Search Worlds Without End

Cottonwood Hollow, Kansas, is a strange place. For the past century, every girl has been born with a special talent, like the ability to Fix any object, Heal any wound, or Find what is missing.

To best friends Rome, Lux, and Mercy, their abilities often feel more like a curse. Rome may be able to Fix anything she touches, but that won't help her mom pay rent. Lux's ability to attract any man with a smile has always meant danger. And although Mercy can make Enough of whatever is needed, even that won't help when her friendship with Rome and Lux is tested.

Follow three best friends in this enchanting debut novel as they discover that friendship is stronger than curses, that trust is worth the risk, and sometimes, what you've been looking for has been under your feet the whole time.

The Deep Field introduces us to a brilliant young photographer named Anna Frazier, whose latest project is a photographic study of shell fossils called ammonites. At a museum in Sydney she meets Seth La Marque, a blind paleontologist who senses that Anna is hiding something from her past that has wounded her and made her shut down her emotions. Slowly, as they become friends and then lovers, Anna reveals her tumultuous and obsessive love affair with a Hong Kong-based financier and the painful ending that left her drained and empty. At the same time, her twin brother, Daniel, disappeared in China during a period of incredible upheaval and chaos, and Anna feels her life is on hold until she can find him.

Set just over a decade from now, The Deep Field portrays a world very much like the present, yet subtly and unsettlingly different. At once steely and compassionate, it weaves elements of photography, science, and philosophy into a meditation on love, time, and loss.

In The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome, lucid dreamers called mediums dive into their dreams to retrieve ectoplasms--sticky blobs with curiously soothing properties that are the only form of art in the world. The more elaborate the dream, the better the ectoplasm.

David Sarella is a medium whose dream identity is a professional thief. With his beautiful accomplice Nadia, he breaks into jewelry stores and museums, lifts precious diamonds, and when he wakes, the loot turns into ectoplasms to be sold and displayed.

Only the dives require an extraordinary amount of physical effort, and as David ages, they become more difficult. His dream world -- or is it the real world? -- grows unstable. Any dive could be his last, forever tearing him away from Nadia and their high-octane, Bond-like adventures.

David decides to go down one final time, in the deepest, most extravagant dive ever attempted. But midway through, he begins to lose control, and the figures in the massive painting he's trying to steal suddenly come to life... and start shooting.

In Dame Marie, sleeping villagers walk in the dead of night--they return without memory, naked and soaking from the sea--when they return at all...

Dr. Stephen Spence is new to the village, but he has seen Evil before--when the darkest rites of Voodoo nearly cost him his life.

But Voodoo has two faces; and the Doctor is beginning to see that only the village Houngan - Voodoo priest - may have medicine strong enough to defeat the forces calling from the cove. Now, Spence must convince the rest of the villagers that unimaginable horrors await them all in The Lower Deep.

A century into the future, humanity lives mostly on the sea. Gigantic whale herds are tended by submariners, and vast plankton farms feed the world.

Walter Franklin, once a space engineer, now works on a submarine patrol. This novel tells the story of his adventures, including Franklin's capture of an enormous kraken at 12,000 feet under the sea; his search for a monstrous sea serpent; and the thrilling rescue of a sunken submarine-all set against the backdrop of a futuristic world that's both imaginative and believable.

There are places we were never meant to go...

A woman searching for a sister lost at sea. A man bent on finding lost treasure. A mother who has lost all hope. A maniac who believes all life exists for his pleasure. The man who would keep them all safe.

Together, they will all seek below the waves for treasures long buried, and riches beyond belief. But those treasures hide something. Something ancient, something dark. A creature that exists only to feed on those that would enter into its realm. A creature... of The Deep.

In Desdemona and the Deep, the spoiled daughter of a rich mining family must retrieve the tithe of men her father promised to the world below. On the surface, her world is rife with industrial pollution that ruins the health of poor factory workers while the idle rich indulge themselves in unheard-of luxury. Below are goblins, mysterious kingdoms, and an entirely different hierarchy.

This is a novella of approximately 42,000 words.

For many generations the Just have been at war with the Protectors. In their strange world, supported by a huge pillar poised in the vast and mysterious Deep, ritual bloodshed and sorcery have obsessed the inhabitants since the beginning of time. Half human, half machine, sexless and hairless, the Visitor from the skies enters the world on a mission unknown even to himself. Is he a peacemaker between the warrior clans, an observer, or, with his phenomenal qualities, a warrior himself, the likes of which this planet has never seen before? Only time can tell, and time is something that his makers have not allowed for...

From the acclaimed author of The Troop--which Stephen King raved "scared the hell out of me and I couldn't put it down.... old-school horror at its best"--comes this utterly terrifying novel where The Abyss meets The Shining.

