Search Worlds Without End

Paul Carlton Savage died on July 20, 1969, in Vietnam - but that was only the start of his troubles! Approached by a mysterious entity called The Hunter, Savage was offered immortality in exchange for his services in The Hunter's continuing war against The Bromgrev. Suddenly, Savage found himself pitted against an enemy he had never seen, an enemy who could be anyone, anywhere, at any time... an enemy determined to destroy him and all who got in his way.

And in this raging intergalactic war between Good and Evil, Savage discovered that he couldn't be sure whose side he was on.

In California, the victims are blind. In Maine, severely retarded. Small towns across America are being systematically "wiped out" by terrorists and their campaign of germ warfare waged against the U.S. The President's only option seems to be an equally deadly counterattack.

Asmodeus Mogart was not a bad fellow, as demons go. Having gotten in trouble back in the home office, he had been assigned to duty on Earth. There he toiled, doing the kinds of things demons do and turning into something of a drunk.

Then a rogue asteroid threatened to crash into Earth and destroy all life on the planet - demons included! There had to be a better way.

Mac Walters and Jill McCullough, holding a private wake for their world in a Reno bar, were more than startled when a strange-looking little drunk told them they could save the world.

All they had to do was enter five alternate universes and steal a demon-guarded jewel in each. Clearly, the man was crazy.

But they had nothing better to do than go along with the gag. Then they each found themselves, naked and alone, on a hostile alien world!

Seven fantastical science fiction stories make up a collection including the title story about an ordinary deckhand determined to save the life of a beautiful ghost.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: The Writing Game - (1988) - essay
• No Hiding Place - (1977) - novelette
• Where Do You Get Those Crazy Ideas? - (1988) - essay
• Forty Days and Nights in the Wilderness - (1978) - short story
• Dance Band on the Titanic - (1978) - novelette
• Stormsong Runner - (1988) - short story
• In the Dowaii Chambers - (1984) - novella
• Adrift Among the Ghosts - (1988) - short story
• Moths and Candle - (1988) - novella
• Afterwords: On Transformations and Other Last Words - (1988) - essay
• The Official Jack L. Chalker Handout Bibliography - (1988) - essay
• Brief Biographical Notes for the Interested - (1988) - essay

A human fighter pilot's mind inhabits a spaceship.

When former Air Force officer and NSA agent Ron Moosic is assigned for special duty in charge of security for a nuclear power plant, he has no idea that the plant is only a cover for a top-secret project involving time travel.

The government has discovered a way to travel back in time and is sending secret observers to different periods. But there are serious limitations with the time travelling process. All travelers are automatically "re-born" into someone who is actually alive during the historical period, and staying in the past for too long causes memory loss and the risk of losing their own selves.

Suddenly Moosic is himself forced to travel back in time as terrorists infiltrate the facility. But little does he know that both he and the terrorists are just pawns in a much wider game played by future beings... a game that may result in the destruction of Earth itself.

WORLDS OF NO RETURN

Humans had finally gone to the stars, as the dreamers had always hoped; celestial stretches of the galaxy became the playgrounds of a new spacefaring race. But now these worlds were being taken over by Titans, creatures with unimaginable, godlike powers, supremely indifferent to humanity's survival.

There was one chance to stop them. Helena, one of the Titan-dominated planets, concealed an untapped, hundred-year-old weapon--Priam's Lens. Getting to Helena would not be difficult, but activating the lens was another matter. No one had ever returned from a Titan encounter. They simply disappeared--status unknown.

Now a small ragtag crew made up of scientists, warriors, a priest, and a stowaway--naval officer Gene Harker--were ready to pit themselves against the greatest power in the universe. With the help of a mad space pirate, they descended upon the deadly planet. They will succeed--or die trying...

While backpacking in Alaska, Victor Gonser, a 35 year old PhD in political science, finds himself trapped in the body of a 13 year old Tlingit Indian girl. A little later he is forced from there into the spectacularly beautiful body of an 18 year old blonde. He finds that the switches are part of a skirmish for Earth by two alien races... And that is just the beginning.

