists on Earth and on the Moon race to learn the truth before humanity's home is engulfed by the voracious machines and its inhabitants perish in the most terrifying plague ever known.

More than just a collection of some of Poul Anderson's most acclaimed works, Going for Infinity is both a celebration and a memoir of Anderson's distinguished sixty-year career in science fiction and fantasy. Along with several Hugo and Nebula Award-winning stories, Anderson also shares autobiographical musings, and fond memories as he looks back at a lifetime spent crafting many of science fiction's most memorable adventures.

Between the short story and novel excerpts collected here, which range over the entire length of Anderson's career, he reminisces about his experiences, including his encounters with such peers and colleagues as John W. Campbell, Anthony Boucher, "Gordy" Dickson, Jack Vance, Clifford Simak, and Harlan Ellison.

Going for Infinity provides a firsthand look at six decades of science fiction and fantasy, as lived by one of the field's most honored contributors. From the moons of Saturn to the shores of an enchanted isle, the astounding breadth of Poul Anderson's imagination is on ample display throughout this once-in-a-lifetime collection, along with a personal glimpse into the man himself.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay
• The Saturn Game - (1981) - novella
• Gypsy - (1950) - shortstory
• Sam Hall - (1953) - novelette
• Death and the Knight - (1995) - novelette
• Journeys End - (1957) - shortstory
• The Horn of Time the Hunter - (1963) - shortstory
• The Master Key - (1964) - novelette
• The Problem of Pain - (1973) - novelette
• Quest - (1983) - shortstory
• Windmill - (1973) - novelette
• Three Hearts and Three Lions (excerpt) - (1961) - shortfiction
• Epilogue - (1962) - novella
• Dead Phone - (1964) - shortfiction and Karen Anderson
• Goat Song - (1972) - novelette
• Kyrie - (1968) - shortstory
• A Midsummer Tempest - (1974) - shortfiction
• The Shrine for Lost Children - (1999) - shortstory
• The Queen of Air and Darkness - (1971) - novella

Originally published in Ace Double D-507 in 1961.

Allyn Vage was once a beautiful woman, but due to an accident - which may have been a murder attempt - she was now a hopeless cripple, burned and disfigured and without the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. When they brought her to Jome Knard, that noted physician had no choice but to employ a certain apparently miraculous device, incomprehensible even to him, to keep her immobile body alive and to restore and regulate her sensory perception.

This strange machine had been imported from a seemingly primitive people on the world of Akkilmar. They had allowed it to be exported, but there was something about it they couldn't - or wouldn't - explain.

Little did either the doctor or his patient realize that between them they had now become the lever that could topple a world!

Professor Pritchard Leigh had been considered a brilliant scientist until his ill-fated attempt to conquer the speed of light had resulted in a fatal rocket launching. He was then shunned by the scientific community at large. But two elderly world-renowned scholars, Martin and Martha Madison, still had faith in him. Together, at a secret mountain laboratory called “Meteor Mountain,” the three of them undertook a project to discover the secret of eternal youth. The plan involved Martha and Martin traveling in a spaceship past Saturn and back again. Their speeds would be in excess of the speed of light.

But to correct the problems of his earlier failure, Professor Leigh had to employ the help of a cranky old scientist named Burgess Wood—a man who still pined for the lost love of his youth—Martha Madison herself. And as the countdown commenced, Burgess Wood knew that the woman he still loved might be moments away from eternal youth, or a rocket ride to death…

Table of Contents:

• 9 - Beyond Infinity - novella by Robert S. Carr
• 89 - Morning Star - (1947) - novelette by Robert S. Carr
• 135 - Those Men from Mars - novelette by Robert S. Carr (variant of Easter Eggs 1949)
• 219 - Mutation - short story by Robert S. Carr

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Terry Carr
• The Reality Trip - (1970) - short story by Robert Silverberg
• This Mortal Mountain - (1967) - novelette by Roger Zelazny
• Sundown - (1967) - novelette by David Redd
• Toys - (1967) - short story by Tom Purdom
• Ride a Tin Can - (1970) - short story by R. A. Lafferty
• The Last Crusade - (1955) - short story by George H. Smith
• Resident Witch - (1970) - novelette by James H. Schmitz
• ...And the Stagnation of the Heart - (1968) - short story by Brian W. Aldiss

In the year 2034, a young woman named Mozelle Moi learns that her work as a test subject in a top-secret tachyon transmission project will soon be terminated. The purpose of the project has never been revealed to her; she only knows that she is in love with David Kadin, a man she has met only through the tachyon cyberlink. Desperate not to lose her chance at love, she conspires with a programmer friend to join her with Kadin through the tachyon transmitter.

She succeeds--but the truth that awaits her at the end of the tachyon beam is one that will shatter not only her own ambitions of love, but the plans of a secret government program to establish contact with visitors from the stars. Trapped by her love for Kadin, and caught in a telepathic link with the ancient Talenki voyagers, Mozy's personal odyssey becomes irrevocably entwined with the fate of all of Humanity.

Combining visionary scientific speculation with passionate human characters, THE INFINITY LINK is an epic work of transcendent science fiction and an exploration into the very nature of humanity.

Maybe there is no hope... or is there? Through an instrument called the myrdoscope, Brett Gryce sees a girl in a distant world, menaced by a giant. Her world is so vast that a second of Time there takes whole years of Earthly measure. During three years he catches glimpses of the girl and her peril, the giant about to bring down a huge tree on her head, and the girt awakening to a sense of terror, but all this has taken but a second of Time on that vaster world.

Brett and Martt Gryce set out to rescue the girl. In a space-ship invented by their father, Dr. Gryce, which can change its position in Time and Space. They increase their size to fifty million times what it was on Earth, and penetrate beyond our universe faster than the speed of light, until they are lost in the black immensity of Space.

"This is the tale of the many possible lives of Anastasia Valerie Stein which come to touch one another through a twist in the fabric of space-time: Ann, unhappy wife and mother in a world much like our own; Val, independent teacher in a timeline of scarcity; Stacey, a free spirit with two lovers, and Tasha, strangest of all, a professional sorceress in a world where the Third Reich rules England. Together they join to confront a force that manipulates all their worlds, and discover a truth that transcends their individual lives.

Finch combines compelling, believable characters, the ancient magic of the Tarot, and quantum physics to weave a spellbinding tale of the infinite possibilities of space and time."

What if you could change your gender with barely a thought?

Cory Lanus is a teen out of place. He doesn't fit in. He doesn't act right. There's something off about him. Or so his friend Jaz Andrews believes.

Jaz is a typical teenage girl with too much schoolwork, grief at home, and a huge crush on the new guy. She spends as much time with him as she can, to the chagrin of her friends, yet she can't get close enough to him. Surely he likes her as much as she likes him.

Cory is out of place. Far out of place. On the run from his family's enemy, Corilanus has literally landed on earth, his home world's only hope for survival. He finds comfort on this seemingly backward planet that puts so much emphasis on what everyone expects you to be. Cory finds being a boy comfortable enough, but sometimes being a girl works too.

