The Promised Land Has A Vermin Problem. . .

Once before, the sentient races in the known part of the galaxy had united against alien invaders. Decades have since passed and new generations have grown complacent . . . dangerously so.

Long ago, much of the population of an entire planet fled their world before its sun went nova in thousands of ships, each one larger than a city. Now, the armada has arrived at the world they intend to make their new home. They regard the fact that the planet is already colonized by humans as a mere inconvenience, and their mode of communication is so different from anything humans use that they do not consider humans and their allies to be truly intelligent.

This time, the races of the old alliance will not have to worry about becoming an invader's meal— but that will be small comfort if these new invaders decide that genocide is justified for their own survival. . . .

In Virginia DeMarce's witty and touching "Pastor Kastenmayers Revenge", a Lutheran pastor gets even with the American who eloped with his daughter by scheming to gain new adherents through eight separate arranged marriages between Lutheran down-timers and American up-timers.

In other stories:

The same teenagers who launched the sewing machine industry in Volume 1 move on to conquer the financial world, in Gorg Huffs "Other Peoples Money";

Francis Turners "Hobsons Choice" tells the tale of the personal and theological impact of the Ring of Fire on rambunctious students and barmaids in the university town of Cambridge, England;

in Eva Muschs "If the Demons Will Sleep", a woman terrorized by the notorious Hungarian countess Bartholdy finds peace and sanctuary in Grantville;

in Wood Hughes "Hell Fighters", a Benedictine monk confronts an inferno and finds his orders new calling;

in David Carricos "The Sound of Music" and Enrico Toros continuing "Euterpe", Grantville becomes a magnet drawing Europes most ambitious young musicians;

and Danita Ewing concludes the short novel An Invisible War, which began in Volume 2.

The third volume of the Gazette also contain factual articles exploring such topics as the centrality of iron to the industrial revolution, the prospects for the mechanization of agriculture in the 17th century, and the logic behind the adoption of the Struve-Reardon Gun as the basic weapon of the USEs infantry.

Whom the gods would recruit, they first tick off . . .

Our Hero: The unlikely Paladin, Bahzell Bahnakson of the Horse Stealer Hradani. He's no knight in shining armor. He's a hradani, a race known for their uncontrollable rages, bloodthirsty tendencies, and inability to maintain civilized conduct. None of the other Five Races of man like the hradani. Besides his ethnic burden, Bahzell has problems of his own to deal with: a violated hostage bond, a vengeful prince, a price on his head. He doesn't want to mess with anybody else's problems, let alone a god's. Let alone the War God's! So how does he end up a thousand leagues from home, neck-deep in political intrigue, assassins, demons, psionicists, evil sorcery, white sorcery, dark gods, good gods, bad poets, greedy landlords, and most of Bortalik Bay Well, it's all the War God's fault. . . .

PLUS
A brand new 50,000 word novella, Sword Brother

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.

The Breathtaking Sequel to Warp Speed—Science Fiction Written by a Real Scientist Who is Also a Gifted Writer.

Steven Montana, computer whiz and hacker extraordinaire, was attending college in Ohio when his world fell apart. A swarm of huge meteors fell all over the world, on Europe, on the United States, and in particular on Steven's home town in California. In an instant, his family and all his friends were gone.

Suffering fits of deep depression, he dropped out of college and ended up working as a repairman in a video games store, where he did a brilliant job of repairing a 30-year-old video game. That caught the attention of the game's owner, who happened to be in a position to get Steven a government job, cracking computer codes, and reverse engineering unusual hardware.
When he was given a tiny piece of hardware to examine as a "test," he worked out its functions so well that he and his boss were called to Washington for a Top Secret meeting. They asked him countless questions, yet declined to answer his; but he would soon learn all the answers.

The "meteor" onslaught that had orphaned him had actually been a brief and still secret war between the U.S and its enemies (as told in Warp Speed) using a new warp drive technology that was more secret than top secret. Another secret was that U.S. had been sending faster-than-light ships to other star systems. Most secret of all was that unfriendly aliens were observing the Earth, and while U.S. spaceships were not quite in a war with the unknown aliens, they were shooting at the intruders.

Whether any of these answers would do Steven any good was an open question because he learned them only after he was abducted by those very same aliens and was held prisoner on one of their ships orbiting Saturn. At first, he was one of three human prisoners, but he had just seen the aliens completely dissect one of the three, and it looked like either Steven, or the Russian girl who was his fellow prisoner, were scheduled to be the next alien lab experiment. . . .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Travis S. Taylor—"Doc" Taylor to his friends—has earned his soubriquet the hard way: He has a Doctorate in Optical Science and Engineering, a Master's degree in Physics, a Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering, all from the University of Alabama in Huntsville; a Master's degree in Astronomy from the University of Western Sydney, and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Auburn University. Dr. Taylor has worked on various programs for the Department of Defense and NASA for the past sixteen years. He's currently working on several advanced propulsion concepts, very large space telescopes, space-based beamed energy systems, and next generation space launch concepts. In his copious spare time, Doc Travis is also a black belt martial artist, a private pilot, a SCUBA diver, has raced mountain bikes, competed in triathlons, and has been the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of several hard rock bands. He currently lives with his wife Karen, his daughter Kalista, two dogs Stevie and Wesker, and his cat Kuro, in north Alabama.

Praise for Warp Speed, the prequel:

"Reads like Doc Smith writing Robert Ludlum; beautiful, vivacious female astronauts, sterling-hearted redneck scientists and evil mercenaries bent upon galaxy-wide conquest. You won't want to put it down. FLUBELLS AWAY!" —John Ringo

"You thought they didn't write 'em like this anymore Doc Travis does!" —Jim Baen

Just what is it that makes us human Just what quality impels us out to the stars', to search for meaning in our cold universe, to struggle against entropy and discover the nature of things

The scientists on the first mission to Barnard's Star and Rocheworld thought they knew. They were confident, secure people. They had to be to have made the cut on the stringent psychological testing required. And they were at home exploring the galaxies, at home on Rocheworld with its alien mathematical genius natives, the flouwen-at home because they had all the trappings of a million years of human technological innovation with them.

But what would happen to them if they lost their safety net of computers and gadgets What would happen if they were—

MAROONED ON EDEN

HE'S NO HERO

David Fisher, an EPA (Environmental Perfection Agency) bureaucrat, was not the stuff of which heroes are made. At least he hoped not. All he wanted was a good life with a good wife, and a chance to do his bit for society reviewing magical impact statements (like the one that assesses the effect on local non-life resulting from the introduction of leprechauns into Southern California, for example) and ensuring that various manufacturers of magical devices did not intentionally or otherwise foul the environment with the sorcerous by-products of their trade. Indeed it would be hard to imagine a more regular and down to earth soul than that of David Fisher of the EPA. No hero he!

Then one day David received a call from Washington to investigate a certain Toxic Spell Dump, and suddenly he is up to his neck in skullduggery and magic most foul. Some ancient deity, it seems, is attempting to reopen for business in the L.A. Basin, complete with human sacrifice (open up their hearts and let the sun shine in!) and the destruction of Western Civilization. All that stands in the way is David Fisher-and he's no hero.

Until he has to be.