Search Worlds Without End

One Winter in Eden is a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories by author Michael Bishop.

Table of Contents:

• Introductions - essay by Thomas M. Disch
• One Winter in Eden - (1980) - novelette
• Seasons of Belief - (1979) - shortstory
• Cold War Orphans - (1980) - novelette
• The Yukio Mishima Cultural Association of Kudzu Valley, Georgia - (1980) - shortstory
• Out of the Mouths of Olympus - (1981) - novelette
• Patriots - (1982) - shortstory
• Collaborating - (1978) - shortstory
• Within the Walls of Tyre - (1978) - novelette
• The Monkey's Bride - (1983) - novelette
• Vernalfest Morning - (1978) - shortstory
• Saving Face - (1980) - novelette
• The Quickening - (1981) - novelette

FROM THE HUGO WINNING NOVELIST Not long after the colonists landed on the uninhabited planet every human made artifact - ship communicators, tools--disappeared! Even their clothes! Here is an enthralling science alien planet puzzle from the man writer, critic and Nebula award winner Barry Maltzberg calls "One of the twelve most influential science fiction writers." When, Eden--the Earth colony eleven light years goes silent and fails to answer any communications from the mother planet, Earth's government goes into a panic. Has something tragic happened on a world already proven to have no intelligent, dangerous lifeforms? Or, are the colonists purposely disregarding the messages for some reason of their own? What could be the real explanation for the mysterious silence of a disciplined, scientific colony? /p>

To learn the answer, Earth's leaders turn to the Extrapolators- the honored group of men and women with an almost superhuman ability to see to the core of any problem. Soon the Es assign a probationary Extrapolator, Calvin Gray, to the hazardous journey to Eden, where he will win full admission into the ranks to the Extrapolators if he solves whatever problems he finds there. But, even with his special Extrapolator training, Grey is not prepared for the extent ort nature of the disaster that has struck the colony Eden--thrown back to an almost subhuman state of existence without houses, tools, equipment, or clothing.

Here is a suspenseful science fiction from Mark Clifton, who, with his collaborator, Frank Riley, won the 1955 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel of the year for, They'd Rather Be Right. Galaxy magazine's editors called Clifton's work: "Full of excitement. Richly rewarding. Genuinely mature philosophy tinged with gentle irony."

They thought we were safe. They were wrong.

Four years ago, two girls went looking for monsters on Bodmin Moor. Only one came back.

Lee thought she'd lost Mal, but now she's miraculously returned. But what happened that day on the moors? And where has she been all this time? Mal's reappearance hasn't gone unnoticed by MI5 officers either, and Lee isn't the only one with questions.

Julian Sabreur is investigating an attack on top physicist Kay Amal Khan. This leads Julian to clash with agents of an unknown power - and they may or may not be human. His only clue is grainy footage, showing a woman who supposedly died on Bodmin Moor.

Dr Khan's research was theoretical; then she found cracks between our world and parallel Earths. Now these cracks are widening, revealing extraordinary creatures. And as the doors crash open, anything could come through.

Grey Haward has always detested the Chemists, the magicians-come-scientists who rule her small western town. But she has always followed the rules, taking the potion the Chemists ration out that helps the town's people survive. A potion that Grey suspects she--like her grandfather and father--may not actually need.

By working at her grandfather's repair shop, sorting the small gears and dusting the curio cabinet inside, Grey has tried to stay unnoticed--or as unnoticed as a tall, strong girl can in a town of diminutive, underdeveloped citizens. Then her best friend, Whit, is caught by the Chemists' enforcers after trying to protect Grey one night, and after seeing the extent of his punishment, suddenly taking risks seems the only decision she can make.

Where is the border between life and non-life, between living organism and lifeless rock? This is the story if a man and a woman--both scientists, both dedicated to peace--who first discovered the living Water and knew they had found the great and terrible secret of the source of all life...

...Great because their discovery opened out into a future of opportunity and abundance.

...Terrible because the living Water intensified men's inherent tendencies for good or for evil. As individuals, they were free to drink the living Water...if they dared. As scientists they faced a graver problem. What would the world make of their discovery: another Hell...

...or another Eden?

A Gift From the Stars

As you choose in all matters, you have ultimate free choice, as long as you do not seriously interfere with the choices of other roving personalities...

A superior alien intelligence rules over Earth with absolute benevolence and total control. It offers man a future with no seeming limit to time or space--or reality. Any man can have anything he is capable of wanting, forever.

Does man really want absolute free will--and what will he do with it?

