Search Worlds Without End

Table of Contents:

• 9 - Introduction (Kingsley Amis: Collected Short Stories) - essay
• 15 - My Enemy's Enemy - (1955) - short story
• 34 - Court of Inquiry - (1956) - short story
• 42 - I Spy Strangers - (1962) - short story
• 86 - Moral Fibre - (1958) - short story
• 107 - All the Blood Within Me - (1962) - short story
• 129 - Dear Illusion - (1972) - short story
• 162 - Something Strange - (1960) - short story
• 180 - The 2003 Claret - (1958) - short story
• 189 - The Friends of Plonk - (1964) - short story
• 199 - Too Much Trouble - (1972) - short story
• 211 - Hemingway in Space - [Authors in Space] - (1960) - short story
• 216 - Who or What Was It? - (1972) - short story
• 226 - The Darkwater Hall Mystery - novelization - non-genre - [Sherlock Holmes] - (1978) - short story
• 244 - The House on the Headland - (1979) - short story
• 258 - To See the Sun - (1980) - short story
• 296 - Mason's Life - (1972) - short story

This collection of Greg Bear's major short fiction ably demonstrates why Bear is one of science fiction's most popular authors. The multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner offers here a feast of his most famous stories and novellas, accompanied by thoughtful introductions and afterwords that provide insight into the writer and his process.

This collection contains Bear's earliest published fiction from the late 1960s and early 1970s as well his remarkable award-winning work from the 1980s and 1990s—stories like the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novella-length version of "Blood Music" and the Hugo and Nebula Award-winner "Tangents." Also included are The Wind from a Burning Woman," in which despair and anger inspire a young woman's terrible act of vengeance; "The White Horse Child," a loving look at the nascence of the creative impulse; "Dead Run," in which the road to hell is paved with concrete, and not all intentions are good; and over twenty others.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: The Blank Space - (2002) - essay by Greg Bear
• Blood Music - (1983)
• Sisters - (1989)
• A Martian Ricorso - (1976)
• Schrödinger's Plague - (1982)
• Heads - (1990)
• The Wind from a Burning Woman - (1978)
• The Venging - (1975)
• Perihesperon - (1975)
• Scattershot - (1978)
• Plague of Conscience - (1992)
• The White Horse Child - (1979)
• Dead Run - (1985)
• Petra - (1982)
• Webster - (1973)
• Through Road, No Whither - (1985)
• Tangents - (1986)
• The Visitation - (1987)
• Richie by the Sea - (1980)
• Sleepside Story - (1988)
• Judgment Engine - (1995)
• The Fall of the House of Escher - (1996)
• The Way of All Ghosts - (1999)
• MDIO Ecosystems Increase Knowledge of DNA Languages (2215 C.E.) - (2000)
• Hardfought - (1983)
• Appendix - essay by Greg Bear

An omnibus edition that includes all the stories from Carter's collections Fireworks, The Bloody Chamber, Black Venus, and American Ghosts and Old World Wonders.

One of our most imaginative and accomplished writers, Angela Carter left behind a dazzling array of work: essays, citicism, and fiction. But it is in her short stories that her extraordinary talents--as a fabulist, feminist, social critic, and weaver of tales--are most penetratingly evident. This volume presents Carter's considerable legacy of short fiction gathered from published books, and includes early and previously unpublished stories. From reflections on jazz and Japan, through vigorous refashionings of classic folklore and fairy tales, to stunning snapshots of modern life in all its tawdry glory, we are able to chart the evolution of Carter's marvelous, magical vision.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Burning Your Boats) - (1995) - essay by Salman Rushdie
• EARLY WORK, 1962-6
• The Man Who Loved a Double Bass - (1962)
• A Very, Very Great Lady and Her Son at Home - (1965)
• A Victorian Fable (With Glossary) - (1966)
• FIREWORKS: NINE PROFANE PIECES, 1974
• A Souvenir of Japan - (1974)
• The Executioner's Beautiful Daughter - (1974)
• The Loves of Lady Purple - (1974)
• The Smile of Winter - (1974)
• Penetrating to the Heart of the Forest - (1974)
• Flesh and the Mirror - (1974)
• Master - (1974)
• Reflections - (1974)
• Elegy for a Freelance - (1974)
• THE BLOODY CHAMBER AND OTHER STORIES, 1979
• The Bloody Chamber - (1979)
• The Courtship of Mr. Lyon - (1979)
• The Tiger's Bride - (1979)
• Puss-in-Boots - (1979)
• The Erl-King - (1977)
• The Snow Child - (1979)
• The Lady of the House of Love - (1975)
• The Werewolf - (1977)
• The Company of Wolves - (1977)
• Wolf Alice - (1978)
• BLACK VENUS, 1985
• Black Venus - (1980)
• The Kiss - (1977)
• Our Lady of the Massacre - (1979)
• The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe - (1982)
• Overture and Incidental Music for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" - (1982)
• Peter and the Wolf - (1982)
• The Kitchen Child - (1979)
• The Fall River Axe Murders - (1981)
• AMERICAN GHOSTS AND OLD WORLD WONDERS, 1993
• Lizzie's Tiger - (1991)
• John Ford's "'Tis Pity She's a Whore" - (1988)
• Gun for the Devil - (1993)
• The Merchant of Shadows - (1989)
• The Ghost Ships - (1993)
• In Pantoland - (1991)
• Ashputtle or The Mother's Ghost - (1987)
• Alice in Prague or The Curious Room - (1990)
• Impressions: The Wrightsman Magdalene - (1992)
• UNCOLLECTED STORIES, 1970-81
• The Scarlet House - (1977)
• The Snow Pavilion - (1995)
• The Quilt Maker - (1981)
• Afterword (Fireworks) - (1974)

In the distant future, Earth has entered its final ice age-precipitated by the cooling of the sun. In this forbidding climate, a small tribe of nomadic human survivors travels toward the equator ahead of glaciers moving down from the North Pole, carrying with them a handful of relics from the 21st century-and racing against the ice to preserve them from annihilation.

This collection is a showcase of groundbreaking stories that wrestle with the moral, psychological, and ethical implications of scientific advancement-written by one of the foremost science fiction authors of our time.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - (2000) - essay by Arthur C. Clarke
• Travel By Wire! - (1937)
• How We Went to Mars - (1938)
• Retreat From Earth - (1938)
• Reverie - (1939) - essay by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Awakening - (1942)
• Whacky - (1942)
• Loophole - (1946)
• Rescue Party - (1946)
• Technical Error - (1946)
• Castaway - (1947)
• The Fires Within - (1947)
• Inheritance - (1947)
• Nightfall - (1947)
• History Lesson - (1949)
• Transience - (1949)
• The Wall of Darkness - (1949)
• The Lion of Comarre - (1949)
• The Forgotten Enemy - (1948)
• Hide-and-Seek - (1949)
• Breaking Strain - (1949)
• Nemesis - (1950)
• Guardian Angel - (1950)
• Time's Arrow - (1950)
• A Walk in the Dark - (1950)
• Silence Please - (1950)
• Trouble with the Natives - (1951)
• The Road to the Sea - (1951)
• The Sentinel - (1951)
• Holiday on the Moon - (1951)
• Earthlight - (1951)
• Second Dawn - (1951)
• Superiority - (1951)
• "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth..." - (1951)
• All the Time in the World - (1952)
• The Nine Billion Names of God - (1953)
• The Possessed - (1953)
• The Parasite - (1953)
• Jupiter Five - (1953)
• Encounter in the Dawn - (1953)
• The Other Tiger - (1953)
• Publicity Campaign - (1953)
• Armaments Race - (1954)
• The Deep Range - (1955)
• No Morning After - (1954)
• Big Game Hunt - (1956)
• Patent Pending - (1954)
• Refugee - (1955)
• The Star - (1955)
• What Goes Up - (1956)
• Venture to the Moon - (1956)
• The Pacifist - (1956)
• The Reluctant Orchid - (1956)
• Moving Spirit - (1957)
• The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch - (1957)
• The Ultimate Melody - (1957)
• The Next Tenants - (1957)
• Cold War - (1957)
• Sleeping Beauty - (1957)
• Security Check - (1956)
• The Man Who Ploughed the Sea - (1957)
• Critical Mass - (1949)
• The Other Side of the Sky - (1957)
• Let There Be Light - (1957)
• Out of the Sun - (1958)
• Cosmic Casanova - (1958)
• The Songs of Distant Earth - (1958)
• A Slight Case of Sunstroke - (1958)
• Who's There? - (1958)
• Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Orbiting... - (1959)
• I Remember Babylon - (1960)
• Trouble With Time - (1960)
• Into the Comet - (1960)
• Summertime on Icarus - (1960)
• Saturn Rising - (1961)
• Death and the Senator - (1961)
• Before Eden - (1961)
• Hate - (1961)
• Love That Universe - (1961)
• Dog Star - (1962)
• Maelstrom II - (1965)
• An Ape About the House - (1962)
• The Shining Ones - (1964)
• The Secret - (1963)
• Dial F for Frankenstein - (1965)
• The Wind from the Sun - (1964)
• The Food of the Gods - (1964)
• The Last Command - (1965)
• The Light of Darkness - (1966)
• The Longest Science-Fiction Story Ever Told - (1966)
• Playback - (1966)
• The Cruel Sky - (1967)
• Herbert George Morley Roberts Wells, Esq. - (1967) - essay by Arthur C. Clarke
• Crusade - (1968)
• Neutron Tide - (1970)
• Reunion - (1971)
• Transit of Earth - (1971)
• A Meeting With Medusa - (1971)
• Quarantine - (1977)
• siseneG - (1984)
• The Steam-Powered Word Processor - (1986)
• On Golden Seas - (1986)
• The Hammer of God - (1992)
• The Wire Continuum - (1998)
• Improving the Neighbourhood - (1999)

Contains the contents of four previously published collections: Kiss, Kiss (1960), Over to You (1946), Switch Bitch (1974), and Someone Like You (1953), plus new matterial.

