The new United States in central Germany launches a one-plane Doolittle Raid on Paris, France. The target: their arch-enemy, Cardinal Richelieu. Meanwhile, an ambassador from the Mughal Empire of northern India is being held captive in Austria by the Habsburg dynasty. Mike Stearns decides to send a mercenary company to rescue him, led by two seventeenth-century mercenary officers: an Englishman and a Irishman, who seem to spend as much time fighting each other as they do the enemy.

Mike Spehar's "Collateral Damage" and Chris Weber's "The Company Men" are just two of the stories contained in this second volume of the Grantville Gazette. In other stories:

— a prominent Italian musician decides to travel to Grantville to investigate the music of the future;

— an American archer and a Finnish cavalryman become friends in the middle of a battlefield;

— a Lutheran pastor begins a theological challenge to the establishment based on his interpretation of the Ring of Fire;

— American and German detectives become partners to investigate a murder;

— and, in the first part of Danita Ewing's serialized short novel, An Invisible War, the new United States founds a medical school in Jena despite resistance from up-timers and down-timers alike.

The second volume of Grantville Gazette also contains factual articles which explain some of the technical background for the 1632 series, including articles on practical geology, telecommunications, and seventeenth-century swordsmanship.

W200310 October 2003 Monthly Baen Bundle

The Far Side of the Stars

by David Drake

Expanded Universe

by Robert A. Heinlein

The Deed of Paksenarrion

by Elizabeth Moon

Digital Knight

by Ryk E. Spoor

Planets of Adventure

by Murray Leinster
edited by Eric Flint

The Immortality Option

by James P. Hogan

Move Over, Buffy! Tinker Not Only Kicks
Supernatural Butt—
She's a Techie Genius, Too!

Inventor, girl genius Tinker lives in a near-future Pittsburgh which now exists mostly in the land of the elves. She runs her salvage business, pays her taxes, and tries to keep the local ambient level of magic down with gadgets of her own design. When a pack of wargs chase an Elven noble into her scrap yard, life as she knows it takes a serious detour. Tinker finds herself taking on the Elven court, the NSA, the Elven Interdimensional Agency, technology smugglers and a college-minded Xenobiologist as she tries to stay focused on what's really important – her first date. Armed with an intelligence the size of a planet, steel toed boots, and a junk yard dog attitude, Tinker is ready to kick butt to get her first kiss.

Wen Spencer

"Each and every character is fascinating, extraordinarily well-developed, and gets right under your skin. . . . A terrific, memorable story." —Julie E. Czerneda, author of In the Company of Others

"Spencer takes her readers on a fast-paced journey into disbelief. [Her] timing is impeccable and the denouement stunning." —Romantic Times (four-star review)

"This novel [Alien Taste] is keeper-shelf material." —BookBrowser

"Wonderfully inventive . . . a fun protagonist." —Locus

WOULD THEY
DESTROY EARTH IN
ORDER TO SAVE IT

Conquered by the Jao twenty years ago, the Earth is shackled under alien tyranny—and threatened by the even more dangerous Ekhat, who are sending a genocidal extermination fleet to the solar system. Humanity's only chance rests with an unusual pair of allies: a young Jao prince, newly arrived to Terra to assume his duties, and a young human woman brought up amongst the Jao occupiers.

But both are under pressure from the opposing forces—a cruel Jao viceroy on one side, determined to drown all opposition in blood; a reckless human resistance on the other, perfectly prepared to shed it. Added to the mix is the fact that only by adopting some portions of human technology and using human sepoy troops can the haughty Jao hope to defeat the oncoming Ekhat attack—and then only by fighting the battle within the Sun itself.

CAUGHT IN A WAR TO
DOMINATE THE UNIVERSE

Once, Mavra Chang had been a master criminal, notorious throughout the galaxy, but for eleven long years she has been trapped on the Well World—the Master Control World for the universe, where untold myriads of strange races exist, separated by barriers erected by the mysterious vanished race which built the Well World billions of years ago.

She and her companions had been transformed by the inexplicable mechanism of the Well World into no-longer human bodies. Orbiting the planet was a planetoid concealing Obie, a supercomputer that could restore Mavra Chang to her original bodily form—if she could reach it. But the only spaceship on the planet was hidden in the northern hemisphere, where no living creature could go and survive. Then she learned that her enemies were plotting to eliminate her, steal the ship and escape from the Well World.