Has this noble plan gone sour?

What is the future of mankind--if, indeed, it has a future?

In this unique book about horror fiction writer Clive Barker, readers get a fascinating look at the man and his work through a collection of interviews, essays, reviews, and discussions. Heavily illustrated with rare photos, stills, and drawings, 16 in full color. With an introduction by Stephen King.

When Marl Judson, fleeing a rapacious government that wanted not just his fabulous wealth but his life, crash-landed on a uninhabited planet, he thought he was marooned without hope of rescue, so he prepared himself to live out his remaining years as best he could amidst the planet's weird hallucinogenic flora. But head-twistting flowers (which Judson learned to avoid) were only part of the planet's weirdness: it was possessed of some sort of field effect which made time play strange tricks; temporal anomalies sometimes resulted in cause preceding effect and bizarre compressions and expansions of the normal pace of events.

In such an environment time had no meaning; has Jusdson lived centuries alone, or only decades? Or is it years? Or all of the above? He doesn't quite know, but when another ship crashes the strange time effects allow(ed) him to conduct an experiment aimed at producing a perfect society, a veritable Judson's Eden. The the Snake arrives in the form of the government that marooned him - and the Snake wants Judson's Eden for itself.

Earth's rising oceans contain enormous islands of refuse, the Amazon rainforest is all-but destroyed, and countless species edge towards extinction. Humanity's last hope to save the planet lies with The Virgin Zones, thirteen vast areas of land off-limits to people and given back to nature.

Dylan leads a clandestine team of adventure racers, including his daughter Jenn, into Eden, the oldest of the Zones. Jenn carries a secret--Kat, Dylan's wife who abandoned them both years ago, has entered Eden ahead of them. Jenn is determined to find her mother, but neither she nor the rest of their tight-knit team are prepared for what confronts them. Nature has returned to Eden in an elemental, primeval way. And here, nature is no longer humanity's friend.

A six-man crew crash-lands on Eden, fourth planet from another sun. The men find a strange world that grows ever stranger, and everywhere there are images of death. The crew's attempt to communicate with this civilization leads to violence and to a cruel truth-cruel precisely because it is so human.

Baghdad falls... and armed men are seen looting the city zoo. Amid a hail of bullets, a concealed underground lab is ransacked--and something horrific is set loose upon the world.

Seven years later, Louisiana state veterinarian Lorna Polk investigates an abandoned shipwrecked fishing trawler carrying exotic caged animals, part of a black market smuggling ring. But there is something disturbingly wrong with these beasts--each an unsettling mutation of the natural order, all sharing one uncanny trait: incredibly heightened intelligence.

Joining forces with U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jack Menard--a man who shares with her a dark and bloody past--Lorna sets out to uncover the truth about this strange cargo and the terrorist threat it poses. Because a beast escaped the shipwreck and is running amok--and what is about to be born upon the altar of Eden could threaten not only the future of the world but the very foundation of what it means to be human.

It's 1963, and things are changing for Jezebel Turner. Her beloved grandmother has just passed away. The local police deputy won't stop harassing her family. With school integration arriving in South Carolina, Jez and her twin brother, Jay, are about to begin the school year with a bunch of new kids. But the biggest change comes when Jez and Jay turn eleven--and their uncle, Doc, tells them he's going to train them in rootwork.

Jez and Jay have always been fascinated by the African American folk magic that has been the legacy of their family for generations--especially the curious potions and powders Doc and Gran would make for the people on their island. But Jez soon finds out that her family's true power goes far beyond small charms and elixirs... and not a moment too soon. Because when evil both natural and supernatural comes to show itself in town, it's going to take every bit of the magic she has inside her to see her through.

This short story originally appeared in Aeon Six, March 2006, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, August 2017. The story is included in the collection Long Walks, Last Flights & Other Strange Journeys (2008),

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

By overdeveloping Mauna Pele, a resort on the Kona Coast of Hawaii, billionaire Byron Trumbo has unwittingly reopened a centuries-old battle between Pele, goddess of volcanoes, and her immortal enemies. Giants are being spotted, guests turn up dead and dismembered, volcanoes erupt and send lava flowing close to the resort, and Byron must face the wrath of his enemies.

Despite the development of a faster-than-light drive, Earth's space program has been in the doldrums for centuries, as has Earth itself. Hyperspace being impossible to navigate without beacons at which to aim, there is no alternative but to wait for vessels sent out at sub-light speed decades previously to find somewhere worth going.