Contents:

• i - Introduction (The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl) - essay by uncredited
• 1 - Kiss Kiss - (1960) - collection
• 3 - The Landlady - (1959) - short story
• 12 - William and Mary - (1960) - novelette
• 37 - The Way Up to Heaven - non-genre - (1954) - short story
• 49 - Parson's Pleasure - non-genre - (1958) - novelette
• 70 - Mrs Bixby and the Colonel's Coat - non-genre - (1959) - short story
• 85 - Royal Jelly - (1959) - novelette
• 109 - Georgy Porgy - (1959) - novelette
• 130 - Genesis and Catastrophe - non-genre - (1959) - short story (variant of A Fine Son)
• 137 - Edward the Conqueror - (1953) - short story
• 154 - Pig - (1959) - short story
• 172 - The Champion of the World - non-genre - (1959) - novelette
• 197 - Over to You - (1946) - collection
• 199 - Death of an Old Old Man - non-genre - (1945) - short story
• 210 - An African Story - (1946) - short story
• 222 - A Piece of Cake - non-genre - (1942) - short story
• 233 - Madame Rosette - non-genre - (1945) - novelette
• 259 - Katina - non-genre - (1944) - novelette
• 280 - Yesterday Was Beautiful - non-genre - (1946) - short story
• 285 - They Shall Not Grow Old - (1944) - short story
• 300 - Beware of the Dog - non-genre - (1944) - short story
• 311 - Only This - (1944) - short story
• 317 - Someone Like You - non-genre - (1945) - short story
• 325 - Switch Bitch - (1974) - collection
• 327 - The Visitor - non-genre - [Uncle Oswald - 1] - (1965) - novella
• 367 - The Great Switcheroo - non-genre - (1974) - novelette
• 388 - The Last Act - non-genre - (1966) - novelette
• 414 - Bitch - [Uncle Oswald - 2] - (1974) - novelette
• 439 - Someone Like You - (1953) - collection
• 441 - Taste - non-genre - (1951) - short story
• 454 - Lamb to the Slaughter - non-genre - (1953) - short story
• 463 - Man from the South - (1948) - short story
• 473 - The Soldier - non-genre - (1953) - short story by Roal

Frank Herbert, the New York Times bestselling author of Dune, is one of the most celebrated and commercially successful science fiction writers of all time. But while best known for originating the character of Paul Atreides and the desert world of Arrakis, Herbert was also a prolific writer of short fiction. His stories were published individually in numerous pulps and anthologies spanning decades, but never collected. Until now.

Frank Herbert: Collected Stories is the most complete collection of Herbert's short fiction ever assembled--thirty-seven stories originally published between 1952 and 1979, plus one story, "The Daddy Box," that has never appeared before.

Table of Content

• Introduction - (1975) - essay
• Looking for Something? - (1952) - shortstory
• Operation Syndrome - (1954) - novelette
• The Gone Dogs - (1954) - shortstory
• Pack Rat Planet - (1954) - shortstory
• Rat Race - (1955) - novelette
• Occupation Force - (1955) - shortstory
• The Nothing - (1956) - shortstory
• Cease Fire - (1958) - shortstory
• A Matter of Traces - (1958) - shortstory
• Old Rambling House - (1958) - shortstory
• You Take the High Road - (1958) - shortstory
• Missing Link - (1959) - shortstory
• Operation Haystack - (1959) - novelette
• The Priests of Psi - (1960) - novella
• Egg and Ashes - (1960) - shortstory
• A-W-F Unlimited - (1961) - novelette
• Mating Call - (1961) - shortstory
• Try to Remember - (1961) - novelette
• Mindfield - (1962) - novelette
• The Tactful Saboteur - (1964) - novelette
• Mary Celeste Move (1964) - shortstory
• Greenslaves - (1965) - novelette
• Committee of the Whole - (1965) - shortstory
• The GM Effect - (1965) - shortstory
• The Primitives - (1966) - novelette
• Escape Felicity - (1966) - shortstory
• By the Book - (1966) - novelette
• The Featherbedders - (1967) - novelette
• The Being Machine - (1969) - novelette
• Seed Stock - (1970) - shortstory
• Murder Will In - (1970) - novelette
• Passage for Piano - (1973) - shortstory
• Gambling Device - (1973) - shortstory
• Encounter in a Lonely Place - (1973) - shortstory
• Death of a City - (1973) - shortstory
• Come to the Party - (1978) - novelette with F. M. Busby
• Songs of a Sentient Flute - (1979) - novelette
• Frogs and Scientists - (1979) - shortstory
• Feathered Pigs - (1979) - shortstory
• The Daddy Box - shortstory

M. R. James is probably the finest ghost-story writer England has ever produced. These tales are not only classics of their genre, but are also superb examples of beautifully-paced understatement, convincing background and chilling terror. As well as the preface, there is a fascinating tail-piece by M. R. James, Stories I Have Tried To Write , which accompanies these thirty tales. Among them are 'Casting the Runes', 'Oh, Whistle and I'll come to you, My Lad', 'The Tractate Middoth', 'The Ash Tree' and 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook'.

• Canon Alberic's Scrapbook - (1895) - short story (variant of Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book)
• Lost Hearts - (1895) - short story
• The Mezzotint - (1904) - short story
• The Ash-Tree - (1904) - short story
• Number 13 - (1904) - short story
• Count Magnus - (1904) - short story
• "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" - (1904) - novelette
• The Treasure of Abbot Thomas - (1904) - short story
• A School Story - (1911) - short story
• The Rose Garden - (1911) - short story
• The Tractate Middoth - (1911) - short story
• Casting the Runes - (1911) - novelette
• The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral - (1910) - short story
• Martin's Close - (1911) - short story
• Mr. Humphreys and His Inheritance - (1911) - novelette
• The Residence at Whitminster - (1919) - novelette
• The Diary of Mr. Poynter - (1919) - short story
• n Episode of Cathedral History - (1914) - short story
• The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance - (1913) - short story
• Two Doctors - (1919) - short story
• The Haunted Dolls' House - (1923) - short story
• The Uncommon Prayer-Book - (1925) - short story
• A Neighbour's Landmark - (1924) - short story
• A View from a Hill - (1925) - short story by
• A Warning to the Curious - (1925) - short story
• n Evening's Entertainment - (1925) - short story
• here Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard - (1924) - short story
• Rats - (1929) - short story
• After Dark in the Playing Fields - (1924) - short story
• Wailing Well - (1928) - short story
• Stories I Have Tried to Write - (1929) - essay

"Shiner doesn't work through dazzle, diversion, or sleight of hand. His prose is a model of clarity. When you come to the end of a story, you know what happened; you know how Shiner feels about it. The power seldom arises in trick and technique, but is located instead in voice and conviction. He is not the sort of writer who keeps an ironic distance. His work is more the heartfelt sort... The emotional world of these stories feels very like the real world to me." - from the introduction by Karen Joy Fowler

***

Containing 41 stories and extensive author's notes, Collected Stories is the definitive compilation of Shiner's short work. His best known stories are all here, including "The War at Home," "Twilight Time," "The Circle," "Perfidia," and "Mozart in Mirrorshades," as well as a brand new story, "The Death of Che Guevara."

The limited edition will be accompanied by Widows and Orphans, a chapbook of stories not in the main volume, including: "Deserted Cities of the Heart," (short story version), "How I Won the War on Drugs," (with Bruce Sterling) "The Shoemaker's Tale," "Like the Gentle Rain," and "You Never Know."

Contents:

• Perfidia
• Stuff of Dreams
• The War at Home
• Straws
• Nine Hard Questions about the Nature of the Universe
• White City
• Primes
• The Long Ride Out
• Sitcom
• The Death of Che Guevara
• His Girlfriend's Dog
• Deep Without Pity
• The Circle
• Twilight Time
• Jeff Beck
• Wild for You
• Till Human Voices Wake Us
• Flagstaff
• Tommy and the Talking Dog
• Oz
• Love in Vain
• Steam Engine Time
• Kings of the Afternoon
• Sticks
• The Tale of Mark the Bunny
• The Killing Season
• Scales
• Snowbirds
• Match
• Relay
• Castles Made of Sand
• Prodigal Son
• Mozart in Mirrorshades (with Bruce Sterling)
• Kidding Around
• Mystery Train
• Secrets
• Golfing Vietnam
• Stompin' at the Savoy
• Gold
• Dirty Work
• Lizard Men of Los Angeles
• Author's Notes

Since his first published story, "Apartness," appeared in 1965, Vernor Vinge has forged a unique and awe-inspiring career in science fiction as his work has grown and matured. He is now one of the most celebrated science fiction writers in the field , having won the field's top award, the Hugo, for each of his last two novels.

Now, for the first time, this illustrious author gathers all his short fiction into a single volume. This collection is truly the definitive Vinge, capturing his visionary ideas at their very best. It also contains a never-before-published novella, one that represents precisely what this collection encapsulates--bold, unique, challenging science fictional ideas brought to vivid life with compelling storytelling.

Including such major pieces as "The Ungoverned" and "The Blabber," this sumptuous volume will satisfy any reader who loves the sense of wonder, and the excitement of great SF.