A strange plague called the 'Gets is decimating humanity on a global scale. It causes people to forget--small things at first, like where they left their keys, then the not-so-small things, like how to drive or the letters of the alphabet. Their bodies forget how to function involuntarily. There is no cure.

But now, far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, deep in the Mariana Trench, a heretofore-unknown substance hailed as "ambrosia"--a universal healer, from initial reports--has been discovered. It may just be the key to eradicating the 'Gets.

In order to study this phenomenon, a special research lab, the Trieste, has been built eight miles under the sea's surface. But when the station goes incommunicado, a brave few descend through the lightless fathoms in hopes of unraveling the mysteries lurking at those crushing depths...and perhaps to encounter an evil blacker than anything one could possibly imagine.

Stranded on a desert island, a young man yearns for objects from his past. A local from a small coastal town in England is found dead as the tide goes out. A Norwegian whaling ship is stranded in the Arctic, its crew threatened by mysterious forces. In the nineteenth century, a ship drifts in becalmed waters in the Indian Ocean, those on it haunted by their evil deeds. A surfer turned diver discovers there are things worse than drowning under the sea. Something from the sea is creating monsters on land.

In The Devil and the Deep, award-winning editor Ellen Datlow shares an all-original anthology of horror that covers the depths of the deep blue sea, with brand new stories from New York Times bestsellers and award-winning authors such as Seanan McGuire, Christopher Golden, Stephen Graham Jones, and more.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction -- Ellen Datlow
• Deadwater -- Simon Bestwick
• Fodder's Jig -- Lee Thomas
• The Curious Allure of the Sea -- Christopher Golden
• The Tryal Attract -- Terry Dowling
• The Whalers Song -- Ray Cluley
• A Ship of the South Wind -- Bradley Denton
• What My Mother Left Me -- Alyssa Wong
• Broken Record -- Stephen Graham Jones
• Saudade -- Steve Rasnic Tem
• A Moment Before Breaking -- A.C.Wise
• Sister, Dearest Sister, Let Me Show to You the Sea -- Seanan McGuire
• The Deep Sea Swell -- John Langan
• He Sings of Salt and Wormwood -- Brian Hodge
• Shit Happens -- Michael Marshall Smith
• Haunt -- Siobhan Carroll
• Acknowledgment of Copyright
• About the Authors
• About the Editor

The sunken city of Atlantis is discovered by a team of explorers led by Professor Maracot. He is accompanied by Cyrus Headley, a young research zoologist and Bill Scanlan, an expert mechanic working with an iron works in Philadelphia who is in charge of the construction of the submersible which the team takes to the bottom of the Atlantic.

In the deepest canyon in the inhabited worlds, giant mantas soar through the air and leave patterned structures behind. A team of sapiologists seek to prove that these delicate filaments are true language, not just bee's dance. But time has run out, and their reckoning is upon them. Will they prove that their research is valid, or will they be scattered to the corners of the galaxy?

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Welcome to the cursed town of Sparrow...

Where, two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town.

Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under.

Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters' return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into.

Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. The townspeople turn against one another. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters.

But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself.

Set on land and beneath the oceans, Into the Deep reveals, once again, Ken Grimwood's exceptional talent for blending fantasy and reality. One part thriller, one part spiritual adventure, the exhilarating story at the heart of Into the Deep involves a hard-hitting journalist, a beautiful scientist, a globe-traveling engineer, and a venerable Portuguese fisherman. Vastly different, their lives are about to intersect and to become irrevocably changed by a school of dolphins - as the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

With the drama that unfolds from a silent war waged at the sea's greatest depths and from a single, fateful discovery, Into the Deep takes a tantalizing glimpse at the optimistic future this planet might achieve if humans and the creatures of the deep could learn to share and defend its remarkable bounty.

The sea is full of mysteries and rivers shelter the unknown. Dating back to ancient Assyria, folkloric tales of mermaids, sirens, rusalka, nymphs, selkes, and other seafolk are found in many cultures, including those of Europe, Africa, the Near East and Asia. Dangerous or benevolent, seductive or sinister - modern masters of fantasy continue to create new legends of these creatures that enchant and entertain us more than ever. Gathered here are some of the finest of these stories. Immerse yourself in this wonderful - and sometimes wicked - watery world!