Unfortunately, when a worthwhile planet finally turns up, it doesn't take long for political conflicts to materialize over its exploitation. Then, when an entire survey team perishes, the problems intensify. Lee Caretta is the man most likely to solve the problem--if his conflict-ridden employers will let him, if he can keep his tendencey to suffer unexplained blackouts under control, and if the world really is sufficiently Earth-like not to be deadly to the explorers. And then the humans begin to die once more!

Before the world was born, there was the Dust of Eden-blood-red earth from which all else was created. The last deposit of the mysterious dust became a viciously guarded secret... until the site was disturbed. A bit of Eden found its way into the hands of Ariel Leppa-an embittered elderly woman unaware of its ferocious power... for a time.

Researchers from Earth investigate a potentially intelligent, sexually voracious species of plants native to a newly discovered extrasolar planet.

In the wake of the Death Year's atomic holocaust, an alien invasion imposes a kind of peace upon the survivors of a shattered Earth until a small community of Quakers decides to confront the saviors with their own version of resistance.

The Falcon of Eden is a revered relic of the Russak nation, a bejeweled golden statue that has been lost for centuries.

Stacy, the Lady of the Haven and Princess of the Empire, needs the Russaks as allies. To gain their cooperation, she is forced into a quest for their legendary bird.

But Stacy and her small band of intrepid balloonists do not realize how far their sky journey will lead: to a strange fantasy civilization at the top of the world...

Across icy mountains and frozen caverns they travel - Stacy in search of treasure, and her only chance to gain true power in alliance.

You live in Eden. You are a member of the Family, one of 532 descendants of Angela and Tommy. You shelter beneath the light and warmth of the Forest's lantern trees, hunting woollybuck and harvesting tree candy. Beyond the forest lie the treeless mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among you recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross between worlds. One day, the Oldest say, they will come back for you.

You live in Eden. You are a member of the Family, one of 532 descendants of two marooned explorers. You huddle, slowly starving, beneath the light and warmth of geothermal trees, confined to one barely habitable valley of a startlingly alien, sunless world. After 163 years and six generations of incestuous inbreeding, the Family is riddled with deformity and feeblemindedness. Your culture is a infantile stew of half-remembered fact and devolved ritual that stifles innovation and punishes independent thought. You are John Redlantern. You will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. You will be the first to abandon hope, the first to abandon the old ways, the first to kill another, the first to venture in to the Dark, and the first to discover the truth about Eden.

Civilization has come to the alien, sunless planet its inhabitants call Eden.

Just a few generations ago, the planet's five hundred inhabitants huddled together in the light and warmth of the Forest's lantern trees, afraid to venture out into the cold darkness around them.

Now, humanity has spread across Eden, and two kingdoms have emerged. Both are sustained by violence and dominated by men - and both claim to be the favored children of Gela, the woman who came to Eden long ago on a boat that could cross the stars, and became the mother of them all.

When young Starlight Brooking meets a handsome and powerful man from across Worldpool, she believes he will offer an outlet for her ambition and energy. But she has no inkling that she will become a stand-in for Gela herself, and wear Gela's fabled ring on her own finger--or that in this role, powerful and powerless all at once, she will try to change the course of Eden's history.

Angie Redlantern is the first to spot the boats - five abreast with men in metal masks and spears standing proud, ready for the fight to come. As the people of New Earth declare war on the people of Mainground, a dangerous era has dawned for Eden. After generations of division and disagreement, the two populations of Eden have finally broken their tentative peace, giving way to bloodshed and slaughter. Angie must flee with her family across the pitch black of Snowy Dark to the place where it all started, the stone circle where the people from Earth first landed, where the story of Gela - the mother of them all - began.

It is there that Angie witnesses the most extraordinary event, one that will change the history of Eden forever. It will alter their future and re-shape their past. It is both a beginning and an ending.

It is the true story of Eden.

The legacy of the twentieth century was the world-wasting nuclear firestorm that destroyed a way of life forever. Civilization is in ruins, its pitiful remnants perverted by brute force, and mankind is less at home on the planet than ever before. Yet in the desolation that is the Deathlands, an intrepid group of wayfarers continues the determined fight for survival and a better future.

Leaving a western ville besieged by desert pirates in search of the legendary cities of the Spanish conquistadors, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists enter a hidden valley untouched by civilization. Here the descendants of the First People are at one with Nature, following their sacred and mystical traditions. But deep in the valley is an awesome force, a power that can freely heal... or wantonly destroy.