Table of Contents

• Foreword - (2001) - essay by Vernor Vinge
• "Bookworm, Run!" - (1966)
• The Accomplice - (1967)
• The Peddler's Apprentice - (1975) - novelette by Joan D. Vinge and Vernor Vinge
• The Ungoverned - (1985)
• Long Shot - (1972)
• Apartness - (1965)
• Conquest by Default - (1968)
• The Whirligig of Time - (1974)
• Bomb Scare - (1970)
• The Science Fair - (1971)
• Gemstone - (1983)
• Just Peace - (1971) - novelette by Vernor Vinge and William Rupp
• Original Sin - (1972)
• The Blabber - (1988)
• Win a Nobel Prize! - (2000)
• The Barbarian Princess - (1986)
• Fast Times at Fairmont High - (2001)

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay
• Born of Man and Woman - (1950) - short story
• Third from the Sun - (1950) - short story
• When the Waker Sleeps - (1950) - short story
• From Ray Bradbury - essay by Ray Bradbury
• Blood Son - (1951) - short story
• Clothes Make the Man - (1951) - short story
• Dress of White Silk - (1951) - short story
• Return - (1951) - short story
• The Thing - (1951) - short story
• Through Channels - (1951) - short story
• Witch War - (1951) - short story
• From Robert Bloch - essay by Robert Bloch
• Advance Notice - (1952) - short story
• Brother to the Machine - (1952) - short story
• F--- - (1952) - short story
• Lover When You're Near Me - (1952) - novelette
• Mad House - (1953) - novelette
• Shipshape Home - (1952) - short story
• SRL Ad - (1952) - short story
• To Fit the Crime - (1952) - short story
• Death Ship - (1953) - short storye
• From William F. Nolan - essay by William F. Nolan
• Disappearing Act - (1953) - short story
• The Disinheritors - (1953) - short story
• Dying Room Only - non-genre - (1953) - short story
• Full Circle - (1953) - short story
• The Last Day - (1953) - short story
• Lazarus II - (1953) - short story
• Legion of Plotters - (1953) - short story
• Little Girl Lost - (1953) - short story
• Long Distance Call - (1953) - short story
• Slaughter House - (1953) - novelette
• Trespass - (1953) - novelette
• The Wedding - (1953) - short story
• Wet Straw - (1953) - short story
• Being - (1954) - novelette
• The Conqueror - (1954) - short story
• From Jack Finney - essay by Jack Finney
• The Curious Child - (1954) - short story
• Dear Diary - (1954) - short story
• Descent - (1954) - short story
• The Doll That Does Everything - (1954) - short story
• The Man Who Made the World - (1954) - short story
• The Test - (1954) - short story
• The Traveller - (1954) - short story
• When Day Is Dun - (1954) - short story
• Dance of the Dead - (1955) - short story
• The Funeral - (1955) - short story
• Miss Stardust - (1955) - short story
• One for the Books - (1955) - novelette
• Pattern for Survival - (1955) - short story
• From George Clayton Johnson - essay by George Clayton Johnson
• A Flourish of Strumpets - (1956) - short story
• The Splendid Source - (1956) - short story
• Steel - (1956) - novelette
• A Visit to Santa Claus - (1957) - short stoy
• The Children of Noah - (1957) - short story
• The Holiday Man - (1957) - short story
• Lemmings - (1958) - short story
• Old Haunts - (1957) - short story
• The Distributor - (1958) - short story
• The Edge - (1958) - short story
• Big Surprise - (1959) - short story
• The Creeping Terror - (1959) - short story
• Deadline - (1959) - short story
• Mantage - (1959) - novelette
• No Such Thing as a Vampire - (1959) - short story
• From Harlan Ellison - essay by Harlan Ellison
• Crickets - (1960) - short story
• Day of Reckoning - (1960) - short story
• First Anniversary - (1960) - short story
• From Shadowed Places - (1960) - novelette
• Nightmare at 20,000 Feet - (1962) - short story
• Finger Prints - (1962) - short story
• The Likeness of Julie - (1962) - short story
• Mute - (1962) - novelette
• Deus Ex Machina - (1963) - short story
• Girl of My Dreams - (1963) - short story
• The Jazz Machine - (1962) - poem
• From Stephen King - essay by Stephen King
• Shock Wave - (1963) - short story
• 'Tis the Season to Be Jelly - (1963) - short story
• Interest - (1965) - short story
• A Drink of Water - (1967) - short story
• Therese - (1969) - short story
• Prey - (1969) - short story
• Button, Button - (1970) - short story
• From Dennis Etchison - essay by Dennis Etchison
• By Appointment Only - (1970) - short story
• Finishing Touches - (1970) - short story
• 'Til Death Do Us Part - short story
• The Near Departed - (1987) - short story
• Buried Talents - (1987) - short story
• Duel - (1971) - novelette
• From Richard Christian Matheson - essay by Richard Christian Matheson

Contents:

• 1 - Editor's Preface (Richard Matheson: Collected Stories Volume One) - (2003) - essay by Stanley Wiater
• 15 - Born of Man and Woman - (1950) - short story
• 19 - Third from the Sun - (1950) - short story
• 27 - When the Waker Sleeps - (1950) - short story (variant of The Waker Dreams)
• 45 - Blood Son - (1951) - short story (variant of "Drink My Red Blood...")
• 55 - Clothes Make the Man - (1951) - short story
• 61 - Dress of White Silk - (1951) - short story
• 67 - Return - (1951) - short story
• 89 - The Thing - (1951) - short story
• 101 - Through Channels - (1951) - short story
• 109 - Witch War - (1951) - short story
• 117 - Advance Notice - (1952) - short story (variant of Richard Matheson's Letter to the Editor)
• 125 - Brother to the Machine - (1952) - short story
• 133 - F--- - (1952) - short story (variant of The Foodlegger)
• 151 - Lover When You're Near Me - (1952) - novelette
• 175 - Mad House - (1953) - novelette
• 207 - Shipshape Home - (1952) - short story
• 227 - SRL Ad - (1952) - short story
• 239 - To Fit the Crime - (1952) - short story
• 247 - Death Ship - (1953) - short story
• 271 - Disappearing Act - (1953) - short story
• 287 - The Disinheritors - (1953) - short story
• 299 - Dying Room Only - non-genre - (1953) - short story
• 317 - Full Circle - (1953) - short story
• 333 - The Last Day - (1953) - short story
• 351 - Lazarus II - (1953) - short story
• 363 - Legion of Plotters - (1953) - short story
• 373 - Little Girl Lost - (1953) - short story
• 387 - Long Distance Call - (1953) - short story (variant of Sorry, Right Number)

Contents:

• 1 - Editor's Preface (Richard Matheson: Collected Stories Volume Two) - (2005) - essay by Stanley Wiater
• 3 - Dream/Press Introduction (Richard Matheson: Collected Stories Volume Two) - (1989) - essay
• 13 - Gauntlet Press Introduction 2003 (Richard Matheson: Collected Stories Volume Two) - (2003) - essay
• 49 - Trespass - (1953) - novelette (variant of Mother by Protest)
• 51 - Slaughter House - (1953) - novelette
• 89 - The Wedding - (1953) - short story
• 99 - Wet Straw - (1953) - short story
• 107 - Being - (1954) - novelette
• 141 - The Conqueror - (1954) - short story
• 159 - From Jack Finney (Richard Matheson: Collected Stories Volume Two) - (2005) - essay by Jack Finney
• 161 - The Curious Child - (1954) - short story
• 171 - Dear Diary - (1954) - short story
• 175 - Descent - (1954) - short story
• 189 - The Doll That Does Everything - (1954) - short story
• 199 - The Man Who Made the World - (1954) - short story
• 209 - The Test - (1954) - short story
• 229 - The Traveller - (1954) - short story
• 243 - When Day Is Dun - (1954) - short story
• 249 - Dance of the Dead - (1955) - short story
• 265 - The Funeral - (1955) - short story
• 275 - Miss Stardust - (1955) - short story
• 293 - One for the Books - (1955) - novelette
• 313 - Pattern for Survival - (1955) - short story
• 317 - From George Clayton Johnson (Richard Matheson: Collected Stories Volume Two) - (2005) - essay by George Clayton Johnson
• 319 - A Flourish of Strumpets - (1956) - short story
• 329 - The Splendid Source - (1956) - short story
• 347 - Steel - (1956) - novelette
• 373 - A Visit to Santa Claus - non-genre - (1957) - short story
• 387 - The Children of Noah - (1957) - short story
• 405 - The Holiday Man - (1957) - short story
• 411 - Lemmings - (1958) - short story
• 415 - Old Haunts - (1957) - short story
• 427 - The Distributor - non-genre - (1958) - short story
• 445 - The Edge - (1958) - short story

The last of a three volume set of Richard Matheson's Collected Stories. Volume Three includes some of Matheson's most famous stories including Duel upon which the Steven Spielberg movie was based. 33 stories.

Welcome to Cedar Hill, Ohio, a deceptively commonplace bordertown between the familiar everyday and the phantasms, fancies, hauntings, and enchantments that wait in dimly-lit places for a chance to pass through the scrim of perception & make this place their home, as well. Those who live here don't really have any choice and neither will you. Cedar Hill: "Main Street" tinged with the macabre, located just this side of night. This is the first of approximately 3-5 volumes to be published by Earthling collecting the author's stories set in his fictional town of Cedar Hill. Each collection will feature original stories as well as reprints that have been reworked for this collection, plus historical elements such as family trees and a town map. Deena Warner provides cover art and over two dozen interior illustrations. For those buyers who desire a complete set of matching numbers/letters, we will record the name of each buyer, who will be given first dibs at future volumes.

The series continues...

Longer than GRAVEYARD PEOPLE (Volume 1), HOME BEFORE DARK contains 19 tales, including the long-awaited original novella "Kiss of the Mudman," two classic novellas, excerpts from the Cedar Hill Visitor's Guide, a page from the local newspaper, and much more, with a full-color wraparound dustjacket and over two dozen interior illustrations.

Matching numbers to GRAVEYARD PEOPLE are offered; please forward your GRAVEYARD PEOPLE number with your preorder. (Note that copies of GRAVEYARD PEOPLE are still available.)

Volume 1 was hailed as "absolutely essential reading for anyone who values dark literature...a treasure trove of some of the most emotionally engaging fiction in the horror field" (Cemetery Dance). Without question, HOME BEFORE DARK is a worthy successor that continues collecting some of the finest tales from master storyteller Gary Braunbeck. Two volumes down, one to go...

For the first time, the Grand Dame of science fiction — Andre Norton — has her short stories gathered for her fans' reading pleasure. Tales reach back to the 1930s, as fresh and relevant today as they were when she wrote them... such was Andre's skill. High fantasy, fables, science fiction, coming of age stories, and more fill three volumes. This impressive, must-have collection includes stories of Witch World. There are cats sprinkled here and there, as Andre treasured them so. And there is magic in the writing, unequaled prose to delight readers of all ages.