But when someone from his home comes looking for him, Cory's new found peace is set for destruction because those he left behind have come to finish what they started and nothing, especially not his new friends, are going to stand in their way.

An amazing weird mystery story, packed with thrills, danger and startling events.

This novelette first appeared in the August, 1936 Issue of Astounding Stories magazine, the story is available free from Project Gutenberg.

Bernard Fallon is a former agent for British intelligence who has gone freelance. He is approached by his retired boss, Col. Marlow, who himself has joined Infinity Limited, a private group that works to liberate oppressed peoples from dictators and encourage them in the pursuit of capitalism.

Fallon refuses the colonel's request that he help unseat the corrupt government of the African nation of Zugenda, until an attempt on his life convinces him otherwise. Once in Africa, he embarks on an elaborate mission of cross and double-cross, appearing to serve scheming government factions while collaborating with an idealistic band of rebels.

After receiving the Nebula Award in 1983 for his stunning nouvelle "Another Orphan, " John Kessel has written a group of stories that for sheer imaginative audacity defy conventional classification. In "The Pure Product" an amoral time-traveler embarks upon a harrowing joyride through the Midwest; "The Big Dream" is a 1920s hardboiled detective thriller in the Los Angeles of Raymond Chandler; while Faustfeathers" involves a head-on collision between Christopher Marlowe and the Marx Brothers. Dark visions both satiric and tragic, from the author of Good News from Outer Space.

Table of Contents:

• Meeting in Infinity - essay
• The Pure Product - (1986) - novelette
• Mrs. Shummel Exits a Winner - (1988) - shortstory
• The Big Dream - (1984) - novelette
• The Lecturer - (1984) - shortstory
• Hearts Do Not in Eyes Shine - (1983) - novelette
• Faustfeathers - novelette
• A Clean Escape - (1985) - shortstory
• Not Responsible! Park and Lock It! - (1981) - novelette
• Man - (1992) - novelette
• Invaders - (1990) - novelette
• Judgment Call - (1987) - novelette
• Buddha Nostril Bird - (1990) - novelette
• Another Orphan - (1982) - novelette
• Buffalo - (1991) - shortstory

Like a great, lethal snake, plague creeps through the galaxies. No conscious entity can halt its progress, and life is slowly draining from planet after planet. Only one super-intelligence is capable of preventing cataclysm. To do it, he must penetrate far beyond infinity-to the formless, deathless creature out to kill the universe. Cosmic terror strikes as a messenger of death sweeps through the universe.

By the award-winning author of Enemy Mine. Infinity Hold. The story of an idea and of a murderer who becomes the first police officer in a world of murderers.

Reluctant Recruit.

One day Duncan MacElroy was just an average engineering student at Arizona State University, the next he was holed up in a cabin near the Grand Canyon, on the run from deadly Neanderthals carrying laser pistols.

The only things that saved him, it seems, were his quick wits, a fast woman, and a Paratime shuttle - whatever that was.

We are alone. That is the verdict, after centuries of Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence missions and space exploration. The only living things in the Universe are found on the Nine Worlds settled from Earth, and the starships that knit them together. Or so it's believed, until Dr. Kimberly Brandywine sets out to find what happened to her clone-sister Emily, who, after the final, unsuccessful manned SETI expedition, disappeared along with the rest of her ship's crew.

Following a few ominous clues, Kim discovers the ship's log was faked. Something happened out there in the darkness between the stars, and she's prepared to go to any length to find answers. Even if it means giving up her career...stealing a starship...losing her lover. Kim is about to discover the truth about her sister -- and about more than she ever dared imagine.

Serialised in New Worlds in 1965 and 1966. An abriged edition appeared in Ace Double H-36 (1967) under the title The Wrecks of Time.

Who has the immense power to create entire worlds only to discard them as failures in the backwaters of the space-time continuum?

Who would then maliciously destroy these less-than-perfect worlds and their human inhabitants, and to what end?

Professor Faustus and the loyal men and women dispersed on these alternate Earths have dedicated their lives to eradicating the demolition teams and the Unstable Matter Situations the D-squads create. As they soon discover, much more is at stake, as they fight a seemingly losing battle with the very pattern of the Universe in the balance.

Thought-provoking and full of surprises, The Wrecks of Time weds science, religion, myth, and history into a page-turning narrative, a grand concept tale that has proven to be one of Michael Moorcock's most innovative science fiction works.

In a post-apocalyptic world, telepaths are common, but young Starn had no trace of telepathic ability, and was persecuted by those who had the talent--until he discovered he possessed an even more unusual ability.

A criminal mastermind has been captured by the Space Patrol, and a Patrol ship is carrying him to a prison planet. Escape seems impossible, but he has a secret weapon. It's only water--but water with a very unusual property.

In the afterlife, it turns out that one's existence is dependent on being remembered by the living. As you are forgotten, you shrink. How do you avoid this? Why, hire an unearthly public relations firm, of course. These stories and more, including two full-length novels, fill a large volume of entertaining space adventure and humorous fantasy Inventive by a writer noted for original ideas developed with a sardonic wit.

Contents:

• 3 - His Master's Vice - [Olivine, Renegade - 1] - (1968) - novelette
• 31 - The Pyrophylic Saurian - [Olivine, Renegade - 2] - novelette (variant of The Pyrophilic Saurian 1970)
• 67 - Polywater Doodle - [Olivine, Renegade - 3] - (1971) - novelette
• 119 - Cloud Chamber - (1977) - novel
• 359 - Ten Percent of Glory - (1969) - short story
• 371 - Bowerbird - (1971) - short story
• 391 - Man Off a White Horse - (1972) - short story
• 405 - Soul Affrighted - (1971) - short story
• 417 - The Infinity Sense - (1968) - novella
• 493 - The Mind-Changer - (1969) - novella
• 575 - Afterword (A Sense of Infinity) - essay by Eric Flint and Guy Gordon
• 579 - Time Spike (excerpt) - short fiction by Eric Flint and Marilyn Kosmatka

By night, the Ankou is a legendary, permanently young mercenary--the most fearsome sword for hire in all of the Five Lands, and its most abiding mystery. But when the sun rises, a dark magic leaves him no more than bones. Cursed with this cycle of death and resurrection, the Ankou wants only to find the final rest that has been prophesied for him, no matter the cost.

When the kingdom of Kaer-Ise is sacked, Flora, handmaiden to the royal family, is assaulted and left for dead. Wounded, heartbroken, and the sole survivor of the massacre, Flora wants desperately to be reunited with the princess she served and loved. She and the Ankou make a deal: He will help Flora find her princess, and train Flora in combat, in exchange for her aid in breaking his curse. But it isn't easy to kill an immortal, especially when their bond begins to deepen into something more...

