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In the thirty years since lasers were invented, we have learned to use them for jobs as diverse as eye surgery and missile defense. But the biggest advance is yet to come: one day soon we will be able to beam human beings from place to place on Earth, and even into Space.

Beamriders chronicles the achievements of the men and women who brave death in the development of just such a laser-transport system. Assignments that no one else can accomplish await the survivors: the rescue of a U.S. scientist from a cell beneath the Kremlin; defusing atomic blackmail in Washington; and, strangest of all, a mission to the Far Side of the Moon. On Earth and in Space, nothing can stop THE BEAMRIDERS!

Table of Contents:

• One Down, One to Go - (1990) - shortstory
• UFO Versus IRS - shortstory
• The Making of Revelation, Part I - (1980) - novelette
• The Long Wet Purple Dream of Rip van Winkle - (1981) - novelette
• Osiris on Crutches - (1976) - shortstory
• St. Francis Kisses His Ass Goodbye - (1989) - novelette
• The Oögenesis of Bird City - (1970) - shortstory
• Riders of the Purple Wage - (1967) - novella

Hugo Award winning and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology Dangerous Visions (1967), edited by Harlan Ellison. The story can also be found in the anthology The Hugo Winners, Volume 2: (1963-70) (1971), edited by Isaac Asimov. It is included in the collections The Purple Book (1982), The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1964-1973 (1984), Riders of the Purple Wage and The Best of Philip Jose Farmer (2006).

Three men, each driven by secret reasons, volunteered to take the strangest trip since the beginning of time:

GORDON--filled with a need for power, enough power to wipe out the memory of an earlier terrible shame.

LOCKWOOD--to whom life was worth very little without Susan--maybe it was worth nothing at all.

STANTON--a man haunted by the knowledge that a special and mysterious fate awaited him.

Behind them were their pasts. Ahead of them--infinity.

In this different and suspense-filled novel, the author of Donovan's Brain tells the story of a strange quest whose outcome might mean the difference between survival and extinction for mankind.

First published in 1976, "The Mind-Riders" features a remarkable anticipation of virtual reality gaming, in which the revised sport of boxing pits physically identical virtual fighters against one another, operated by electronically-connected "handlers" -- with viewers receiving transmissions of the combatants' emotions as their simulations slug it out.

Ryan Hart, banished from the sport in its early days because of his lack of marketable emotion, is brought back by an obsessed media executive who wants to see the reigning champion beaten at any cost. Hart is not certain that he can win, after such a lapse of time, nor is he certain he can resist pressure to give the vast virtual crowds the dose of sadistic exultation they crave.

But that doesn't stop him from heading into the virtual "ring" and fighting the bout of his life!;

A desperate plot to destroy the United States - a desperate race to save it!

The 52,000 Year War

In the twenty-third year of LBJ's martial rule, the war for Nam has spread to Central China, and rogue generals with nuclear weapons are poised to blast America into oblivion.

Reactionary twenty-third century conspirators have changed history... or will, unless the elite Anti-Revision Command, the ARC Riders, aided by Nam vet Major Rebecca Carnes, can find the terrorists. In a manhunt that ranges from Southeast Asia to Washington, D.C., from the twenty-sixth century to 50,000 B.C., the ARC Riders must stop the killing before they lose their one slender chance to untie the fatal knots in Time.

Elite 26th-century commandos, the ARC Riders patrol time to protect all human history...

As the USSR crumbles, Russian hardliners jump from 1991 to AD 9, when their modern weapons can warp the course of the Roman Empire and create a world ruled by the Kremlin - using time technology that doesn't exist in the 20th century... or the 26th!

To solve the mystery, the Riders must split into teams separated by millennia. And while three Riders are trapped between the Roman legions and a blood-maddened barbarian horde, their comrades are at war on the Moscow streets. And fighting an inconceivable enemy.

They were the Death Riders, the remains of once-proud heroes and Hel's greatest warriors. The very touch of their black-hilted swords or rotted flesh brought instant death and even the sight of their mail-clad corpses chilled the hearts of the bravest warriors.