High Hallack was a place in Andre's fiction, and was also the name of her genre writer's library she opened in Tennessee. It is a wondrous keep that she called home, and now High Hallack opens its gates and allows these amazing stories to tumble out.

Lose yourself in her enchanted words, and read them again and again.

In the second volume of High Hallack, tales of high fantasy, science fiction and coming of age stories reach back to as far as 1943, yet are still as fresh and relevant today as when they were written. High Hallack was a place in Andre Norton's fiction, and was also the name of her genre writer's library she opened in Tennessee. It is a wonderous keep that she called home, and now High Hallack opens its gates and allows these amazing stories to unfold.

Crossing the boundaries between fabulist literature, science fiction, and magical realism, the stories in this collection offer a valuable glimpse into the evolution of Carol Emshwiller's ideas and style during her more than 50-year career. Influenced by J. G. Ballard, Steven Millhauser, Philip K. Dick, and Lydia Davis, Emshwiller has a range of works that is impressive and demonstrates her refusal to be labeled or to stick to one genre. This exhilarating new collection marks the first time many of the early stories have been published in book form and is evidence of the genius of Emshwiller, one of America's most versatile and imaginative authors.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay
• Built for Pleasure - 1954 - short story
• The Victim - 1955 - short story
• This Thing Called Love - 1955 - short story
• Love Me Again - 1956 - short story
• The Piece Thing - 1956 - short story
• Bingo and Bongo - 1956 - short story
• Nightmare Call - 1957 - short story
• Murray is for Murder - 1957 - short story
• The Coming - 1957 - short story
• Hunting Machine - 1957 - short story
• Hands - 1957 - short story
• You'll Feel Better... - 1957 - short story
• Two-Step for Six Legs - 1957 - short story
• Baby - 1958 - short story
• Idol's Eye - 1958 - short story
• Pelt - 1958 - short story
• Day at the Beach - 1959 - short story
• Puritan Planet - 1960 - short story
• But Soft, What Light... - 1966 - short story
• Chicken Icarus - 1966 - short story (variant of A Dream of Flying)
• Eohippus - 1967 - short story
• Sex and/or Mr. Morrison - 1967 - short story
• Krashaw - 1967 - short story
• Lib - 1968 - short story
• Animal - 1968 - short story
• Methapyrilene Hydrochloride Sometimes Helps - 1968 - short story
• White Dove - 1969 - short story
• I Love You - 1969 - short story
• The Queen of Sleep - 1970 - short story
• Peninsula - 1970 - short story
• Debut - 1970 - short story
• The Institute - 1970 - short story
• A Possible Episode in the Picaresque Adventures of Mr. J.H.B. Monstrosee - 1971 - short story
• Woman Waiting - 1970 - short story
• Yes, Virginia - 1971 - short story
• Al - 1972 - short story
• Strangers - 1973 - short story
• The Childhood of the Human Hero - 1973 - short story
• Autobiography - 1974 - short story
• Maybe Another Long March Across China 80,000 Strong - 1974 - short story
• Joy in Our Cause - 1974 - short story
• Biography of an Uncircumcised Man (Including Interview) - 1974 - short story
• To the Association - 1974 - short story
• Destinations, Premonitions and the Nature of Anxiety - 1974 - short story
• Dog Is Dead - 1974 - short story
• One Part of the Self Is Always Tall and Dark - 1977 - short story
• Escape Is No Accident - 1977 - short story
• Thanne Longen Folk to Goen on Pilgrimages - 1977 - short story
• Expecting Sunshine and Getting It - 1978 - short story
• Omens - 1980 - short story
• Abominable - 1980 - short story
• The Start of the End of It All - 1981 - short story (variant of The Start of the End of the World)
• Slowly Bumbling in the Void - 1981 - short story
• Queen Kong - 1982 - short story
• The Futility of Fixed Positions - 1982 - short story
• Mental Health and Its Alternative - 1983 - short story
• Verging on the Pertinent - 1984 - short story
• There Is No God But Bog - 1985 - short story
• Eclipse - 1986 - short story
• The Circular Library of Stones - 1987 - short story
• If Not Forever, When? - 1987 - short story
• Vilcabamba - 1987 - short story
• Fledged - 1988 - short story
• The Promise of Undying Love - 1989 - short story
• What Every Woman Knows - 1989 - short story
• Not Burning - 1989 - short story
• Being Mysterious Strangers from Distant Shores - 1989 - short story
• Clerestory - 1989 - short story
• Living at the Center - 1989 - short story
• Yukon - 1989 - short story
• As If - 1989 - short story
• Secrets of the Native Tongue - 1989 - short story
• Moon Songs - 1990 - short story
• Acceptance Speech - 1990 - short story
• Looking Down - 1990 - short story
• Peri - 1990 - short story
• If the Word Was to the Wise - 1990 - short story
• There Is No Evil Angel But Love - 1990 - short story
• Draculalucard - 1991 - short story
• Emissary - 1991 - short story
• Mrs. Jones - 1993 - short story
• Venus Rising - 1992 - novelette
• Modillion - 1994 - short story
• After Shock - 1995 - short story
• The Project - 2001 - short story
• Foster Mother - 2001 - short story
• Creature - 2001 - short story
• Grandma - 2002 - short story

Crossing the boundaries between fabulist literature, science fiction, and magical realism, the stories in this second volume of the Carol Emshwiller collection offer a valuable glimpse into the evolution of her ideas and style during her more than 50-year career. Including all of her fiction to date and additional stories not available in the first volume, this selection of 56 of Emshwiller's works demonstrate a range that is impressive and exemplifies her refusal to be labeled or to stick to one genre. This exhilarating new collection marks the first time many of the early stories have been published in book form and is evidence of the genius of Emshwiller, one of America's most versatile and imaginative authors.

Table of Contents

• Carol Emshwiller: The Hunting Machine - essay by Barry N. Malzberg
• Adapted - (1961) - short story
• Glory, Glory - (1990) - short story
• A Is for Abel, B Is for Bird - (1998) - short story
• Josephine - (2002) - short story
• Overlooking - (2002) - short story
• The Prince of Mules - (2002) - short story
• Water Master - (2002) - short story
• The Paganini of Jacob's Gully - (2002) - short story
• Desert Child - (2002) - short story
• Report to the Men's Club - (2002) - short story
• Nose - (2002) - short story
• It Comes from Deep Inside - (2002) - short story
• Prejudice and Pride - (2002) - short story
• After All - (2002) - short story
• The Doctor - (2002) - short story
• Boys - (2003) - short story
• Coo People - (2003) - short story
• Repository - (2003) - short story
• The General - (2003) - short story
• Gods and Three Wishes - (2003) - short story
• Lightning - (2003) - short story
• On Display Among the Lesser - (2004) - short story
• Gliders Though They Be - (2004) - short story
• My General - (2004) - novelette
• The Library - (2004) - short story
• The Assassin, or Being the Loved One - (2004) - short story
• All of Us Can Almost ... - (2004) - short story
• I Live with You - (2005) - short story
• The Being of It All - (2005) - short fiction
• See No Evil, Feel No Joy - (2005) - short story
• Bountiful City - (2005) - short story
• World of no Return - (2006) - short story
• Quill - (2006) - novelette
• Killers - (2006) - short story
• The Seducer - (2006) - short story
• Such a Woman, Or, Sixties Rant - (2006) - short story
• At Sixes and Sevens - (2007) - short story
• God Clown - (2007) - short story
• Master of the Road to Nowhere - (2008) - novelette
• All Washed Up While Looking for a Better World - (2008) - short story
• Self Story - (2008) - short story
• Wilmer or Wesley - (2008) - short story
• Whoever - (2008) - short story
• The Perfect Infestation - (2009) - short story
• The Bird Painter in Time of War - (2009) - short story
• The Meaning of the Fields - (2009) - short story
• A Safe Place to Be - (2009) - short story
• The Dignity He's Due - (2009) - novelette
• Logicist - (2009) - short story
• Wilds - (2010) - short story
• Above It All - (2010) - short fiction
• The Abominable Child - (2010) - novelette
• On Not Going Extinct - (2010) - short story
• No Time Like the Present - (2010) - short story
• The Lovely Ugly - (2010) - short story
• Uncle E - (2010) - short story
• A Hello to Arms - (2011) - short story
• Mountain Song - (2011) - novelette
• The News That's Fit - (2011) - short story
• The Mismeasure of Me And How I Saved the World - (2011) - short story
• Danilo - (2011) - short story
• The New and Perfect Man - (2011) - short story
• All I Know of Freedom - (2012) - short story
• Riding Red Ted - (2012) - short story

This is the inaugural volume in the publishing program to collect the stories of Science Fiction Grand Master Jack Williamson.

The nine stories in this volume (three of which are full-length novels!) are drawn from classic pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories, Science Wonder Stories, Air Wonder Stories, and Astounding Stories of Super-Science.

Supplementing these stories are rare editorials and letters to the editors of Amazing Stories, Science Wonder Stories, and Astounding Stories. Also included is a lengthy foreword by fellow Grand Master Hal Clement with an afterword by Jack Williamson.

Table of Contents:

• "Jack Williamson, Speculator" by Hal Clement
• "Scientifiction, Searchlight of Science" (Amazing Stories Quarterly,
• "The Metal Man" (Amazing Stories, Dec '28)
• The Girl from Mars (with Miles J. Breuer) (SF Series, #1, 1929)
• "The Alien Intelligence" (Science Wonder Stories, Jul, Aug '29)
• "The Second Shell" (Air Wonder Stories, Nov '29)
• "The Green Girl" (Amazing Stories, Mar, Apr '30)
• "The Cosmic Express" (Amazing Stories, Nov '30)
• "The Birth of a New Republic" (with Miles J. Breuer) (Amazing Stories Quarterly, Win '30)
• "The Prince of Space" (Amazing Stories, Jan '31)
• "The Meteor Girl" (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, Mar '31)
• "Afterword" by Jack Williamson

This second volume continues the publishing program to collect the stories of Science Fiction Grand Master Jack Williamson.