CONTENTS

• Elizabeth Bear Bear - Swell
• Samuel R. Delany - Driftglass
• Neil Gaiman - The Sea Change
• Delia Sherman - Miss Carstairs and the Merman
• Margo Lanagan - Sea-Hearts
• Christopher Barzak - The Drowned Mermaid
• Genevieve Valentine - Abyssus Abyssum Invocat
• Seanan McGuire - Each to Each
• Sarah Monette - Somewhere Beneath Those Waves Was Her Home
• Peter S. Beagle - Salt Wine
• Caitlín R. Kiernan - The Mermaid of the Concrete Ocean
• Amanda Downum - Flotsam
• Cat Rambo - The Mermaids Singing Each to Each
• Anna Taborska - Rusalka3
• Chris Howard - The Mermaid Game
• Gene Wolfe - The Nebraskan and the Nereid
• Angela Slatter - A Good Husband
• A. C. Wise - Letters to a Body on the Cusp of Drowning
• Jane Yolen - The Corridors of the Sea
• Lisa L. Hannett - Forever, Miss Tapekwa County
• Catherynne M. Valente - Urchins, While Swimming
• Tanith Lee - Magritte's Secret Agent

Contents:

• Introduction (Reports from the Deep End) - essay by Maxim Jakubowski and Rick McGrath
• Chronocrash - short fiction by Jeff Noon
• 23 - The Astronaut Garden - short story by Preston Grassmann
• 29 - Roadkill - short story by Toby Litt
• 41 - The Last Resort - short story by Christopher Fowler
• 57 - Whiteout - short story by Rick McGrath
• A Free Lunch - short fiction by Christine Poulson
• Selflessness - short fiction by David Gordon (II)
• Art App - short fiction by Chris Beckett
• The Blackouts - short fiction by Hanna Jameson
• The Hardoon Labyrinth by J.G. Ballard - short fiction by Maxim Jakubowski
• Operations - short fiction by Will Self
• Paradise Marina - short fiction by James Lovegrove
• That's Handy - short fiction by Ramsey Campbell
• Subtitles Only - short fiction by Barry N. Malzberg
• The Dream-Sculptor of A.I.P. - short fiction by Paul Di Filippo
• The Way It Ends - short fiction by Sam Stone [as by Samantha Lee Howe]
• Fifty Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong - short fiction by Nick Mamatas
• A Landing on the Moon - short fiction by Adrian McKinty
• The Go Players - short fiction by Rhys Hughes
• The Next Time It Rains - (2018) - short story by Adrian Cole
• The January 6, 2021 Washington DC Riot Considered As a Black Friday Sale - short fiction by Pat Cadigan
• Debts Incorporated - short fiction by Adam Roberts
• London Spirit - short fiction by Iain Sinclair
• Magic Hour - short fiction by George Sandison
• Drift - short fiction by Geoff Nicholson
• They Do Things Differently There - short fiction by A. K. Benedict
• The Natural Environment - short fiction by Andrew Hook
• Champagne Nights - short fiction by David Ouantick
• Teddington Lock - short fiction by Lavie Tidhar
• The Mississippi Variant - short fiction by Michael Moorcock
• The Next Five Minutes - short fiction by James Grady

Someone, or something, is haunting the Titanic.

Deaths and disappearances have plagued the vast liner from the moment she began her maiden voyage on 10 April 1912. Four days later, caught in what feels like an eerie, unsettling twilight zone, some passengers - including millionaire Madeleine Astor and maid Annie Hebbley - are convinced that something sinister is afoot. And then disaster strikes.

Four years later and the world is at war. Having survived that fateful night, Annie is now a nurse on board the Titanic's sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. And she is about to realise that those demons from her past and the terrors of that doomed voyage have not finished with her yet.

An enthralling sci fi thriller about a mission into deep space that begins with a lethal explosion that leaves the survivors questioning the loyalty of the crew.

They left Earth to save humanity. They'll have to save themselves first.

It is the eve of Earth's environmental collapse. A single ship carries humanity's last hope: eighty elite graduates of a competitive program, who will give birth to a generation of children in deep space. But halfway to a distant but livable planet, a lethal bomb kills three of the crew and knocks The Phoenix off course. Asuka, the only surviving witness, is an immediate suspect.

As the mystery unfolds on the ship, poignant flashbacks reveal how Asuka came to be picked for the mission. Despite struggling through training back on Earth, she was chosen to represent Japan, a country she only partly knows as a half-Japanese girl raised in America. But estranged from her mother back home, The Phoenix is all she has left.

With the crew turning on each other, Asuka is determined to find the culprit before they all lose faith in the mission?or worse, the bomber strikes again.

Sixteen-year-old Bridey Corkill longs to leave her small island and see the world; the farther from the sea, the better. When Bridey was young, she witnessed something lure her granddad off a cliff and into a watery grave with a smile on his face. Now, in 1913, those haunting memories are dredged to the surface when a young woman is found drowned on the beach. Bridey suspects that whatever compelled her granddad to leap has made its return to the Isle of Man.