Now, the warrior woman Bloodsong must face these ghoulish emissaries of Evil in a battle to the death, for the forces of Hel have kidnapped her daughter, and are determined to awaken the dark magic buried in her soul. From the mystical island of the Berserkers to wise Freya's domain, Bloodsong and her companions must prepare for the ultimate battle, honing their swords to lethal rediness, waiting for the onslaught to come.

The Riders are three immortal brothers who protect the mythical Baba Yagas. But their time serving the witches has ended--and their new destinies are just beginning...

Ever since a near-fatal mistake stripped Mikhail Day and his brothers of their calling to be Riders, Day has hidden from his shame and his new, mortal life in a remote cabin in the Adirondack mountains. But when a desperate young woman appears on his doorstep, he cannot resist helping her--and cannot deny how strongly he's drawn to her...

For generations, women in Jenna Quinlan's family have been cursed to give up their first born child to the vengeful fairy Zilya. When Jenna finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, she is determined to break her family's curse and keep her baby, even if it means teaming up with a mysterious and charismatic man with demons of his own...

To unravel the curse, Jenna and Day will have to travel deep into the Otherworld. But the biggest challenge of the journey might not be solving an ancient puzzle but learning to heal their own broken hearts...

The Riders: Three immortal brothers who kept the Baba Yagas safe, now stripped of their summons to protect. But fate is not finished with them--and their new callings are even more powerful...

Though his physical wounds have healed, Gregori Sun, the eldest of the Riders, remains in spiritual turmoil. His search for his mother, the one person able to heal his soul and save his life, is failing--until he crosses paths with a beautiful and fascinating librarian who might be the key to his salvation...

Ciera Evans's bookish ways are just a guise. The product of a difficult past, she has dedicated her life to saving lost teens--by any means necessary. She works alone, but when a dark, brooding stranger proposes they team up to solve both their problems, she is tempted--in more ways than one...

After Ciera and Sun's plans are derailed by dangerous enemies, they find themselves entangled in an ungodly affair--one that will force them to either find new strength together or be forever haunted by their pasts alone.

The Riders: Three legendary brothers who kept the Baba Yagas safe. The Riders' immortality was stripped away, along with their mission. But they are still much more than Human, and their story is far from over...

His brothers may have found new paths to follow, but Alexei Knight isn't even looking. If he can't have the life he was meant to lead, there is no second choice. So he is bent on drinking and brawling his way across the country until he winds up on Cape Cod in a bar called The Hook and Anchor, where he finds challenges he was never expecting, a feisty red-haired bartender, and maybe a lot more than that...

Bethany McKenna left behind an almost-completed law degree to return home and care for her cranky disabled father and run his bar for him. If that wasn't enough, she also agreed to foster a very pregnant Great Dane. She has enough to deal with without adding in a giant bearded brawler, no matter how appealing he is. Yet somehow he ends up living in the guesthouse, taking care of her father, and sneaking his way into her heart...

Alexei and Bethany both think the lives they wanted have come to an end, but after dealing with a mysterious sea monster, pirates, dragons, and some adorable puppies, they might just discover that love is the greatest adventure of all.

The Changewinds blow from the Seat of Probability across the worlds that they themselves created, at once random and consistent, obeying the rules of their own strange spectral meteorology. Most of the universes the Winds have made exist separately from one another in time and space, but close to the Seat of Probability they are more densely packed, and one may walk from one to the other and not realise it until it is too late....

For countless centuries the Ahkbreed sorcerers have dreamed of the ultimate power - control and direction of the Changewinds themselves, a power that would truly make them gods over all universes everywhere. And for centuries those who pay tribute to the Ahkbreed have dreamed of a deliverer. Now two brave young women from Earth have found themselves caught up in the fury of the Changewinds. They themselves will be transformed. But, in the process, they will change everything.

Book #1 of the Scorpion God duology of Deathlands

Judgment day has come and gone. Now only the strongest survive.

A century after the nuclear conflagrating almost destroyed the world, humanity endures in a lawless land. Those who inhabit Deathlands are either killers or those who would be killed. But an elite few defy the laws of this new nautical selection -- playing both sides of the eternal game of life and death. Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists never leave a friend behind. . .or a coldheart alive.

