Search Worlds Without End

Nebula Award nominated short story. It was originally published in Realms of Fantasy, August 1998 and appeared in the UK magazine Odyssey #6, September/October 1998. No other publications appear to be available at this time.

An anthology of high-tech reproduction.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1999) - essay by Constance Ash
• Hunting Mother - (1999) - novelette by Sage Walker
• Judith's Flowers - (1999) - novelette by Susan Palwick
• A Gift to Be Simple - (1999) - shortstory by Patricia A. McKillip
• Island of the Ancestor - (1999) - shortstory by William F. Wu
• One Day at Central Convenience Mall - (1999) - shortstory by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
• Dead in the Water - (1999) - shortstory by Jack McDevitt
• Raising Jenny - (1999) - novelette by Janni Lee Simner
• There Was an Old Woman-- - (1958) - shortstory by Robert Silverberg
• Remailer - (1999) - shortstory by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
• The Leopard's Garden - (1999) - novelette by Constance Ash
• Bouncing Babies - (1999) - shortstory by Kara Dalkey
• Of Bitches Born - (1999) - novelette by Michael Armstrong
• Doppels - (1999) - shortstory by Richard Parks
• Daddy's World - (1999) - novelette by Walter Jon Williams

This short story originally appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Issue #17, February/March 2005, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, October 2013.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

In 1895, sixteen-year-old Juliet begins a passionate, doomed romance with a married artist.

In 1932, aspiring actress Nora escapes New York for the bright lights of Hollywood and a new chance at love.

In 1970, Californian musician Sandra's secret love affair threatens to tear her band apart.

And in 2012, Helen is starting to remember the tragic details of lives that never belonged to her.

Bound to her lover in 1895, and trapped by his side ever since, Helen has lived through multiple lifetimes, under different names, never escaping her tragic endings. Only this time, she might finally have the power to break the cycle...

The surest way to get a ticket to Le Cirque Secret is to wish for it...

Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder - a world where women weave illusions, carousels take you back in time, and trapeze artists float across the sky. Bound to her family's circus, it's the only world Cecile Cabot knows until she meets a charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate affair that could cost her everything.

Virginia, 2004: Lara Barnes is on top of the world, but when her fiancé disappears on their wedding day every plan she has for the future comes crashing down. Desperate, Lara's search for answers unexpectedly lead to her great-grandmother's journals.

Swept into a story of a dark circus and ill-fated love, secrets about Lara's family history come to light and reveal a curse that has been claiming payment from the women in her family for generations. A curse that might be tied to her fiancé's mysterious fate...

A vanished star. A haunted film. A mystery only love can unravel...

1968: Gemma Turner once dreamed of stardom. Now she's on the cusp of obscurity. When she's offered the lead in a radical new horror film, Gemma believes her luck has changed - but her dream is about to turn into a nightmare. One night, between the shadows of an alleyway, Gemma disappears on set and is never seen again. Yet she's still alive. She's been pulled into the film. And the script - and the monsters within it - are coming to life. Gemma must play her role perfectly if she hopes to survive.

2007: Gemma Turner's disappearance is one of Hollywood's greatest mysteries - one that's haunted film student Christopher Kent ever since he saw L'Étrange Lune for the first time. The screenings only happen once a decade, and each time, there is new, impossible footage of Gemma that shouldn't exist. Curiosity drives Christopher to unravel the truth. But answers to the film's mystery may leave him trapped by it forever.

In the near future, advances in medicine and quantum computing make human cloning a reality. For the wealthy, cheating death is the ultimate luxury. To anticloning militants, it's an abomination against nature. For young Constance "Con" D'Arcy, who was gifted her own clone by her late aunt, it's terrifying.

After a routine monthly upload of her consciousness?stored for that inevitable transition?something goes wrong. When Con wakes up in the clinic, it's eighteen months later. Her recent memories are missing. Her original, she's told, is dead. If that's true, what does that make her?

The secrets of Con's disorienting new life are buried deep. So are those of how and why she died. To uncover the truth, Con is retracing the last days she can recall, crossing paths with a detective who's just as curious. On the run, she needs someone she can trust. Because only one thing has become clear: Con is being marked for murder--all over again.

Over the years, Constance Leidl and Charlie Meiklejohn have investigated a wide variety of murder and arson cases. This collection assembles for the first time the shorter cases of the detecting duo, including: "With Thimbles, with Forks, and Hope," their first case ever; the harrowing account of an arsonist out for revenge, "Torch Song," which has never been published before; and "All for One," also published first in this volume - a bittersweet tale of murderous family relations. Together with "Sister Alice" and "The Gorgon Field," these stories comprise a full house of fantastic fiction.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Robin Scott Wilson
• With Thimbles, with Forks, and Hope - (1981) - novella
• Sister Angel - (1983) - novelette
• All for One - novella
• The Gorgon Field - (1985) - novella
• Torch Song - novella

WFA and Nebula Award nominated novella.