Soon, people in Bridey's idyllic village begin vanishing, and she finds an injured boy on the shore -- an outsider who can't remember who he is or where he's from. Bridey's family takes him in so he can rest and heal. In exchange for saving his life, he teaches Bridey how to master her fear of the water -- stealing her heart in the process.

But something sinister is lurking in the deep, and Bridey must gather her courage to figure out who -- or what -- is plaguing her village, and find a way to stop it before she loses everyone she loves.

This short story originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, September 2011. It can also be found in the anthology Clarkesworld: Year Five (2013), edited by Sean Wallace and Neil Clarke. The story is included in the collection Wild Chrome (2012).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Nebula and Shirley Jackson Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July-August 2015. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2016, edited by Paula Guran, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016, edited by Rich Horton, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Ten (2016), edited by Jonathan Strahan and Heiresses of Russ 2016: The Year's Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction (2016), edited by A. M. Dellamonica and Steve Berman.

"Our home began, as all things do, with a wish."

Jane Edwards hasn't spoken since she was eleven years old, when armed riders expelled her family from their hometown along with every other Black resident. Now, twelve years later, she's found a haven in the all-Black town of Awenasa. But the construction of a dam promises to wash her home under the waters of the new lake.

Jane will do anything to save the community that sheltered her. So, when a man with uncanny abilities arrives in town asking strange questions, she wonders if he might be the key. But as the stranger hints at gods and ancestral magic, Jane is captivated by a bigger mystery. She knows this man. Only the last time she saw him, he was dead. His body laid to rest in a rushing river.

Who is the stranger and what is he really doing in Awenasa? To find those answers, Jane will journey into a sunken world, a land of capricious gods and unsung myths, of salvation and dreams made real. But the flood waters are rising. To gain the miracle she desires, Jane will have to find her voice again and finally face the trauma of the past.

The sea holds many secrets.

Moira Alexander has always been fascinated by the deadly sirens who lurk along the shores of her island town. Even though their haunting songs can lure anyone to a swift and watery grave, she gets as close to them as she can, playing her violin on the edge of the enchanted sea. When a young boy is found dead on the beach, the islanders assume that he's one of the sirens' victims. Moira isn't so sure.

Certain that someone has framed the boy's death as a siren attack, Moira convinces her childhood friend, the lighthouse keeper Jude Osric, to help her find the real killer, rekindling their friendship in the process. With townspeople itching to hunt the sirens down, and their own secrets threatening to unravel their fragile new alliance, Moira and Jude must race against time to stop the killer before it's too late--for humans and sirens alike.

Ana Dakkar is a freshman at Harding-Pencroft Academy, a five-year high school that graduates the best marine scientists, naval warriors, navigators, and underwater explorers in the world. Ana's parents died while on a scientific expedition two years ago, and the only family's she's got left is her older brother, Dev, also a student at HP. Ana's freshman year culminates with the class's weekend trial at sea, the details of which have been kept secret. She only hopes she has what it'll take to succeed. All her worries are blown out of the water when, on the bus ride to the ship, Ana and her schoolmates witness a terrible tragedy that will change the trajectory of their lives.

But wait, there's more. The professor accompanying them informs Ana that their rival school, Land Institute, and Harding-Pencroft have been fighting a cold war for a hundred and fifty years. But now the heat is on and the freshman are in danger of becoming fish food. In a race against deadly enemies, Ana will make amazing friends and astounding discoveries about her heritage as she puts her leadership skills to the test for the first time.

Seventeen-year-old Tempe was born into a world of water. When the Great Waves destroyed her planet five hundred years ago, its people had to learn to survive living on the water, but the ruins of the cities below still called. Tempe dives daily, scavenging the ruins of a bygone era, searching for anything of value to trade for Notes. It isn't food or clothing that she wants to buy, but her dead sister's life. For a price, the research facility on the island of Palindromena will revive the dearly departed for twenty-four hours before returning them to death. It isn't a heartfelt reunion that Tempe is after; she wants answers. Elysea died keeping a terrible secret, one that has ignited an unquenchable fury in Tempe: Her beloved sister was responsible for the death of their parents. Tempe wants to know why.

But once revived, Elysea has other plans. She doesn't want to spend her last day in a cold room accounting for a crime she insists she didn't commit. Elysea wants her freedom and one final glimpse at the life that was stolen from her. She persuades Tempe to break her out of the facility, and they embark on a dangerous journey to discover the truth about their parents' death and mend their broken bond. But they're pursued every step of the way by two Palindromena employees desperate to find them before Elysea's time is up--and before the secret behind the revival process and the true cost of restored life is revealed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, August 2013.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society – and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future in this brilliantly imaginative novella inspired by the Hugo Award nominated song "The Deep" from Daveed Diggs' rap group Clipping.

