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.

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."

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.

AMERICAN FREEDOM AND JUSTICE
VS. THE TYRANNIES OF
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

THOSE KZIN DON'T KNOW WHEN
THEY'RE LICKED
(AND MAYBE THEY AREN'T . . . .)

It was so unfair! Here the Kzin were, warcats supreme, bringing the galaxy piece by piece under feline dominion, carving out satrapies for the home planet like the lords of creation that they were—and then they ran into those pesky humans. Mere apes! Contemptible salad-eaters! Taking pride in sneaking up on a leaf! Obviously fit only to be lunch, not even a speed bump in the Kzinti's imperial career. Hardly worth screaming-and-leaping about.

But when the feline Kzin moved in to take over the monkey-occupied worlds—they got clobbered. The humans, with their underhanded monkey cunning, turned communications equipment and space drives into weapons that cut the dauntless Heroes into ribbons. When the humans gained a faster-than-light drive, it `vas all over but the, uh, howling. The Kzin had lost their first war ever in centuries of conquest.

Still, you can't keep a good warcat down, and the Kzin have by no means given up. New weapons, new strategies, and new leaders—the humans had better keep their powder dry. Once again, it's howling time in Known Space!

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

New York Times bestselling author and multiple award-winner Larry Niven is author of the Hugo and Nebula Award winning Ringworld, a novel recognized as a milestone in modern science fiction. Like Ringworld and its sequels, The Ringworld Engineers and The Ringworld Throne, the Man-Kzin books are part of the Known Space series, possibly the most popular SF series of all time.

Poul Anderson, a seven-time Hugo Award winner, three-time Nebula Award winner, and recipient of the Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Writers of America for lifetime achievement, has been both popular and prolific for five decades, creating Nicholas van Rijn and Sir Dominic Flandry, two of the most memorable characters in science fiction, and publishing over one hundred books.

Paul Chafe was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1965. Currently he is pursuing graduate studies in Electrical Engineering at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is an infantry officer in the Canadian forces Reserve and has served with four regiments. When he isn't writing he devotes his spare time to flying sailplanes, parachuting, cycling and travel. He has one son, Christian, who is 8.

Hal Colebatch lives in a suburb of Perth, Australia, where he practices law. His recent book, Blair's Britain, was selected by the London Spectator's Taki as a book of the year. In addition to his earlier stories in the ManKzin saga, he has written mainstream fiction, biographies, plays, poetry, and several hundred articles. He has a Ph.D in Political Science, and has been an advisor to two Australian Federal Ministers. He is married and has two stepchildren.

CONSULT OR DIE!

It all began when the wizards of the White League were under attack by their opponents of the Black League and one of their most powerful members cast a spell to bring forth a mighty wizard to aid their cause. What the spell delivered was master hacker Walter "Wiz" Zumwalt. The wizard who cast the spell was dead and nobodynot the elves, not the dwarves, not even the dragons-could figure out what the shanghaied computer nerd was good for.

But in short order, Zumwalt found that spells were a lot like computer programs. In spite of the Wiz's unprepossessing appearance, he defeated the all-powerful Black League and won the love of Moira, a beautiful red-haired witch.

But that was only the beginning. Now Wiz has to deal with new and equally menacing forces. A deadly curse has been laid on him by the elf Lisella. A couple of computer criminals from his own world, the type who would consider a computer virus that would destroy civilization a way cool idea, have forged an alliance with the destructive forces of primal chaos. Worst of all, the dragons, who view with alarm the way that the Wiz and his computer hackertype spells are remaking the realm into a human-friendly universe, and consequently an increasingly not-so-friendly universe to dragons, have abducted him. If he wants to see hearth and home again, not to mention the fair Moira, he'll have to come up with a new plan that will leave no dragon behind.

Once again, it's a job for a master sorcerer. And when it comes to spells and sorcery, nobody but nobody can beat a Silicon Valley computer geek!