Search Worlds Without End

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Conversion
• 30 - Crossing the Line
• 52 - Small World
• 66 - The Kingdom of O'Ryan
• 93 - Dream Fighter
• 105 - The Cottage of Eternity
• 130 - In the Hereafter Hilton
• 137 - Amphitheatre
• 154 - Frost Animals

Ironically, for Gilbert Snook, who considered himself the human equivalent of a neutrino, a particle able to travel through the Earth without disturbing any other particle, it all started with the panic that followed the sighting of the anti neutrino planet as it approached Earth. Earth was unaffected but Snook ended up in a small African Republic teaching English to diamond miners. Then the miners started seeing ghosts and Snook found himself at the centre of a bizarre and far reaching scientific discovery and in the middle of some very dirty political infighting.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Skirmish on a Summer Morning
• 58 - Unreasonable Facsimile
• 74 - A Full Member of the Club
• 101 - The Silent Partners
• 114 - The Giaconda Caper
• 137 - An Uncomic Book Horror Story
• 147 - The Brink
• 152 - Waltz of the Bodysnatchers
• 175 - A Little Night Flying

Hutchman was an ordinary man, doing his job, devising rocketry guidance systems. Life held its satisfactions and its frustrations. He had no spectacular ambitions. Then one day, Hutchman discovered that he could destroy the world--or save it, and destroy himself. There was no other way. But the masters of the earth didn't want it saved Hutchman's way. They wanted Hutchman destroyed along with his doomsday device. And so the chase was on. Hutchman had succeeded in one thing, at least--he had brought about unity among the world's powers. They all wanted him dead!

Fisherman Hal Tarrant's life changes drastically when strange monsters appear in the deeps--creatures that seem intelligent and are vandalizing his nets. His next discovery is that of six "castaways" who turn out to be humans from another world. Tied to Earth by a strange history, they bear disastrous news.

Emm Luther is a planet ruled by a single, worldwide theocracy. It is evenly populated, and a couple of railroads run up and down the coasts of the largest continent. Earth sends secret agent Sam Tallon to Emm Luther to infiltrate the theocracy and extract the coordinates of the "null-space" hyperspace jump points of a newly discovered colonizable world, a closely guarded secret.

When the religious secret police discover that he has false credentials and has entered their world under false pretenses, a frantic chase and flight ensues. He is captured in his hotel room. A high-ranking officer named Cherkassky tries to render Tallon harmless by erasing his memory of the jump data, using a device called a "brain brush". He thinks that he has succeeded, but Tallon is equipped with a gadget that can sequester certain memories. Cherkassky enjoys tormenting people, and he is known for destroying most of the memories of prisoners who annoy him. He begins by erasing Tallon's memory of a loved one; the sense of loss enrages Tallon, and he attacks Cherkassky in a bid for escape. He is blinded when Cherkassky shoots him in the face with a dart gun, destroying his eyes. He is taken to a secret prison complex in the southernmost tip of the most distant continent to convalesce. While he is there, he enlists the aid of the scientific elite among the other political prisoners there, and together they design a pair of electronic sonar eyes. The headgear delivers different tones to distinguish various objects. Later, they make another breakthrough: they make a device that can sense and interpret the nerve signals of the eyes of nearby living things. Tallon can now see, but only through others' eyes. After they develop and test this device, Tallon and his partner Winfield try to break out, but Winfield is shot during the attempt. Tallon must flee alone, depending on encountering local animal life in order to see.

Tallon escapes and travels across the continent, reaching his secret contact after much difficulty. When he has a chance to escape the planet, though, he is delayed by trying to bring a new lover with him. Later, when he does try to depart, he finds that his ship is filled with police. Battle ensues, and he seems to be the sole survivor. He boards the ship and starts a null-space jump to a random point in the universe. Now blind since there isn't anyone in the ship, he must somehow master the intricacies of the "jump stick," a form of jump drive via portals to null-space (a hyperspace parallel universe, through which FTL space travel is achieved). However, further trouble arrives in the form of Cherkassky, who also survived the battle for the ship. They fight, and Cherkassky is killed. Tallon finds a mouse to function as his eyes. He solves the mathematical problems concerning null-space travel by discovering that he can also see through the eyes of people in other ships traversing various routes through null-space. He gains knowledge of the structure of null-space that will be invaluable to space travelers, since the complexities of null-space had theretofore never been adequately mapped. He eventually reaches home with his enemy (and some loved ones) dead, but his new knowledge helps bring about greater peace.

