Search Worlds Without End

Various editions have slightly different tables of contents. The one shown here is for the originaly 1959 publication.

Table of Contents:

• Tomb Tapper - (1956) - novelette
• King of the Hill - (1955) - short story
• Common Time - (1953) - short story
• A Work of Art - (1956) - novelette
• To Pay the Piper - (1956) - short story
• Nor Iron Bars (expanded) - (1957) - novelette
• Beep - (1954) - novelette
• This Earth of Hours - (1959) - novelette

First of the three fabulous Alastor Cluster novels from Jack Vance, one of the finest authors ever to devote his career to science fiction, certainly one of the wittiest, most inventive, erudite and poetic. An absolutely wonderful novel.

The Alastor Cluster, thirty thousand inhabited worlds ruled by the mysterious Connatic.

Trullion, world 2262 of the Alastor Cluster, was a world of fens, mists, idyllic islands scattered in an aquatic setting of surpassing beauty with its shaggy trees like bursts of great chrysanthemums, its natural growth of fruits and all the richness the clear oceans provided for the easy taking.

The Trill were a lackadaisical, easy-living race-except for the planetwide game of hassade when a ferocious instinct for gambling drove them to risk all-home, friends, family, even life itself-on the teams that contested the water-checkerboard gaming fields.

With the prize the virginal body of a sheirl-maiden, a body any Trill is willing to die for...

His Past Was Gone-and There Were 3, 000 Worlds to Search for It!

From his fabulous palace on Nemenes, the Connatic ruled the sprawling Alastor Clustor. And kept track of the doings of each of his trillion or more subjects.

But there was one man he knew nothing about-for the past life of the wonderer called Pardero was a complete mystery. Pardero set himself two goals. Find out who he was.....and find his enemy, the person who had stolen his memory.

Psychologists deduced that his home world must be the mysterious Marune-a planet lit by four shifting suns.

Pardero made his way there-and was hailed as the Kaiark Efaim, ruler of the shadowed realm. Uncovering his last identity had been comparatively simple. Finding his sworn enemy would be more difficult - there were so many people to choose from!

This is the second book in the author's three books set in the Alastor Cluster , a whirl of 30,000 stars of which 3,000 are inhabited by five trillion humans.

The Alastor Cluster, thirty thousand inhabited worlds ruled by the mysterious Connatic.

Wyst, the planet numbered 1716 in the cluster, appears a utopia, but there is something decidedly strange going on that forces the Connatic to send in an investigator.

UK title Vicinity Cluster

There are a few ways to travel in this future with conflict between humans and aliens. Teleportation, which costs a hell of a lot. Freeze the people and stick them on a ship, which is dangerous and unreliable, or use Kirlian transfer, which basically imprints a personality on one of the locals.

The latter, to be effective, is limited to people with high Kirlian ratings. One such is chosen to do a job, and he soon finds himself pursued by an alien counterpart of similar ability. They soon find opposites with high aureas are kind of hot.

Melody, a product of Flint and the Andromedan's mating in CLUSTER, must save the Milky Way Galaxy and create a place where creatures can transfer without limitations. Melody must survive in worlds unknown and alien to her and she does that where others fail when her aura augments her skills and abilities.

The book opens with the discovery that Andromeda, the enemy galaxy of the first novel, has discovered the secret of involuntary hosting: a Kirlian aura that is sufficiently stronger than that of an individual can take possession of that individual. Andromeda has secretly infiltrated the highest levels of government in Sphere Sol and its allies and resurrect its plot to steal the energy of the Milky Way. Melody of Mintaka, a direct descendant of Flint of Outworld and his Andromedan nemesis, has a Kirlian aura of well over 200.

She is pressed into service to "possess" and interrogate a captured Andromedan transferee. Melody, hosted in the young and beautiful body of Yael of Dragon, must, like her progenitor Flint, find a way to defeat the Andromedan threat and save the galaxy. The mysterious Ancients are present again in the form of their artifacts and sites. The themes of Tarot and of various myths of Sphere Sol (in this case that of Perseus and Andromeda) play a big part this novel. The interSphere fleet of starships has forms analogous to the Tarot suits of Disks, Cups, Wands and Swords.