Sir Robert McKenzie, owner of the Magellan Corporation, dies suddenly in a mysterious and grisly way. His daughter may be next, for a Satanic cult is determined to herald the arrival of the apocalypse.

Greg MacDonald unravels the mystery of the cult, run by scientists with a distorted sense of duty and a computer that may be the Antichrist itself.

A hard-living reporter long past his Pulitzer Prize-winning prime, Chuck Vallone is about to meet a renowned geneticist who needs to clear his conscience. But when Vallone arrives at their rendezvous, he finds the D.C. hotel swarming with government agents. The scientist's room is now a grisly slaughterhouse splattered with blood - but no sign of a body.

Vallone knows he has the story of the century, especially when he receives a mysterious package filled with a computer disk and strange samples of DNA. Now he's determined to uncover the truth. But it's no brave new world Vallone will be exploring; rather, a deadly depraved one ruled by preeminent scientists. And this powerful cadre intends to make Vallone both eyewitness and executor of their final ferocious plan....

Millard Fillmore Pierce, Class 2 Arbiter, is lost. And when you're in the service of the Spiral Federation, getting found again is no easy task. The paperwork alone could take years.

But when Pierce's ship is captured by an alien dreadnought, the nightmare only gets worse: The aliens are intent on galactic conquest, and they intend to start with Pierce.

The plot gets thicker and thicker from that point on, as three of science fiction's most accomplished storytellers attempt to write each other into a corner.

NOBODY BEATS BAR HOLLIDAY.

He was paid to find Terraformable worlds, new planets for his corporation to plunder. Up until the day he came upon the Peace Victory, an abandoned generation ship hovering ominously above a definitely habitable planet, he believed nobody ever could.

NOBODY BEATS BAR HOLLIDAY... because he was never satisfied with anything lower than first place, because he was always the oddball, in charge of his own welfare, his own destiny... a man determined to make his mark in the world and win all games at any cost.

NOBODY EVER BEATS BAR HOLLIDAY... because he only took the wrong chances at the right times. But on the planet Patmos, where everything looked safe, but nothing was, Bar Holliday had at last met his match!

She was haunted by thunder and plagued by dreams... Strange, dark dreams of a world beyond time and space, a land of magic and mystery. But Charley knew it was more than a dream - for her friend Sam shared her vision.

Suddenly, the dreams become a reality... As a raging storm sweeps Charley and Sam to the fantastic land of Akahlar, where unicorns and griffins run free, an enchantress commands a den of unearthly pleasures, and a wizard warns of a terrifying inescapable event.

The Changewinds are coming... Savage, purple-tinged storms that alter the shapes of man and beast alike. Soon, all creatures must look to the skies - and beware...

The Changewinds blow from the Seat of Probability across the worlds that they themselves created, at once random and consistent, obeying the rules of their own strange spectral meteorology. Most of the universes the Winds have made exist separately from one another in time and space, but close to the Seat of Probability they are more densely packed, and one may walk from one to the other and not realise it until it is too late....

For countless centuries the Ahkbreed sorcerers have dreamed of the ultimate power - control and direction of the Changewinds themselves, a power that would truly make them gods over all universes everywhere. And for centuries those who pay tribute to the Ahkbreed have dreamed of a deliverer. Now two brave young women from Earth have found themselves caught up in the fury of the Changewinds. They themselves will be transformed. But, in the process, they will change everything.

The evil wizard Klittichorn has discovered how to predict the Changewinds, granting him enormous power. Now, the evil of the Inner Hells could place the power of the Winds in Klittichorn's destructive hands. The magic of the Changewinds could alter the shape of every man and beast in Akahlar.

Meet the Horowitzes. Sam and Brandy are private eyes, finding no business, going dead broke - or maybe just dead! A missing person case may save them: find Martin Whitlock, a hotshot banker who skipped town with over two million in laundered drug money.

Whitlock's trail led from a posh mansion to a hick burg in Oregon, and the G. O. D. Inc., those geeks who hawk overpriced garbage on late-night TV. They found their man(?); in fact, they found three of him(?). One was female. One was dead. The third was just plain dangerous.

