Search Worlds Without End

Years ago, when plagues and natural disasters killed millions of people, much of the world stopped dreaming. Without dreams, people are haunted, sick, mad, unable to rebuild. The government soon finds that the Indigenous people of North America have retained their dreams, an ability rumored to be housed in the very marrow of their bones. Soon, residential schools pop up--or are re-opened--across the land to bring in the dreamers and harvest their dreams.

Seventeen-year-old French lost his family to these schools and has spent the years since heading north with his new found family: a group of other dreamers, who, like him, are trying to build and thrive as a community. But then French wakes up in a pitch-black room, locked in and alone for the first time in years, and he knows immediately where he is--and what it will take to escape.

Meanwhile, out in the world, his found family searches for him and dodges new dangers--school Recruiters, a blood cult, even the land itself. When their paths finally collide, French must decide how far he is willing to go--and how many loved ones is he willing to betray--in order to survive. This engrossing, action-packed, deftly-drawn novel expands on the world of Cherie Dimaline's award-winning The Marrow Thieves, and it will haunt readers long after they've turned the final page.

They were the beautiful dreamers. From a hidden city deep in the Ural mountains, they walked the world as the coldest of Cold Warriors, under the command of the Kremlin and under the power of their own expansive minds. They slipped into the minds of Russia's enemies with diabolical ease, and drove their human puppets to murder - and worse. They moved as Gods. And as Gods, they might have remade the world. But like the mad holy man Rasputin, who destroyed Russia through his own powerful influence, in the end, the psychic spies for the Motherland were only in it for themselves. It is the 1990s. The Cold War is long finished. From a suite in an unseen hotel in the heart of Manhattan, an old warrior named Kolyokov sets out with an open heart, to gather together the youngest members of his immense, and immensely talented, family. They are more beautiful - and more terrible - than any who came before them. They are Rasputin's bastards. And they will remake the world!

The subject matter of this collection is varied, but displays Jones' stance as a practicing SF writer and a feminist; the writing is characterized by both an incisive engagement with the texts and a refusal to dress that engagement in jargon. This very readable book provides insight into the work of one of the UK's most interesting writers and presents strong - sometimes even subversive - views of a range of modern SF and fantasy.

Contents:

• vii - Foreword (Deconstructing the Starships) - essay
• 3 - Introduction (Deconstructing the Starships) - (1988) - essay
• 9 - Getting Rid of the Brand Names - (1987) - essay
• 22 - The Lady and the Scientists - (1990) - essay
• 35 - Dreamer: An Exercise in Extrapolation 1989-2019 - (unknown) - essay
• 60 - My Crazy Uncles: C. S. Lewis and Tolkien as Writers for Children - (1995) - essay
• 77 - Fools: The Neuroscience of Cyberspace - (1997) - essay
• 91 - Trouble (Living in the Machine) - (1994) - essay
• 99 - Sex: The Brains of Female Hyena Twins - (1994) - essay
• 108 - Aliens in the Fourth Dimension - (1996) - essay
• 123 - Review: In the Chinks of the World Machine by Sarah LeFanu - (1988) - review
• 131 - Consider Her Ways: The Fiction of C. J. Cherryh - (unknown) - essay
• 141 - Review: Alien Sex by Ellen Datlow - (1990) - review
• 146 - Review: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson - (1992) - review
• 153 - Review: Glory Season by David Brin - (1993) - review
• 156 - Review: Virtual Light by William Gibson - review
• 161 - Review: A Million Open Doors by John Barnes - review
• 168 - Review: Winterlong by Elizabeth Hand - review
• 178 - Review: Plague of Angels by Sheri S. Tepper - review
• 184 - Review: The Furies by Suzy McKee Charnas - (1994) - review
• 192 - Review: Alien Influences by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - review
• 199 - No Man's Land: Feminised Landscapes in the Utopian Fiction of Ursula Le Guin - (1996) - essay
• 209 - Notes (Deconstructing the Starships) - essay

Seiji Nomi's scheming from his position atop the school social hierarchy has ceased. Sky Raker has returned to the Accelerated World, and upon joining Nega Nebulus, he and Kuroyukihime have become a force to be reckoned with. But one day, Haruyuki hears the news that the social camera network has been expanded to include the Hermes Cord space elevator, and he realizes what the next stage of the game will be: space. Upon arriving, he gets help from a mysterious operator in taking on the biggest mission in the history of Brain Burst! Plus, Kuroyukihime and Haruyuki have a chance to experience their first overnight event--except that Sky Raker and Fuko end up crashing it!

They had landed on the forbidden planet of Boroq-Thaddoi. They had made their way across the snow-covered desert and the vast graveyard of mangled spaceships. Now they stood gazing with awe at their destination, the Citadel.

The Citadel was unique in the galaxy. Some mad, brilliant architect might have dreamed this blending of the arts and materials of a hundred civilizations into a single monstrous edifice, but no known race could have erected such a thing. It dwarfed the nine walls of Skix, the great corridor on Clotho, the ageless pyramids of Xhanchos, even the legendary cities of Old Earth in the proud and violent centuries before the exodus. It was the monument of giants.

