GOD (AND ELFLAND) SAVE THE QUEEN

Peace reigns in Elfland. Incredibly, King Oberon and his exquisite but willful queen, Titania, are at peace with one another. But still the FarSeers of the Selieghe Court are uneasy. They fear trouble is coming to the mortal world of England, which is close to Elfhame Avalon. King Henry VIII is ageing but the futures shown when the FarSeers lift the great crystal lens are unchanged. The rule of the son Great Harry finally succeeded in begetting will bring gray lives and a misery of dull oppression to England. Worse will come if his eldest daughter comes to the throne--a queen warped by fanaticism who might easily summon the Inquisition to rule by torture and fire, burning out heresy ... and every bright aspect of life. The prize at the end of the rainbow is the possibility of a red-haired queen with lion-gold eyes, brilliant with interest and curiosity, welcoming the blossoming of art, music, and literature. But now the last image is flickering, edged in a dark menace.

Years before, Prince Vidal had tried to seize the child Elizabeth and replace her with a simulacrum who would soon die. Vidal had been wounded almost to death in the attempt—-but so also had Denoriel, Elizabeth's principal protector. Denoriel is now healing--but so, unbeknownst to those of the Bright Court, is Vidal. And when Vidal wakes to himself, his determination to hurl England into a new dark age is fiercer than ever, fueled by his fury over his defeat and injury. Also, his Dark Court feeds on human suffering and dark emotions. To ensure his own power, he must at all costs prevent Elizabeth from coming to the throne. To gain this goal, Vidal has set in motion a plan of which Denoriel and his comrades are dangerously unaware. . . .

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Mercedes Lackey is the author of the Bardic Voices series and the SERRAted Edge series (both Baen), the Heralds of Valdemar series (DAW), and many more. Of her writing, Stephen King has stated, "She'll keep you up long past your bedtime," and Locus raved, "Lackey is one of the best storytellers in the field." She has her own fan club with over 1,000 members, and was one of the first writers to have an online newsgroup devoted to her writing. Among her popular Baen titles are The Fire Rose, The Lark and the Wren, and The Shadow of the Lion (with Eric Flint and Dave Freer). She lives in Oklahoma.

Roberta Gellis is author of over 25 novels in different fields. New York Times best-selling author John Jakes has called her "a superb storyteller of extraordinary talent," Publishers Weekly has termed her "a master of the medieval historical," and Romantic Times has praised her as "a master spinner of tales." Her many awards include: The Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from West Coast Review of Books and the Golden Certificate and Golden Pen from Affaire de Coeur. From Romantic Times she has received both the Award for Best Novel in the Medieval Period and also the Lifetime Achievement Award for Historical Fantasy. And the Romance Writers of America have presented her with their Lifetime Achievement Award. Her previous fantasy titles for Baen are Bull God and Thrice Bound.

Only a Gigantic Hoax Kept the Earth from Being Taken Over by Aliens—but the Secret was About to be Leaked by a Traitor in

THE PROMETHEUS PROJECT

Bob Devaney was a soldier in the Special Forces in the early 1960s until a traumatic event which he refused to discuss caused him to leave, setting up his own security and investigative agency, with one employee: himself.

Often hired by a secret government agency to do undercover work, he was escorting a mysterious woman named Novak to the White House when they were ambushed by gunmen. Novak used a device like an invisibility field to make an impossible escape—and then knocked Devaney out with some kind of ray-tube. When he woke up, Novak was about to terminate him for knowing too much, but a message arrived from a mysterious individual known as Mr. Inconnu: Devaney was to be recruited for something called the Prometheus Project.

The Project turned out to be the largest disinformation operation in history, targeted at the aliens who ruled the galaxy. Mr. Inconnu had arrived in a damaged but highly advanced craft in the 1940s with the information that he had escaped from a group of humans whom aliens had been studying. And unless the Earth could convince the aliens that the planet had a unified government, armed with technology comparable to that of the galactic rulers, the Earth would be exploited as a primitive protectorate.

So far the hoax was working—and the technology which Mr. Inconnu had brought with him helped—but someone in the Project was selling secrets to an interstellar mafia called the Tonkuztra about the real state of affairs on Earth. And Devaney knew that Chloe Bryant, the woman he had fallen in love with, was being set up to take a fall for the real traitor, who was about to embark on a treason beyond imagination, whose consequences could jeopardize the universe itself.

