Search Worlds Without End

In a strange world where clocks melt and transistor radios play endless songs to empty castles, an aging knight struggles to rescue the woman of his dreams. Little does he know that he is the one who needs rescuing.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Universe 14 (1984), edited by Terry Carr. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection (1985), edited by Gardner Dozois, The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 (1993), edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Brian Attebery, and The Secret History of Science Fiction (2009), edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel. The story is included in the collection Unforeseen: Stories (2019).

Authorized by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate, this brand-new collection of 26 Sherlock Holmes stories takes place in Holmes' own era, in our present time, and in the future. All the tales contain some science fiction or fantasy element, and all remain true to the spirit and personality of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous and enduring creation.

Contents:

• 1 - Introduction: The Detective Who Refused to Die (Sherlock Holmes in Orbit) - essay by Mike Resnick
• 7 - The Musgrave Version - (1995) - short story by George Alec Effinger
• 18 - The Case of the Detective's Smile - short story by Mark Bourne
• 27 - The Adventure of the Russian Grave - short story by William Barton and Michael Capobianco
• 38 - The Adventure of the Field Theorems - novelette by Vonda N. McIntyre
• 69 - The Adventure of the Missing Coffin - short story by Laura Resnick
• 82 - The Adventure of the Second Scarf - short story by Mark Aronson
• 102 - The Phantom of the Barbary Coast - novelette by Frank M. Robinson
• 135 - Mouse and the Master - short story by Brian M. Thomsen
• 146 - Two Roads, No Choices - short story by Dean Wesley Smith
• 164 - The Richmond Enigma - short story by John DeChancie
• 184 - A Study in Sussex - short story by Leah A. Zeldes
• 191 - The Holmes Team Advantage - short story by Gary Alan Ruse
• 208 - Alimentary, My Dear Watson - short story by Lawrence Schimel
• 213 - The Future Engine - novelette by Byron Tetrick
• 237 - Holmes Ex Machina - (1995) - short story by Susan Casper
• 245 - The Sherlock Solution - short story by Craig Shaw Gardner
• 255 - The Fan Who Molded Himself - short story by David Gerrold
• 268 - Second Fiddle - short story by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• 287 - Moriarty by Modem - (1995) - short story by Jack Nimersheim
• 303 - The Greatest Detective of All Time - short story by Ralph Roberts
• 319 - The Case of the Purloined L'Isitek - short story by Josepha Sherman
• 328 - The Adventure of the Illegal Alien - short story by Anthony R. Lewis
• 334 - Dogs, Masques, Love, Death: Flowers - short story by Barry N. Malzberg
• 344 - You See But You Do Not Observe - short story by Robert J. Sawyer
• 363 - Illusions - short story by Janni Lee Simner
• 368 - The Adventure of the Pearly Gates - short story by Mike Resnick

This short story originally appeared in Tin House #61, 2014. It can also be found in the anthologies Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales (2014), edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine (2015), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2015, edited by Paula Guran.

Contents:

• Half Past Four - (1987) - novelette
• The Professor's Houses - (1982) - shortstory
• Ruby on the 67 - (1996) - shortstory
• Limberlost - (1989) - shortstory
• The Creatures on My Mind - (1990) - shortstory
• Standing Ground - (1992) - shortstory
• The Spoons in the Basement - (1982) - shortstory
• Sunday in Summer in Seatown - (1995) - shortstory
• In the Drought - (1994) - shortstory
• Ether, OR - (1995) - novelette (variant of Ether OR)
• Unlocking the Air - [Orsinia] - (1990) - shortstory
• A Child Bride - (1988) - shortstory (variant of Kore 87)
• Climbing to the Moon - (1992) - shortstory
• Daddy's Big Girl - (1987) - shortstory
• Findings - (1992) - shortstory
• Olders - (1995) - shortstory
• The Wise Woman - (1996) - shortstory
• The Poacher - (1993) - shortstory