Yetu holds the memories for her people – water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners – who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one – the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.

Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities – and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.

Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past – and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they'll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity – and own who they really are.

Inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping for the This American Life episode "We Are In The Future," The Deep is vividly original and uniquely affecting.

Remy is a Chorister, rescued from the surface world and raised to sing in a choir of young boys. Remy is part of a strange crew who control the Leviathan, an aging nuclear submarine, that bears a sacred mission: to trigger the Second Coming when the time is right.

But Remy has a secret too - she's the submarine's only girl. Gifted with the missile's launch key by the Leviathan's dying caplain, she swears to keep it safe. Safety, however, is not the priority of the new caplain, who has his own ideas about the mission. When a surface-dweller is captured during a raid, Remy's faith becomes completely overturned. Now, her last judgement may transform the fate of everything.

Table of Contents:

• The Dolphin and the Deep - (1963) - novella
• The Manor of Roses - (1966) - novella
• The Murex - (1964) - novelette

From an award-winning author, science fiction short stories, featuring alternative history tale, hard sci-fi and post-apocalyptic tales.

Ten astounding tales by triple award nominee Brad R. Torgersen. Go on fantastic new adventures at the bottom of Earth's oceans and at the edge of the solar system. Meet humans who are utterly alien and aliens who are all too human. Originally featured in the pages of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine as well as Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, these stories are gathered here for the first time, along with anecdotes and other commentary from the author. Introductions by Stanley Schmidt, Mike Resnick and Allan Cole. Features the stories "Ray of Light" (2012 Hugo & Nebula nominee), "Outbound" (2011 Analog Readers Choice Award winner), and "Exanastasis" (2010 Writers of the Future Award winner).

Go on fantastic new adventures at the bottom of Earth's oceans and at the edge of the solar system. Meet humans who are utterly alien and aliens who are all too human. Originally featured in the pages of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine as well as Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, these stories are gathered here for the first time, along with anecdotes and other commentary from the author.

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Introduction 1 - Stanley Schmidt - essay by Stanley Schmidt
• 5 - Introduction 2 - Mike Resnick - essay by Mike Resnick
• 8 - Introduction 3 - Allan Cole - essay by Allan Cole
• 9 - Outbound - (2010) - novelette
• 54 - Gemini 17 - short fiction
• 81 - Influences: Allan Cole & Chris Bunch - essay
• 84 - The Bullfrog Radio Astronomy Project - (2011) - short story
• 106 - Exiles of Eden - (2011) - short story
• 126 - Writer Dad: Mike Resnick - essay
• 131 - Footprints - (2002) - short story
• 140 - The Exchange Officers - (2013) - novelette
• 166 - Essay: On the Growth of Fantasy and the Waning of Science Fiction - (2012) - essay
• 174 - The Chaplain's Assistant - [The Chaplain's War] - (2011) - short story
• 195 - The Chaplain's Legacy - [The Chaplain's War] - (2013) - novella
• 271 - The Hero's Tongue: Larry Niven - essay
• 275 - Exanastasis - (2010) - short fiction
• 305 - Ray of Light - (2011) - novelette
• 332 - Denouement - essay

Critically acclaimed author Kai Ashante Wilson makes his commercial debut with this striking, wondrous tale of gods and mortals, magic and steel, and life and death that will reshape how you look at sword and sorcery.

Since leaving his homeland, the earthbound demigod Demane has been labeled a sorcerer. With his ancestors' artifacts in hand, the Sorcerer follows the Captain, a beautiful man with song for a voice and hair that drinks the sunlight.

The two of them are the descendants of the gods who abandoned the Earth for Heaven, and they will need all the gifts those divine ancestors left to them to keep their caravan brothers alive.

The one safe road between the northern oasis and southern kingdom is stalked by a necromantic terror. Demane may have to master his wild powers and trade humanity for godhood if he is to keep his brothers and his beloved captain alive.

Scribe IV is an obsolete automaton living on the Bastion, a secluded monastery in an abandoned corner of the galaxy. When the visiting Pope is found murdered, Scribe IV knows he has very little time before the terrifying Sisters of the Drowned Deep rise up to punish all the Bastion's residents for their supposed crime.

Quin, a recovering drug addict turned private investigator, agrees to take the case. Traumatized by a bizarre experience in his childhood, Quin repeatedly feeds his memories to his lover, the angel Murmuration. But fragmented glimpses of an otherworldly horror he calls the crawling dark continue to haunt his dreams.

Meanwhile in heaven, an angel named Angel hears Scribe IV's prayer. Intrigued by the idea of solving a crime with mortals, the angel descends to offer divine assistance.