But many others had planned her demise before, and Mavra Chang was still alive and well; which was more than could be said of those who had wished her ill....

Praise for a Master Storyteller:

"A stunning novel by a first-rate storyteller!" —Edmond Hamilton

"A big, bold book'that traditional science fiction and turns it down!" —Leigh Bracket

W200309 September 2003 Monthly Baen Bundle

Crown of Slaves

by David Weber and Eric Flint

The Course of Empire

by Eric Flint and K. D. Wentworth

The Fall of Atlantis

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Quest for the Well of Souls

by Jack L. Chalker

The Shadow of the Lion

by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint and Dave Freer

The Tyrant

by Eric Flint and David Drake

A wounded Atlantean prince...a deadly battle between Dark and Light...and the sisters Deoris and Domaris, whose lives are changed utterly by the magic involving them. These are the elements of The Fall of Atlantis, Marion Zimmer Bradley's epic fantasy about that ancient and legendary realm.

On one side stand the Priests of the White Robe, guardians of powerful natural forces which could threaten the world if misused. Ranged against them are the Black Robes, sorcerers who secretly practice their dark arts in the labyrinthine caves beneath the very Temple of Light. Caught between are Domaris and Deoris, daughters of the Archpriest Talkannon, trapped in a web of deadly sorcery—the same forbidden sorcery that could bring about

The Fall of Atlantis

Previously published separately as Web of Light and Web of Darkness.

Truth and Consequences

A covert ops liberation of Barrayaran allies in a Cetagandan POW camp goes awry and Miles Naismith is right in the middle of it. Will he find damnation though good works, or faith alone

Still reeling from the prior mission, the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet puts in at old Earth for repairs—and finds old enemies. Miles's attempt to juggle both his identities, Admiral Naismith and Lieutenant Lord Vorkosigan, crashes when a new player enters the game: the brother he never knew he had.

Two years later, on the crime planet of Jackson's Whole, disaster gets a new name: Mark Pierre Vorkosigan. Another rescue, of clone children scheduled to be murdered for their bodies, goes seriously sour. This time, the consequences look fatal and permanent—unless two brothers can each learn the other's true names and games.

"Georgette Heyer has met her match for intrigue and STYLE! . . . [Komarr] has twists and turns that could only happen in a Vorkosigan-inspired novel. . . . Boy, can she write!" —Anne McCaffrey

"Bujold successfully mixes quirky humor with just enough action, a dab of feminist social commentary and her usual superb character development. . . enormously satisfying." —Publishers Weekly

". . . an outstanding series." —Booklist

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
—and Quite Deadly . . .

Eric Banyon, better known as Bedlam's Bard, is finally about to graduate from Julliard and enter the Real World and so, with the help of a psychiatrist who specializes in the problems of magicians, he's finally coming to terms with his past. But a spur-of-the-moment trip home to Boston to visit his parents brings him more trouble than even Eric thought possible.

Meanwhile, his Bardic apprentice Hosea has discovered that the young homeless children in New York's shelters have created a bizarre mythology about a demon called Bloody Mary who preys on young children—and somehow Bloody Mary has taken on an independent life and now stalks the streets of the city.

And for some reason, she's after Eric as well. . . .

Praise for the Bedlam's Bard Series:

"[Spirits White as Lightning is] fast, furious, and completely absorbing . . . make no mistake, this is a good series." —Booklist

"Lively and original, rich in clever ideas . . . Lackey is one of the best storytellers in the field, and this is among her best." —Locus

"This is a fast-paced, suspenseful, action-packed page turner." —VOYA

"[Lackey] shows a sure touch with the wonder and adventure that characterize the best fantasy writers." —Romantic Times

MILES VORKOSIGAN TIMES THREE
EQUALS ENTERTAINMENT,
EXCITEMENT & EXCELLENCE

Diplomat, soldier, spy-Lieutenant Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan of the Barrayaran Empire, a.k.a. Admiral Naismith of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries, is a young man of many parts.

Miles and his handsome cousin Ivan are called upon to play a simple diplomatic role on the capital world of Barrayar's old enemy until murder and deceit thrust them into Cetagandan internal politics at the highest levels, and Miles discovers the secrets of the haut-women's biological domain to be very complicated indeed.