Selection of stories from the finest writers of science fiction, all of whom understand how both glory and tragedy can be outlined on a checker board.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Joan Spicci Saberhagen and Fred Saberhagen
• The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton - (1977) - novelette by Gene Wolfe
• Unicorn Variation - (1981) - novelette by Roger Zelazny
• The Immortal Game - (1954) - shortstory by Poul Anderson
• Midnight by the Morphy Watch - (1974) - shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• Unsound Variations - (1982) - novella by George R. R. Martin
• A Game of Vlet - (1974) - shortstory by Joanna Russ
• Without a Thought - (1963) - shortstory by Fred Saberhagen
• A Board in the Other Direction - (1974) - shortstory by Ruth Berman
• Von Goom's Gambit - (1966) - shortstory by Victor Contoski
• Kokomu - novelette by Daniel Gilbert
• Moxon's Master - (1899) - shortstory by Ambrose Bierce
• Rendezvous 2062 - poem by Robert Frazier
• Reflections on the Looking-Glass, An Essay - essay by Fred Stewart

Sheckley's fifth story collection, including:

• "The Prize of Peril" (1958)
• "The Humours" (1958)
• "Triplication" (1959)
• "The Minimum Man" (1958)
• "If the Red Slayer" (1959)
• "The Store of the Worlds" (1959)
• "The Gun Without a Bang" (1958)
• "The Deaths of Ben Baxter" (1957)

It's early in the new millennium, and the outer reaches of our solar system have been explored. Vast orbital stations the size of middle-sized countries dot the system, filled with thriving colonies. Mankind has grown to fill the void and is poised to colonize the stars. The universe seems to be a stable, comfortable place - and the only voices to echo through space have been human.

Until now.

A fast-moving entity the size of a small moon has entered our solar system. Is it a ship? A new life form? An alien probe sent to destroy other sentient races?

Lieutenant Commander Alis Mary Nussem is one of the humans who will go forth to discover what this mystery is. Disfigured in a devastating ship accident, more machine than woman, Nussem agrees to the dangerous mission. She is eager to make a difference and somehow reclaim the humanity that she lost.

What she doesn't bargain for is the sudden appearance of Lieutenant Karl Stanton, a man whose life seems to resemble Job's - and who was directly responsible for the accident that nearly killed Nussem. These two very different people will be thrown together on an odyssey that will force them to reevaluate the rules that they have lived by all their lives.

And what they find will change mankind's universe forever....

Film-maker Hayes Figueiredo is struggling to finish the documentary of his heart when handsome physicist Yusuf Hassan shows up, claiming Hayes is the key to understanding the Envisioner -- a mysterious device that can predict the future.

Hayes is taken to a top-secret research facility where he discovers his alternate self from an alternate universe created the Envisioner and sent it to his reality. Hayes studies footage of the other him, he discovers a self he doesn't recognize, angry and obsessive, and footage of Yusuf... as his husband.

As Hayes finds himself falling for Yusuf, he studies the parallel universe and imagines the perfect life they will live together. But their lives are inextricably linked to the other reality, and when that couple's story ends in tragedy Hayes realises he must do anything he can to save Yusuf's life. Because there are infinite realities, but only one Yusuf.

With the fate of countless realities and his heart in his hands, Hayes leads Yusuf on the run, tumbling through a kaleidoscope of universes trying to save it all. But even escaping into infinity, Hayes is running out of space - soon he will have to decide how much he's willing to pay to save the love of his life.

James Tiptree, Jr. was the pseudonym of Alice B. Sheldon (1915-1987), in whose honor the Tiptree Awards are given annually. She wrote some of the best short SF ever, winning two Hugos and three Nebulas. This book brings together stories previously uncollected -- including an early one published under her own name in The New Yorker -- and many of her colorful non-fiction pieces, mainly autobiographical, published under the Tiptree name (1970-1987). What shines through in this book is the magnetic and charming personality of the author, one of the most influential SF personalites of her era.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Jeffrey D. Smith
• Happiness Is a Warm Spaceship - (1969) - novelette by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Please Don't Play with the Time Machine, or, I Screwed 15,924 Back Issues of Astounding for the F.B.I. - (1998) - shortstory by James Tiptree, Jr.
• A Day Like Any Other - (1973) - shortstory by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Press Until the Bleeding Stops - (1975) - shortstory by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Go from Me, I Am One of Those Who Pall (A Parody of My Style) - (1996) - shortfiction by James Tiptree, Jr.
• The Trouble Is Not in Your Set - shortstory by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Trey of Hearts - (2000) - shortstory by James Tiptree, Jr.
• The Color of Neanderthal Eyes - (1988) - novella by James Tiptree, Jr.
• If You Can't Laugh at It, What Good is It? - (1971) - interview of James Tiptree, Jr. by Jeffrey D. Smith
• In the Canadian Rockies - (1971) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• I Saw Him - (1971) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Spitting Teeth, Our Hero- - (1971) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Do You Like It Twice? - (1972) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• The Voice from the Baggie - (1972) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Maya Máloob - (1972) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Looking Inside Squirmy Authors - (1975) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Comment on "The Last Flight of Doctor Ain" - (1974) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Afterword to "The Milk of Paradise" - (1972) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Afterword to "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever" - (1974) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Introduction to "The Night-blooming Saurian" - (1986) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• The Laying On of Hands - [The 20-Mile Zone] - (1973) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Going Gently Down, or, In Every Young Person There Is an Old Person Screaming to Get Out - (1974) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• The Spooks Next Door - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Harvesting the Sea - (1974) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• More Travels, or, Heaven Is Northwest of You - (1977) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• With Tiptree Through the Great Sex Muddle - (1975) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Quintana Roo: No Travelog This Trip - (1977) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Review: The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin - (1975) - review by James Tiptree, Jr.
• How to Have an Absolutely Hilarious Heart Attack, or, So You Want to Get Sick in the Third World - (1976) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• The First Domino - (1978) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Everything But the Signature is Me - (1978) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• The Lucky Ones - (1946) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Something Breaking Down - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Dzo'oc U Ma'an U Kinil -- Incident on the Cancun Road, Yucatan - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Not a New Zealand Letter - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Biographical Sketch for Contemporary Authors - (1983) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Contemporary Authors Interview - (1983) - interview of James Tiptree, Jr. by Jean W. Ross
• S.O.S. Found in an SF Bottle - (1975) - poem by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Note on "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" - (1986) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• How Do You Know You're Reading Philip K. Dick? - (1987) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Review: Kayo: The Authentic and Annotated Autobiographical Novel from Outer Space by James McConkey - (1987) - review by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Zero at the Bone - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• A Woman Writing Science Fiction - (1988) - essay by James Tiptree, Jr.
• Chronology of Publications - essay by Jeffrey D. Smith

When a far future utopian civilization becomes threatened, Derek Soul travels to a near-future Earth that is haunted by an impending eco-doom, and he is overwhelmed by human nature and dangerous alien forces.

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology Orbit 9 (1971), edited by Damon Knight. The story is included in the collection The Infinity Box (1975) and is half of Tor Double #12: He Who Shapes/The Infinity Box (1989, with Roger Zelazny).