With the Drowned Sisters closing in, Scribe IV, Quin, and Angel race to find out who really murdered the Pope, and why. Quin's missing memories may hold the key to the case -- but is remembering worth what it will cost him?

The Gates of Time

The last Earthman vs. the Empire that died before Earth was born.

Dwellers of the Deep

What! A science fiction novel about science fiction fans? And why not? Or - like it says in this novel: "Do you really think that a group of science fiction fans could save this planet? Could understand this situation to save it?" "I most certainly do," she says. "Who else?" Who else, indeed? Not since Frederic Brown's "What Mad Universe" has there been a novel like this.

It might not have been so hard to sell Jon West on the Deeps - if he hadn't had his heart set on the stars. Bitter disappointment over washing out of space school prompted his rash decision to join the Deepsmen who struggled to conquer Earth's last frontier and the threats it held for the North American continent.

Based on the theory that man may someday inhabit the vast ocean floors, this tale is a speculative journey into that fantastic realm. Scenes in fabulous undersea cities, tense battles between men and colossal sea monsters, a running feud between Jon and a belligerent civilian youth - all combine to make this an exciting drama in the best science fiction tradition.

Not until rumors begin about the Mindanao Trench and the mysterious Project called "X" - a project to save a continent - does Jon snap out of his reluctant attidude toward the Deeps and realize the full magnitude of a mission more dangerous than any on Earth or in space. Tidal waves, the descent to perpetual blackness seven miles under the sea, disasters that struck with lightning speed breed action that drives Jon and his fellow Deepsmen toward a powerful climax.

It is April 1962. The Korean War has escalated and the US is struggling to keep the Russians and Chinese north of the 38th parallel. All the men are away fighting, but that doesn't mean the Space Race is lost. NASA decides to look elsewhere for its astronauts: the thirteen women pilots who passed the same tests as the original male candidates. These are the Mercury 13: Jerrie Cobb, Janey Hart, Myrtle Cagle, Jerri Sloan, Jan Dietrich, Marion Dietrich, Bernice Steadman, Wally Funk, Sarah Gorelick, Gene Nora Stumbough, Jean Hixson, Rhea Hurrle and Irene Leverton. One of these women will be the first American in space. Another will be the first American to spacewalk. Perhaps one will even be the first human being to walk on the Moon. Beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, deep in the Puerto Rico Trench north of San Juan, lies a film bucket from a KH-4 Corona spy satellite. It should have been caught in mid-air by a C-130 from the 6549th Test Group. That didn't happen. So the US Navy bathyscaphe Trieste II must descend twenty thousand feet to retrieve the bucket, down where light has never reached and the pressure is four tons per square inch. But there is more in the depths than anyone had expected, much more. This is not our world. But it very nearly was.

A nightmarish power unleashed from the depths infiltrates Arkham...

When dissolute fisherman Abel Davenport discovers an ancient temple in the deep ocean, he under the influence of a long dead god. In his attempts to restore the god's cult, Abel unleashes a plague of twisted doppelgangers on Arkham. Horrified by the consequences, Davenport realizes that he alone cannot stop the monsters from resurrecting the Ancient One. Sometimes the only way to end one cult is to start another... Teaming up with redeemed cultist Diana Stanley and notorious thief Ruby Standish is the first step. The second is convincing Carl Sanford, the powerful leader of Arkham's Silver Twilight Lodge, to join their cause. Together they might be the only hope of averting a cataclysmic eldritch invasion.

Carried Far Outside the Solar System, and Wrecked on a Volcanic Planetoid in Company with a Shipload of Condemned Criminals, Captain Future Faces the Supreme Test of His Courage!....

It first appeared in the winter, 1943 Issue of Captain Future magazine.

To download a free copy of this magazine;

• Go to Luminist Perodical Archives
• Scroll down to or search for Captain Future
• Click on the blue highlight of the above issue, and you follow the intructions for downloading a PDF copy.

Devils of the Deep

A mysterious "sea monster" is sighted by fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico. Then a pirated submarine, using a powerful secret weapon, begins to terrorize shipping along the entire Atlantic seaboard. Hundreds die as warships of all nations join together to find and destroy the deadly menace. The chief suspects: Doc Savage and his loyal crew!

This is # 123 in the Doc Savage Novels series.

More information about Devils of the Deep available at the Hidalgo Trading Company website.

Harold A. Davis authored this novel under pseudonym Kenneth Robeson.

The Headless Men

A mad scientist has invented a way to decapitate people and let them live as his headless slaves. The Man of Bronze and his crew pursue this deadly genius to Central America, where they are all trapped and captured. Only Doc Savage can prevent the headless horde from taking over the world -- but he is strapped to a sacrificial altar and is scheduled to lose his head at midnight!