They found themselves involved with a mob far more powerful and vicious than the Mafia. McInerny, Oregon wasn't just off the map. It was off the Earth! It was the entrance into the Labyrinth of Dreams

It was the ultimate case: to stop the ultimate drug...

I'm Horowitz. Brandy Horowitz. My husband, Sam, and I are private eyes who take cases for G.O.D., Inc. - the outfit that runs the Labyrinth to infinite alternate Earths filled with crime, danger... and murder.

Power-mad fanatics are running a narcotic V.D. that spreads like a bug, works like a drug, and one touch hooks you for good. You don't become a junkie... you become a zombie. 'Cause this monkey's not just on your back, but in your brain - it's got a mind, and if you kick it, it kicks back with madness and death.

So this beautiful black PI and wonderful Jewish sleuth have to smash the source before the drug-bug reaches our client's Home World. But the opposition's got fake Sams and Brandys set up in headquarters on the two worlds that hold any possible leads: one that never heard of civil rights... and one ruled by Nazis.

Third in the G.O.D. series, this novel features the characters of Sam and Brandy Horowitz. Horowitz, private eye, works for G.O.D., Inc. - the company that rules the Labyrinth between infinite alternate Earths. He becomes involved with rebels who plan to wreck the Labyrinth.

Entered by a thousand unsuspected gateways -- built by a race lost in the clouds of time -- the planet its dwellers called the Well World turned beings of every kind into something else. There spacefarer Nathan Brazil found himself companioned by a batman, an amorous female centaur and a mermaid -- all once as human as he.

Yet Nathan Brazil's metamorphosis was more terrifying than any of those...and his memory was coming back, bringing with it the secret of the Well World.

For at the heart of the bizarre planet lay the goal of every being that had ever lived -- and Nathan Brazil and his comrades were...lucky?...enough to find it!

Antor Trellig, head of a ruthless interstellar syndicate, had seized a super computer with godlike powers, which could make him omnipotent. The Council offered master criminal Mavra Chang any reward if she stopped Trellig - and horrible, lingering death if she failed. But neither Trellig nor Mavra had taken the Well World into consideration. Built by the ancient Markovians, the Well World controlled the design of the cosmos. When the opponents were drawn across space to the mysterious planet, they found themselves in new alien bodies, and in the middle of a battle where strange races fought desperately, with the control of all the Universe as the prize.

Mavra Chang had been a master criminal, notorious throughout the galaxy, but for years she has been trapped in a no-longer human body on the Well World - the Master Control planet for the universe. A supercomputer can restore her form, if only she can obtain a spaceship to reach it.

The Dreel was a hive-mind, composed of trillions of virus-sized units, which infected intelligent beings like a disease and took over their minds. It was on its way to conquering the entire galaxy - until those whose minds were still free fought back, using a weapon so powerful that it wrought havoc with the Well World, the ancient planet-sized supercomputer that a vanished super-race called the Markovians built to maintain the form of the entire universe.

If the Well World's control of time and space could not be restored, the universe could vanish like a blown-out candle flame. Only a Markovian could go to the Well World and repair the damage, but only one Markovian was still known to survive. He had last been seen in human form, going by the name of Nathan Brazil. No one knew where he was now, what name he was using, or even if he still appeared human. Finding him, somewhere in the immensity of the galaxy, seemed an impossible task.

So the task fell to someone who had done the impossible over and over: Mavra Chang, one of the few beings ever to escape from the Well World, and owner of Obie, who just might be the second most powerful computer in the universe. With those two on his trail, Nathan Brazil could run-but could he hide?

The rift in the fabric of space was fast approaching the Well World, and time was running out. If the Well World were destroyed, the entire universe would disappear like a blown-out candle. But the squabbling forces on the planet weren't going to let the impending doomsday stop them from having a serious war. Troops all over the planet were gathering for the final battle. Nathan Brazil and Mavra Chang somehow had to reach the Well of Souls in time to save the universe and before any of the hostile natives managed to kill them. At best, a difficult mission. At worst, impossible - especially since there was a price on Brazil's head and many would-be claimants! So Nathan Brazil decided that the simplest way to reach the Well of Souls was to be killed. And his enemies would find that he was far more dangerous dead than he had ever been alive...