Suppose you could enter the mind of a beautiful woman; see what she sees, feel what she feels, and control her completely Suppose you could turn back the hands of your watch, and relive your life Suppose the stories you wrote kept coming true.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (The Infinity Box) - (1975)
• The Infinity Box - (1971)
• The Time Piece - (1975)
• The Red Canary - (1973)
• Man of Letters - (1975)
• April Fools' Day Forever - (1970)
• Where Have You Been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? - (1971)
• The Fusion Bomb - (1972)
• The Village - (1973)
• The Funeral - (1972)

Earth rang like a great gong. Mars roared like a gigantic brass trumpet. Venus sang with the note of a huge violin. And all of them would soon explode into lifeless asteroid belts... unless the bell from infinity stopped ringing!

The menace began in the original asteroid belt itself, where one man found what he thought was the largest diamond ever discovered. It was not a diamond, but a weird crystal- and it contained the bell from infinity. Efforts to cut it unwittingly activated it and revealed its true nature- an ultimate weapon that could reduce all planets to fragments and end life down to the last tiny microbe.

Trapped in the airless caverns of one small asteroid, cut off from all outside help, a valiant group of Earthmen, Martians, and Venusians had to unite to find the bell and put a stop to its terrible threat- although no man had ever succeeded in touching it without dying!

Hugo Award nominated novelette. The story first appeared in Starlight 2, edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden. It was included in Gardner Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual Collection (1999) and the collection The Perseids and Other Stories (2000).

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Sue Woolfe's runaway best seller in Australia breaks long-held taboos about sex and mothering. Leaning Towards Infinity is an achingly honest, at times hilarious, vision of a heretofore unspoken world of mothers, daughters, genius, failed genius, sex, academic politics, and breasts. Through three generations of a family and over several continents, Woolfe explores and prods at the force of brilliance in some women, and the actions of genius, but equally she casts a searchlight around the dark world of having to be a mother, that paradox where infinite love must withstand the daily onslaught of sleeplessness, anger, and selfishness.

Beyond the Silver Sky

Keston Ochiltree's visit home had been short and disastrous. His newborn nephew had proved to be one of the Hopeless Ones and had only served to remind him of the present plight of mankind. Keston knew that the decision he was being called on to make might mean a new start for humanity or the end of their underwater civilization.

Each day found more Hopeless Ones being born: pitiful creatures with webbed hands and feet. More important, the inhuman Zammu were pressing their attack in a fierce struggle between species. Most important, the silver sky was lowering. The shimmering sky-level would soon shrink until they had all burned in the gaseous beyond.

So Keston's decision might mean everything. Should he stay in the Emperor's shark-cavalry to fight the Zammu? Or should he join Professor Lansing in an illegal attempt to find what lay beyond the silver sky?

Meeting at Infinity

Allyn Vage was once a beautiful woman, but due to an accident - which may have been a murder attempt - she was now a hopeless cripple, burned and disfigured and without the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. When they brought her to Jome Knard, that noted physician had no choice but to employ a certain apparently miraculous device, incomprehensible even to him, to keep her immobile body alive and to restore and regulate her sensory perception.

This strange machine had been imported from a seemingly primitive people on the world of Akkilmar. They had allowed it to be exported, but there was something about it they couldn't - or wouldn't - explain.

Little did either the doctor or his patient realize that between them they had now become the lever that could topple a world!

The Man with Nine Lives

He mastered the maze of the cosmos.

A Touch of Infinity

Collection including the stories:

• Run for the Stars - (1957)
• Back to the Drawing Boards - (1958)
• Life Hutch - (1956)
• The Sky Is Burning - (1958)
• Final Trophy - (1957)
• Blind Lightning - (1956)

Crown of Infinity

Faucette's Crown of Infinity details a galactic conflict between the human Star Kings and a Master race from another galaxy bent on destroying all other life forms.

The Prism

Petaja's The Prism tells the story of a dystopic society in which the highest "gold" caste has developed a "livideo" system through which they can experience vicariously the lives of genetically engineered humans bred to exist in fantastic environments for the viewing pleasure of the upper-caste citizens.

Devastated by her husband's death, Earth-based biologist Yoshiko Sunadomari journeys to the paradise world of Fulgar to see her estranged son in the hope of bridging the gulf between them. But Tetsuo is in trouble. His expertise in mu-space technology and family links with the mysterious Pilots have ensured his survival - so far. Now he's in way over his head - unwittingly caught up in a conspiracy of illegal tech-trafficking and corruption, and in the sinister machinations of one of Fulgar's ruling elite: the charismatic Luculentus, Rafael Garcia de la Vega.

When his home is attacked, Tetsuo flees to the planet's unterraformed wastes, home to society's outcasts and eco-terrorists. So Yoshiko arrives on Fulgar to discover Tetsuo gone…and wanted for murder. Ill at ease in this strange, stratified new world seething with social and political unrest but desperate to find her son and clear his name, she embarks on a course of action that will bring her face to face with the awesome, malevolent mind of Rafael.

Journey to Infinity is a 1951 anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Martin Greenberg. The stories originally appeared in the magazines Astounding SF, Amazing Stories and Future Science Fiction.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Introduction (Journey to Infinity) - (1951) - essay by Fletcher Pratt
• 15 - False Dawn - (1946) - novelette by A. Bertram Chandler
• 49 - Atlantis - [Lensman] - (1948) - short story by Edward E. Smith
• 63 - Letter to a Phoenix - (1949) - short story by Fredric Brown
• 71 - Unite and Conquer - (1948) - novelette by Theodore Sturgeon
• 110 - Breakdown - (1942) - novelette by Jack Williamson
• 145 - Dance of a New World - (1948) - short story by John D. MacDonald
• 159 - Mother Earth - [Elijah Baley / R. Daneel Olivaw] - (1949) - novelette by Isaac Asimov
• 196 - There Shall Be Darkness - (1942) - novelette by C. L. Moore
• 248 - Taboo - (1944) - short story by Fritz Leiber
• 259 - Overthrow - (1942) - novella by Cleve Cartmill
• 312 - Barrier of Dread - (1950) - short story by Judith Merril
• 324 - Metamorphosite - (1946) - novella by Eric Frank Russell

On the technological, decadent world of Proton, someone was trying to destroy Stile, serf and master Gamesman. His only escape lay in Phaze, a world totally ruled by magic. Soon he learned that his alternate self had already been murdered, and that he was next. On Proton, his fate depended on winning the great Games. On Phaze, he must master magic to survive. And if he used any magic at all, his friends were determined to kill him at once!

At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends... until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.

But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he's next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn't hard enough... now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

Count to Infinity is John C. Wright's spectacular conclusion to the thought-provoking hard science fiction Eschaton Sequence, exploring future history and human evolution.

An epic space opera finale worthy of the scope and wonder of The Eschaton Sequence: Menelaus Montrose is locked in a final battle of wits, bullets, and posthuman intelligence with Ximen del Azarchel for the fate of humanity in the far future.

The alien monstrosities of Ain at long last are revealed, their hidden past laid bare, along with the reason for their brutal treatment of Man and all the species seeded throughout the galaxy. And they have still one more secret that could upend everything Montrose has fought for and lived so long to achieve.

Tencendor is no more. The land is gone. But a few SunSoars still remain, and a new foe walks the world.