Drawn from such classic pulp magazines as Astounding Stories, Wonder Stories, and this volume features ten tales, four never published in book form, including novel-length adventure, Amazing Stories,The Stone from the Green Star. Also included are Williamson's letters and contest entries to the editors of the SF magainzes of the early 30's.

The book is smythe-sewn, bound in full cloth, and printed on acid-neutral paper, with full-color endpapers reproducing the original pulp magazine cover art.

With a foreword by noted writer Harlan Ellison, Wolves of Darkness imparts the sense of wonder from the early years of American Science Fiction and continues the documentation of Williamson's unparalleled career.

Table of Contents:

• "And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, a Man Who Needs No Introduction” by Harlan Ellison
• "The Lake of Light" (Astounding Stories Apr ’31)
• "Through the Purple Cloud" (Wonder Stories May ’31)
• "The Doom from Planet 4" (Astounding Stories Jul ’31)
• "Twelve Hours to Live!" (Wonder Stories Aug ’31)
• "The Stone from the Green Star" (Amazing Stories Oct ’31 & Nov '31)
• "Wolves of Darkness" (Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror Jan ’32)
• "The Moon Era" (Wonder Stories Feb ’32)
• "The Pygmy Planet" (Astounding Stories Feb ’32)
• "Red Slag of Mars" (w/Laurence Schwartzman) (Wonder Stories Quarterly Spr ’32)
• "The Lady of Light" (Amazing Stories Sep ’32)
• Afterword by Jack Williamson

This third volume continues the publishing program to collect the stories of Science Fiction Grand Master Jack Williamson.

Drawn from such classic pulp magazines as Astounding Stories, Weird Tales, Wonder Stories, Amazing Stories, and Thrilling Mystery, this volume features sixteen tales (including a novel-length adventure, "Xandulu"), seven of which have never been published in book form.

The book is smythe-sewn, bound in full cloth, and printed on acid-neutral paper, with full-color endpapers reproducing the original pulp magazine cover art.

With a foreword by author, and long-time friend of Williamson, Ray Bradbury, Wizard's Isle contains the sense of wonder from the early years of American Science Fiction and continues the documentation of Williamson's unparalleled career.

Table of Contents:

• "Jack Williamson, Friend!” by Ray Bradbury
• "The Electron Flame" (Wonder Stories Quarterly Fll ’32)
• "The Wand of Doom" (Weird Tales Oct ’32)
• "In the Scarlet Star" (Amazing Stories Mar ’33)
• "Salvage in Space" (Astounding Stories Mar ’33)
• " 'We Ain’t Beggars' " (New Mexico Quarterly Review Aug ’33)
• "The Plutonian Terror" (Weird Tales Oct ’33)
• "Dead Star Station" (Astounding Stories Nov ’33)
• "Terror Out of Time" (Astounding Stories Dec ’33)
• "The Flame from Mar"s (Astounding Stories Jan ’34)
• "Invaders of the Ice World" (Weird Tales Jan ’34)
• "Born of the Sun" (Astounding Stories Mar ’34)
• "Xandulu" (Wonder Stories Mar ’34, Apr '34, May 34)
• "Wizard’s Isle (Weird Tales Jun ’34)
• "The Galactic Circle" (Astounding Stories Aug ’35)
• "Islands of the Sun" (Astounding Stories Sep ’35 & Oct '35)
• "Grey Arms of Death" (Thrilling Mystery Dec ’35)
• Afterword by Jack Williamson

This fourth volume continues the publishing program to collect the stories of Science Fiction Grand Master Jack Williamson.

Drawn from such classic pulp magazines as Astounding Stories, Weird Tales, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Thrilling Mystery, this volume features sixteen tales (including four novel-length adventures, "Dreadful Sleep," "The Blue Spot," "Released Entropy," and the original magazine text of The Legion of Time), seven of which have never been published in book form.

The book is smythe-sewn, bound in full cloth, and printed on acid-neutral paper, with full-color endpapers reproducing the original pulp magazine cover art.

With a foreword by author, and critic, Edward Bryant, Spider Island contains the sense of wonder from the early years of American Science Fiction and continues the documentation of Williamson's unparalleled career.

Table of Contents:

• "American Gods, American Dreaming" by Edward Bryant
• "The Ruler of Fate" (Weird Tales, Apr, May, Jun '36)
• "Death’s Cold Daughter" (Thrilling Mystery, Sep '36)
• "The Great Illusion" (with Eando Binder, Edmond Hamilton, Raymond Z. Gallun, and John Russell Fearn) (Fantasy Magazine, Sep '36)
• "The Blue Spot" (Astounding Stories, Jan & Feb '37)
• "The Ice Entity" (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Feb '37)
• "Spider Island" (Thrilling Mystery, Apr '37)
• "The Mark of the Monster" (Weird Tales, May '37)
• "The Devil in Steel" (Thrilling Mystery, Jul '37)
• "Released Entropy" (Astounding Stories Aug, Sep '37)
• "Dreadful Sleep" (Weird Tales, Mar, Apr, May '38)
• "The Infinite Enemy" (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Apr '38)
• "The Legion of Time" (Astounding Stories, May, Jun, Jul '38)
• Afterword" by Jack Williamson

The fifth volume of a project to collect, in order of original publication, the short fiction of Science Fiction Grand Master Jack Williamson.

Volume Five includes twelve stories from 1938 to 1940, and a foreword by author and popular culture expert Frank M. Robinson. Included are two true rarities: two stories that originally appeared under the pen-name Nils O. Sonderlund. These stories, originally appearing in MARVEL TALES, were considered "too sexy" to appear under Williamson's own name!

An appendix reprints rare commentaries on this volume's contents as they originally appeared in the pulp magazines. The author provides an afterword commenting on the genesis of these stories, and reflecting on the economic and cultural mood of the nation during the early years of American Science Fiction.

Table of Contents:

• "Foreword" by Frank M. Robinson
• "The Chivaree" (Portales Daily News, Sep 13, ’38)
• "The Dead Spot" (Marvel Science Stories, Nov ’38)
• "Nonstop to Mars" (Argosy Weekly, Feb 25 ’39)
• "After World’s End" (Marvel Science Stories, Feb ’39)
• "The Crucible of Power" (Astounding Science-Fiction, Feb ’39)
• "Passage to Saturn" (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Jun ’39)
• "Star Bright" (Argosy Weekly, Nov 25 ’39)
• "The Fortress of Utopia" (Startling Stories, Nov ’39)
• "The Angel from Hell" (Marvel Tales, Dec ’39)
• "As In the Beginning" (Future, Mar ’40)
• "Hindsight" (Astounding Science-Fiction, May ’40)
• "Mistress of Machine-Age Madness" (Marvel Tales, May ’40)
• "Afterword" by Jack Williamson

The ambitious program to collect the short fiction of Grand Master Jack Williamson continues! Of the 10 tales in this collection drawn from classic pulp magazines--Unknown, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Super Science Stories, Marvel Stories, Comet, Argosy Weekly, Startling Stories, and the rare fanzine Stardust (three of which are full-length novels!)--nearly half have never been reprinted before.

Featured is the original novella-length version of "Darker Than You Think" and the magazine texts of "The Reign of Wizardry" and "Gateway to Paradise" (previously published as Dome Over America.) Also included is Williamson's afterword with his recollections on the genesis of these tales and the pre-World War II science fiction field.

Like previous volumes in this series, the full-color endpapers reproduce the original magazine covers (with artwork by pulp masters including Belarski, Cartier, Rogers, Bergey and Scott) of the stories herein, and the binding is designed to match the 1940s editions of Williamson's works published by Fantasy Press. The book is smythe-sewn, bound in full cloth, and printed on acid-neutral paper, with full-color endpapers reproducing the original pulp magazine cover art.

With a foreword by author, editor, collaborator, and long-time friend of Williamson (and fellow Science Fiction Grand Master), Frederik Pohl, Gateway to Paradise contains the sense of wonder from the early years of American Science Fiction and continues the documentation of Williamson's unparalleled career.

Table of Contents:

• "Foreword" by Frederik Pohl
• "The Reign of Wizardry" (Unknown, Mar, Apr, May '40)
• "The Sun-Maker" (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Jun '40)
• "The Crystal of Death" (Stardust, Aug '40)
• "The Girl in the Bottle" (Super Science Stories, Sep '40)
• "Racketeers in the Sky" (Argosy Weekly, Oct 12, 1940)
• "Ashes of Iron" (Stardust, Nov '40)
• "Darker Than You Think" (Unknown, Dec '40)
• "The Star of Dreams" (Comet, Mar '41)
• "The Iron God" (Marvel Stories, Apr '41)
• "Gateway to Paradise" (Startling Stories, Jul '41)
• "Afterword" by Jack Williamson

The ambitious program to collect the short fiction of Grand Master Jack Williamson continues! The 15 tales in this penultimate volume cover Williamson's entry into the US Army in 1942 through to his very successful effort to integrate into the post-WWII science fiction market.

Featured is the 1948 3-part serial "...And Searching Mind," which Williamson re-wrote into his most famous work, The Humanoids. Other classics in this volume include the first "Humanoids" story, "With Folded Hands..."; "Breakdown," set in the same universe as his novel co-authored with James Gunn, Star Bridge; and his much-reprinted classic, "The Equalizer." Appearing in either book-form or hardcover for the first time are "Cold Front Coming," "Hocus-Pocus Universe," "The Hitch-Hiker's Package," and "You Can't Beat a Marine." Also included is Williamson's afterword with his recollections on the genesis of these tales and the World War II-era science fiction field.

As with previous volumes in this series, the full-color endpapers reproduce the original magazine covers (with artwork by pulp masters including Hubert Rogers, Earle K. Bergey and Frank R. Paul) of the stories herein, and the binding is designed to match the 1940s editions of Williamson's works published by Fantasy Press. The book is smythe-sewn, bound in full cloth, and printed on acid-neutral paper, with full-color endpapers reproducing the original pulp magazine cover art.