But matters would turn out to be even more complicated than that—and Devaney would discover the strange relationship between himself and the enigmatic Mr. Inconnu. . . .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve White was an officer in Naval Intelligence, and served in the Mediterranean and the Vietnam War Zone. Among the popular science fiction adventure novels he has written for Baen are the trilogy comprising The Disinherited, Legacy and Debt of Ages, which combine fast-paced space opera with Arthurian mythology. He has also written the galaxy-spanning adventure Prince of Sunset, and its sequel Emperor of Dawn, and the SF suspense thriller Eagle Against the Stars. With David Weber, he has written the Starfire series, the latest of which was the New York Times best seller The Shiva Option. His most recent novel is Forge of the Titans. He currently works for a legal publishing company in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is married and has three daughters.

Vaughan Roberts and his two companions had been trapped on a crime-ridden, chaotic planet until they bamboozled the population with a gigantic hoax—which brought them to the attention of the Interstellar Patrol, who were looking for a few good con men, capable of ingenious improvisation and adept at playing dirty tricks on the bad guys. The new recruits acquitted themselves admirably, so they naturally were given more tough nuts to crack, including:

• Flummoxing an alien empire which has taken a number of human prisoners as reconnaisance for an invasion. This has a personal aspect, since the prisoners are from the planet which Roberts tricked into reforming. . . .
• Stopping a plan by not-so-good Samaritans who are pretending to cure a planetary plague—which they introduced to the planet—with a "miracle" drug which creates an addiction to the same drug, which the schemers will be glad to continue supplying for ever-increasing sums . . .
• Not only rescuing some Patrol personnel taken hostage by fanatics who plan to execute them one at a time until their leader is released, but convincing other fanatics throughout the galaxy that the consequences of threatening anyone in the Patrol are too terrible even to think about. . . .
• Making sure that the rightful heir to a planet's throne escapes from captivity and overthrows the usurper. This time there's a complication: Roberts may be falling for the ruler's beautiful sister. . . .

And much more. . . .

Editor's Note:

Interstellar Patrol II: The Federation of Humanity is a companion volume to Christopher Anvil's Interstellar Patrol (published by Baen Books in April, 2003). In this volume, the later adventures of the Interstellar Patrol agents Vaughan Roberts and his associates are recounted. Included also are all the various other stories which Anvil wrote in the same Federation of Humanity setting.

With Lord of the Isles, David Drake returns to fantasy with a towering and complex epic of heroic adventure set in an extraordinary and colorful world where the elemental forces that empower magic are rising to a thousand-year peak.

In the days following an unusually severe storm, the inhabitants of a tiny seaport town travel toward romance, danger, and astonishing magic that will transform them and their world.

"Unlike most modern fantasy, David Drake's Lord of the Isles is an epic with the texture of the legends of yore, with rousing action and characters to cheer for." —Terry Goodkind

"True brilliance is as rare as a perfect diamond or a supernova. Lord of the Isles is truly brilliant. We are in at the birth of a classic....There is a lot of fantasy out there, but there is only one Lord of the Isles." —Morgan Llywelyn

"David Drake's work here is original, engrossing, and instantly credible. After all the hackneyed, repetitive fantasy I've read recently, Lord of the Isles seems quite wonderful." —Stephen R. Donaldson
Tom Doherty Associates, LLC www.tor.com

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.

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

DOW JONES
MEETS DARKEST SORCERY!

E.Godz, Inc.'s stock-in-trade was magic. When Edwina Godz inherited the family corporation, she immediately put to work all the sorcery she knew, taking shamans on board as subsidiaries, and raking in the benefits of the material world, including big profits and a high-selling stock.

Unfortunately, Edwina's two children hated each other's guts, and if she stepped aside and let them take over the company, it was certain to go down the tubes. So she decided to let them fight it out for dominance using all the tricks of both corporate in-fighting and wizardly warfare that she had taught them.

It's no holds (or spells) barred—and may the most evil and ruthless sorcerer win!

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Robert Asprin was the New York Times bestselling author of the Phule's Company series of space adventures and the nationally bestselling Myth Adventures series of humorous fantasies. He was the creator and editor of the Thieves' World series, the first shared universe series in fantasy and science fiction. Asprin makes his home in New Orleans.

Esther Friesner is a winner twice over of the coveted Nebula Award (for the Year's Best Short Story, 1995 and 1996), and is the author of twenty-nine novels and more than one hundred short stories. She has also edited six anthologies, including the very popular Chicks in Chainmail series for Baen. Her works have been published in the UK, Japan, Germany, Russia, France, and Italy. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, two children, two rambunctious cats, and a fluctuating population of hamsters.