This exciting, action-packed novel marks Jack Chalker's triumphant return to his celebrated multivolume saga: The Well World. The Sea Is Full of Stars explores an unknown interstellar civilization, stars an all-new cast of characters, and reveals fresh secrets. But of course, The Well remains . . .

After three passengers--Ming, Ari, and Angel--embark on an elite starship journey into the Realm, they unwittingly become ensnared in one man's bloodthirsty vendetta that will alter their very beings. That man is Jeremiah Wong Kincaid. He vows to destroy Josich Conqueror Hadun, the evil genius who has wreaked unspeakable havoc throughout the universe. It is an obsession that will take him to lands of demons and strange races--and into a deadly new cyberworld where humans are mere pawns of the godlike computers they have created.

But it is only after Kincaid and his unwitting fellow travelers enter Well World and discover the water hexes that he confronts the mad tyrant--and learns their universe is threatened by something far, far worse . . .

Jack Chalker's Well World epic occupies an honored place among the classics of science fiction. Now this boldly imagined, intricately plotted new novel takes us deeper into the Well World than ever before . . .

On the mysterious Well World, the evil tyrant Josich and his dark agents search desperately for the eight scattered pieces of the fabled Straight Gate. Whoever possesses the Gate will wield enormous power, travelling between universes at the speed of light and wreaking havoc across galaxies.

Opposing Josich is a small band of travelers new to the Well World. There is Core, once a machine, now flesh and blood; Ming and Ari, two minds sharing a single body; Jaysu, an angel; and Genghis O'Leary, a lizard being. Unbeknownst to them, they have an unlikely ally: a vengeful entity who is able to clone any person or object with a single touch--and mete out death just as swift . . .

Cassie did not feel the soul rider enter her body...but suddenly she knew that Anchor was corrupt, and that, far from being a formless void from which could issue only mutant changelings and evil wizards, Flux was the source of Anchor's very existence.

The price of her new knowledge is exile, yet Cassie and the Rider of her soul are the only hope for the redemption of both Flux and Anchor.

Cassie did not feel the soul rider enter her body... but suddenly she knew that Anchor was corrupt, and that, far from being a formless void from which could issue ony mutant changelings and evil wizards, Flux was the soure of Anchor's very existence. The price of her new knowledge is exile, yet Cassie and the Rider of her soul are the only hope for the redemption of both Flux and Anchor.

The Time of Danger Is at Hand

Mervyn, wizard and Fluxlord, leader of the Nine Who Guard, faces the ultimate threat of the opposing Seven Who Wait: the opening of the Hellgates to World. Closed more than 2,000 years ago, they are portals to unknowable danger and, perhaps, great power.

Mervyn must gather the shattered forces of guardianship, dispersed and reeling after the battle with Coydt: Cassie, once the powerful saint and crusader, now the brainwashed slave of an oppressive male dictatorship; Spirit, her daughter, controlled by her mysterious Soul Rider; Jeff, Spirit's son; Matson, he will lead the entire force of the Stringers Guild to war, if need be. But all of them are doomed to death unless they can become Masters of Flux & Anchor.

The powerful foundation to the spellbinding Soul Rider saga.

The strange and haunted place called World has been a land divided between the stability of Anchor and the chaos of Flux?a land of near magic, where reality yields to madness. It is in this universe that courageous men and women battle treachery, rebellion, and hellish forces to establish a New Eden.

The last great battle of the Hellgates has been won and Flux and Anchor are at peace?for now. But someone has found the key to the magic of Flux. If they succeed in harnessing this fearsome power, the delicate balance could be destroyed. Who will stand when the horror of Flux is unleashed?

With the universe's wormholes collapsed, darkness has fallen across interstellar civilization, and superstition once again holds sway over the masses, until Dr. Karl Woodward, commander of the starship The Mountain, ventures to an uncharted world and into a terrifying confrontation with a ruthless gang of space pirates.

Searching the galaxy for an elusive utopian planet known as the world of the Three Kings, a desperately indebted salvage team tries to recreate the journey of a starfaring evangelist who disappeared after discovering its location.