In the 22nd century, no one has to die of old age any more. The pharmaceuticals division of a large corporation has devised a potion that bestows immortality on a single application, without any need for follow up treatments. The immortality treatment does not and cannot wear off. All it takes is a single dose, and the human will become immortal. However, it has an unusual effect on males that drink it. It effectively neuters them, causing complete cessation of sexual desire and the ability to perform sexually. In this kind of world, many men put off taking the immortality treatment for as long as possible.

However, the main character, Will Carewe, is not yet immortal, and wishes to involve his wife in questions as serious as this one. They have not yet had any children. He is a high ranking employee for a transnational corporation that one day approaches him with a confidential question relating to the discovery of an immortality potion that does the same thing that the current one does, but without the undesirable side-effect of turning off the sex drive in males. The desirability of patenting the process requires the corporation to handle related matters under a cloak of secrecy, but somewhere someone has spilled the beans; competitors will do anything for the magic recipe, especially if this can be done before the patent is filed in the US Patent Office. They will do anything, including bribery, extortion, and murder, to get the information out of the pharmaceuticals lab before the process is made public. The hero of the story, Will Carewe, says he is willing to test the new chemical, even if it backfires and results in permanent sterility and complete loss of physical desire and physical ability. But it appears there is someone out there who is willing to do anything to kill him before he does.

Slow glass was an amusing scientific toy. Light traveled through it so slowly that, looking through a pane of it, you might see what had happened five minutes ago on the other side--or five years. It stopped being a toy when great new jeliners began to crash, caraccidents multiplied astronomically and a mounting toll of deaths and disasters revealed its true potential. And it was no toy at all when blackmailers discovered how to use it to see into the secret life of any victim--and government officials found it could permit surveillance of any person, any time, anywhere.

The chronicle of adventures of the survey ship Sarafand as it journeys through space exploring and mapping newly-discovered planets. The mission brings them into contact with man startling life-forms and menacing aliens. On one world the Sarafand sends out six survey modules and seven return one of them is a shape-changing malevolent alien - but which? On another planet they discover a humanoid civilisation which can move around in time. Suddenly the Sarafand investigators are marooned millions of years in the past. Finally the Sarafand and its crew are stranded in a distant galaxy where everything - including them - is shrinking inexorably to zero size

This is the gripping story of the collision between two vastly different human civilisations. One is Earth in the early 21st century, rushing toward self-inflicted nuclear doom. The other is the distant world of Mollan, whose inhabitants have achieved great longevity and the power to transport themselves instantly from star to star.

Bob Shaw's novel unfolds a tale which spans thousands of years and the reaches of interstellar space. On Earth's side, there is Denny Hargate, whose indomitable courage drives him to alter the course of history. On their side is the Gretana ty Iltha, working on Earth as a secret observer, who dreams of returning to the delights of her world's high society, but who gets caught up in a cosmic train of events leading to an explosive climax.

Shrouded by its shell of drifting lunar fragments, the planet Mnemosyne is a refuge for creative artists and poets, a place isolated from the desperate, losing struggle of the humans against the Syccans.

But then COMsac, theFederation's High Command, come to Mnemosyne, and suddenly the planet is more a military colony than a place for artists.

For Mack Taverner, the dilemma is stark: either go along with the brutal military visitation or join the hopeless resitance and become a 'traitor'. His choice has awesome and extraordinary consequenses...

Defying time, Jack Breton crosses into a parallel world to regain Kate - the wife who, nine years earlier, was found raped and strangled in a lonely park. But, in the alternate time-stream Kate is married to his double, John. And for one husband to remain either Jack or John must die.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Call Me Dumbo
• 30 - Stormseeker
• 36 - Repeat Performance
• 51 - ... And Isles Where Good Men Lie
• 87 - What Time Do You Call This?
• 95 - Communication
• 120 - The Cosmic Cocktail Party
• 148 - The Happiest Day of Your Life
• 154 - Element of Chance
• 162 - The Weapons of Isher II
• 178 - Pilot Plant
• 240 - Telemart Three
• 251 - Invasion of Privacy

The invention of a cheap and easy to use anti-gravity harness revolutionises society. Humanity takes to the skies in its millions, with huge resultant problems for governments and police. Virtually all aircraft are grounded, because of the risk of collision with a stray flyer. Airborne delinquents and criminals are practically impossible to control and can be lethal.

