NEW SPACE OPERA FROM MULTIPLE NEBULA- AND HUGO-WINNING AUTHOR NANCY KRESS

WHAT LIES BEYOND THE ELEVENTH GATE . . .

Despite economic and territorial tensions, no one wants the city-states of the Eight Worlds to repeat the Terran Collapse by going to war. But when war accidentally happens, everyone seeks ways to exploit it for gain. The Landry and Peregoy ruling dynasties see opportunities to grab territory, increase profits, and settle old scores. Exploited underclasses use war to fuel rebellion. Ambitious heirs can finally topple their elders’ regimes—or try to.

But the unexpected key to either victory or peace lies with two persons uninterested in conquest, profits, or power. Philip Anderson seeks only the transcendent meaning of the physics underlying the universe. Tara Landry, spoiled and defiant youngest granddaughter of dynasty head Rachel Landry, accidentally discovers an eleventh star-jump gate, with a fabulous find on the planet behind it. Her discovery, and Philip’s use of it, alter everything for the Eight Worlds.

NEW ENTRY IN THE WITCHES OF KARRES SERIES BY NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR ERIC FLINT & DAVE FREER

Captain Pausert just can’t catch a break!

First, he became the mortal enemy of his fiancée, his home planet, the Empire—and even the Worm World, the darkest threat to mankind in all of space. All because he helped rescue three slave children from their masters. Of course, these three young women were the universally feared Witches of Karres—but how was he to know that?!

And after he defeated the Worm World (with the help of the witches, of course), the Empress herself had sent him on a secret mission to stop a nanite plague that was raging across the galaxy. But an enemy had somehow convinced the Imperial Fleet that he was actually a wanted criminal, so after a battle leaving his ship in urgent need of repairs, Pausert and the witches of Karres joined an interstellar traveling circus in order to save the galaxy.

Now Pausert and the witches of Karres roam the spaceways again, this time dealing with a slaver-culture that somehow makes slaves happy to be in servitude, and a quest for a long-lost alien pet, during which the youngest witch, The Leewit, begins to come to her full powers as a healer—and of course generates chaos in her wake.

For Pausert, it’s all in a day’s work. But would it be too much to ask for a vacation?

NEW FICTION AND CLASSICS OF THE GENRE COLLECTED BY THE EDITORIAL TEAM BEHIND SPACE PIONEERS AND OVERRULED!

SPACE PIRATES!

Words that conjure up rousing tales of adventure, derring-do, brave heroes battling the scurvy vermin of the galaxy. Those vermin have taken to pillaging cargo ships and, even worse, space liners, relieving the helpless passengers of their valuables, and worse with the comely women passengers, then spacing the lot—unless one or more of the aforementioned brave heroes arrive in the nick of time, and turn the tables, making the spaceways safe again for the innocent and helpless. On the other hand, perhaps the pirate captain is a woman, and it’s the comely male passengers who need rescuing. And on the third hand (we’re talking space pirates here, possibly aliens with four or more arms), perhaps those ships traversing the interstellar void are not so innocent, and the pirates, fighting an evil despotic star empire and defending the freedom of the space lanes, are the good guys and gals. The possibilities are many, and the daring exploits set the blood racing in the veins of any reader with even a trace of buccaneering spirit in their hidden self.

So board a battered but spaceworthy fighting starship with such star-spanning and award-winning crewmates as Robert Silverberg, Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, and Sarah A. Hoyt, plus James H. Schmitz, James Blish, Gregory Benford, and more, and set sail—er, thrusters—for a universe of freebooting adventure!

A CLASSIC OF HARD SF FROM WIL MCCARTHY. Back in print and just as relevant as ever! Exploring what the economics of abundance will really look like.

Humanity has conquered the Solar System. What’s more, death itself has been vanquished. Wellstone—programmable matter—insures that no one need ever die, or indeed, age past adulthood. But for the children of immortal parents, life remains a constant state of arrested development. And a prince shall remain a prince forever, never inheriting the throne. So what is a minor royal to do?