In the Deathlands life is locked in mortal combat, and the only way out is the future.

Rumors of an untouched predark ville in the mountains of West Virginia lure traders in search of unimaginable wealth. They're coming from all directions--the good, the bad, the worst. Ryan and his warrior group join in, although it means an uneasy truce with an old enemy, going back to days of spilled blood and the legacy of the Trader. But as their journey to a place called Cascade reveals more of Deathlands' darkest secrets, it remains to be seen if this place will become their salvation... or their final resting place.

What would you do to survive if your very existence were illegal?

Rowan is a second child in a world where population control measures make her an outlaw, marked for death. She can never go to school, make friends, or get the eye implants that will mark her as a true member of Eden. Her kaleidoscope eyes will give her away to the ruthless Center government.

Outside of Eden, Earth is poisoned and dead. All animals and most plants have been destroyed by a man-made catastrophe. Long ago, the brilliant scientist Aaron Al-Baz saved a pocket of civilization by designing the EcoPanopticon, a massive computer program that hijacked all global technology and put it to use preserving the last vestiges of mankind. Humans will wait for thousands of years in Eden until the EcoPan heals the world.

As an illegal second child, Rowan has been hidden away in her family's compound for sixteen years. Now, restless and desperate to see the world, she recklessly escapes for what she swears will be only one night of adventure. Though she finds an exotic world, and even a friend, the night leads to tragedy. Soon Rowan becomes a renegade on the run.

Although she was orphaned at birth, Eden Moore is never alone. Three dead women watch from the shadows, bound to protect her from harm. But in the woods a gunman waits, convinced that Eden is destined to follow her wicked great-grandfather--an African magician with the power to curse the living and raise the dead.

Now Eden must decipher the secret of the ghostly trio before a new enemy more dangerous than the fanatical assassin destroys what is left of her family. She will sift through lies in a Georgian ante-bellum mansion and climb through the haunted ruins of a 19th century hospital, desperately seeking the truth that will save her beloved aunt from the curse that threatens her life.

The fields at Chickamauga, Georgia--America's oldest national military park--claimed 35,000 casualties during the Civil War. Any good guide will tell you that the grounds are haunted. The battlefield even has its own resident haunt, called Old Green Eyes for his tell-tale luminous gaze. It has long been said that Old Green Eyes intends no harm to those who respect the park. He is no menace, but a guardian of the dead. While he walks, the dead may sleep secure in the knowledge that their rest will be undisturbed. While Old Green Eyes patrols the battlefield, there is nothing to fear, for graves are not robbed and bones are not moved.

But suddenly a different phenomenon starts puzzling and frightening visitors, causing tours to be canceled and rangers to quit their jobs. These new ghosts are no illusions carved out of the low-rolling fog. One by one, the solemn-faced spirits in ragged uniforms show themselves, and one by one, they point a determined arm off into the distance. Why do the soldiers march again, and what has become of their unblinking custodian? The spirits need a go-between, someone who can speak to them, and for them.

Eden Moore is not interested.

But the ghosts aren't taking no for an answer.

Down by the river, the first to go missing were not much lamented. Disappearances of homeless men foraging through trash or nuisance skater kids who rolled their boards along the planked piers at night were not noteworthy enough to delay the city's development projects.

But deep beneath the riverbank, the evidence of a terrible crime has been covered up twice. When a TVA dam falters and the river swells, panic rises downtown. As the Tennessee creeps over its banks, it dredges up death from its own polluted bed. Twenty-nine victims of a long-ago slaughter walk when the water rises, patrolling the banks and dragging the living down to a muddy grave. No one remembers how they died and no one knows what they want.

Some secrets are never washed away. Instead they are patient, biding their time. They wait for the water to lift them so they can prowl for the justice that was denied them ninety years ago. But in ninety years a city's shape changes, and where justice can no longer be found, vengeance may have to suffice.

The city of Chattanooga is about to learn a terrible truth about the things a river can and cannot hide.... And reluctant medium Eden Moore may be the only one who can dissuade the twenty- nine bodies from adding hundreds of its citizens to their ghastly ranks.

Not Flesh Nor Feathers is a stand-alone sequel to Four and Twenty Blackbirds and Wings to the Kingdom.