(Amazon.com)

The CLUSTER series of SF adventures is set in a future focused on colonization of distant planets. Sphere Sol is about 100 light years in diameter, centered on the Earth's sun. Surrounding this sphere are other, similar spheres each centered on another star such as Polaris or Canopus. Colonization is accomplished by: instantaneous teleportation, called matter transmission or mattermission (very expensive); "freezer" ships in which colonists are sent in cryonic preservation at very high speeds (much decay and average 50% loss of colonists occurs during the voyages) and lifeships, slower, safer multigenerational vessels with voyages that run to centuries (during which the travelers regress in technical sophistication.) Because of the difficulty of colonization and the smaller population bases, all spheres suffer spherical regression--the greater the distance from source star to colony, the lower the level of technology that survives. Social organizations regress backward to historical periods of the home planet's past. Outworld, Sphere Sol's farthest colony, is populated by paleolithic tribes who hunt with flint spears and make fire. Colonists know about the interstellar empire and the home worlds mattermit government and security personnel to all colony worlds. Every living thing has a Kirlian aura that can be measured. Through transfer, a refinement of mattermission technology, the mind and personality of individuals with high aura can be sent to animate a body physically distant but a hosted aura fades at the rate of about 1 unit per Earth day and higher-Kirlian individuals last longer and thus have more freedom of movement.

The first three novels in the sequence, CLUSTER, CHAINING THE LADY and KIRLIAN QUEST form a linked trilogy. THOUSANDSTAR and VISCOUS CIRCLE came later and take place in the time sequence between the second and third volumes of the original trilogy.

On the world called Eccentric a new Ancient Site has been discovered, and unlike others which are "dead" this one appears to be active and functioning. To determine which Sphere has the right to explore it and investigate its secrets, a competition is being held. Each competing team consists of a carefully-matched host and transferee pair, chosen for their complementary skills and knowledge. The tasks test all of the competitors' abilities to their limit and range from word puzzles to navigating past a black hole. However, both Heem of Highfalls and his transferee Jessica of Capella have deep dark secrets that may cost them not just the competition but their lives.

VISCOUS CIRCLE is a story about a strange and inhuman race of beings and an experimental attempt to transfer into creatures that seem only slightly sapient. They are ultimate pacifists who take the form of magnetic disks that float through space and simply demagnetize and destroy themselves when faced with an unpleasant thought. The bloodthirsty Solarians, in their desperate hurry to find the mysterious Ancient Site, are determined to wipe out the Bands, a strange and beautiful species whose society is an anarchy of peace. Only Rondl, the whirling green Band can save his race, for he has a singular and awesome knowledge. But suddenly Rondl makes a shocking discovery about his identity--a discovery that may cost him his honor, his beautiful lover Cirl, even his very life."

THEIR FINEST HOUR,
OR THEIR FINAL DAYS...

The First Empire has entered what may very well be its last crisis: the Emperor is dead by assassination and has left an infant heir. Worse, the imperial mystique is but a fading memory: nobody believes in empire anymore. Indeed nobody believes in much of anything beyond the boundaries of self. There are exceptions, of course, and to those few falls the self-appointed duty of maintaining a military-civil order that is corrupt, despotic--and infinitely preferable to the barbarous chaos that will accompany its fall.

One such is commander Anson Merikur. This is his story.

Paul is a monk, which is better than a warrior on the planet Tarot, where religions are wielded like swords.

The wanderer-monk Paul is trapped in a nightmare of dragons, demons, and spectacular lusts as the shimmering Animation curtain storms across the worldscape, changing fantasy into hideous reality.

On far Tarot dreams come true-and fanged nightmares stalk the land. Sent to pierce the dread curtain of the Animation that turns fantasy into hideous reality, the wanderer-monk Paul finds himself on a trip to the ultimate and most terrifying fantasy of them all...Hell.