More information about The Headless Men available at the Hidalgo Trading Company website.

Alan Hathway authored this novel under pseudonym Kenneth Robeson.

When armies of evil rise up from the seas around Faerûn, no one is safe.

A young mage battles at the side of Khelben Arunsun to defend the city of Waterdeep.

A merman struggles to fulfill his desperate mission to reach the Sea of Fallen Stars.

Twelve all new stories by such Forgotten Realms stars as Mel Odom, Ed Greenwood, Elaine Cunningham, Troy Denning, Lynn Abbey, and Clayton Emery.

Table of Contents:

• Hard Choices - novelette by Lynn Abbey
• Fire is Fire - novelette by Elaine Cunningham
• Messenger to Serôs - novelette by Peter Archer
• The Place Where Guards Snore at Their Posts - novelette by Ed Greenwood
• Lost Cause - novelette by Richard Lee Byers
• Forged in Fire - novelette by Clayton Emery
• One Who Swims with Sekolah - novelette by Mel Odom
• The Crystal Reef - novelette by Troy Denning
• The Patrol - novelette by Larry Hobbs
• Star of Tethyr - novelette by Thomas M. Reid
• Persana's Blade - novelette by Steven E. Schend
• And the Dark Tide Rises - novelette by Keith Francis Strohm
• The Calendar of Harptos - essay by Philip Athans

The Arena: a vast alien otherspace that all species were forced to enter when they discovered faster-than-light travel. The Arena: where the lives of entire species might hang in the balance in a single Challenge. The Arena: filled with mysteries, alliances, betrayals, opportunities, and hideous dangers for individual and empire alike. And the only thing you couldn't do... was refuse to play the Arena's game.

Ariane Austin and her crew had learned these lessons the hard way, and--with luck, skill, and sheer will, had managed to survive so far. But now a debt of honor to Humanity's oldest, if sometimes self-serving, ally Orphan has come due. The threat of war looms with the xenophobic Molothos, one of the five Great Factions; the dark and omnipresent legacy of the Hyperion Experiment lingers. As Leader of the Faction of Humanity, Captain Ariane Austin had to deal with all of these problems, and deal with them soon. For within her was also the alien power that the Shadeweavers and the Faith had sealed away--with a seal that would not last forever. She needed to find a way to control that power before it broke free--or more than just Humanity would pay the price.

Now Ariane must travel with Orphan into the legendary Deeps of the Arena, far from any known Spheres--to a destination only the enigmatic alien knows, leaving behind one of her most trusted friends and advisors to confront whatever new trials the Arena may throw at Humanity in her absence.

But before Ariane can depart, she must deal with a minor matter of a Challenge against one of the Great Factions--a Challenge with an entire species' citizenship in the Arena at stake!

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Other Worlds 2 (1980) edited by Roy Torgeson. The story is included in the collection Limekiller! (2003).

The sixth marvellous tale of high adventure and derring-do from the master of steampunk literature, set in the world of The Court of the Air.

A daring underwater chase ends in a battle for the Kingdom itself...

The streets of Middlesteel are under attack by an unseen enemy, leaving bloodless corpses in its trail. The newssheets scream vampire, but the truth is even more deadly than anyone knows.

Charlotte Shades, Mistress of Mesmerism, is a thief - and a darned good one at that. When two mysterious men ask her to steal King Jude's sceptre from the Parliament vaults, the challenge (and reward) is too great to pass up. After all, Charlotte's natural charm and the magic of the gem she wears - the mysterious Eye of Fate - have never failed her before.

Only consulting detective Jethro Daunt and his steamman companion Boxiron know there's more to these two men than meets the eye. Yet even as they rescue Charlotte from a fate worse than death, they are thrown into a plot thicker than even they realize. They escape beneath the waves in an ancient submarine led by Commodore Jethro Black, where they encounter stiff resistance from the strange people who inhabit the vast underwater kingdoms. But man, woman, seanore and gill-neck alike must band together if they are to defeat a danger that might not even be from this world...

Andrej Koscuisko, the Ragnarok's Ship's Inquisitor, is going home on leave. His ship of assignment is participating in training exercises, and when an observer station unexpectedly explodes -- killing the Ragnarok's captain -- Pesadie Training Command has to come up with a cover story in a hurry or risk exposure of its black-market profiteering.

One life.
One choice.
One sacrifice.

To save those closest to her, Simi traded away everything: her freedom, her family, and the boy she loves. Now she is sworn to serve a new god, watching over the Land of the Dead at the bottom of the ocean.