Stranded in the salty desert wastes of West Texas, Ryan and his companions find pre-Dark wheels and set out on a treacherous journey across inhospitable terrain. Hopes for a hot meal and a clean bed in a isolated ville die fast when the companions run into a despotic baron manipulating the lifeblood of the desert: water. But it's his fortress stockpiled with enough armaments to wage war in the dunes that interests Ryan, especially when he learns the enemy may be none other than the greatest -- and long dead -- Deathlands legend: the Trader.

In the Deathlands the future is here, but the past is never far behind.

A daring hostage rescue leads to the discovery of an imminent terrorist attack. Thanks to the Outriders, thousands of lives are saved. Until they aren't. Despite the intelligence and the warnings provided by the unit, the terrorist attack goes off unhindered. What was supposed to be a triumph becomes a tragedy, and a "mission completed" completely unravels. And when they learn the reasons why, the Outriders find themselves tasked with stopping a war before it can ever start. A dangerously cunning woman who most assuredly should be dead has seemingly returned. And her plans aren't just devastating, they might be unstoppable. How do you defeat a hidden enemy when you can't let them know they've been discovered?

In a new Cold War between Earth and the colonies on Mars, when devastating weapons go missing, there's only one team you can call--the Outriders. A crack force of highly specialised super-soldiers, their clone bodies are near-immortal.

When a fully-autonomous vessel with orbital strike capabilities goes missing, it's up to the Outriders to track the untrackable. But when the trail leads them to the influential Martian People's Collective Republic, the operation gets a lot more complicated...

Greta Stuart has become AI. New transmitters have silvered her fingerprints. New receptors have transformed her vision. And the whole of her memory has become one book in a vast library of instant knowledge. Greta is ready to rule the world.

But the new technology is also killing her.

Greta is only sixteen years old, but her new enhancements are burning through her mortal body at an alarming rate. Of course the leader of the AIs, an ancient and compelling artificial intelligence named Talis, has a plan. Greta can simply do what he's done when the time comes, and take over the body of one of the Swan Riders, the utterly loyal humans who serve the AIs as part army, part cult.

First though, Greta will have to find a way to stay sane inside her new self. Talis's plan for that involves a road trip. Escorted by Swan Riders, Greta and Talis set out on a horseback journey across the strange and not-quite-deserted landscape of Saskatchewan. But there are other people interested in Greta, people who want to change the world...and the Swan Riders might not be as loyal as they appear...

For eighteen-year-old Gideon Blake, nothing but death can keep him from achieving his goal of becoming a U.S. Army Ranger. As it turns out, it does.

Recovering from the accident that most definitely killed him, Gideon finds himself with strange new powers and a bizarre cuff he can't remove. His death has brought to life his real destiny. He has become War, one of the legendary four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Over the coming weeks, he and the other horsemen--Conquest, Famine, and Death--are brought together by a beautiful but frustratingly secretive girl to help save humanity from an ancient evil on the emergence.

They fail.

Now--bound, bloodied, and drugged--Gideon is interrogated by the authorities about his role in a battle that has become an international incident. If he stands any chance of saving his friends and the girl he's fallen for--not to mention all of humankind--he needs to convince the skeptical government officials the world is in imminent danger.

But will anyone believe him?

When Daryn claimed she was seeing "visions" during her sophomore year of high school, no one believed the truth. She wasn't losing her mind, she was gaining the Sight--the ability to see the future. If she just paid attention to the visions, they'd provide her with clues and show her how she could help people. Really help them. Daryn embraced her role as a Seeker. The work she did was important. She saved lives.

Until Sebastian.

Sebastian was her first--and worst--mistake.

Since the moment she inadvertently sealed him in a dark dimension with Samrael--the last surviving demon in the Kindred--guilt has plagued her. Daryn knows Sebastian is alive and waiting for help. It's up to her to rescue him. But now that she needs the Sight more than ever to guide her, the visions have stopped.

Daryn must rely on her instincts, her intelligence, and on blind faith to lead the riders who are counting on her in search of Sebastian. As they delve into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems and where Samrael is steadily amassing power, Daryn faces the ultimate test. Will she have to become evil to destroy evil? The very fate of humankind rests in the answer.