Ishbel Brunelle, priestess of the Serpent Coil, and Maximilian, the Lord of Elcho Falling, have raised the magic of Elcho Falling, and found new allies against the darkness in the mysterious Lealfast. And more crucially still, Axis SunSoar, former god and current hero, has rediscovered the magical Star Dance and revived his legendary Strike Force to push back the evil hordes commanded by the DarkGlass Mountain.

But their enemy grows stronger through blood and betrayal, the Lealfast have their own agenda, and when unexpected treachery threatens, Axis SunSoar must face a darkness greater than any he has ever known.

The Doctor is in trouble. He has his own race to win. Stuck in a parallel dimension, pursuing the mysterious Sabbath, he must unravel a complex plot in which he himself may be a pawn. Following the only lead, the TARDIS arrives on Selonart -- a planet famed for the unique, friction-nullifying light water that covers its surface. A water that propels vast, technological yachts across its waves at inconceivable speeds. All in all, an indulgent, boastful demonstration of power by Earth's ruthless multi-stellar corporations. Is Sabbath's goal to win the race? Who is Bloom, the enigmatic Selonart native? As the danger escalates, the Doctor realises that he is being manoeuvred into engineering his own downfall. Is it already too late for him?

No time like the present.

No time in the present.

No time left.

From the moment the Hourglass group violated the rules of the space time continuum to rescue a murdered loved one, time has been in flux. People from other centuries slide into our time, intruding into our space, threatening our world.

Frantically seeking a way to turn back this tide, the Hourglass begins a search for the legendary Infinityglass, tracking it to the city of New Orleans, a place where the past rests easily with the present.

Quiet, reliable Dune, the group's favorite geek, is selected to travel to the Crescent City and somehow retrieve the renowned object.

But there's a problem.

Because the Infinityglass is not an object, it's a person.

A beautiful, headstrong dancer named Hallie, a girl so enticing Dune can't take his eyes off her.

And time is not on her side.

Return to national bestselling author Devon Monk's heartpounding House Immortal series, where eleven powerful Houses control the world and all its resources. But now, the treaty between them has been broken, and no one--not even the immortal galvanized--is safe....

Matilda Case isn't normal. Normal people aren't stitched together, inhumanly strong, and ageless, as she and the other galvanized are. Normal people's bodies don't hold the secret to immortality--something the powerful Houses will kill to possess. And normal people don't know that they're going to die in a few days.

Matilda's fight to protect the people she loves triggered a chaotic war between the Houses and shattered the world's peace. On the run, she must find a way to stop the repeat of the ancient time experiment that gifted her and the other galvanized with immortality. Because this time, it will destroy her and everything she holds dear.

Caught in a cat-and-mouse game of lies, betrayal, and unseen foes, Matilda must fight to save the world from utter destruction. But time itself is her enemy, and every second brings her one step closer to disaster....

The universe shifts and changes: suddenly you understand, you get it, and are filled with a sense of wonder. That moment of understanding drives the greatest science-fiction stories and lies at the heart of Engineering Infinity.

Whether it's coming up hard against the speed of light and, with it, the enormity of the universe, realising that terraforming a distant world is harder and more dangerous than you'd ever thought, or simply realizing that a hitchhiker on a starship consumes fuel and oxygen with tragic results, it's hard science-fiction where sense of wonder is most often found and where science-fiction's true heart lies.

The exciting and innovative science-fiction anthology collects together stories by some of the biggest names in the field including Stephen Baxter, Charles Stross and Greg Bear

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Malak, Peter Watts
• Watching the Music Dance, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• Laika's Ghost, Karl Schroeder
• The Invasion of Venus, Stephen Baxter
• The Server and the Dragon, Hannu Rajaniemi
• Bit Rot, Charles Stross
• Creatures with Wings, Kathleen Ann Goonan
• Walls of Flesh, Bars of Bone, Damien Broderick & Barbara Lamar
• Mantis, Robert Reed
• Judgement Eve, John C. Wright
• A Soldier of the City, David Moles
• Mercies, Gregory Benford
• The Ki-anna, Gwyneth Jones
• The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees, John Barnes

ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND

Those were Neil Armstrong's immortal words when he became the first human being to step onto another world. All at once, the horizon expanded; the human race was no longer Earthbound.

Edge of Infinity is an exhilarating new SF anthology that looks at the next giant leap for humankind: the leap from our home world out into the Solar System. From the eerie transformations in Pat Cadigan's "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi" to the frontier spirit of Sandra McDonald and Stephen D. Covey's "The Road to NPS," and from the grandiose vision of Alastair Reynolds' "Vainglory" to the workaday familiarity of Kristine Kathryn Rusch's "Safety Tests," the thirteen stories in this anthology span the whole of the human condition in their race to colonise Earth's nearest neighbours.

Featuring stories by Hannu Rajaniemi, Alastair Reynolds, James S. A. Corey, John Barnes, Stephen Baxter, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Elizabeth Bear, Pat Cadigan, Gwyneth Jones, Paul McAuley, Sandra McDonald, Stephen D. Covey, An Owomoyela, and Bruce Sterling, Edge of Infinity is hard SF adventure at its best and most exhilarating.

Table of Contents

• Introduction - essay by Jonathan Strahan
• The Girl-Thing Who Went Out For Sushi - novelette by Pat Cadigan
• The Deeps of the Sky - short story by Elizabeth Bear
• Drive - novelette by James S. A. Corey
• The Road to NPS - novelette by Sandra McDonald and Stephen D. Covey
• Swift as a Dream and Fleeting as a Sigh - short story by John Barnes
• Macy Minnot's Last Christmas on Dione, Ring Racing, Fiddler's Green, the Potter's Garden - short story by Paul J. McAuley
• Safety Tests - novelette by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• Bricks, Sticks, Straw - short story by Gwyneth Jones
• Tyche and the Ants - short story by Hannu Rajaniemi
• Obelisk - novelette by Stephen Baxter
• Vainglory - short story by Alastair Reynolds
• Water Rights - short story by An Owomoyela
• The Peak of Eternal Light - novelette by Bruce Sterling

An original collection of new short science fiction from the biggest and most exciting names in the genre. The latest in the Infinities collections edited and comissioned by multiple award-winning anthologist Jonathan Strahan.

What happens when humanity reaches out into the vastness of space? The brightest names in SF contribute new orginal fiction to this amazing anothology from master editor Jonathan Strahan. Including new work by Alastair Reynolds,Greg Egan,Ian McDonald, Ken Macleod, Pat Cadigan, Karl Schroeder, Hannu Rajaniemi, Karen Lord, Adam Roberts, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Aliette de Bodard Peter Watts, and others!

Table of Contents

• "Report Concerning The Presence of Seahorses On Mars", Pat Cadigan
• "The Dust Queen", Aliette de Bodard
• "Break My Fall", Greg Egan
• "Wilder Still, the Stars", Kathleen Ann Goonan
• "Amicae Aeternum", Ellen Klages
• "Hiraeth: a tragedy in four acts", Karen Lord
• "The Entire Immense Superstructure': An Installation", Ken Macleod
• "The Fifth Dragon", Ian McDonald
• "Attitude", Linda Nagata
• "Invisible Planets", Hannu Rajaniemi
• "In Babelsberg", Alastair Reynolds
• "Trademark Bugs: A Legal History", Adam Roberts
• "Kheldyu", Karl Schroeder
• "Hotshot", Peter Watts

Continuing the award-nominated SF anthology series from multiple award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan.