Commander Elli Quinn, sent by Miles on the trail of those secrets, meets a man who marches to the beat of a very different drummer. Dr. Ethan Urquhart, obstretician from a planet forbidden to women, is on a quest at cross-purposes to Elli's mission - or is it

Consequences of Cetagandan bioengineering continue to play out, this time on a Dendrii sortie to the crime planet of Jackson's Whole. When he encounters a genetically altered super-soldier, Miles's routine rescue strike takes a sudden hard turn for the unanticipated.

It's Howling Time in Known Space again!
 Back to the Frontlines of the
Top Selling Space War in All of
Science Fiction.

The first colonists from Earth named the planet Wunderland. Generations later, the felinoid invaders called Kzin came and turned it into a hell for humans. Touched on in other accounts of the Man-Kzin wars, here for the first time is the decades-long saga of Wunderland: How the Wunderlanders first learned of the Kzin attacks on Earth by slower-than-light communications, barely in time to prepare to fight back. How valiant human defenders turned to guerilla warfare in the Wunderland jungles and caves after the feline warrior race had destroyed or seized the cities. And what happened after the Kzin suffered an ignominous defeat. Many humans wanted revenge and many Kzin still saw humans as just an annoying food source. Was the war really over. . .

"[Larry Niven is ] a writer of supreme talent." —Tom Clancy

"[The Man-Kzin Wars series is] excellent . . . gripping . . . expands well on Larry Niven's universe. . . ."
—Locus

"Well, you know the drill by now. Scream and leap to your nearest bookstore . . . they are going to sell out fast."
—Rave Reviews

"Masterful handling of hard SF embedded within a rich background of character and plot."
—Quantum

W200308 August 2003 Monthly Baen Bundle

Mad Maudlin

by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill

Man-Kzin Wars X: The Wunder War

by Larry Niven and Hal Colebatch

Miles, Mystery and Mayhem

by Lois McMaster Bujold

Miles Errant

by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Shiva Option

by David Weber and Steve White

Warlock

by Andre Norton

A General in Virtual Reality Warfare,
Now He Was in Danger of Becoming a
Low-Ranking Corpse in Realtime!

New Kashubia was a planet rich in heavy metals, but utterly lacking in carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Even dirt had to be imported at great expense. The colonists, moved there from Earth against their will, lived in tunnels drilled through solid gold but still were the poorest people in the universe. Since their only resource was people, they sent draftees out as mercenaries, fighting in tanks in symbiosis with a highly intelligent computer. And Mickolai Derdowski had fought bravely and brilliantly for nearly a decade, losing many friends in the process, and risen to the rank of General—he thought.

But then he found out that it was all in virtual reality. The war had been faked, no one had died, and he was still just a tank commander, not a general at all. But New Kashubia had been well paid by the planet that had hired the mercenaries for the war they had faked, severe food rationing back home was no longer necessary, and people could now afford such extravagant luxuries as food, homes and clothing.

There was just one problem. A real war was looming on the horizon and this one couldn't be settled in cyberspace. A lot of people might get really, permanently killed. Such as Mickolai.. ..

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Besides Leo Frankowski's popular Cross-Time Engineer series for Del Rey, which has gone through six novels to date, with frequent reprintings and translated editions in Italy, Spain, and Poland, he has written the novels A Boy and His Tank, The Fata Morgana and Conrad's Time Machine for Baen. Frankowski was nominated for the John W. Campbell award for best new writer. His occupations have ranged from scientist in an electro-optical research lab to chief engineer to company president. His work in chemical and optical instrumentation has earned him several patents. Currently a writer and consulting engineer, he lives with his new Russian wife and teenage daughter in Tver, Russia.

Dave Grossman is a retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel, West Point Psychology Professor, Professor of Military Science, Army Ranger, and lifelong SF fan. He started his military career as a paratrooper and a sergeant before attending OCS. Colonel Grossman is the author of the Pulitzer nominated book, On Killing, which is used as required reading in courses at military academies, police academies, and colleges worldwide. He has written many other scholarly and popular works, and since his retirement from the military in 1998, he now travels the world almost 300 days a year, training elite military and law enforcement organizations.

IT ISN'T EASY, BEING VOR...