With a foreword by legendary author, editor, and long-time friend of Williamson (and fellow Science Fiction Grand Master), Robert Silverberg, With Folded Hands... And Searching Mind represents the changing state of mid-20th Century American Science Fiction and continues the documentation of Williamson's unparalleled career.

Table of Contents:

• "Foreword" by Robert Silverberg
• "Backlash" (Astounding Science Fiction, Aug '41)
• "Breakdown" (Astounding Science Fiction, Jan '42)
• "Conscience, LTD." (Unknown, Aug '43)
• "Cold Front Coming" (Blue Book, Jun '45)
• "The Equalizer" (Astounding Science Fiction, Mar '47)
• "With Folded Hands..." (Astounding Science Fiction, Jul '47)
• "...And Searching Mind" Astounding Science Fiction, Mar, Apr, May '48)
• "The Moon and Mr. Wick" (Comet, Sum '50)
• "The Cold Green Eye" (Fantastic, Mar/Apr '53)
• "Hocus-Pocus Universe" (Science Stories, Oct '53)
• "Operation Gravity" (Science Fiction Plus, Oct '53)
• "The Hitch-Hiker's Package" (Fantastic Universe, May '54)
• "Guinevere for Everybody" (Star Science Fiction Stories No. 3, 1954)
• "You Can't Beat a Marine" (El Portal, May '56)
• "Beans" (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nov '58)
• "Afterword" by Jack Williamson

The ambitious program to collect the short fiction of Grand Master Jack Williamson concludes!

As with previous volumes in this series, the full-color endpapers reproduce the original magazine covers (with artwork by masters including Virgil Finlay, Jim Burns, Luis Royo and Vincent Di Fate) of the stories herein, and the binding is designed to match the 1940s editions of Williamson's works published by Fantasy Press. The book is smythe-sewn, bound in full cloth, and printed on acid-neutral paper, with full-color endpapers reproducing each story's original cover art.

With a foreword by award-winning author and long-time friend of Williamson, Connie Willis, At the Human Limit represents the changing state of mid-20th Century American Science Fiction and concludes the documentation of Williamson's unparalleled career.

Table of Contents:

• "Foreword" by Connie Willis
• "Second Man to the Moon" (Fantastic, April 1959)
• "The Masked World" (Worlds of Tomorrow, October 1963)
• "Jamboree" (Galaxy Magazine, December 1969)
• "The Highest Dive" (Science Fiction Monthly, January 1976)
• "Farside Station" (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, November/December 1978)
• "...All Ye Who Enter Here" (Stellar Science Fiction #6)
• "A Break for the Dinosaurs" (Speculations, 1983)
• "Space Family Smiths" (JD Journal, 1983)
• "At the Human Limit" (The Planets, 1985)
• "The Mental Man" (Amazing Stories, October 1988)
• "The Bird's Turn" (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October/November 1992)
• "Venus Is Hell" (Omni, October 1992)
• "The Litlins" (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1993)
• "The Fractal Man" (VB Tech Journal, July 1996)
• "The Firefly Tree" (Science Fiction Age, May 1997)
• "The Hole in the World" (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October/November 1997)
• "The Purchase of Earth" (Science Fiction Age, July 1998)
• "The Story Roger Never Told" (Lord of the Fantastic: Stories in Honor of Roger Zelazny, 1998)
• "The Pet Rocks Mystery" (Alien Pets, 1998)
• "Miss Million" (Amazing Stories, Winter 1999)
• "Eden Star" (Star Colonies, 2000)
• "Nitrogen Plus" (Asimov's Science Fiction, October/November 2001)
• "Afterlife" (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 2002)
• "The Planet of Youth" (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 2002)
• "Shakespeare & Co." (Shelf Life, 2002)
• "The Man From Somewhere" (Asimov's Science Fiction, October/November 2003)
• "Black Hole Station" (Space Stations, 2004)
• "Devil's Star" (Visions of Liberty, 2004)
• "Dream of Earth" (Amazing Stories, November, 2004)
• "The Half Men" (Absolute Magnitude, May 2005)
• "The Cat That Loved Shakespeare" (Chronicle, August 2005)
• "Ghost Town" (Weird Tales, July 2005)
• "The Mists of Time" (Millennium 3001, 2006)
• "A Christmas Carol" (The Worlds of Jack Williamson, 2008)

The first volume of the definitive five-book set of the complete collected stories of the twentieth century's greatest SF author. A matchless display of Philip K. Dick's quirky, humorous, idiosyncratically philosophical world view.

With one exception, all the stories here were written over a nine-month period between 1951 and 1952, when Dick was in his early twenties and making his first impact as a writer.

Table of Contents:

• Stability
• Roog
• The Little Movement
• Beyond Lies the Wub
• The Gun
• The Skull
• The Defenders
• Mr. Spaceship
• Piper in the Woods
• The Infinites
• The Preserving Machine
• Expendable
• The Variable Man
• The Indefatigable Frog
• The Crystal Crypt
• The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford
• The Builder
• Meddler
• Paycheck
• The Great C
• Out in the Garden
• The King of Elves
• Colony
• Prize Ship
• Nanny

The stories within SECOND VARIETY were written between 1952 and 1955, while America was in the grip of McCarthyism. The concerns of the time are reflected in stories such as "Second Variety", which tells of an endless war fought by ever more cunning and sophisticated robots, or "Imposter" where a man accused of being an alien spy finds his whole identity called into question. Using his marvelously varied, quirky and idiosyncratic style, Dick speaks up for ordinary people against militarism, paranoia and xenophobia.

Table of Contents:

• The Cookie Lady
• Beyond the Door
• Second Variety
• Jon's World
• The Cosmic Poachers
• Progeny
• Some Kinds of Life
• Martians Come in Clouds
• The Commuter
• The World She Wanted
• A Surface Raid
• Project: Earth
• The Trouble with Bubbles
• Breakfast at Twilight
• A Present for Pat
• The Hood maker
• Of Withered Apples
• Human Is
• Adjustment Team
• The Impossible Planet
• Imposter
• James P. Crow
• Planet for Transients
• Small Town
• Souvenir
• Survey Team
• Prominent Author

The third volume of the definitive five-book set of the complete collected stories of the twentieth century's greatest SF author, with twenty-three tales which were written in little more than a year before Philip K. Dick's first novel, "Solar Lottery" was published in 1956. Many of these stories are previously uncollected, but also included here are some of Dick's most famous pieces, like "Foster, You're Dead", a powerful extrapolation of nuclear war hysteria, and "The Golden Man", a very different story about a super-evolved mutant human.

Table of Contents:

• Fair Game
• The Hanging Stranger
• The Eyes Have It
• The Golden Man
• The Turning Wheel
• The Last of the Masters
• The Father-Thing
• Strange Eden
• Tony and the Beetles
• Null-O
• To Serve the Master
• Exhibit Piece
• The Crawlers
• Sales Pitch
• Shell Game
• Upon the Dull Earth
• Foster, You're Dead
• Pay for the Printer
• War Veteran
• The Chromium Fence
• Misadjustment
• A World of Talent
• Psi-Man Heal My Child!

This fourth volume of the definitive five-book set of the complete collected stories of the twentieth century's greatest SF author covers a wide span, from late 1954 through to 1963. Those were the years during which Dick began writing novels prolifically and his short story output lessened. The title story of this collection is being made into the Steven Spielberg-directed movie of the same name, while "The Days of Perky Pat" inspired one of Dick's greatest works, the novel "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. "The Penultimate Truth" grew from "The Mold of Yancy". Philip K. Dick is shown at his incomparable prime in this stunning collection.

Table of Contents:

• Autofac
• Service Call
• Captive Market
• The Mold of Yancy
• The Minority Report
• Recall Mechanism
• The Unreconstructed M
• Explorers We
• War Game
• If There Were No Benny Cemoli
• Novelty Act
• Waterspider
• What the Dead Men Say
• Orpheus with Clay Feet
• The Days of Perky Pat
• Stand-By
• What'll We Do with Ragland Park?
• Oh, to Be a Blobel!

Many thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works.

This collection includes all of the writer's earliest short and medium-length fiction (including some previously unpublished stories) covering the years 1952-1955. These fascinating stories include We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, The Cookie Lady, The World She Wanted, and many others.

Also published as The Little Black Box.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (The Little Black Box) - (1987) - essay by Thomas M. Disch
• The Little Black Box - (1964) - novelette
• The War With the Fnools - (1964) - short story
• A Game of Unchance - (1964) - novelette
• Precious Artifact - (1964) - short story
• Retreat Syndrome - (1965) - novelette
• A Terran Odyssey - (1987) - novelette
• Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday - (1966) - novelette
• Holy Quarrel - (1966) - novelette
• We Can Remember It for You Wholesale - (1966) - novelette
• Not by Its Cover - (1968) - short story
• Return Match - (1967) - short story
• Faith of Our Fathers - (1967) - novelette
• The Story to End All Stories for Harlan Ellison's Anthology Dangerous Visions - (1968) - short story
• The Electric Ant - (1969) - short story
• Cadbury, the Beaver Who Lacked - (1987) - short story
• A Little Something for Us Tempunauts - (1974) - novelette
• The Pre-Persons - (1974) - novelette
• The Eye of the Sibyl - (1987) - short story
• The Day Mr. Computer Fell Out of Its Tree - (1987) - short story
• The Exit Door Leads In - (1979) - short story
• Chains of Air, Web of Aether - (1980) - novelette
• Strange Memories of Death - (1984) - short story
• I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon - (1980) - short story (variant of Frozen Journey)
• Rautavaara's Case - (1980) - short story
• The Alien Mind - (1981) - short story
• Notes (The Little Black Box) - (1987) - essay

First in a projected eight volumes collecting all of the short stories and novellas SF Grandmaster Silverberg wants to take their place on the permanent shelf. Each volume will be roughly 150,000-200,000 words, with classics and lesser known gems alike. Mr. Silverberg has also graced us with a lengthy introduction and extensive story notes for each tale.