An encounter between a mysterious alien force and the human military brings an armed expedition to the Kaspar, the third planet of the Three Kings, where they join forces with the survivors of two earlier expeditions that had been marooned on the planet by human treachery and alien power and confront a fateful decision that could determine the fate of the entire human race.

Joe and Marge, minutes away from death, are rescued and brought from Earth to the magical world of Husaquahr by the wizard Throckmorton P. Ruddygore to battle the forces of Hell itself!

In Husaquahr, behind the cloak of seeming peace, evil was stirring again as the Dark Baron plotted with a Demon Prince to bring about Armageddon. Master Sorcerer Throckmorton P. Ruddygore could only trust one man with the mission of spying upon the evil villians: Joe. The only problem was, Joe had just been bitten by a weredog . . .

The Dark Baron, defeated at last, had been stripped of all his magical power and exiled to Earth. But there he enlisted a computer to create even more effective spells. Helped by the forces of Hell, the Dark Baron is once again threatening Husaquahr -- and only Joe and Marge can stop him!

The evil Dark Baron has escaped and joined forces in the far North with the Master of the Dead to theaten all of Husaquahr with enslavement. Only Joe can stop them -- but Joe is no longer quite himself. In fact, he's not sure who he is!

MORTAL DILEMMA

An ancient evil was seeping forth from the Sea of Dreams: the Old Ones were rising from the depths to challenge both Heaven and Hell. Their assault boded ill for Earth, and worse for the magical land of Husaquahr, where magic was played by the Book. Under the Rules, only the Great McGuffin could stop that looming menace.

But the McGuffin was lost, somewhere in Hell....

Master wizard Throckmorton P. Ruddygore once again summoned a handful of heroes to stave off disaster. But Joe, the truck-driver-barbarian-turned-wood-nymph, was busy with his--or her?--own problems, so Ruddygore had to assign Marge, the changeling nymph, to shepherd an untried youngster on his first quest. Her new protégé was none other than Irving, Joe's human son: estranged, bitter--and irresistibly attractive!

Marge wanted to turn down the mission, but too much depended on it! Once in the dark realm, though, her good intentions began to erode. Could any nymph just say "no" to a son of Joe?

The Confederacy, a massive space empire, duplicates the personality of its best agent and implants it into four brain-dead hosts. These hosts are sent to the four planets of a penal colony, the Warden Diamond, to investigate an alien threat and assassinate the four lords of the planets, the "Four Lords of the Diamond." The original agent is on a picket ship and downloads information from his copies.

A copy of the agent wakes up in the body of "Cal Tremon," a criminal on a prison ship heading to Lilith. He must then adapt to Lilith, a beautiful tropical world where its Warden Organism, a symbiotic microorganism, destroys all non-Lilith material, making modernization very difficult. Thus, the several million inhabitants of Lilith's feudal society are serfs. The nobility of Lilith are the few who can control the organisms.

The agent thus finds himself a serf, with no hope of advancing unless he harnesses the power of the Warden Organisms. When a girl he liked was being taken away for experimentation, he taps into his Warden powers and kills the overseer, a petty tyrant.

While living in the Castle, the residence of the Duke, Cal gains some initial training and knowledge. He escapes when he learns that the nobles plan to kill him. Outside of the castle walls, he gains a secure status in Lilith's society and no longer desires to serve the Confederacy.

Instead, he realizes that the Lord of Lilith, Marek Kreegan, a former Assassin of the Confederacy, cooperates with the aliens to preserve peace and order. Cal learns that Kreegan dissuaded the aliens from a genocide against humanity, choosing the slower course of subversion and sabotage instead. Cal does not kill Kreegan. His girlfriend, believing that Kreegan's death would will elevate Cal to Lordship, kills Kreegan by using a potion to draw on Cal's power.

The Agent wakes up in the picket ship, worried about his duplicate's behavior in Lilith.