Robert Hasson is a good policeman. But a near-fatal airborne confrontation with a psychopath has left him shattered, both physically and mentally. Sent to Canada to recuperate (and to escape the attentions of a local businessman whose son he has put away), Hasson is a broken man, unable to face human company, haunted by nightmares and certain that he will never again put on an anti-gravity harness.

But his Canadian host, police chief Al Werry, has a major problem on his hands in the shape of a towering unfinished hotel, the Chinook, whose upper levels are inaccessible from the ground, and are used as an illegal meeting place by local gangs of flyers. Worse, the hotel's owner, Buck Morlacher, intends to take the law into his own hands to deal with them. The violence that has been simmering in the town threatens to erupt and Werry seems powerless to stop it.

Unwillingly, Hasson finds himself drawn into the conflict and forced to face his own problems.

One planet faces a threat to its survival and so the only hope for its people is to migrate through space by balloon to a sister planet, Overland. The sequel is "The Wooden Spaceships".

Twenty-four years have passed since Toller Maraquine led the population of Land to the sister planet of Overland. Somehow, those left behind have become immune to the deadly pterthacosis which caused the exodus, and their voracious ruler now lays claim to Overland.

Grudgingly put in charge of his planet's defence, Toller designs a front-line force of spaceships and satellites made of wood, which will engage the enemy fleet in the cold vastness of space, before the invaders can set food upon Overland. As the war proceeds, a far more deadly, alien menace makes itself known, which will threaten the entire existence of Overland.

The opening of The Fugitive Worlds finds Toller Maraquine II - grandson of the hero of The Ragged Astronauts and The Wooden Spaceships - bemoaning the fact that life on the twin planets of Land and Overland has become dull and uneventful compared to the stirring times in which his illustrious forebear lived. Then, while on a balloon flight between the worlds, he makes an astonishing discovery - a rapidly growing crystal disc, many miles across, is creating a barrier between Land and Overland. Precipitated for personal reasons into investigating the enigmatic disc, Toller - armed with only his sword and boundless courage - becomes a pivotal figure in events which will decide the future of entire planets and their civilizations.

Fleeing Elizabeth Lindstrom's anger at the death of her son, Vance Garamond, a flickerwing commander, leaves the solar system far behind. Pursued by Earth's space fleet, Garamond finds a vast, alien-built spherical structure which might just change the destiny of the human race.

Two hundred years ago mankind found Orbitsville, a vast sphere whose habitable inner surface comprised living space equivalent to five billion Earths. The resulting migration was enthusiastic - and nearly total.

Earth itself is a backwater now, a place with which the people of Orbitsville maintain only marginal contact. But just because it's backward doesn't mean it isn't dangerous.

Orbitsville is the scene of two of Bob Shaw's most successful novels and is possibly the most gigantic artefact ever dreamed up by an SF writer - a vast hollow world completely enclosing its sun, habitable across its entire inner surface. At the end of ORBITSVILLE DEPARTURE the whole world was shifted to an alternative universe. In a conclusion which is both stunning and moving, ORBITSVILLE JUDGEMENT tells what happens next...

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction - Science Fact, August 1966. The story has been reprinted many times. It can be found in the anthologies:

• Nebula Award Stories Two (1967), edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison
• World's Best Science Fiction: 1967, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr
• SF 12 (1968), edited by Judith Merril
• Analog 6 (1968), edited by John W. Campbell, Jr.
• Alpha 6 (1976), edited by Robert Silverberg
• The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction (1980), edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg
• The Road to Science Fiction 4: From Here to Forever (1982), edited by James Gunn
• Robert Silverberg's Worlds of Wonder (1987), edite by Robert Silverberg
• The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF (1994), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer

Read the full story for free at the Baen website.

In the 24th century, men join the Space Legion to forget. A memory-erasing machine makes sure they do just that. The machine purges the memory of all traces of guilt, but for Legion recruit Warren Pearce it has wiped out everything. He must have had a very nasty past indeed - if only he could recall it. Into battle with the Legion, Warren faces vicious predators in fearsome conflict without the slightest idea why he's been stupid enough to sign on in the first place!