Bascal Edward de Towaji Lutui is tired of his parents—the Queen of Sol and her consort—treating his complaints as so much teenage whining. Exiled to a “summer camp” on a planette, where he will be out of his royal mother’s hair, he decides to do something about his lot in life. Along with his fellow malcontents, he manages to make an improbable spaceship and set out for the far reaches of the colonized space. With hijacked weapons and programmable matter at their disposal, Bascal Edward de Towaji Lutui and his companions are set to prove themselves a force to be reckoned with.

MAJOR BHAAJAN RETURNS. Book three in the Skolian Empire Major Bhaajan series by Catherine Asaro.

SURVIVE THE CITY OF CRIES

Bhaajan grew up in the Undercity, a community hidden in the ruins buried beneath the glittering City of Cries. Caught between the astonishing beauty and crushing poverty of that life, and caught by wanderlust, she enlisted in the military. Now retired, Major Bhaajan is a private investigator who solves cases for the House of Majda, a powerful royal family centered in Cries. The powerful elite of the City of Cries are disappearing, and only Bhaajan, who grew up in the Undercity, can find them—if she isn’t murdered first.

NEW FAR-FUTURE PLANETARY ADVENTURE

"BARD DESPERATE FOR APPRENTICE AND ROGUE WITH SIDELINE IN INSURANCE SEEK WORK. PREFERABLY AS GOOD GUYS."

Indrajit Twang is the four hundred twenty-seventh epic poet of his people, the only person alive to carry their entire epic history and mythology in his head. His people are dwindling in number, and if he can’t find a successor in the great city of Kish, their story will disappear with them.

Fix grew up a foundling on the ancient streets of Kish and is making his living as a mercenary. The woman he loves married someone else, and Fix has turned to buying and selling risk on the black market—but is he trying to impress her, or prove something to himself?

Indrajit and Fix have been hired by a powerful risk-merchant to protect the life of opera star Ilsa without Peer for the duration of a risk contract he’s taken on. When an attempt is made on Ilsa’s life, Indrajit and Fix find themselves hunted by multiple mercenary squads and targeted by some of the most powerful men in Kish. Will they be able to save themselves, not to mention protect Ilsa, in the Palace of Shadow and Joy?

NEW SPACE OPERA FROM MULTIPLE NEBULA- AND HUGO-WINNING AUTHOR NANCY KRESS

WHAT LIES BEYOND THE ELEVENTH GATE . . .

Despite economic and territorial tensions, no one wants the city-states of the Eight Worlds to repeat the Terran Collapse by going to war. But when war accidentally happens, everyone seeks ways to exploit it for gain. The Landry and Peregoy ruling dynasties see opportunities to grab territory, increase profits, and settle old scores. Exploited underclasses use war to fuel rebellion. Ambitious heirs can finally topple their elders’ regimes—or try to.

But the unexpected key to either victory or peace lies with two persons uninterested in conquest, profits, or power. Philip Anderson seeks only the transcendent meaning of the physics underlying the universe. Tara Landry, spoiled and defiant youngest granddaughter of dynasty head Rachel Landry, accidentally discovers an eleventh star-jump gate, with a fabulous find on the planet behind it. Her discovery, and Philip’s use of it, alter everything for the Eight Worlds.

A NEW NOVEL IN TOM KRATMAN'S HARD-HITTING MILITARY SF CARRERA SERIES

When Patricio Carrera’s family was murdered by Salafist terrorists aided and abetted by the fleet of alien Earth, the only restraint on his ruthlessness and ambition was also removed. Now, after decades of war and preparation for war in his adopted homeland of Balboa, the last of the Tauran Union Expeditionary Force collapses and is herded into prison camps and ships, where their re-education commences.