"He" wakes up on a prison ship, and discovers that "he" is a copy. But he receives another shock, as he discovers that he is in a woman's body, a criminal named Qwin Zhang, who was mindwiped so that his recording could be inserted. He quickly learns that this is not an insurmountable problem, as the Warden powers on this planet are such that everyone has them, but it manifests itself as body swapping, a process that occurs when both parties are asleep. The Warden Organisms exchange information pertaining to memories and personality, so that if given sufficient time, the two sleepers will fully exchange bodies. The agent arranges to sleep next to a male during the newcomer orientation, and so has a male body again. He also learns that Cerberus is covered completely in water, with the only "land" being the tops of underwater trees that grow tall enough to extend beyond the water's surface.

Given that Cerberus is a world of white collar criminals, and that their technology is 20 years behind the times, "Qwin" can do quite well, and quickly establishes himself as "president" of a minor subsidiary of a large company. He does this with the help of Dylan Kohl, a boat captain, and Sanda Tyne, a host mother. Host mothering is an important profession, as the body swapping allows for people to live forever, so long as there are enough new bodies to swap with.

After a series of improbable adventures that gain him the position of company president, he attempts to carry out his mission of assassinating Wagant Laroo, the Lord of Cerberus. In the process of this, he comes across Dr. Dumonia, a psychologist who is later revealed to be a part-time Confederacy agent, though not especially loyal at all times. Qwin also learns that the human imitatingrobots are given human minds on Cerberus, specifically on Wagant's island. With the help of his friends, he manages to get on that island, and even arranges to come up with the solution to a problem of Wagant's.

The problem Wagant had was that the robots are better in every way, and nearly immortal and invulnerable. But Wagant does not want to put his mind into one, as the aliens who provide the robots have hidden commands in them that make the person the slave of the aliens. Not being able to get rid of those commands, Wagant accepts Qwin's help in getting rid of those commands. Qwin does so by asking his over-Agent in the picket ship to do so, which not only gets him in good with Wagant, but lets the Confederacy have a sample of the robot body and brain for examination.

Wagant, while very untrusting of Qwin, does eventually transfer his mind into the body of a "cleared" robot. What Wagant doesn't realize is that it wasn't quite fully cleared, and when Qwin recites a Lewis Carroll poem in front of him, it places Wagant under Qwin's complete control. Thus assassination is not necessary, as Qwin and Dumonia are in effect the rulers of Cerberus.

The book closes with the Agent in the picket ship feeling more concerned, as he saw himself change again, this time putting other people above his own needs and mission. This increases his turmoil and soul searching.

"He" wakes up on a prison ship, and discovers that "he" is a copy. He learns that he is in the body of a notorious killer of women named "Park Lacoch", and that he is very short. At the orientation on Charon, a hot and steamy world of jungles and deserts, he learns that magic works. Magic here means that some individuals can sense, and learn to control, the Warden organism that pervades everything and everyone. It is possible to fool the Wardens into believing they are something else, such as converting a fruit juice to poison, or changing a person into an animal. One's status depends a lot on how much of the power one can learn to use.

Park is singled out early, during the placement interviews the newcomers are getting. He is told that the leadership of the planet is aware that there is a Confederacy Assassin planted on Charon to kill the Lord of Charon, Aeolia Matuze. The agent "Park" is well aware of this, as he is that very agent, just arrived. Fortunately for him, the security interviewer is under the impression that Park's new girlfriend, Zala, is the Assassin, as she has a genetically created double mind.

Park is assigned as a Town Accountant to a town where the authorities believe he will be contacted by a well-organized group of revolutionaries seeking to re-install a former Lord of Charon that Aeolia displaced. After a series of adventures, Park gains much control over the power, and with Zala (aka Kira) and his new girlfriend Darva, assists in an attack on the palace where Aeolia Matuze resides. This attack is a coordinated one, coinciding with the overthrow of the government everywhere, and prompted by Dr. Dumonia of Cerberus, a Confederate plant with many agendas.

The attack is successful, but the former Lord of Charon cannot go through with killing Aeolia, who was his ex-wife that he still had feelings for. Aeolia, not as sentimental, kills him. When it seems that all is lost, Kira kills Aeolia, with the tacit approval of Aeolia's Chief of Security, Yatek Morah, who as it turns out, is really in the employ of the aliens. Yatek having no love for the late Aeolia, is willing to discuss matters with Park, and there is the implication that Park will have a chance to become the new Lord of Charon.