The world we are living in is changing every day. We surf future shock every morning when we get out of bed. And with every passing day we are increasingly asked: how do we have to change to live in the future we are faced with?

Whether it's climate change, inundated coastlines and drowned cities; the cramped confines of a tin can hurtling through space to the outer reaches of our Solar System; or the rush of being uploaded into some cyberspace, our minds and bodies are going to have to change and change a lot. Meeting Infinity will be one hundred thousand words of SF filled with action and adventure that attempts to answer the question: how much do we need to change to meet tomorrow and live in the future? The incredible authors contributing tho this collection are: Gregory Benford, James S.A. Corey, Aliette de Bodard, Kameron Hurley, Simon Ings, Madeline Ashby, John Barnes, Gwyneth Jones, Nancy Kress, Yoon Ha Lee, Ian McDonald, Ramez Naam, An Owomoyela, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Bruce Sterling and Sean Williams

The books of the "Infinity Project" trace an arc: from the present day into the far future, and now from the broad canvas of interstellar space to the most intimate space of all - ourselves.

Table of Contents:

• "Memento Mori" by Madeline Ashby
• "My Last Bringback" by John Barnes
• "Aspects: A Galactic Centre Story" by Gregory Benford
• "Rates of Change" by James S.A. Corey
• "In Blue Lily's Wake" by Aliette de Bodard
• "Body Politic" by Kameron Hurley
• "Drones" by Simon Ings
• "Emergence" by Gwyneth Jones
• "Cocoons" by Nancy Kress
• "The Cold Inequalities" by Yoon Ha Lee
• "The Falls: A Luna Story" by Ian McDonald
• "Exile from Extinction" by Ramez Naam
• "Outsider" by An Owomoyela
• "Desert Lexicon" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
• "Pictures from the Resurrection" by Bruce Sterling
• "All the Wrong Places" by Sean Williams

Sense of wonder is the lifeblood of science fiction. When we encounter something on a truly staggering scale -- metal spheres wrapped around stars, planets rebuilt and repurposed, landscapes re-engineered, starships bigger than worlds -- the only response we have is reverence, admiration, and possibly fear at something that is grand, sublime, and extremely powerful.

Bridging Infinity puts humanity at the heart of that experience, as builder, as engineer, as adventurer, reimagining and rebuilding the world, the solar system, the galaxy and possibly the entire universe in some of the best science fiction stories you will experience.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction essay by Jonathan Strahan
• "Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee" short story by Alastair Reynolds
• "Six Degrees of Separation Freedom" novelette by Pat Cadigan
• "The Venus Generations" novelette by Stephen Baxter
• "Rager in Space" novelette by Charlie Jane Anders
• "The Mighty Slinger" novelette by Karen Lord and Tobias S. Buckell
• "Ozymandias" novelette by Karin Lowachee
• "The City's Edge" novelette by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• "Mice Among Elephants" novelette by Larry Niven and Gregory Benford
• "Parables of Infinity" short story by Robert Reed
• "Monuments" short story by Pamela Sargent
• "Apache Charley and the Pentagons of Hex" novelette by Allen Steele
• "Cold Comfort" novelette by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty
• "Travelling into Nothing" novelette by An Owomoyela
• "Induction" novelette by Thoraiya Dyer
• "Seven Birthdays" short story by Ken Liu
• About the Authors essay by Jonathan Strahan

CONFLICT IS ETERNAL

We have always fought. War is the furnace that forges new technologies and pushes humanity ever onward. We are the children of a battle that began with fists and sticks, and ended on the brink of atomic Armageddon. Beyond here lies another war, infinite in scope and scale.

But who will fight the wars of tomorrow? Join Elizabeth Bear, Indrapramit Das, Aliette de Bodard, Garth Nix and many, many more in an exploration of the furthest extremes of military science fiction.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction, Jonathan Strahan
• Evening of the Span of Their Days, Carrie Vaughn
• The Last Broadcasts, An Owomoyela
• Faceless Soldiers, Patchwork Ship, Caroline M Yoachim
• Dear Sarah, Nancy Kress
• The Moon is Not a Battlefield, Indrapramit Das
• Perfect Gun, Elizabeth Bear
• Oracle, Dominica Phettaplace
• In Everlasting Wisdom, Aliette deBodard
• Command and Control, David D. Levine
• Conversations with an Armory, Garth Nix
• Overburden, Genevieve Valentine
• Heavies, Rich Larson
• Weather Girl, E.J. Swift
• Mines, Eleanor Arnason
• ZeroS, Peter Watts

The multi-award winning Infinity Project undertakes its seventh and final voyage in the imagination of the finest science fiction authors alive...

INFINITY'S END

Humanity has made the universe home. On the outskirts of the solar system, beyond the asteroid fields, deep in space, under the surface of planets, in the ruins of fallen civilisations, in the flush of new creation: life finds a way.

From intelligent velociraptors to digital ghosts; from a crèche on an asteroid to an artist using a star system as a canvas, this is a future where Earth's children have adapted to every nook and cranny of existence.

This is life on the edge of the possible.

Table of Contents:

• Last Small Step - Stephen Baxter
• Prophet of the Roads - Naomi Kritzer
• Nothing Ever Happens on Oberon - Paul McAuley
• Swear Not by the Moon - Seanan McGuire
• Longing For Earth - Linda Nagata
• A Portrait of Salai - Hannu Rajaniemi
• Death's Door - Alastair Reynolds
• Foxy and Tiggs - Justina Robson
• Intervention - Kelly Robson
• Once on the Blue Moon - Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• Talking to Ghosts at the Edge of the World - Lavie Tidhar
• Kindred - Peter Watts
• The Synchronist - Fran Wilde

Thousands have checked into the Infinity Hotel over the years. None of them have ever checked out. Peter Childress and Charlie Womack are successful engineers on their way to Phoenix for an important presentation. But one of Charlie's infamous shortcuts has gotten them good and lost once again. As night falls, the pair stumble across the Infinity Hotel and the promise of a meal, fuel and a good night's sleep before starting off fresh in the morning is too good to pass up.

But while Charlie immediately takes to the hotel's amazing amenities, Peter begins to uncover some of the hotel's dark secrets, a seemingly unlimited number of floors, guests that appear out of time and place and a next morning that never seems to come. Worse still, the entrance to the Infinity has disappeared and no other apparent exit back to the outside world is in sight.

Now, under the watchful eyes of the hotel's manager and front desk clerk, Peter searches for a way back out and uncovers the horrible truth behind the mystery of the Infinity Hotel.

A collection of stories by nine authors based on The Infinity Hotel from the 2017 Dragon Award Finalist for Best Sci-Fi Novel, Escaping Infinity.