An Islamic rebellion explodes inside the Tauran Union, bringing the governments and the bureaucracies to their knees . . . except when they’re hauled up by their necks on lampposts. In neighboring Santa Josefina, the Taurans’ Task Force Jesuit is pinned into one small corner of the country, helplessly awaiting destruction. At sea, the Balboan classis and the remaining fleet of the Zhong Hegemony battle for the supply lines that keep the invading Zhong Army in Balboa alive, while the legions, now rid of the Taurans, redeploy against the Zhong, vengeance and massacre in their hearts and minds. And finally, Hamilcar Carrera, Patricio’s young son, stands poised on the bridge of a clandestine assault transport, ready to obliterate the last enemy base on his planet, even as a small ship is poised to remove the alien interstellar fleet overhead.

THE BEST-SELLING RING OF FIRE SERIES CONQUERS THE NEW WORLD!

It has taken almost five years for the United States of Europe to stabilize its position in 17th-century Europe. Now it turns its attention to the New World, where the English have ceded their colonial claims to France. There are vast lands and rich resources across the Atlantic for any nations powerful enough to rule and control them—and equal incentive for other nations to block their path.

The time-displaced Americans know about the future path that led to their own United States in North America, in the other universe they came from. But do they want to repeat that history as it was? Yes, they had democracy—but they are helping to create that in Europe. And they have learned the bitter prices paid for chattel slavery and the near-extermination of the native populations.

Knowledge is power. Perhaps a new course can be taken. Accordingly, an expedition is sent to the New World to see just what might be happening there and what might be done. They are armed with their technology, among which are a radio and an airship. More importantly, they are armed with the knowledge of future history and their determination not to repeat the errors of their past.

What could possibly go wrong?

AN EPIC FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE ON OUR MOON

Something has been uncovered on the Moon that might have great scientific and economic importance. The Lunar colony is a mining colony with only internal security capabilities. Nobody had even considered that there might someday arise a need to defend the colony from the Earth! But that day has come.

The Lunar colonists made this great discovery and perceive it as their own. Finders keepers and possession being nine tenths of the law is how things are seen on the Moon. But the governments of the Earth don’t quite see eye-to-eye with the Lunarian’s philosophy. As far as the Earth is concerned, they paid for everything on the Moon, so it belongs to them.

There is only one solution: Battle Luna!

THE FINAL NOVEL BY LEGENDARY AUTHOR JERRY POURNELLE, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR DAVID WEBER AND AUTHOR'S SON PHILLIP POURNELLE

NO REST FOR THE WEARY

Rick Galloway's still not sure what inspired him to volunteer to fight Cubans in Angola, and he certainly never expected to end his African adventure shanghaied by a flying saucer when his CIA superiors cut him and his men adrift as the Cubans overran their final position.

He didn't expect to end up on the planet Tran, God only knew how many light-years from Earth, raising drugs for an alien cartel under the auspices—more or less—of a galactic civilization administered and run by a slave class of humans for their alien masters, either.

But he did. And since then, he's survived mutinies, civil wars, battles against Byzantine "Romans," medieval knights, and Mongol raiders on a world where catastrophic "climate change" races unchecked through a 600-year cycle. Along the way he's found love, lost it, found it again, and become a great noble . . . all the while knowing his alien "employers" will probably nuke his people back into the Stone Age when they're done.

He's managed his impossible balancing act for 13 years. He's lost people he cared about, been forced to do things he's hated, and tried along the way to make life better for the people trapped on Tran with him, and he's tired. So tired.

But now, everything has changed . . . again. New Starmen have arrived on Tran, with dangerous gifts and star weapons of their own. Everything Rick Galloway thought he knew about his mission on Tran is about to be turned on its head.

And everyone expects him to fix it.

NEW ENTRY IN THE WITCHES OF KARRES SERIES BY NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR ERIC FLINT & DAVE FREER

Captain Pausert just can’t catch a break!

First, he became the mortal enemy of his fiancée, his home planet, the Empire—and even the Worm World, the darkest threat to mankind in all of space. All because he helped rescue three slave children from their masters. Of course, these three young women were the universally feared Witches of Karres—but how was he to know that?!

And after he defeated the Worm World (with the help of the witches, of course), the Empress herself had sent him on a secret mission to stop a nanite plague that was raging across the galaxy. But an enemy had somehow convinced the Imperial Fleet that he was actually a wanted criminal, so after a battle leaving his ship in urgent need of repairs, Pausert and the witches of Karres joined an interstellar traveling circus in order to save the galaxy.