The book closes with the Agent in the picket ship being even more affected by this latest experience. He more than ever questions the values and efficacy of the Confederacy, and wishes to delay making a final report because he fears what his government's response will be. The computer shows that it is more than merely an assistant or partner, by nearly overriding him, and almost not letting him out of the capsule. "Mr. Carroll" manages to convince the computer that he will return, and only wishes to gather the final report from Medusa before making his report to the Confederacy.

He wakes up on the prison ship and realizes that "he" is a copy. He is in the body of a 13 year old boy named Tarin Bul, a boy who had killed the man who killed his father. The boy had his mind wiped and the Agent's mind placed in it. The ship is taking him to Medusa, the farthest out of the Diamond worlds, and the coldest. At the newcomer orientation, he learns that technology works just fine on Medusa, and due to the Warden powers, all people infected can adapt to the extreme cold automatically. It is not revealed to him that the adaptive ability is quite comprehensive, and with proper sensitization to the Wardens, one could become almost any life form.

It is a totalitarian society, one headed by Talant Ypsir, who has helped perfect a system of complete surveillance of nearly all parts of the cities of the planets, overseen by The Monitor Service, who are the both the police and secret police. Given his age, he is hampered in his drive for social mobility, as it will be some years before he is old enough for any real job. He is paired with a girl and assigned a communal apartment unit.

He achieves some degree of progress when The Monitor Service calls him in and it is proposed that he be an informer. TMS plans to give him a promotion that will put him in the position of being recruited by an underground group of revolutionaries who wish to overthrow the system, and who may be in league with other such groups on other Diamond worlds. "Tarin" agrees to do this, though his sympathies already lie with the revolutionaries, and he still intends to complete his mission of assassinating the Lord of Medusa.

Three unique empires threatened by the discovery of alternate life...

The Exchange are consuming the universe's resources through the powers of their cybernetic leaders.

The Mycohlians are parasitic beings who, like a virus, can invade and take over other life forms.

The Mizlaplan are a brilliant, long-lived race who will use any means possible to spread the word of the Cosmic All.

These three empires, maintaining a delicate balance of power, have very little in common - except a strange, recurring legend of a horned demon. Now, a shocking event will change their lives forever: the discovery of two horned creatures, seemingly lifeless and perfectly preserved...

Sealed in a giant amber cell, the two horned demons at Rainbow Bridge were the greatest discovery of all time. But now these creatures of legend have awakened and escaped - leaving an all-too-real trail of mutilated victims. The three major empires of the universe have no choice but to follow the demons...

Into their shattered cell - and into another dimension.

For centuries, the legendary demons captured the imaginations of three alien races. Now, these all too real creatures are after their souls-ninety trillion souls in all. Ninety trillion Fausts to corrupt. Ninety trillion lives to be saved... or destroyed.

Long ago, the machines had rebelled, wiping out most of humanity and exiling the survivors in widely scattered reservations. Master System ruled unchallenged, the key to breaking its power--five microchips disguised as gold rings, carefully hidden away. But then an Amerindian called Hawks stumbled across information about the five rings, and suddenly Master System developed an interest in seeing Hawks dead....

Hawks had refused to help the ambitious Lazlo Chen in his quest to find the five gold rings that could break Master System's hold over humankind--and that refusal had landed him on the deadly prison planet Melchior.

But when Hawks and some fellow prisoners engineered a bold escape, it seemed almost too easy. Hawks guessed that Chen was pulling the strings, but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was another, greater power involved. And that scared him.

Now the stakes were rising, and Hawks was more determined than ever to find the gold rings. But Master System was out to capture him, and Chen was trying to follow him--and the only place his small band of rebels could hide was smack in the middle of pirate territory...

Vulture is a shape-changer capable of absorbing the body and memories of any organic being. Without the information only Vulture can collect, the rebels will never succeed in gathering the five rings necessary to defeat Master System. Now an unknown entity seems to be giving Vulture an unseen hand. But the question is--whose side is it on?