Being a Vor lord on the war-torn planet Barrayar wasn't easy. Being an officer in Barrayar's military wasn't easy. And being the leader of a force of spaceborne mercenaries while maintaining a secret identity wasn't easy—in fact it should have been impossible, to say nothing of being a capital offense on Barrayar. Not that impossibility or great danger would slow down young Miles Vorkosigan much.

Washed out of the Barrayaran Military Academy for being overly fragile (he had been biochemically damaged during an assassination attempt while still in his mother's womb), Miles's natural (if unorthodox) leadership qualities quickly led to his off-handedly acquiring a fleet of nineteen ships and three thousand troops, all unswervingly loyal to him—or at least to his alter ego, Admiral Naismith. In short order, he foiled a plot against his father, returned to and graduated from the academy, solved a murder among his people, joined a mutiny against a deranged superior officer, thwarted an interstellar invasion, and rescued the Barrayaran Emperor. Then things get interesting....

". . . wit, style, versatility. . ."—Locus

"... all the 'right stuff.' "—Science Fiction Review

"Highly recommended."—Fantasy Review

". . . extraordinary . . . deserving of the highest recommendation."—Booklist

". . . superb . . . one of the great voices of speculative fiction."—Rave Reviews

When Enemies Become More than Friends—
THEY WIN

In her first trial by fire, Cordelia Naismith captained a throwaway ship of the Betan Expeditionary Force on a mission to destroy an enemy armada. Discovering deception within deception, treachery within treachery, she was forced into a separate peace with her chief opponent, Lord Aral Vorkosigan —he who was called "The Butcher of Komarr"—and would consequently become an outcast on her own planet and the Lady Vorkosigan on his.

Sick of combat and betrayal, she was ready to settle down to a quiet life, interrupted only by the occasion ceremonial appearances required of the Lady Vorkosigan. But when the Emperor died, Aral became guardian of the infant heir to the imperial throne of Barrayar —and the target of high-tech assassins in a dynastic civil war that was reminiscent of Earth's Middle Ages, but fought with up-to-the minute biowar technology. Neither Aral nor Cordelia guessed the part that their cell-damaged unborn would play in Barrayar's bloody legacy.

W200307 July 2003 Monthly Baen Bundle

The War With Earth

by Leo Frankowski and Dave Grossman

One Foot in the Grave

by William Mark Simmons

Young Miles

by Lois McMaster Bujold

Cordelia's Honor

by Lois McMaster Bujold

1633

by Eric Flint and David Weber

Man-Kzin Wars IX

by Larry Niven

Wiz Combo II: Cursed and Consulted

by Rick Cook

UNFORTUNATELY,
THEY BELIEVE IN HIM...

Christopher Csejthe doesn't believe in vampires. Not until he becomes one. He doesn't believe in witches or werewolves, either. Not until they make him an offer he can't refuse....

Flight of the Living Dead

A scream sliced the night air—an animal sound as far removed from a human voice as the previous scream of tortured metal. It was a sound that went on and on as we hurried toward the RV. Mooncloud yanked the passenger door open and then ran around to the driver's side as I climbed up onto the bench seat. As she slid behind the wheel the other woman leapt from the building's rear doorway, sailing over the stairs and landing on the ground below. As she crouched on the asphalt, there was a shattering roar that canceled out the screaming. A ball of flame rolled out from the doorway like an orange party favor, licking the air just a few feet above her head.

Mooncloud threw the van in gear and brought it skidding around as the blaze snapped back through the opening.

Before I could reach for the door handle the woman was springing through the open window to land across my lap.

"Go!" she shouted, but Mooncloud was already whipping the vehicle in a tight turn and accelerating toward the parking lot's north exit. The speed bump smacked my head against the roof of the cab and, by the time my vision cleared, we were driving more sedately down a side street, the woman with the crossbow sitting between me and the passenger door. In the rear-view mirror a pillar of flame was climbing from the roof of the old dormitory that housed the radio station.

I shook my head to clear away the last of the planetarium show and gripped the dashboard. "Will somebody please tell me what's going on "

"It's very simple, Mr. Csejthe," Dr. Mooncloud said, pressing a button that locked the cab doors. "You are a dead man."

