Search Worlds Without End

The Throg force struck the Terran survey camp a few minutes after dawn, without warning, and with a deadly precision which argued that the aliens had fully reconnoitered and prepared that attack. A single cowering witness, flattened on a ledge in the heights above, knew that nothing human could possibly be left alive. Thus, Shann Lantee, most menial of the Terrans attached to that camp, was left alone and weaponless in the strange hostile world. Human prey for the aliens from space. But they were NOT the greatest menace on Warlock!

A young girl who has been sold as a slave to a trader wishing to do business with the Wyverns who rule the planet Warlock soon finds herself not only in contact with these strange beings but also involved in a mysterious internecine struggle she does not understand.

When a highly skilled sensitive, or mind reader, Ziantha is totally unprepared for her contact with the strange green stone which takes her out-of-body, and into the ancient Forerunner worlds of hidden treasures and wisdom. Andre Norton is the only woman ever awarded the SF Writers of America Grand Master Award.

Andre Norton was one of the best known writers of science fiction in the genre's history, and the subject of especially fervent loyalty and enthusiasm. One of her greatest triumphs is the Forerunner series, which has earned a place of legend among fans with such books as The Time Traders, Galactic Derelict, Sargasso of Space, and many more. Forerunner is the definitive novel in that series. It also holds a special place in the history of Tor, as it is the first book Tor ever published.

"Kuxortal has always been," Forerunner begins. This ancient port was established in the time of antiquity and has built and rebuilt itself on the ruins of former civilizations. Kuxortal is inhabited by a lowly race of Burrowers, who tunnel and excavate beneath the city's towers and sometimes discover artifacts from the past. Simsa is a Burrower who has spent her entire life in the service of an older, crippled mentor, Ferwar, who had reputedly rescued Simsa from a trash heap when she was an infant. Simsa, with her blue-black skin and platinum hair, clearly comes from different stock than the other Burrowers, but Ferwar never revealed her origin.

When scavengers attempt to loot the treasures that Ferwar had left behind, it becomes clear that Simsa must flee. Especially when they discover that the scavengers consider Simsa one of the treasures that they have come to steal....

Sisma, the beggar whose mind held the ancient legacy of the Forerunners, had escaped her claw-and-fang life in the Burrows, with the off-planet Rangers. But the Rangers wanted her in captivity for study by historians.

So Sisma and Zass, her winged hunting zorsal, escaped again, taking a stolen lifeboat to an unknown world. A desert where shapeshifting creatures lurked beneath the sand, where Zass and Sisma's hunting skills, psychic powers, and strange link to the Elder One in Sisma's mind were their only survival weapons.