A tale in the manner of Tom Swift about a rocket-sled vehicle that journeys across Alaska toward the North Pole.

Exciting Rocket fueled adventures beneith the waves.

Rockets make everything easier. Seeking lost cities in the middle of the remotest desert is now within reach.

Rip roaring adventures in an era when the sky was the frontier; rockets included.

In the final instalment of the Smoke Eaters series, the New United States Army has taken over and America has devolved into a full-on dragon apocalypse. Smoke eaters are banned and have gone into hiding to avoid being held prisoner by the soldiers.

Guiellermo Contreras is a private in the NUSA, and when he's accused of potentially being a smoke eater upon pain of death, he escapes and sets out to find the heroes who disappeared years before. But what he discovers is that the NUSA has been working on something unthinkable, and it's going to take more than a few smoke eaters to stop them.

Continuing the story of the origins of the Clan and their discovery of how to travel through and draw upon the power of the M'hir, Riders of the Storm focuses on Om'ray Aryl Sac, who is gifted with this forbidden Talent. Aryl and her companions have found a new home in the mountains, but before long, their haven becomes a magnet for conflict.

While trying to rebuild the divided village of Sona, Aryl must also safeguard the secret of her Talent from other arriving Om'ray who seek to use her power. Aryl becomes Clan Speaker to negotiate the peace, but tensions escalate, blood is spilled, and her fate-as well as Sona's-hangs in the balance.

In a world where magic is intrinsic to the fabric of everyday life, two kingdoms, centuries-long enemies, have long sought a powerful magical weapon that will win them lasting dominance. But neither realm is ready when they are both attacked by the Bottom-Dwellers, a bitter people whose own land was destroyed, and who now live only to take vengeance on those they blame for a wretched life in the storm-tossed abyss they inhabit. Using contramagic strengthened by blood sacrifice to attack the world above, they threaten to bring down whole cities, or even the island kingdoms themselves. Freya and Rosia are forced to put aside their age-old conflict to defend themselves, or risk losing everything.

As the Bottom-Dwellers' contramagic eats away at the magic of the dragons that helps protect the world above, a former dragon-riding hero gathers a ragtag group to form a new dragon brigade, the one desperate hope of the two kingdoms to defeat the fiends who threaten their world. As the effects of contramagic bring the world ever closer to disaster, the new dragon brigade fight the vengeful adversary. Their high-flying heroics will be to no avail, though, unless they can somehow uncover forbidden knowledge, long hidden by the Church, without which they will never be able to prevent the world's destruction.

Margaret Weis and Robert Krammes deliver yet another exciting dragon brigade adventure in Storm Riders.

Nebula Award winning and Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared serialized in Analog Science Fiction -> Science Fact, December 1967 and Analog Science Fiction -> Science Fact, January 1968. The story is also included in the anthologies Nebula Award Stories Four (1969), edited by Poul Anderson, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume III (1981), edited by Arthur C. Clarke, George W. Proctor, The Best of the Nebulas (1989), edited by Ben Bova and The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century (2001), edited by Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenberg. The story is incorporated in the fixup novel Dragonflight (1968).

When the original colonists find that the Southern Continent is too geologically unstable, they need to find a way to transport the growing colony and its possessions to the Northern Continent.

Working with the intelligent dolphins who helped to colonize Pern with humans is key if they are to be successful...

Hugo Award winning and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fiction -> Science Fact, October 1967. The story can also be found in the anthologies Nebula Award Stories Three (1968), edited by Roger Zelazny, Analog 7 (1970), edited by John W. Campbell, Jr., The Hugo Winners, Volume 2: (1963-70) (1971), edited by Isaac Asimov, The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF (1994), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and Wings of Fire (2010), edited by Jonathan Strahan and Marianne S. Jablon. It is incorprotated in the fixup novel Dragonflight (1968).

HOW CAN ONE GIRL SAVE AN ENTIRE WORLD?