Earth has been devastated after a near miss by a white-hot protoplanet ejected from Jupiter. The poles and climatic bands have been shifted, continents and oceans resculpted in titanic cataclysms, and civilization as we know it has ended.

Only the colony of Kronia, established among Saturn's moons, preserves technology and human culture. While the few bands of dazed survivors left on Earth revert rapidly to brutality and barbarism, the Kronian culture is already opening up new realms of physics that will carry humankind to the stars.

The Kronians have a vision of founding a new civilization on the reborn Earth, building upon foundations of freedom and the power of unbridled human creativity worthy of a stargoing civilization, and avoiding the destructive influences of conquest and exploitation. So when conditions on Earth stabilize sufficiently, Landen Keene, previously a nuclear propulsion engineer in the world that no longer exists, returns with the first Kronian reconnaissance mission to establish a base in what was a region of Africa, and commence the task of beginning anew.

But not everyone wants a free society in which individual worth is measured by ability and contribution, not possessions and power. The Terrans who were brought to Kronia included people whose status and recognition on Earth stemmed from wielding power of the kind that the old order understood. When their bid for a bigger part in running things fails, they resort to deception, violence, and the methods that previously served them well.

They plan a series of coordinated moves to seize the newly established base on Earth, and initiate a new Terran order built on the old principles of force, subjugation, and domination all over again. Isolated by distance from the hope of any immediate help from Saturn, and with only a few helpers and pitifully slim resources at his disposal, Keene emerges as the only hope of improvising an effective resistance.

But maybe that was precisely why he was sent there.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James P. Hogan is a science fiction writer in the grand tradition, combining informed and accurate speculation from the cutting edge of science and technology with suspenseful story-telling and living, breathing characters.

Born in London in 1941, he worked as an aeronautical engineer specializing in electronics and digital systems, and for several major computer firms before turning to writing full-time in 1979. His first novel was greeted by Isaac Asimov with the rave, "Pure science fiction ... Arthur Clarke, move over!" and his subsequent work quickly consolidated his reputation as a major SF author. He has written over a dozen novels including Paths to Otherwhere and Bug Park (both Baen), the "Giants" series (coming soon from Baen), the New York Times bestsellers The Proteus Operation and Endgame Enigma and the Prometheus Award Winner The Multiplex Man (all available from Baen). Hogan currently splits his time between residences in Ireland and Florida.

More information about James Hogan and his work is available from his website at http://jamesphogan.com.

W200306 June 2003 Monthly Baen Bundle

The Anguished Dawn

by James P. Hogan

Dead On My Feet

by William Mark Simmons

Forge of the Titans

by Steve White

The Adventures of Myhr

by P. N. Elrod

Diplomatic Immunity

by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Amazing Dr. Darwin

by Charles Sheffield

THE LIVING DEAD WERE MAKING HIS LIFE A LIVING HELL . . .

A year ago, Chris Csejthe (pronounced "Chay-tay") was completely human - then a blood transfusion from the Lord of the Undead changed everything. No/w he is a hunted man, sought by human and vampire alike for the secrets he knows and the powers that his mutated blood may bestow. So far he's dodged undead assassins, werewolves, a 6,000-year-old Egyptian necromancer, and Vlad Dracula himself. But now he's really got problems.

The dead are turning up on his doorstep after dark to ask for justice and the police want to know where all those corpses are coming from. Undead terrorists are testing a doomsday virus on his new hometown and he's caught in the crossfire between a white supremacist militia and the resurrected Civil War dead. His werewolf lover, jealous of his dead wife's ghost, has left him. And the centuries-old and still very beautiful (and very deadly) Countess Bathory is determined to have his uniquely transformed blood for her own dark purposes.

Now, more than ever, life sucks!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wm. Mark Simmons is the author of five novels. His first, In The Net of Dreams, was a finalist for the Compton Crook Award and made the Locus "Best" list in 1991. That novel, with its two sequels, When Dreams Collide and the new novel The Woman of His Dreams, have recently been published in one hardcover volume by Meisha Merlin Publishing. For Baen he wrote the popular and critically praised One Foot in the Grave, to which Dead on My Feet is a sequel. Simmons has worked as a teacher, actor, director, musician, and entertainer, hosting his own shows on both television and radio while winning awards as a journalist and copywriter. He currently manages a public radio station in Louisiana, and hosts a classical music program.