In Clockwork Angels and Clockwork Lives, readers met the optimistic young hero Owen Hardy, as well as the more reluctant adventurer Marinda Peake, in an amazing world of airships and alchemy, fantastic carnivals and lost cities. Now Owen Hardy, retired and content in his quiet, perfect life with the beautiful Francesca, is pulled into one last adventure with his eager grandson Alain. This final mission for the Watchmaker will take them up to the frozen lands of Ultima Thule and the ends of the Earth. Marinda Peake must undertake a mission of her own, not only to compile the true life story of the mysterious Watchmaker, but also to stop a deadly new group of anarchists.

The Clockwork trilogy is based on the story and lyrics from the last album of musical titans Rush, with Anderson and Peart expanding the world, stories, and characters. The two developed the final novel in the trilogy in the last years of Peart's life, and more than a year after his passing, Anderson returned to that unfinished project, with the full support of Peart's wife, bringing Owen and Marinda's stories to a satisfying and stirring conclusion.

Intrigue! Subterfuge! Circus Folk! In a time when the Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare, mad science rules the world... with mixed success.

With the help of Krosp, Emperor of All Cats, Agatha has escaped from the massive airship known as Castle Wulfenbach. After crashing their escape dirigible, Agatha and Krosp fall in with Master Payne's Circus of Adventure, a traveling troupe of performers dedicated to staging Heterodyne shows-dramatizations of the exploits of Bill and Barry Heterodyne and their allies-who are unaware of Agatha's connection to the Heterodyne line.

Pursued by the ruthless Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, his handsome son Gil, and their minions (not to mention Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer), Agatha hides in plain sight among the circus folk, servicing their clanks and proving herself adept in performing the role of Lucrezia Mongfish, nemesis to-and later wife of-Bill Heterodyne. She also begins training under Zeetha, swordmistress and princess of the lost city of Skifander.

Together, Agatha, Krosp, and the performers travel across the treacherous wasteland of war-torn Europa, towards Mechanicsburg, and the ancestral home of the Heterodynes-Castle Heterodyne. But with many perils standing in her way-including Wulfenbach's crack troops, mysterious Geisterdamen, savage Jagermonsters, and the fabled Storm King-it's going to take more than a spark of Mad Science for Agatha to get through...

From Phil and Kaja Foglio, creators of the multiple WCCA and Hugo Award-winning webcomic Girl Genius, comes Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess, a gaslamp fantasy filled to bursting with Adventure! Romance! And Mad Science!

While visiting the mysterious castle of Maidstone for an investigation, Judge Dee and Jonathan discover the only thing more menacing than a vampire child is twin vampire children...

Originally published on 25 October 2023, read it for free at Tor.com

Orphaned Lewis Barnavelt comes to live with his Uncle Jonathan and quickly learns that both his uncle and his next-door neighbor are witches on a quest to discover the terrifying clock ticking within the walls of Jonathan's house. Can the three of them save the world from certain destruction?

A new near-future science fiction novella by John Scalzi, one of the most popular authors in modern SF. Unlocked traces the medical history behind a virus that will sweep the globe and affect the majority of the world's population, setting the stage for Lock In, the next major novel by John Scalzi.

Read this story online for free at Tor.com.

Fifteen years from now, a new virus sweeps the globe. 95% of those afflicted experience nothing worse than fever and headaches. Four percent suffer acute meningitis, creating the largest medical crisis in history. And one percent find themselvs "locked in"-fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus.

One per cent doesn't seem like a lot. But in the United States, that's 1.7 million people "locked in"... including the President's wife and daughter.

Spurred by grief and the sheer magnitude of the suffering, America undertakes a massive scientific initiative. Nothing can restore the ability to control their own bodies to the locked in. But then two new technologies emerge. One is a virtual-reality environment, "The Agora," in which the locked-in can interact with other humans, both locked-in and not. The other is the discovery that a few rare individuals have brains that are receptive to being controlled by others, meaning that from time to time, those who are locked in can "ride" these people and use their bodies as if they were their own.