To the nobles who live in Benden Weyr, Lessa is nothing but a ragged kitchen girl. For most of her life she has survived by serving those who betrayed her father and took over his lands. Now the time has come for Lessa to shed her disguise - and take back her stolen birthright.

But everything changes when she meets a queen dragon. The bond they share will be deep and last forever. It will protect them when, for the first time in centuries, Lessa's world is threatened by Thread, an evil substance that falls like rain and destroys everything it touches. Dragons and their Riders once protected the planet from Thread, but there are very few of them left these days. Now brave Lessa must risk her life, and the life of her beloved dragon, to save her beautiful world....

Another Turn, and the deadly silver Threads began falling again. So thebold dragonriders took to the air once more and their magnificent flyingdragons swirled and swooped, belching flames that destroyed theshimmering strands before they reach the ground.

But F'lar knew he had to find a better way to protect his beloved Pern,and he had to find it before the rebellious Oldtimers could breed anymore dissent... before his brother F'nor would be foolhardy enough tolaunch another suicide mission... and before those dratted fire-lizards could stir up any more trouble!

Never had there been as close a bonding as the one that existed betweenthe daring and adventurous young Lord Jaxom and his extraordinary whitedragon, Ruth. Pure white and incredibly agile, Ruth was a dragon of manytalents, though almost everyone on Pern thought he was a runt that wouldnever amount to anything.

But Jaxom knew better, knew he could teach his dragon to fly and todestroy the deadly silver Threads that fell from the sky. Disobeying allrules, Jaxom and Ruth trained in secret. Their illicit flights seemedbut a minor disobedience -- until they found themselves in the path ofdanger and in a position to prevent the biggest disaster of all!

Abandoning a holiday in Oxford, the Doctor travels to Space Station Q4, where something is seriously wrong. Ghostly soldiers from the future watch from the shadows among the dead. Soon, the Doctor is trapped in the past, Ace is fighting for her life, and Bernice is uncovering deceit among the college cloisters.

What is the connection with a beautiful assassin in a black sports car? How can the Doctor's time machine be in Oxford when it is on board the space station? And what secrets are held by the library of the invaded TARDIS?

The Doctor quickly discovers he is facing another time-shattering enigma: a creature which he thought he had destroyed, and which it seems he is powerless to stop.

Out of the mists the Fomor came to enslave the isle of Eire, a dread race of twisted men ruled by an inhuman lord: Balor of the Evil Eye. But a champion came from out of the sea, a youth called Lugh, seeking his destiny, sent to Eire by the seagod Manannan MacLir to fulfill an ancient prophecy.

With Gilla, a jesting rogue, and Aine, a spirited warrior-woman he came to love, Lugh challenged the Fomor to restore the True King to the throne of Tara, and summoned the Silver Warriors of the Sidhe to fight in the realms of men.

The tale of Lugh of the Long Arm is among the greatest of all Celtic myths. Now this mighty legend comes blazing to life in a new retelling filled with all the fire and magic of the ancient bards.

Trapped on the exotic alien world of Typhon, their DNA forcibly altered by a strange (and often capricious) godlike entity, Dilani and her fellow colonists no longer know who or what they are. What they do know is that they are being stalked across the seas by the vicious Bone Killers, who are bent on their extinction. Their only hope for survival may lie with relics of a vanished past—a past which still lies waiting, deep beneath the waves. But the past isn't all that awaits there.

While a struggle for control erupts within the god itself, something vast and ancient is stirring in Typhon's secret depths. Something as strange and powerful as any deity. And the consequences of its coming will forever affect the lives of every creature living beneath the seas...

Far to the north of the Empire lies the dreaded Chaos Wastes, home of the Dark Powers and their mutated servants. As they head into this sinister region, two brothers-in-arms find their destinies thrown into turmoil as their fight against the hordes of Chaos rips them asunder Such is the destructive power of this fallen land, that the strongest of friends can soon turn into the most bitter of enemies, hurtling inexorably towards a final cataclysmic showdown.

Eight stories from the grim reaches of the Warhammer world. Continuing the adventures of Gotrek the Trollslayer, Felix, his human companion and Sam Warble, the Halfling investigator. Edited by David Pringle.