The Subterranean Collected Silverberg will vary greatly from the UK trade paperback series published in the 1990s. Due to the publisher's desire to limit the series to six volumes, many stories and, especially, novellas, could not be included. The Subterranean Collected Silverberg will be the definitive set.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Gorgon Planet
• The Road to Nightfall
• The Silent Colony
• Absolutely Inflexible
• The MacAuley Circuit
• The Songs of Summer
• To Be Continued
• Alaree
• The Artifact Business
• Collecting Team
• A Man of Talent
• One-Way Journey
• Sunrise on Mercury
• World of a Thousand Colors
• Warm Man
• Blaze of Glory
• Why?
• The Outbreeders
• The Man Who Never Forgot
• There Was an Old Woman
• The Iron Chancellor
• Ozymandias
• Counterpart
• Delivery Guaranteed

From Publishers Weekly

"Beginning with his very first sale, "Gorgon Planet," Hugo and Nebula award-winner Silverberg (A Time of Changes) collects 24 stories from the prolific first five years of his career (1953-1958), each piece with a lively headnote about its genesis, magazine venue and editor... Though none of his best-known or award-winning stories are included, these selections, which Silverberg deems the best of his early era, illustrate his apprenticeship and presage the Grand Master he has become."

From SF Site:

"And there is a consistent ambition which clearly drives most of the stories here. All of this is unusual in the pulp science fiction of the time, and while they would lead to bigger and better things for Silverberg they also mean that these early efforts still retain interest for the reader today."

From Green Man Review:

"Of equal interest--and value--are Silverberg's introductions to each story. They become, as one reads along, a history not only of the early days of Silverberg's career (he sold his first story at age eighteen and was writing steadily throughout his college years), but a glimpse at a unique period in the history of the field: the Golden Age, when editors such as Campbell, Boucher, and Gold were shaping the future of this particular brand of literature and leaving behind the days of the pulp-formula story in favor of the literary explosion that happened in the 1960s and 1970s."

This story, "To See the Invisible Man," written in June of 1962, marks the beginning of my real career as a science-fiction writer, I think. The 1953-58 stories collected in To Be Continued, the first of this series of volumes, are respectable professional work, some better than others but all of them at least minimally acceptable--but most of them could have been written by just about anyone. Aside from a few particularly ambitious items, they were designed to slip unobtrusively into the magazines of their time, efficiently providing me with regular paychecks. But now, by freeing me from the need to calculate my way around the risk of rejection, Fred Pohl allowed--indeed, required--me to reach as deep into my literary resources as I was capable of doing. I knew that unless I gave him my very best, the wonderful guaranteed-sale deal I had with him would vanish as quickly as it had appeared. Therefore I would reach deeper and deeper, in the years ahead, until I had moved so far away from my youthful career as a hack writer that latecomers would find it hard to believe that I had been emotionally capable of writing all that junk, let alone willing to do it. In "To See the Invisible Man" the distinctive Silverberg fictional voice is on display for just about the first time.

--Robert Silverberg

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• To See The Invisible Man
• The Pain Peddlers
• Neighbor
• The Sixth Palace
• Flies
• Halfway House
• To The Dark Star
• Hawksbill Station
• Passengers
• Bride 91
• Going Down Smooth
• Fangs of the TREES
• Ishmael in Love
• Ringing the Changes
• Sundance
• How It Was When the Past Went Away
• A Happy Day in 2381
• (Now + n, Now - n )
• After the Myths Went Home
• The Pleasure of Their Company
• We Know Who We Are

"The world that these stories sprang from was the troubled, bewildering, dangerous, and very exciting world of those weird years when the barriers were down and the future was rushing into the present with the force of a river unleashed. But of course I think these stories speak to our times, too, and that most of them will remain valid as we go staggering onward through the brave new world of the twenty-first century. I am not one of those who believes that all is lost and the end is nigh. Like William Faulkner, I do think we will somehow endure and prevail against increasingly stiff odds.

"A great many strange and dizzying things happen to the characters in these sixteen stories, and in the fourteen stories of the 1972-73 volume that will follow. The reader who makes the journey from beginning to end of all thirty stories will be taken on many a curious trip, that I promise--as was their author during the years when they were being written."

--Robert Silverberg, from the Introduction

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Something Wild is Loose
• In Entropy's Jaws
• The Reality Trip
• Going Caliban
• Good News from the Vatican
• Thomas the Proclaimer
• When We Went to See the End of the World
• Push No More
• The Wind and the Rain
• Some Notes on the Pre-Dynastic Epoch
• The Feast of St. Dionysus
• What We Learned from This Morning's Newspaper
• The Mutant Season
• Caught in the Organ Draft
• Many Mansions

From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):

"This third of a projected eight volumes of Grand Master Silverberg's short form fiction focuses on his literary output from 1969 to 1972. Many of the 16 stories share what Silverberg describes as the era's "Day-Glo splendor" and take a questioning, cynical tone, often with discontented characters searching for some kind of transcendence... Longtime fans and new readers alike will cherish this collection."

From Booklist:

"Silverberg wrote several novels and fewer short stories in the period this volume covers, during which losing his house in a 1968 fire and responding to the social and political turmoil of the 1960s affected his writing. Nevertheless, he produced such widely recognized classics as 'The Feast of St. Dionysus,' 'Good News from the Vatican,' 'Caught in the Organ Draft,' 'Thomas the Proclaimer,' and 'Going.'"

The stories here, all of them written between March of 1972 and November of 1973, mark a critical turning point in my career. Those who know the three earlier volumes have traced my evolution from a capable journeyman, very young and as much concerned with paying the rent as he was to advancing the state of the art, into a serious, dedicated craftsman now seeking to leave his mark on science fiction in some significant way. Throughout the decade of the 1960s I had attempted to grow and evolve within the field of writing I loved--building on the best that went before me, the work of Theodore Sturgeon and James Blish and Cyril Kornbluth and Jack Vance and Philip K. Dick and half a dozen others whose great stories had been beacons beckoning me onward--and then, as I reached my own maturity, now trying to bring science fiction along with me into a new realm of development, hauling it along even farther out of its pulp-magazine origins toward what I regarded as a more resonant and evocative kind of visionary storytelling.

--Robert Silverberg, from his introduction

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• In the Group
• Getting Across
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame
• A Sea of Faces
• The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov IV
• Breckenridge and the Continuum
• Capricorn Games
• Ship-Sister, Star-Sister
• This is the Road
• Trips
• Born with the Dead
• Schwartz Between the Galaxies
• In the House of Double Minds

From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):

"Thought-provoking and deeply ironic, these stories and the others in this volume are as powerful today as they were when they first saw print."

From Booklist:

"The introductions to the whole volume and each story represent new installments of Silverberg's literary autobiography and make it more obvious that the series is an invaluable resource to sf readers and scholars alike."

From SF Site:

"'Born with the Dead,' which went on to win a Nebula Award for Silverberg, is perhaps the most successful of the stories included, but others, such as the titular 'Trips' or 'The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov IV' stand the test of time. These stories show that no matter how much Silverberg was feeling that times were changing around him, he could still tell a good story."

Somehow, for all my outward pretence of cold-eyed professionalism, all my insistence that writing is simply a job like any other, I've discovered to my surprise and chagrin that there's more than that going on around here, that I write as much out of karmic necessity and some inescapable inner need to rededicate my own skills constantly to my--what? My craft? My art? My profession? I wrote these stories because the only way of earning a living I have ever had has been by writing, but mainly, I have to admit, I wrote these stories because I couldn't not write them. Well, so be it. They involved me in a lot of hard work, but for me, at least, the results justify the toil. I'm glad I wrote them. Writing them, it turns out, was important for me, and even pleasurable, in a curiously complex after-the-fact kind of way. May they give you pleasure now too.

--Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Our Lady of the Sauropods
• Waiting for the Earthquake
• The Regulars
• The Far Side of the Bell-Shaped Curve
• A Thousand Paces Along the Via Dolorosa
• How They Pass the Time in Pelpel
• The Palace at Midnight
• The Man Who Floated in Time
• Gianni
• The Pope of the Chimps
• Thesme and the Ghayrog
• At the Conglomeroid Cocktail Party
• The Trouble with Sempoanga
• Jennifer's Lover
• Not Our Brother
• Gate of Horn, Gate of Ivory
• Dancers in the Time-Flux
• Needle in a Timestack
• Amanda and the Alien
• Snake and Ocean, Ocean and Snake
• The Changeling
• Basileus
• Homefaring

From Publishers Weekly:

"This superb volume collects nearly two dozen of SFWA Grand Master Silverberg's best short stories... With exquisite takes on common themes like time travel and transcendent experiences, these stories represent some of the best and most sophisticated science fiction of the early 1980s."

From Booklist:

"The volume opens with a classic, 'Our Lady of the Sauropods,' and ends with one of the best-ever sf stories about intelligent lobsters (!), 'Homecoming.' In between are many stories about time travel, many done for Playboy, and some done because the author, who considers himself a working writer rather than an 'artist,' simply couldn't NOT write them."

From SF Crowsnest:

"These are quiet, serene, cerebral stories by a master of the genre, flawlessly written and well worth a look. Highly recommended."

By the time this present group of stories was written I had passed through the cultural turbulence that engulfed nearly everyone's life in the wild, stormy period we know as "the Sixties," which for me had actually lasted from 1968 to 1974 or 1975. I had come through my own angry four-year-long retirement from writing in the middle 1970s, and was working again at a steady pace, though not with the frenetic prolificacy of the pre-retirement years. At the beginning of this period my personal life was still pretty chaotic, a carryover from all that Sixties madness, and plenty of new chaos was going to descend on me while some of these stories were written, but I was tiptoeing toward an escape from the various messes that were complicating my life, and by the time the last five stories of this volume were being written I was heading into the stability of my second marriage.

--Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Tourist Trade
• Multiples
• Against Babylon
• Symbiont
• Sailing to Byzantium
• Sunrise on Pluto
• Hardware
• Hannibal's Elephants
• Blindsight
• Gilgamesh in the Outback
• The Pardoner's Tale
• The Iron Star
• The Secret Sharer
• House of Bones

From Publishers Weekly:

"...this volume gives fans and scholars a closer look at some of Silverberg's best work, as he explores classic science fiction themes of alienation, exploration, and humanity."

From SFCrowsnest:

"Many of the stories herein were much praised and included in 'Best Of-' anthologies for the year they appeared, deservedly so. I think Silverberg is probably the greatest SF writer ever, perhaps slightly too sophisticated to achieve the popular appeal of some others. This is a brilliant collection from a gifted writer and deserves a place on the bookshelf or the electronic reading device."

From SFSite:

"Virtually all of the stories included in this volume were amongst the best science fiction written in the mid-1980s, and many were indeed nominated and/or won various awards. Robert Silverberg has created here tales of emotional impact and intellectual depth that should be avidly perused by every serious science fiction reader. I look forward to future volumes in the series."

The stories collected here, written between August of 1987 and May of 1990, demonstrate that I still believe in the classical unities. Of course, what seems to us a unity now might not have appeared that way when H. G. Wells was writing his wonderful stories in the nineteenth century. Wells might have argued that my "To the Promised Land" is built around two speculative fantasy assumptions, one that the Biblical Exodus from Egypt never happened, the other that it is possible to send rocketships to other worlds. But in fact we've seen plenty of rocketships to other worlds by now, so only my story's alternative-world speculation remains fantasy today. Technically speaking the space-travel element of the plot has become part of the given; it's the other big assumption that forms the central matter of the story.

--Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• The Dead Man's Eyes
• Enter A Soldier. Later: Enter Another
• To The Promised Land
• Chip Runner
• A Sleep And A Forgetting
• In Another Country
• The Asenion Solution
• We Are For The Dark
• Lion Time in Timbuctoo
• A Tip On A Turtle

From Publishers Weekly:

"In 'The Dead Man's Eyes,' a jealous husband goes on the run after the thoughtless murder of his wife's lover. Anorexia is the means to a computer-obsessed boy's end in 'Chip Runner.' Hugo-winner 'Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another' and 'A Sleep and a Forgetting' explore the issues that might arise if scientists created the technology to recreate famous men from history. Alternate history is also represented; 'To the Promised Land' considers what the 20th century would be like if the Roman Empire hadn't fallen, and "Lion Time in Timbuctoo" examines a world where the Black Death has completely changed the fortunes of the world's great empires."

From SF Site:

"We Are For the Dark doesn't exhaust Silverberg's work in the late 80s, and, of course, in the more than twenty years since 'A Tip on a Turtle' was published in Amazing Stories, Silverberg has published more than fifty additional stories, leaving several additional volumes in the series, each of which will demonstrate that Silverberg continues to be innovative in his story-telling."

The stories in this volume were written between July of 1990 and March of 1995--the second half of the fifth decade of my career as a science-fiction writer. I don't think I could have imagined, when I began that career in the early 1950s, that science-fiction publishing would evolve the way it did over the next forty years.

Here, then, is the cream of the Silverberg output, 1990-95. I suppose I wrote more short stories in the first six months of 1957 than in that entire six-year period; but so be it. It's a different world today. I look back nostalgically on the small-town atmosphere of the era in which I began my career, and there are times when I'd be glad to "call back yesterday, bid time return." As Shakespeare pointed out, though, that can't be done. The one recourse is the one I have chosen, which is to soldier staunchly onward through the years, come what may, writing a story or two here and a book there, while the world changes out of all recognition around me. And so--to leap neatly from the Bard of Avon to F. Scott Fitzgerald--"so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

--Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• In the Clone Zone
• Hunters in the Forest
• A Long Night's Vigil at the Temple
• Thebes of the Hundred Gates
• It Comes and Goes
• Looking for the Fountain
• The Way to Spook City
• The Red Blaze is the Morning
• Death Do Us Part
• The Martian Invasion Diaries of Henry James
• Crossing into the Empire
• The Second Shield
• Hot Times in Magma City

From Publishers Weekly:

"Dense with colorful settings, thoughtful characters, and Silverberg's usual painstaking attention to detail, these stories reveal a master of the genre comfortable with what he does best."

From Booklist:

"Silverberg has an inimitable voice, informed by mythology, history, and science. He puts together entertaining yarns about all kinds of worlds, from recognizable variations on our own to much stranger places. 'Hot Times in Magma City' is a short piece about the harsh work of fighting volcanoes in Los Angeles. 'Thebes of the Hundred Gates' is a time-travel story in a classic vein, with just the right level of shock at seeing history come to life. 'Crossing into the Empire' isn't quite a time-travel story, but it's got that same historical bent. 'The Martian Invasion Diaries of Henry James' is something only Silverberg would think of--and yet this particular revision of the classic Wells tale is thoroughly entertaining."

But, for all that, I went on writing short fiction all through the seventh and eighth decades of my life, and though I'm not very active these days, I would still pay attention if someone were to approach me with an interesting and challenging short-story project, or if some absolutely irresistible story idea were to come into my mind. I will not, at this point, try to claim that the stories that are collected here are the last short stories I will ever write. Surely some editor, in the years ahead, will tickle my imagination with a proposal I can't resist. But I doubt that will be happening very often; and, meanwhile, here's the harvest of the fourteen years that began in 1995--not an enormous number of stories, no, but stories nevertheless that I think are worth reading and reprinting.

--Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Diana of the Hundred Breasts
• Beauty in the Night
• Call Me Titan
• The Tree That Grew From the Sky
• The Church at Monte Saturno
• Hanosz Prime Goes to Old Earth
• The Millennium Express
• Travelers
• The Colonel Returns to the Stars
• The Eater of Dreams
• A Piece of the Great World
• Against the Current
• The True Vintage of Erzuine Thale
• Defenders of the Frontier
• The Prisoner
• Smithers and the Ghost of the Thar

Intended to be the first volume in a series collection of Siverberg's short fiction. It never progressed beyond the first volume.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay
• Homefaring - (1983) - novella
• Basileus - (1983) - short story
• Dancers in the Time-Flux - (1983) - short story
• Gate of Horn, Gate of Ivory - (1984) - short story
• Amanda and the Alien - (1983) - short story
• Snake and Ocean, Ocean and Snake - (1984) - short story
• Tourist Trade - (1984) - novelette
• Multiples - (1983) - short story
• Against Babylon - (1986) - novelette
• Symbiont - (1985) - novelette
• Sailing to Byzantium - (1985) - novella
• Sunrise on Pluto - (1985) - short story
• Hardware - (1987) - short story
• Hannibal's Elephants - (1988) - novelette
• The Pardoner's Tale - (1987) - short story
• The Iron Star - (1987) - novelette
• The Secret Sharer - (1987) - novella
• House of Bones - (1988) - short story
• The Dead Man's Eyes - (1988) - short story
• Chip Runner - (1989) - short story
• To the Promised Land - (1989) - short story
• The Asenion Solution - (1989) - short story
• A Sleep and a Forgetting - (1989) - short story
• Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another - (1989) - novelette

The first in a six-volume series, Volume 1: Threshold contains all of Zelazny's short works from his early years through the mid 1960s--a period of experimentation and growth that flowered into gems such as "A Rose for Ecclesiastes," "The Graveyard Heart," "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth," and "He Who Shapes." The stories in this series are enriched by editors' notes and Zelazny's own words, taken from his many essays, describing why he wrote the stories and what he thought about them in retrospect.

The second in a six-volume series, Volume 2: Power & Light covers the mid 1960s, Zelazny's most prolific period, where he continued to incorporate mainstream literary qualities and added a wealth of mythological elements into powerful stories such as "The Furies," "For a Breath I Tarry," "This Moment of the Storm," "Comes Now the Power," "Auto-Da-Fé," and the Hugo-winning novel ...And Call Me Conrad. The stories in this series are enriched by editors' notes and Zelazny's own words, taken from his many essays, describing why he wrote the stories and what he thought about them in retrospect.

The third in a six-volume series, Volume 3: This Mortal Mountain contains Zelazny's short works from the late 1960s and early 1970s, Zelazny's breadth of interests developed into a variety of styles displayed in such rich stories as "This Mortal Mountain," "The Steel General," "Damnation Alley," "The Man Who Loved the Faioli," and the Hugo and Nebula-nominated "The Engine at Heartspring's Center". The stories in this series are enriched by editors' notes and Zelazny's own words, taken from his many essays, describing why he wrote the stories and what he thought about them in retrospect.

The fourth in a six-volume series, Volume 4: Last Exit to Babylon contains Zelazny's short works from the late 1970s and early 1980s when Zelazny's popularity opened new markets for his work. He continued to produce highly-crafted stories, such as the popular "The Last Defender of Camelot," the Hugo-winning "Unicorn Variation," and the Hugo and Nebula-winning "Home is the Hangman." The stories in this series are enriched by editors' notes and Zelazny's own words, taken from his many essays, describing why he wrote the stories and what he thought about them in retrospect.

The fifth in a six-volume series, Volume 5: Nine Black Doves contains Zelazny's short works from the 1980s, when Zelazny's mature craft produced the Hugo-winning and Nebula-nominated stories, "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai" and "Permafrost," and other entertaining stories such as "Kalifriki of the Thread," "Dilvish, the Damned," and his first two Wild Cards stories about Croyd Crenson, "The Sleeper" and "Ashes to Ashes."

The last in a six-volume series Volume 6: The Road To Amber, the last in the series, covers the final five years of Zelazny's career in the early 1990s, when he reached for new ideas and continued familiar themes with stories such as "Godson" and "Godson: A Play in Three Acts," two more Wild Cards stories ("Concerto for Siren and Serotonin" and "The Long Sleep"), and a linked sequence of five Amber stories leading to planned but unwritten Amber novels.