Now Pausert and the witches of Karres roam the spaceways again, this time dealing with a slaver-culture that somehow makes slaves happy to be in servitude, and a quest for a long-lost alien pet, during which the youngest witch, The Leewit, begins to come to her full powers as a healer—and of course generates chaos in her wake.

For Pausert, it’s all in a day’s work. But would it be too much to ask for a vacation?

Book One of The Shadow Lands

A universe out of time . . . a land of no return . . .

Jesse Salazar is a priest of the Church Militant, who spends his days—and nights—hunting and re-inhuming the monsters that bump humanity in the night. He’s good at his job and gets paid very well to do it. But when the skies go gray, he wakes up to find himself in the Shadow Lands—the world an ancient Akkadian god uses to feed his minions their favorite food . . . humans.

Stalked by Abzu, the lord of the realm, and all his minions—including his wife, Tiamat—Salazar must figure out a way to stay out of Abzu’s clutches while assembling a team of survivors and putting together the clues to find a way home. With only limited weapons to protect themselves and no visible means of returning home, Salazar will have to use all of his God-given talents to keep everyone alive.

Especially if there’s no way back.

ORDER IN THE COURT! A new anthology of science fiction stories that explores what the future of jurisprudence might well be like, with thrilling, hilarious, and downright entertaining results! So much fun, it oughta be illegal! Stories by Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak, Sarah A. Hoyt, and more.

Lawyers—pardon me, attorneys—may be portrayed in fiction as the good guys (and gals) or as greedy conniving shysters.

In mundane fiction, the former are represented ably by Earle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason and by Harper Lee’s Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (we’ll pass over her other novel, Go Set a Watchman, with a less inspiring portrait—consider it obviously set in a parallel world). The less favorable view was expressed by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his SF classic, A Princess of Mars, in which his doubly immortal John Carter observes that the Martians are very fortunate in that, while they may behave with savage cruelty, and are constantly at war, at least they have no lawyers.

Both views of the legal profession have been explored in science fiction and fantasy since John Carter set foot on the Red Planet, as well as looking into possible ways that future punishment for crimes may change, not necessarily for the better. Some of science fiction’s greatest talents are included in this book, including classics by Robert A. Heinlein, Larry Niven, Clifford D. Simak, Robert Silverberg, and more, and newer stories by Sarah A. Hoyt, Alex Shvartsman, and Alvaro Zinos-Amaros, and still other stellar talents bringing down the judge’s gavel with a verdict of excellent entertainment.

What does it mean to be “temporally deactivated?” Experience a historical moment through the intervention of a time travel agency. Be trapped inside a time bubble—willingly—so that you can save the universe from Darkness over and over again. Step outside of time at the order of your queen in order to stop a traitor . . . or to keep an assassin from destroying the future. Or travel forward into the future in order to kill off timelines to save your son . . . or backwards to halt an accident to save your relationship.

Join fantasy and science fiction authors Ken Altabef, Alex Gideon, Stephen Leigh, D.B. Jackson, Faith Hunter, C.S. Friedman, Emily Randall, Gini Koch, Misty Massey, Rhondi Salsitz, Edmund R. Schubert, R.K. Nickel, Marie DesJardin, and Christine Lucas as they defy time and warp space in order to define what it means to be “temporally deactivated.” So get ready and hold on tight. It’s time to step outside of time.

PORTALS: What mysteries . . . or horrors . . . await you on the other side? The lure of an open doorway is hard to resist. What lies beyond? Where will it take you—and how will you be transformed? Will it lead to paradise . . . or a living hell? You’ll never know, unless you have the courage to take that first step. In this anthology you will find sixteen stories of portals to exotic destinations, whether it’s a doorway in the desert that appears out of thin air, a fairy ring of mushrooms in the backyard, a crack in the road, or a train headed straight to Hell.