Eden Reid is not interested in prophesy. The problem is that a doozy of a prophesy is bearing down on her. Such is the case when you're a twenty-four-year-old from Brooklyn, New York who is about to discover she is an ancient god. A truly powerful one. And with power comes problems. A truly formidable demon is gunning for her; a zombie-like pandemic is spreading across the country, creating creatures who are hungry for flesh, fast on their feet and clever; and there is the mysterious, handsome stranger with powers of his own who claims to have been her lover from a time and a life that Eden cannot remember. He promises to help awaken her powers for the upcoming war. A war where there is only one prize: survival... in Daughter of Gods and Shadows from debut author Jayde Brooks.

The fantasy epic in battle-torn New York City continues as Eden fights to keep the Earth from destruction, in Crown of Doom and Light from Jayde Brooks.

The earth is on the brink of war. Vicious, blood-thirsty vamps roam the lands. The Ancients are ready to claim what they believe is theirs. And the world's one savior, Eden, is fighting dark forces that live within her - and threaten to tear her apart. And when an long-lost soul returns in the form of a rival, Eden must become the heroine of her time... if she is to save the world and those she loves, once and for all.

It's been sixteen years since an army of horny, hungry, six-foot-tall praying mantises forced Arek's family underground and into the hole where he was born; it's the only home he's ever known. But now, post-end-of-the-world, the army of horny, hungry praying mantises might finally be dying out, and Arek's ready to leave the hole for good.

All he has are mysterious letters from Breakfast, a naked, wild boy traveling the countryside with his silent companion, Olive. Together, Arek and his best friend Mel, who stowed away in his van, navigate their way through the ravaged remains of the outside world.

When shit gets too weird for the Mob to handle, hitmage Alexi Sokolsky is the guy they call to fix it. 1986, New York City. The Russian Mafiya is neck-deep in a Wall Street heist worth millions, but things heat up when a mage from a rival gang is hired to force the Russians to back down from the deal. As the magic flies and men burn, Alexi must hunt the murderer in a feverish game of cat-and-mouse to protect his friends. But to honor his contract, Alexi must also save his most hated enemy. His father. Set 5 years before Blood Hound, Burn Artist is a prequel to the series which reveals more about Alexi's past. What were the events that shaped him? Why did he murder his own father? And what are his true feelings for his best friend?

Alexi Sokolsky is a Spook, a hitman and mage capable of killing with nothing but a word of power and the strength of his will. But arcane ability comes with a price: The same powers that make Alexi indispensable to the Russian Mafia also make him a social outcast, an object of fear and superstition.

When a high-ranking Sicilian Mafioso is sacrificed to the Demon of Feuds and dumped on Russian territory, the Russians blame the only mage they know - Alexi. Forced to play detective to clear his name, Alexi discovers that the gruesome sacrifice is only the opening move of a very dangerous game. Every underworld mage in New York City is on the hunt for a Gift Horse, a mysterious creature rumored to carry the secrets of all creation in her flesh and blood... a creature who is calling to Alexi for help.

If Alexi heeds the Gift Horse's call, he stands to lose his place in the Mafia and his life. If he doesn't, the world will be held hostage by whoever finds her first - and given that a demon-summoning murderous psychopath is in pole position, the odds are not in the world's favor.

Twenty shapeshifter children are kidnapped from a group home and their guardians murdered in a bizarre Occult ritual, and the werecreatures of New York City are baying for blood. Frustrated by weeks of botched Government investigation, they are taking the law into their own hands and need an Occult expert capable of doing the dirty work the police cannot. Someone like Alexi Sokolsky: mage, ex-Russian mafiya hitman, and reluctant finder of lost children. A chance meeting results in Alexi joining forces with the shapeshifters against a mutual enemy, but street justice is rarely as simple as putting a bullet through someone's head. Backed up by a biker gang of were-cats and a disturbingly attractive Biomancer, Alexi must recover the kids and regain his magic, a dangerous and deadly mission that will test them all to the limit.

Hitmage Alexi Sokolsky used to sling spells for the Russian Mafia. That was before the man he loved was murdered, before his boss tried to turn him into his vampire slave, and before he learned about the Organizatsiya's dirty trade in supernatural children. He's still a hitman - but now he hunts monsters. An FBI agent has been raped and murdered in her home, seemingly by the same cult Alexi and his new friends have been fighting for months. The Government wants him to hunt down the cult's assassin before he kills again... and they're not taking no for an answer. Drawn into a grand conspiracy with world-shattering implications, Alexi finally has the chance to answer the questions that have haunted him ever since the Fruit of Eden first appeared in New York City - assuming he can survive long enough to discover the truth.

It arrived in the wee hours of the morning. Had an express train derailed? Were the Germans bombing the British countryside again? The truth was beyond Professor Toddleben's wildest dreams...