This skill is quickly regulated, licensed, bonded, and controlled. Nothing can go wrong. Certainly nobody would be tempted to misuse it, for murder, for political power, or worse....

In the standalone follow-up to Lock In, chilling near-future SF is combined with the thrill of a gritty cop procedural, snappy dialogue and technological speculation on the future world of sports.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are "threeps," robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden's Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it.

Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.

Is it an accident or murder? FBI Agents and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, are called in to uncover the truth -- and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost, and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.

Rod Gallowglass is a man of science who does not believe in magic.

Gramarye is a world of witches and warlocks. Of strange abilities and phenomena. A world where society mirrors Earth's own Middle Ages, and a world headed for doom.

Rod Gallowglass must become a part of the local fabric to save the world from both itself and external forces that threaten its existence. But to do so, he must put aside his own convictions and beliefs, and become a warlock, in spite of himself.

A grand adventure mixing science fiction with elements of fantasy, this is the book that launched a whole series.

On the magical planet Gramarye, 500 years from their own time, Rod and Gwen Gallowglass are held captive in an alternative universe--a world where purple-skinned, fur-kilted men challenge them in primitive battle. Lost within time and space, and unable to communicate with the combative natives, Rod and Gwen must fight for their freedom and survival.

When their parents suddenly disappear, the four Galloglass siblings--Magnus, Cordelia, Geoffrey, and Gregory--must combine the skills of their mother's power and their father's training in order to save them.

Armed with his superior technological knowledge, Rod Gallowglass has proved to be equal to the challenges of the planet Gramarye, until an evil sorcerer sets out to destroy him on the battlefield of the mind.

Now united, both Fitzgerald and Moriarty travel to Innsmouth, the stronghold of the cult of the Old Ones. Holmes and Watson, accompanied by Mycroft Holmes, follow them across the ocean and discover a structure designed to bring the Old Ones into the human sphere. Yet when it is destroyed people continue to mutate and go mad.

True love is shrouded in secrets and lies in the enchanting second book in the #1 New York Times bestselling Infernal Devices Trilogy, prequel to the internationally bestselling Mortal Instruments series.

In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when it becomes clear that the mysterious Magister will stop at nothing to use Tessa's powers for his own dark ends.

With the help of the handsome, tortured Will and the devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister's war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal and fueled by revenge. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister knows their every move--and that one of their own has betrayed them.

Tessa is drawn more and more to Jem, though her longing for Will continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa answers about who she really is? As their search leads to deadly peril, Tessa learns that secrets and lies can corrupt even the purest heart.

Danger and betrayal, love and loss, secrets and enchantment are woven together in the breathtaking finale to the #1 New York Times bestselling Infernal Devices Trilogy, prequel to the internationally bestselling Mortal Instruments series.

Danger intensifies for the Shadowhunters as the New York Times bestselling Infernal Devices trilogy comes to a close.

If the only way to save the world was to destroy what you loved most, would you do it?

The clock is ticking. Everyone must choose.

Passion. Power. Secrets. Enchantment.

Danger closes in around the Shadowhunters in the final installment of the bestselling Infernal Devices trilogy.

"You won a battle today, but the war is far from over."

Declan Moore is a Warlock. He doesn't know what that means, he doesn't even know how to use his power, but he has hopes that the people in Vedmark do.

Armed with the knowledge of what he is, Declan's only hope is to harness his unique magic and stop the Fatesmiths for good.

But in a Kingdom where he is neither welcome, nor wanted, finding a willing teacher seems an impossible task.

Who can you trust in a land where every question comes with a cost? In a country where enormous eagles prowl the sky, and a Deathless Demon inhabits the forests?

As Vedmark grows more dangerous, Declan grows more desperate. There are things he must learn. His parents may be gone, but he can still save his best friend.

Euryma needs him. Even if it doesn't want him.