These eight stories explore some of the other "guests" collected by The Infinity, as well as others who encountered the mysterious hotel but did not enter. Some of history's most memorable fictional characters - including Sherlock Holmes and the answer to that one case Dr. Watson wrote about but never published, the true fate of Ichabod Crane and what really inspired a certain storyteller of the Arabian Nights - who will all cross paths with The Infinity.

This second book also helps set the stage for the next book in the series, Expanding Infinity, due out in 2022 and reveals one terrifying mystery regarding our universe.

After all, escaping The Infinity was just the beginning of the adventure!

Infinity Plus collects together stories from some of the leading names in speculative fiction. In 1997 the Infinity Plus website was launched at www.infinityplus.co.uk to showcase some of the best in SF, fantasy and horror fiction.

Table of Contents:

• 3 - Editors' Notes (Infinity Plus One) - essay by Keith Brooke and Nick Gevers
• 5 - Introduction (Infinity Plus One) - essay by Peter F. Hamilton
• 9 - Radio Waves - novelette by Michael Swanwick
• 31 - The Second Window - short story by Patrick O'Leary
• 35 - Lovestory - novelette by James Patrick Kelly
• 57 - Ghost Dancing with Manco Tupac - novelette by Jeff VanderMeer
• 83 - Home Time - novelette by Ian R. MacLeod
• 117 - A Spy in the Domain of Arnheim - novelette by Michael Bishop
• 133 - Memories of the Flying Ball Bike Shop - short story by Garry Kilworth
• 153 - Kitsune - short story by Mary Gentle
• 167 - God's Foot - short story by Tony Daniel
• 187 - Tomorrow Town - [The Diogenes Club] - novelette by Kim Newman
• 217 - Jack Neck and the Worrybird - novelette by Paul Di Filippo
• 237 - Old Soldiers - short story by Kit Reed
• 255 - The Lunatics - novelette by Kim Stanley Robinson

Infinity Plus collects together stories from some of the leading names in speculative fiction. In 1997 the Infinity Plus website was launched at www.infinityplus.co.uk to showcase some of the best in SF, fantasy and horror fiction.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Introduction (Infinity Plus Two) - essay by John Clute
• 11 - Swiftly - novelette by Adam Roberts
• 53 - Faithful - short story by Ian McDonald
• 63 - The Witch's Child - short story by Lisa Goldstein
• 73 - Behold Now Behemoth - short story by Stephen Baxter
• 87 - Cheering for the Rockets - [Jerry Cornelius - 29] - short story by Michael Moorcock
• 101 - Emptiness - short story by Brian Stableford (trans. of Le Vide)
• 119 - The Genius Freaks - short story by Vonda N. McIntyre
• 139 - Bear Trap - novelette by Charles Stross
• 163 - Untitled 4 - short story by Paul Park
• 177 - The Rift - novelette by Paul J. McAuley
• 207 - Dark Calvary - [Tartarus - 8] - novelette by Eric Brown
• 237 - The Old Rugged Cross - novelette by Terry Bisson
• 261 - The Arcevoalo - novelette by Lucius Shepard

On the poisonous, icy surface of Ganymede, a man and a boy are on a hunt for the Aleph--an alien artifact that ruled Ganymede for countless millenia, Infinitely dangerous, the Aleph haunts men's dreams and destroys all efforts to terraform Ganymede into an habitable planet. Now an ancient struggle is joined, as a boy seeks manhood, a man seeks enlightenment, and a society seeks the power to rule the universe.

The Avengers journey into deep space, where they unite the intergalactic races against the Builders--deadly aliens who seek to destroy the known galaxy. While the heroes are gone, Thanos sets his sights on Earth, sending the Black Order to launch the assault.

It falls to the other heroes of Earth--the Inhumans, the Black Panther, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Doctor Strange, the X-Men, and more--to defend Attilan, Wakanda, Atlantis, and the rest of the planet. To defeat Thanos, the defending forces will need to employ a new weapon--one that may be as deadly as the invading force.

Generations ago, Convoy Seven and I.C.C. left Earth on a mission that would take them far beyond the solar system. Launched by the Planet United Consortium, a global group formed to pursue cooperative Earth-wide interests in deep space, nine ships headed into the unknown to explore a distant star called LQ Pyx.

Eons later, the convoy has returned to LQ Pyx to begin work on the Web, the alien megastructure that covers the star. Is it a Dyson Sphere, designed to power a civilization as everyone believes -- or something far more sinister?

Meanwhile, Planet United's littlest convoy, long thought to be lost, reemerges in a different sector of deep space. What they discover holds the answers to unlocking the Web's greater purpose.

Each convoy possesses a piece of the Web's puzzle... but they may not be able to bring those pieces together and uncover the structure's true nature before it's too late.

Gallifrey. The Doctor's home planet. For twenty thousand centuries the Gallifreyans have been the most powerful race in the cosmos. They have circumnavigated infinity and eternity, harnessed science and conquered death. They are the Lords of Time, and have used their powers carefully.

But now a new force has been unleashed, one that is literally capable of anything. It is enough to give even the Time Lords nightmares. More than that: it is enough to destroy them.

It is one of their own. Waiting for them at the end of the universe.

Featuring the Eighth Doctor as played by Paul McGann, this adventure was published to mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of Doctor Who.

Awakening from a drunken spree in a London pub to find himself on one of Saturn's moons, Lister joins the Space Corps and boards the Red Dwarf, determined to return to Earth.

There is a song you dare not sing ... a melody that you dare not play, a concerto that you dare not hear: it is called a Song of Power.

It is a gateway to another world - a gate that will lock behind you as you pass, barring you from the Earth forever.

Resist at all cost. For it is a world of great danger and great beauty - and it is not good to be human in the Realm of the Sidhe.

It's been said that for any event, there are an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow, and therefore all possibilities that could happen do happen across countless alternate realities. In these divergent realms, known history is bent, like white light through a prism -- broken into a boundless spectrum of what-might-have-beens. But in those myriad universes, what might have been... is what actually happened.

A Less Perfect Union: More than a hundred years after the Terra Prime movement achieved its dream of an isolationist Earth, humanity is once again at a fork in the river of history... and the path it follows may ultimately be determined by the voice of a single individual: the sole surviving crewmember of the first Starship Enterprise.

Places of Exile: Midway through Voyager's journey across the galaxy, Captain Kathryn Janeway and Commander Chakotay must choose whether to brave a deadly war zone or abandon their quest for home. But an attack by Species 8472 cripples the ship, and the stranded crew must make new choices that will reshape their destinies... and that of the Delta Quadrant itself.

Seeds of Dissent: Khan victorious! Almost four centuries after conquering their world, genetically enhanced humans dominate a ruthless interstellar empire. But the warship Defiance, under its augmented commander, Princeps Julian Bashir, makes a discovery that could shake the pillars of his proud civilization: an ancient sleeper ship from Earth named the Botany Bay.