The professor's quaint estate of Applewood had unceremoniously become home to an extraterrestrial visitor. Saurus, an iguana-like creature borne Earthward from the stars, hatches from a leathery shell and demonstrates both a superlative mind and telepathic abilities. Professor Toddleben and his assistants learn to communicate with him--and from there the plot only thickens!

Stephen Leigh's epic trilogy of vast empires and dangerous politics, compiled in one thrilling volume

Neweden is a world whose gods are death and fate, and it's here that the Hoorka have arisen: a guild of assassins, whose single law is that the victim must always retain a tiny but finite chance of escape. If the victim can survive until dawn, they may go free.

But the rich and powerful don't care to have their will thwarted, and so the Hoorka must deal with the consequences of their own ethics. Gyll, the leader of the Hoorka, also has dreams of taking the guild offworld into the growing society of the Alliance, which is trying to reconstruct a shattered, worlds-spanning empire. Is that dream a genuine possibility, or will exposure to other cultures doom the Hoorka entirely?

Gyll must confront internal struggles within his own people, the dangerous politics of Neweden, and the twinned threat and promise of the Alliance. The Hag of Death dances around them, mockingly. Can the Hoorka survive to see the dawn of their own success, an Assassins' Dawn?

The Hoorka, a guild of skilled assassins, maintain their existence in the turbulent society of Neweden through strict obedience to a stern code of neutrality: Kill only when hired. Reveal your client only if successful. If the victim survives until dawn, he goes free. Through years of harsh training and iron discipline, the Thane of Hoorka Guild has molded a group of men and women without kinship, lassari outcasts, into a lethal force separate from the blood feuds and intricate alliances of other clans.

The Alliance of Worlds has been watching the Hoorka closely with an eye to allowing them to operate offworld. But now an important target has eluded the Hoorka's weapons--the leader of the opposition party. And the Rule of Neweden, maker of the contract, suspects them of treachery. Beset with suspicion and fear, and challenged by a young usurper within the Guild, the aging Thane faces a day of reckoning: He can abide by the code he created, or break it in the name of expediency. His fateful decision could mean a new future for the Hoorka--or its end for all time.

The Assassins' Code

On the bloodsoaked feudal world of Neweden, the Hoorka assassins' guild has survived by adherence to a strict code of honor. Lethal killers, shadowy black-robed agents of destruction, they are pledged to give Fate a chance to free their victims from the claws of Hag Death.

But now the Alliance has allowed Hoorka to operate offworld, the assassins' code is breaking down, and Ulthane Gyll. founder and former leader of the Hoorka, finds the deadly fighting force he created turning against him....

Gyll Hermond was spawned in the dark streets of Neweden, a world torn apart by intrigue and blood-feud. He'd molded a ragged band of kinless outcasts into a trained killing force -- the Hoorka Assassins' Guild -- only to be deposed as leader in a bitter struggle for power. Now Fate brings Gyll back to Neweden as military commander of a powerful Trading Family.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Robert Holdstock and Christopher Evans
• Crying in the Rain - short story by Tanith Lee
• The Facts of Life - short story by Christopher Evans
• Small Heirlooms - short story by M. John Harrison
• The Emir's Clock - short story by Ian Watson
• The Price of Cabbages - novelette by Brian W. Aldiss
• Fullwood's Web - short story by Graham Charnock
• Scarrowfell - novelette by Robert Holdstock
• The Frozen Cardinal - short story by Michael Moorcock
• Triptych: The Black Wedding; Murderers Walk; Hogfoot Right and Bird-Hands - short story by Garry Kilworth
• Sanctity - short story by R. M. Lamming
• Moonlighter - short story by David Garnett
• In a Land of Sand and Ruin and Gold - short story by David Langford
• Piper's Wait - short story by Keith Roberts
• The Wound - short story by Lisa Tuttle
• Contributors - essay by uncredited

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Chris Evans and Robert Holdstock
• On the Watchtower at Plataea - (1988) - novelette by Garry Kilworth
• She Shall Have Music - short story by Graham Charnock
• Dazzle - (1988) - short story by Scott Bradfield
• Waltz in Flexitime - (1988) - short story by Michael Cobley
• The Resurrection Man - (1988) - short story by Ian Watson
• Laiken Langstrand - (1988) - short story by Gwyneth Jones
• Roman Games - (1988) - short story by Anne Gay
• Eden Sounding - shortfiction by John Clute
• Confluence Revisited - short story by Brian W. Aldiss
• Getting Together - shortfiction by Josephine Saxton
• The Gift - (1988) - novelette by M. John Harrison
• The Wish - short story by Colin Greenland
• Remaking History - (1988) - short story by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Approaching Perpendicular - (1988) - novelette by Ian McDonald
• Mars - (1988) - short story by Michael Moorcock
• A Madonna of the Machine - (1988) - novelette by Tanith Lee