Science fiction and fantasy authors Nancy Holzner, Esther Friesner, Ian Tregillis, Jacey Bedford, John Linwood Grant, Kate Hall, Gini Koch, Violette Malan, Juliet Kemp, James Enge, Steven Harper, F. Brett Cox, Jaime Lee Moyer, Jason Palmatier, Andrija Popovic, and Patrick Hurley invite you to step through a host of doorways to other realities with infinite possibilities, some horrible, some comic, and some just plain weird. So take my hand—not too tight!—and let’s journey into another world. The door is open. The portal awaits.

Gibraltar Trilogy Book 3

The great debate is over. The human race has rejected the idea of retreating to Earth and that the Broa will continue to overlook them—at least for a few more generations. Instead, the World Parliament, by a 60-40 vote, has decided to throw the dice and go for a win. Brave words echo in Parliament Hall as members declare a victory inevitable.

While plans for war mount on Earth, Mark and Lisa Rykand face grave danger as spies in enemy territory. The Broa have begun to scrutinize these strange two-legged interlopers and question their intentions. It’s only a matter of time before their identities are revealed.

But the Rykands’ mission is key to securing a victory. With the number of forces favoring the enemy by roughly a million to one, Earth will need all the help they can get . . .

Gibraltar Trilogy Book 2

The crew aboard the Stellar Survey Starship Magellan returns to Earth with bad news from their expedition to the Crab Nebula. Out among the stars, a million systems have fallen under the weight of Broan force—a fate awaiting Earth should the Broa learn of the planet’s existence. Having received this knowledge, Earth’s politicians argue over their next move, confronted by a problem with no acceptable solution.

In the meantime, Mark Rykand and Lisa Arden have embarked on a dangerous mission to spy on this newly discovered, all-powerful enemy. They must gather useful intelligence quickly—if their cover is blown too soon, the extinction of humankind is nearly certain . . .

Gibraltar Trilogy Book 1

It is the 24th Century. Humanity is only just beginning to gain a toehold out among the stars. While exploring the New Eden system, the crew aboard Stellar Survey Starship Magellan encounters a pair of alien spacecraft. A skirmish ensues and both sides exit the battle with heavy losses. In picking through the wreckage of one of the alien ships, the human crew stumbles upon a survivor with a fantastic story.

The alien hails from a million-star Galactic Empire ruled over by a mysterious race known as the Broa. As masters of this region of the galaxy, they permit no challenge to their empire. But as yet the Broa are ignorant of humanity’s existence.

Armed with this vital information, the human race must decide how best to proceed. Do they cease all astral voyages and retreat to their corner of the universe, quaking in fear at the thought of the Broa’s discovery of Earth? Or . . . do they take a more aggressive approach?

The Collected Short Stories and Novellas of Ian R. MacLeod, Volume 2

“MacLeod is a brilliant writer.” —Tim Powers

“Ian MacLeod writes like an angel. He strings together ideally chosen words into sentences that are variously lush, sparse, subtle, bold, joyous, mournful, comic and tragic.” —Paul Di Filippo

Welcome to the second half of the collected worlds of one of fiction’s great myth-makers. Blending naturalistic settings with real—and unreal—histories, dark presents, strange pasts and star-flung futures, Ian R. MacLeod’s multi award-winning stories defy easy classification, but are always vividly elegant, compelling, and filled with wonder.

In “The Chop Girl,” a young working at a World War Two RAF bomber airbase discovers the true meaning of luck, whilst “The Discovered Country” projects a world in which the dead enjoy an endless afterlife whilst the merely living struggle to survive, and “The Visitor from Taured” twists a modern urban myth into a tale of one man’s search for a Theory Of Everything, and Snodgrass tells a very different version of the Beatles’ rise to fame.

Nothing in MacLeod’s visions is ever quite what it seems, yet they remain deeply real and involving. If you haven’t read MacLeod before, you can expect to be moved and surprised. If you have, then you need no further introduction other than to say that Nowhere—and its companion volume Everywhere, which features many of his best longer stories—represent a generous and wide-ranging summary of his work, along with many insights into the creative process which are provided by the fresh introductions and afterwords.