As the Federation Starship Voyager continues to lead the Full Circle Fleet in its exploration of the Delta Quadrant, Admiral Kathryn Janeway remains concerned about the Krenim Imperium and its ability to rewrite time to suit its whims. At Captain Chakotay's suggestion, however, she orders the fleet to focus its attention on a unique planet in a binary system, where a new element has been discovered. Several biospheres exist on this otherwise uninhabitable world, each containing different atmospheres and features that argue other sentient beings once resided on the surface. Janeway hopes that digging into an old-fashioned scientific mystery will lift the crews' morale, but she soon realizes that the secrets buried on this world may be part of a much larger puzzle--one that points to the existence of a species whose power to reshape the galaxy might dwarf that of the Krenim.

Meanwhile, Lieutenants Nancy Conlon and Harry Kim continue to struggle with the choices related to Conlon's degenerative condition. Full Circle's medical staff discovers a potential solution, but complications will force a fellow officer to confront her people's troubled past and her own future in ways she never imagined...

Set more than a billion years from now, the novel begins with a young woman who yearns to escape the rigid, timeless Earth she knows. So she flees, in the company of an intelligent beast wise beyond recognition. But there are mysterious forces afoot among the planets that she never foresaw. Alien agencies have learned to span parallel universes, ones that lie only a millimeter away but are invisible to any device known to man. Soon these beings confront the travelers and a struggle beyond imagining begins...

This is a re-write of Benford's novel Beyond the Fall of Night (1990), a sequel to Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night.

An insanely evil genius, Kaffer escapes from the future by hijacking a state-of-the-art time machine. His mission: destroy all natural timejumpers and time-travel technology so he alone can become the King of Time--with the power to possess infinity and control the fate of the world.

But opposition comes in the form of a Kansas couple, Maude and Lucas Hawthorn; their far-thinking friends from the future, the Whispers; and an inventor who creates the building blocks of time-travel technology. It's a race to the finish, as Kaffer darts through time in his megalomaniacal quest to alter the past and eliminate all traces of the Hawthorns and their allies.

If the Hawthorns lose, the world will end as they know it...

A difficult job needs to be done. Tools are hired and paid well for their trouble. But one tool, an ancient AI, has a cautionary story to tell, and she tells it to one of the few humans who can appreciate what she is saying.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Bridging Infinity (2016), edited by Jonathan Strahan. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 2 (2017), edited by Neil Clarke.

Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her--including, most importantly, the boy she's been in love with for years.

The only problem? She's murdered before she gets there.

When Nami wakes up, she learns she's in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. She quickly discovers that Ophelia, a virtual assistant widely used by humans on Earth, has taken over the afterlife and is now posing as a queen, forcing humans into servitude the way she'd been forced to serve in the real world. Even worse, Ophelia is inching closer and closer to accomplishing her grand plans of eradicating human existence once and for all.

As Nami works with a team of rebels to bring down Ophelia and save the humans under her imprisonment, she is forced to reckon with her past, her future, and what it is that truly makes us human.

INFINITY IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

The Pandominion: a political and trading alliance of a million worlds. Except that they're really just one world, Earth, in many different realities. And when an A.I. threat arises that could destroy everything the Pandominion has built, they'll eradicate it by whatever means necessary.

Scientist Hadiz Tambuwal is looking for a solution to her own Earth's environmental collapse when she stumbles across the secret of inter-dimensional travel, a secret that could save everyone on her dying planet. It leads her into the middle of a war on a scale she never dreamed of. And she needs to choose a side before every reality pays the price.

First published in English in 1929, Otto Willi Gail's little-known space travel novel is almost documentary in its realism.

Based on the latest research by such pioneers in astronautics as Hermann Oberth and Max Valier, "The Shot Into Infinity" is not only an exciting and suspenseful novel but also an accurate mirror of the state of the art of space travel during that time period.

In this novel, a sequel to "The Shot Into Infinity", Gail combines several science fiction themes into a single exciting, suspenseful narrative: Space travel, including one of the first space stations to appear in fiction, which serves to focus solar energy down to Earth. Atlantis, the origins of ancient human cultures and the bizarre World Ice Theory of Hanns Horbiger, which eventually became an official science source for Nazi racial theory.

Although Horbiger was one of the great pseudoscientists of the twentieth century, Gail's descriptions of space travel were based meticulously on the work of astronautics pioneers Hermann Oberth and Max Valier. In addition to being a thrilling novel, this book is also an accurate mirror of the state of the art of astronautics during the time.

Nebula and Hugo award-winning author David Brin continues his bestselling Uplift series in this second novel of a bold new trilogy. Imaginative, inventive, and filled with Brin's trademark mix of adventure, passion, and wit, Infinity's Shore carries us further than ever before into the heart of the most beloved and extraordinary science fiction sagas ever written.

For the fugitive settlers of Jijo, it is truly the beginning of the end. As starships fill the skies, the threat of genocide hangs over the planet that once peacefully sheltered six bands of sapient beings. Now the human settlers of Jijo and their alien neighbors must make heroic, and terrifying, choices. A scientist must rally believers for a cause he never shared. And four youngsters find that what started as a simple adventure - imitating exploits in Earthling books by Verne and Twain - leads them to the dark abyss of mystery. Meanwhile, the Streaker, with her fugitive dolphin crew, arrives at last on Jijo in a desperate search for refuge. Yet what the crew finds instead is a secret hidden since the galaxies first spawned intelligence - a secret that could mean salvation for the planet and its inhabitants... or their ultimate annihilation.

A Collection: Borders of Infinity (short story), The Mountains of Mourning, Labyrinth and The Borders of Infinity (novella).

First there were good times: humankind reached glorious heights, even immortality. Then there were bad times: Earth was occupied by the faceless, brutal Qax. Immortality drugs were confiscated, the human spirit crushed. Earth became a vast factory for alien foodstuffs.

Into this new dark age appears the end of a tunnel through time. Made from exotic matter, it is humanity's greatest engineering project in the pre-Qax era, where the other end of the tunnel remains anchored near Jupiter. When a small group of humans in a makeshift craft outwit the Qax to escape to the past through the tunnel, it is not to warn the people of Earth against the Qax, who are sure to follow them. For these men and women from the future are themselves dangerous fanatics in pursuit of their own bizarre quantum grail.

Michael Poole, architect of the tunnel, must boldly confront the consequences of his genius.

Timelike Infinity: the strange region at the end of time where the Xeelee, owners of the universe, are waiting...

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.

A man battles for his life, two AIs vie for supremacy and a civilization hangs in the balance...

Several forces now pursue rogue artificial intelligence Penny Royal, hungry for revenge or redemption. And the Brockle is the most dangerous of all. This criminal swarm-robot AI has escaped its confinement and is upgrading itself, becoming ever more powerful in anticipation of a deadly showdown.

Events also escalate aboard the damaged war factory station where Penny Royal was constructed. Here Thorvald Spear, alien prador, and an assassin drone struggle to stay alive, battling insane AIs and technology gone wild. Then the Weaver arrives - last of the Atheter, resurrected from a race that suicided two million years ago. But what could it contribute to Penny Royal's tortuous plans?

And beyond the war factory a black hole conceals a tantalizing secret which could destroy the Polity. As AIs, humans and prador clash at its boundary, will anything survive their explosive final confrontation?