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Christopher Evans and Robert Holdstock
• The Grey Wethers - novelette by Keith Roberts
• The New Mapper - novelette by J. D. Gresham
• The Disciples of Apollo - short story by Eric Brown
• The Way to His Heart - short story by Sherry Coldsmith
• Rainmaker Cometh - short story by Ian McDonald
• Blessed Fields - short story by Simon Ings
• Country Matters - short story by Gill Alderman
• The Droplet - short story by Stephen Baxter
• Cry - short story by Louise Cooper
• The Wailing Woman - novelette by Christopher Evans
• When the Music Stopped - short story by Christian Lehmann and Garry Kilworth
• Wintertime Beauty - short story by Christina Lake
• Passion Play - short story by Keith Brooke
• Losing Control - short story by Chris Morgan
• Heart's Desire - short story by Lisa Tuttle
• A Tupolev Too Far - novelette by Brian W. Aldiss

Armed with millions of years worth of technological innovations, the scientists embark on their mission to Barnard's Star and Rochenworld.

Billionaire Byron Trumbo wants to sell his posh Hawaiian resort to a Japanese investor but must make it appear prosperous while the deal is being struck. Due to the high prices, guests have been scarce. Unfortunately, they are becoming even scarcer as someone or something is kidnapping and murdering them. Drawn by the sketchy news accounts, Eleanor Perry has come to Mauna Pele on a sort of pilgrimage, using her aunt Kidder's 1866 travel diary as a guidebook. The events Kidder chronicled-tales of demons conjured up to rid the island of missionaries-seem to parallel the current events. As volcanoes erupt and vengeful gods and demons become more violent, Eleanor and her fellow guest, the indomitable Cordie Stumpf, attempt to get to the bottom of things.

Now William Shatner brings his unique blend of talents as actor, writer, director, and producer, to tell the story only he can, of Captain Kirk's greatest adventure...

The time: six months prior to the launch of the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-B and the tragic loss of Captain James T. Kirk in deep space.

The place: Earth, where the galaxy's most renowned hero must now face the specter of retirement and a life devoid of challenge and excitment. But in the apparent twilight of his career, Kirk's path takes an unexpected turn when a mysterious young woman offers him an irresistible adventure-- a perilous voyage to an uncharted planet where he will confront the ultimate threat to the fragile peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, and the ultimate temptation-- a chance to recapture his youth.

Kerrick, a young Tanu hunter captured and raised by the Yilane, cold-blooded, intelligent reptiles, escapes and struggles to unite all human clans against the Yilane threat.

Harry Harrison, an acknowledged master of imaginative fiction, broke new ground with "West of Eden." He brought to vivid life the world as it might have been, where dinosaurs survived, where their intelligent descendants challenged humans for mastery of Earth, where a young hunter named Kerrick grew among the dinosaurs and rose to become their most feared enemy.

Now, the awesome saga continues in "Winter in Eden..."

A new ice age threatens Earth. Facing extinction, the dinosaurs must employ their mastery of biology to swiftly reconquer human territory. Desperately, Kerrick launches an arduous quest to rally a final defense for humankind. With his beloved wife and young son, he heads north to the land of the whale hunters, east into the enemy's stronghold, and south to a fateful reckoning with destiny.

Not since "Dune" has there been a work of such majestic scope and conception -- a monumental epic of passion, courage, and triumph.

The rousing conclusion of an epic trilogy! In WEST OF EDEN and WINTER IN EDEN, master novelist Harry Harrison broke new ground with his most ambitious project ever. He brought to vivid life the world as it might have been, where dinosaurs survived, where their intelligent descendants, the Yilane, challenged humans for mastery of the Earth, and where the human Kerrick, a young hunter of the Tanu tribe, grew among the dinosaurs and rose to become their most feared enemy. Now, in RETURN TO EDEN, Harrison brings the epic trilogy to a stunning conclusion. After Kerrick rescues his people from the warlike Yilane, they find a safe haven on an island and there begin to rebuild their shattered lives. But with fierce predators stalking the forests, how long can these unarmed human outeasts hope to survive? And, of course, Kerrick cannot forget Vainte, his implacable Yilane enemy. She's been cast out from her kind, under sentence of death, but how long will her banishment last? For her strange attraction to Kerrick has turned into a halred even more powerful than her instinets - an obsession that compels her to hunt down Kerrick and kill him.