Somewhere in the perilous labyrinth behind these towering walls lay the secret that had eluded and destroyed all searchers for thousands of years... The secret that had to be found before the Great rebellion could begin...

A collection of science fiction tales of mystery, crime, and detection features works by Stephen R. Donaldson, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Harlan Ellison, and others.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Introduction (Tin Stars) - (1986) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• 11 - Into the Shop - (1964) - short story by Ron Goulart
• 22 - Cloak of Anarchy - [Known Space] - (1972) - novelette by Larry Niven
• 44 - The King's Legions - [Federation of Humanity] - (1967) - novelette by Christopher Anvil
• 98 - Finger of Fate - (1980) - short story by Edward Wellen
• 109 - Arm of the Law - (1958) - short story by Harry Harrison
• 126 - Voiceover - (1984) - novelette by Edward Wellen
• 154 - The Fastest Draw - (1963) - short story by Larry Eisenberg
• 163 - Mirror Image - [Elijah Baley / R. Daneel Olivaw] - (1972) - short story by Isaac Asimov
• 180 - Brillo - (1970) - novelette by Ben Bova and Harlan Ellison
• 214 - The Powers of Observation - (1968) - short story by Harry Harrison
• 230 - Faithfully Yours - (1955) - short story by Lou Tabakow
• 249 - Safe Harbor - (1986) - novelette by Donald Wismer
• 272 - Examination Day - (1958) - short story by Henry Slesar
• 277 - The Cruel Equations - (1971) - short story by Robert Sheckley
• 291 - Animal Lover - (1978) - novella by Stephen R. Donaldson

A meteor decimates the U.S. government and paves the way for a climate cataclysm that will eventually render the earth inhospitable to humanity. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated timeline in the earth's efforts to colonize space, as well as an unprecedented opportunity for a much larger share of humanity to take part.

One of these new entrants in the space race is Elma York, whose experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition's attempts to put man on the moon. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn't take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can't go into space, too -- aside from some pesky barriers like thousands of years of history and a host of expectations about the proper place of the fairer sex. And yet, Elma's drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions may not stand a chance.

Year 2471. A new discovery. Those three words thrill my parents - the galaxy's leading archaeologists - but for me, it means another time jump to a different planet. One so big, my friends will be older than my dad when we arrive. And I'll still be seventeen. Thanks, Einstein.

I really can't blame Einstein, though. No one expected to find life-sized terracotta warriors buried on other planets. So off we go to investigate, traveling through space and time. With my social life in ruins, I fill my days illegally worming into the quantum net - the invention that allows us to travel in space. Of course the only person close to my age is a hot-but-pain-in-the-neck security officer who threatens to throw me into the brig.

But when one of the warrior planets goes silent, we have bigger problems on our hands. The planet's entire population might be dead. And now my worming skills, along with a translation of an ancient alien artefact, might be the key to finding out why. But my attempts to uncover the truth lead to the discovery of a deadly new alien phenomenon, and also alert those who wish to keep it quiet. The galaxy is in real danger and time is not on our side...

On their way to start a new life, Tula and her family travel on the Prairie Rose, a colony ship headed to a planet in the outer reaches of the galaxy. All is going well until the ship makes a stop at a remote space station, the Yertina Feray, and the colonist's leader, Brother Blue, beats Tula within an inch of her life. An alien, Heckleck, saves her and teaches her the ways of life on the space station.

When three humans crash land onto the station, Tula's desire for escape becomes irresistible, and her desire for companionship becomes unavoidable. But just as Tula begins to concoct a plan to get off the space station and kill Brother Blue, everything goes awry, and suddenly romance is the farthest thing from her mind.

Brother Blue. His name, even the color, filled me with a furious fire of pure hatred.

Years ago, Tula Bane was beaten and left for dead on a remote space station far from Earth, her home planet. She started with nothing and had no one, but over time, she found a home, a family, and even love. When it's discovered that the abandoned planet beneath the station is abundant with a rare and valuable resource, aliens from across the galaxy race over to strike it rich. With them comes trouble, like the man who nearly killed Tula years ago--the man she has dreamed of destroying ever since.

In this sequel to Tin Star, Cecil Castellucci takes readers on an extraordinary adventure through space in a thrilling and thoughtful exploration of what it means to love, to hate, and to be human.

Phex is a barista on a forgotten moon. Which is fine -- he likes being ignored and he's good at making drinks. Until one day an alien hears him singing and recruits him to become a god. Now Phex is thrust headfirst into the galaxy's most cutthroat entertainment industry, where music is visible, the price of fame can kill, and the only friends he has want to be worshiped.

Welcome to the divinity. Where there is no difference between celebrity and religion, love and belief, acolyte and alien. Where the right kind of obsession can drive a person crazy or turn them divine.

A Xuya universe story. Nebula Award for Best Novelette, 2013. Shortlisted for the Hugo and Locus Award, 2013. It was originally published in the anthology The Other Half of the Sky (2013), edited by Athena Andreadis and Kay Holt. It has been reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection (2014), edited by Gardner Dozois, the Nebula Awards Showcase 2015, edited by Greg Bear, and Galactic Empires (2017), edited by Neil Clarke.

Read this story online for free at the author's website, at Lightspeed, or at Clarkesword.