What is Ramón's hold on Carl Wyandot, one of the richest men in the country? Carl's daughter hires Constance and Charlie to find out why her father intends to give a hidden valley in Colorado to him. In the valley there is the mammoth formation called the Gorgon Field, red sandstone pillars that are unscalable, cover an area a mile and a half from front to back, and reach nearly two hundred feet in height. Why is Constance entranced by them? Why are others so afraid of them?

The Gorgon Field originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, August 1985. The story is included in the collections Children of the Wind (1989) and A Flush of Shadows (1995).

Hugo Award nominated novella.

It started with an insurance fraud investigation that took Constance and Charlie to a luxurious resort hotel in Florida where they found their suspect being stalked by an enigmatic woman. It ends with the couple aboard a fishing boat alone with a ruthless killer, and fighting for their lives.

The story originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, November 23, 1981. The story is included in the collections Listen, Listen (1981) and A Flush of Shadows (1995).

A time-warp machine offering the ultimate travel experience is ready to take off to the Cretaceous Period when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

Now paleontologist Rick Clements and a select group of tourists have arrived-unfortunately, just in time to witness the meteor that once laid waste to earth 65,000,000 years ago.

Constance Clements is an 1880s Montana mine owner-and a time traveler. But she never saw the murder of her husband Rick coming.

To get Rick back, the shocked, grief-stricken Con must gain the trust of a Rick from an alternate timeline, who has never met her, and race to the Jurassic Period-where they will have to outwit an enemy who has mastered both time and space...

Constance Verity has been saving the world since she was seven, and she's sick of it. She sets off on one last adventure to reset her destiny and become the one thing she's never been: ordinary.

Ever since she was granted a wish at birth by her fairy godmother, Constance Verity has become the world's great adventurer. She is a master of martial arts, a keen detective, and possesses a collection of strange artifacts. Constance has spent the past twenty-eight years saving the world, and she's tired of it. All she wants is to work in an office and date a nice, normal guy. And she's figured a way out. The only problem is that saving the world is Constance's destiny. She's great at it, and there are forces at work to make sure she stays in the job.

Then again, it's also her destiny to have a glorious death.

For Constance Verity, saving the world isn't the hard part. It's keeping her new, ordinary life from falling apart along the way that's going to be tricky. This is the next book in the witty Constance Verity trilogy, which Booklist named a Top 10 SF/Fantasy book of 2016.

Constance successfully became an ordinary person. People warned her it would be boring--and they were right. That's exactly why Connie loves it. But there's an Adventurer-shaped hole in the cosmos now, and a lot of interested parties eager to fill it. Not all of those candidates are fit for the role, and if The Adventurer falls into the wrong hands, it can lead to chaos and destruction.

Constance still has all the skills of her old life, but she's no longer chosen. Yet when the fate of the world is at stake, she sets off, reluctantly, to keep the forces of evil from stealing the destiny she abandoned.

Saving the world is easy for Constance Verity: she's used to doing the impossible on a daily basis. Everything that comes after is the tricky part.

Connie has accepted and secured her place in the universe. There isn't a foe she can't outfight or a peril she can't outwit - until she discovers she herself might be the greatest threat to the world she's spent her life saving.

All the signs are pointing to impending doom, and not just for Connie. Her friends, her enemies and the universe itself are all at risk. She's always known she was destined for a glorious death, but she never suspected she'd be taking everyone and everything else with her.

With her trademark determination, Constance Verity sets out to avert a cosmic plan millions of years in the making - and save the universe from herself.

This is a fabulous tale about a girl rejects her heritage and upbringing to do what she has always wanted and dreamed of doing, being with horses. After going to learn of horses she grows up and comes into her identity.

She danced to the music of magic, danger, and love … Glennys had come to the dazzling city of St. Lucien to seek her fortune. No longer under the protection of Baron Fulk, unable to return to her strict Alaminite folk, she soon found work as a Horse Skiller with the Queen's Opera. But her Heart's true desire is to appear with the Opera … performing onstage in the intricate and demanding horse-dance. And Glynnys has the gift that could make her the greatest of all dancers. But to reveal her gift is to expose her true identity, for only one of the noble blood has the power. And amid the courtly intrigues of St. Lucien, to claim her birthright could put Glennys is gravest peril …

Finding refuge with her followers in the Saquave Wilderness after abandoning their homeland, Glennys reigns as the Stallion Queen, living in harmony with all creatures of the wild, until an unexpected stranger darkens her door.