Eighteen years ago, the microbial apocalypse christened Black Ep had virtually wiped humanity from the globe. The survivors of the epidemic have now reached adulthood and are committed to the task of rebuilding civilization. But an ideological rift has divided the survivors into two separate factions--one determined to resurrect the human race, the other obsessed with improving humanity via genetic manipulation.

And as the factions clash with one another, a new biological threat rises from the ashes of Black Ep, an even deadlier contagion with one purpose: mankind's extinction.

A Second Chance at Eden by Peter F. Hamilton, the bestselling master of space opera, is a collection containing a novella and six short stories set in the Confederation Universe of the Night's Dawn trilogy.

Sonnie's Edge:The popular sport of 'beastie-baiting' involves contests to the death between artificial monsters controlled via human affinity bonds. Sonnie's team is particularly successful... but then her monster, 'Khanivore', has one special advantage.

A Second Chance at Eden: A bitek habitat which orbits Jupiter, mining the fusion fuel on which Earth is dependent, Eden is a mini-nation of radical politics -- and even more radical technology. Then its creator is murdered in full view of the whole population, but nobody can identify the perpetrator -- or the motive.

New Days Old Times: Settlers came to the planet Nyvan hoping for a lifestyle free of Earthbound hatreds. Alas, though environments may change, human nature does not.

Candy Buds: The crime-lord Laurus rules Kariwak with an iron fist, jealously guarding control of the bitek trade. But when an astonishing new substance appears on the streets, virtual reality takes on an entirely new dimension.

Deathday: On a desolate planet, a man wages an obsessive campaign of retribution against the last survivor of an alien race. But vengeance can cut both ways.

The Lives and Loves of Tiarella Rosa: A passion that spans two generations of women... and endures beyond.

Escape Route: The starship Lady Macbeth encounters a long-abandoned alien spacecraft, with its escape route still intact -- but leading where? And is the craft as empty as it seems?

When Jim Eden's uncle, the inventor of a valuable undersea device, disappears while testing a new undersea mining process, Eden heads for the undersea mining colony to investigate on his own.

Table of Contents:

• Undersea Quest - (1954)
• Undersea Fleet - (1956)
• Undersea City - (1958)

A MISSING RELATIVE....

Something of value was buried beneath the underwater dome city of Marinia... something that had already cost one man's life, caused another man's kidnapping and gravely affected still another man's future.

Expelled from the Sub-Sea Academy on trumped-up charges, Jim Eden wasn't about to wait around to prove his innocence. As soon as he learned that his uncle mysteriously disappeared while mining uranium at the bottom of hazardous Eden Deep, Jim knew what he had to do...and that he had to do it fast.

So he headed for the vast dome city -- location of the great mining colony at the bottom of the sea -- to pick up any clues to his uncle's disappearance. But once he had entered the undersea metropolis, the wrong people had his number...and they were determined that Jim would sink forever without a trace.

MONSTERS OF THE DEEP....

Everyone at the academy knew that sea serpents were, without doubt, silly superstitions. Everyone but David Craken, that is. This young cadet from Marinia had been born and raised four miles beneath the waves, and he knew that more than rich new fuel sources and precious stones lay in wait for the men who dared invade this last frontier.

But when David dived into the depths at thirteen hundred feet and disappeared -- only to reappear, drifting offshore months later -- his friend Jim Eden learned there was more truth to certain superstitions than he cared to believe. On a strange and hazardous journey, Jim and the men of the sub-Sea Academy suddenly found themselves up against the dangerous creatures of the deep -- and embroiled in a life-against-life adventure they would never forget!

It was the most dreaded of all undersea phenomena. If strong enough, it would set up chain-reaction pressures that could shatter any dome and cost inestimable lives. But the Krakatoan Dome has been specifically designed to cope with the tremors of its seaquake-prone area. The trouble was, all of a sudden, there were more quakes than any of the experts had counted on... quakes that no one could possibly have forecast because they hadn't come from natural causes.

The Sub-Sea Academy had assigned Cadet Jim Eden to the KRakatoan Dome to find out what was going on, and for very special reasons. First, he was more at home in the underwater world than most anyone else. But, even more important, they sent Jim because his uncle was suspected of being the heinous saboteur!