Adventure and Excitement on an Alien World. Packed with exotic world-building and amazing characters, Arkad's World is a rollicking adventure story about growing up and the things we share that make us human, from celebrated author James L. Cambias.

Young Arkad is the only human on a distant world, on his own among beings from across the Galaxy. His struggle to survive on the lawless streets of an alien city is disrupted by the arrival of three humans: an eccentric historian named Jacob, a superhuman cyborg girl called Baichi, and a mysterious ex-spy known as Ree. They seek a priceless treasure which might free Earth from alien domination. Arkad risks everything to join them on an incredible quest halfway across the planet. With his help they cross the fantastic landscape, battling pirates, mercenaries, bizarre creatures, vicious bandits and the harsh environment. But the deadliest danger comes from treachery and betrayal within the group as dark secrets and hidden loyalties come to light.

In January of 2011 we started posting free short stories we thought might be of interest to Baen readers. The first stories were "Space Hero" by Patrick Lundrigan, the winner of the 2010 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Contest, and "Tanya, Princess of Elves," by Larry Correia, author of Monster Hunter International and set in that universe. As new stories are made available, they will be posted on the main page, then added to this book (to save the Baen Barflies the trouble of doing it themselves). This is our compilation of short stories for 2021.

As is usual with such copyrighted material from Baen, the contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold. All commercial rights are reserved to Baen Books.

APPLESEED: A Founder Effect Legend by Robert E. Hampson
Latuda’s Lady in White by Aaron Michael Ritchey
Misfits by A.C. Haskins
All Orca Go to Heaven by Joelle Presby
The Paoshi Puzzle by James L. Cambias
Of Shadows and Caves by David Weber and Richard Fox
Salvage Judgment by G. Scott Huggins
Murder in Space by Les Johnson
The Man Who Would be Dracula by Simon R. Green
Shattered Trust by Dave Bara
Echoes of Meridian by M. Elizabeth Ticknor
The Rot’s Last Laugh by Charles E. Gannon
Fire-Bright Rain by Jane Lindskold
From Every Storm a Rainbow by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Daslakh is an AI with a problem. Its favorite human, a young man named Zee, is in love with a woman who never existed—and he will scour the Solar System to find her. But in the Tenth Millennium, a billion worlds circle the Sun—everything from terraformed planets to artificial habitats, home to a quadrillion beings.

Daslakh’s nicely settled life gets more complicated when Zee helps a woman named Adya escape a gang of crooks. This gets the pair caught up in the hunt for the Godel Trigger, a legendary weapon left over from an ancient war between humans and machines—which could spell the end of civilization.

In their search, they face a criminal cat and her henchmen, a paranoid supermind with a giant laser, the greatest thief in history, and a woman who might actually be Zee’s lost love.

It’s up to Daslakh to save civilization, keep Zee’s love life on the right track—and make sure that nobody discovers the real secret of the Godel Trigger.

An ancient treasure in deep space holds the key to a deadly conspiracy which will shake the Billion Worlds of the Tenth Millennium.

At the end of the Tenth Millennium, Zee and his AI buddy Daslakh arrive on the icy moon Miranda, hoping to make a good impression on his girlfriend Adya's upper-class parents. Instead they discover that Adya's father is the target of a political conspiracy. While Adya tries to discover who is trying to ruin the family fortunes and expel them from Miranda's exclusive ruling class, Daslakh and Zee go on the trail of a lost treasure in deep space. As they both dig deeper they run afoul of rival political factions, romantic complications, space mercenaries, octopus gangsters, and ruthless secret agents—and all the while dealing with interference from Adya's parents and party-going sister. Love, power, wealth, and honor collide in the floating cities and palaces inside Miranda.

A scavenger and her oddball crew are catapulted into the midst of a strange secret at the heart of a derelict colony ship among the Billion Worlds of the Tenth Millennium in a new novel of explosive SF from James L. Cambias.

Solana Sina is a scarab, salvaging wrecked and abandoned space habitats among the Billion Worlds of the Tenth Millennium. She and an oddball crew—a raven, a cyborg, and a dinosaur—board the derelict colony Safdaghar hoping to score some loot before the colony gets catapulted into the outer reaches of the Solar System. But Solana and the scarabs come face-to-face with a gang of vicious pirates looking for slaves and treasure, and a mysterious stranger intent on preserving an explosive secret. Solana must overcome her own horrifying past to survive and escape before it’s too late. But there’s an even more dangerous threat lurking in the dark passages and ruined buildings of Safdaghar . . .