The renegade pirates of the giant spaceship Thunder have collected all five of the rings necessary to eliminate the threat of Master System forever. But no one--not even Hawks--knows how the rings are used. And with Master System's space fleet dogging their every step, they better find out fast!

Nathan Brazil had been the guardian of the Well of Souls, where the Well World's master control lay. But now the universe faced a threat more grave than mere destruction: An unnamed and utterly alien entity had somehow been released from its ancient prison and was bent on the corruption of the Well World itself. If successful, it would cause chaos beyond mortal understanding....

Immortal, unchanging, the eternal survivor, Nathan Brazil had tired of his long duty as the guardian of the Well World and had enlisted Mavra Chang, space pilot and adventurer, as his companion and equal, sharing with her the godlike power to control the universe's destiny. Now the Well World is changing, and Brazil and Chang have drifted apart . . . but they must work together one more time to stop a new threat to the Well World -- the greatest threat of all . . . .

In its hour of need, the Well World's guardians had been neutralized. Nathan Brazil was shipwrecked on a desert island with a seemingly harmless girl who had caused his mind to be invaded, his will sapped, and his mission forgotten. Mavra Chang had been abducted by a vicious gang of inter-hex drug smugglers and held prisoner by a revenge-mad creature who had surgically and genetically altered her into a bizarre farm and made her a slave to powerful narcotics. But the Well of Souls, sophisticated beyond human understanding, was still a machine; it needed its guardians. And so it set plans in motion to jolt its champions back into the game.

But avert if Brazil or Chang could overcome the formidable obstacles in their path, they could not know that all the players, even the great Well computer, were being manipulated by the Kraang, an entity more ancient than the universe itself. For the Kraang had a game plan that would use the guardians to give it powers far beyond those avert of the Well of Souls -- making it a living god....

EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW IS WRONG....

That was the strange message left on Cory Maddox's e-mail - just at the moment when years of work on a revolutionary subspace computer system was about to pay off. Nothing would be the same for Cory again. Suddenly his life was thrown into chaos when the company that controlled his patent was sold out from under him, and instead of imminent wealth, Cory was facing immediate poverty. Then along came Alan Stark, who wanted to recruit Cory for a special research project on virtual reality.

Stark was reviving the secret NSA work of the legendary Matthew Brand, who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances years before. Cory had always idolized Brand, so he was initially thrilled to be involved. But he quickly discovered that there was nothing virtual about the realities he was working on. Instead, he found that Stark was on the verge of controlling the very fabric of reality itself.

Cory was unsure of Stark's ultimate goal, until he began to recall pieces of another life and found himself in the middle of a battle between two groups of people who could use "rabbit holes" in space and time to jump between different realities, personalities, and lives. Whoever had control of the power to shape reality would have the power to become a god--or a devil. But before Cory could combat Stark and his minions, he first had to remember which side he was on....

Time after time, life after life, Cory Maddox was being incarnated into worlds he found both familiar and strangely different. And only in this latest incarnation did Cory bring along knowledge, skills, and memories of his previous existence - memories of cold betrayal that promised nothing he saw or felt could be trusted. Nor could he trust his companions who, like himself, kept moving from life to life trying to escape the endless cycle. But it was only with the help of those companions that Cory could develop the technological means to peer beyond the veil of reality - to the shadowy figures whom he was sure were manipulating reality... if what he was experiencing actually was reality.

Time was running out. His memories gave him an advantage over the others, but he would have to act quickly and surely if he were to discover the truth - before truth itself could no longer be trusted....

Trump Card

Reality wasn't what it used to be. Life after life, as man, woman, and child, Cory Maddox was trapped in an endless cycle of ever-changing realities, on the run from his ruthless companions and from the shadowy figures that seemed to exist outside the increasingly unstable matrix. As each new world proved increasingly bizarre, Cory wanted nothing more than to find the way home. Fragments of knowledge - a mysterious UFO crash, alien technology, glimpses of a computer that was controlling his fate - all pointed toward Matthew Brand, the virtual reality genius. But Brand had vanished long ago, into, or perhaps beyond, the borders of reality.

To break the cycle of cyber-reincarnation, Cory had to find Brand - before the actions of his enemies destroyed reality altogether....