But when signs of demons begin to appear, it's clear there are deeper consequences of Simi's trade. These demons spell the world's ruin... and because of Simi, they now have a way into the human realm.

With the fate of the world at stake, Simi must break her promise and team up with a scheming trickster of a god. And if they succeed, perhaps Simi can also unbreak her heart along the way, and find herself again.

What if a woman as strong and as complex as Eva Perón began her life as a robot repair assistant threatened by a powerful peacekeeping force that wants to take all she has from her?

The discovery ship, Creative Fire, is on its way home from a multi-generational journey. But home is nothing like the crew expected. They have been gone for generations, and the system they return to is home to technologies and riches beyond their wildest dreams. But they are immediately oppressed and relegated to the lowest status imaginable, barely able to interact with the technologies and people of the star station where they dock, the Diamond Deep.

Ruby Martin and her partner, Joel North, must find a way to learn what they need to know and to become more than they have ever been if they are to find a way to save their people.

Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient, god-decreed rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: train to fight and fight to survive. Until the day she sees the impossible on the battlefield--her brother, fighting with the enemy--the brother she watched die five years ago.

Eelyn loses her focus and is captured. Now, she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every neighbor is an enemy, every battle scar possibly one she delivered. But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan settling in the valley, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved Aska clan, which is rumored to have been decimated by the same horde. She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother's friend who tried to kill her the day she was captured. They must do the impossible: unite the clans to fight together, or risk being slaughtered one by one. Driven by a love for her clan and her growing love for Fiske, Eelyn must confront her own definition of loyalty and find a way to forgive her brother while daring to put her faith in the people she's spent her life killing.

For as long as she can remember, Tova has lived among the Svell, the people who found her washed ashore as a child and use her for her gift as a Truthtongue. Her own home and clan are long-faded memories, but the sacred symbols and staves inked over every inch of her skin mark her as one who can cast the rune stones and see into the future. She has found a fragile place among those who fear her, but when two clans to the east bury their age-old blood feud and join together as one, her world is dangerously close to collapse.

For the first time in generations, the leaders of the Svell are divided. Should they maintain peace or go to war with the allied clans to protect their newfound power? And when their chieftain looks to Tova to cast the stones, she sets into motion a series of events that will not only change the landscape of the mainland forever but will give her something she believed she could never have again--a home.

Life is precious and precarious on the islands of Belene. Besieged by a capricious ocean full of malicious spirits, the people of the islands seek joy where they can. Mayara, one of the island's fearless oyster divers, has found happiness in love. But on the day of her wedding to the artist Kelo, a spirit-driven storm hits the island with deadly force.

To save her loved ones, Mayara reveals a dangerous secret: she has the power to control the spirits. When the storm ends, she is taken into custody by the queen's soldiers and imprisoned with other women like her.

They vary in age and social status, but to many they are heroes who will aide the country or witches that will sacrifice themselves trying. No matter who they are, the women are sent to a terrifying place--an island filled with bloodthirsty nature spirits, and left without food, water, shelter, or any tools except their own instincts and magic. Whoever survives the Island of Testing will be declared heirs to the queen. But no matter if she wins or loses, Mayara knows that the life she dreamed of is gone.

We follow an unlikely pair as they expose the secrets at the heart of the mountain city of Ancris.

Lorelei Aurelius is the smartest inquisitor in the mountain city of Ancris. When a mysterious tip leads her to a clandestine meeting between the Church and the hated Red Knives, she uncovers a plot that threatens not only her home but the empire itself.

The trail leads her to Rylan Holbrooke, a notorious thief posing as a dragon singer. Rylan came to Ancris to solve the very same mystery she stumbled onto. Knowing his incarceration could lead to the Red Knives' achieving their goals, Lorelei makes a fateful decision: she frees him.

Now branded as traitors, the two flee the city on dragonback. In the massive forest known as the Holt, they discover something terrible. The Red Knives are planning to awaken a powerful demigod in the holiest shrine in Ancris, and for some reason the Church is willing to allow it. It forces their return to Ancris, where the unlikely allies must rally the very people who've vowed to capture them before it's too late.

Seven years ago, the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a "mockumentary" bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a maritime tragedy.

Now, a new crew has been assembled. But this time they're not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life's work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost.

Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves.

But the secrets of the deep come with a price.

When the Imagine Network commissioned a documentary on mermaids, to be filmed from the cruise ship Atargatis, they expected what they had always received before: an assortment of eyewitness reports that proved nothing, some footage that proved even less, and the kind of ratings that only came from peddling imaginary creatures to the masses.

They didn't expect actual mermaids. They certainly didn't expect those mermaids to have teeth.

This is the story of the Atargatis, lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a maritime tragedy. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the bathypelagic zone in the Mariana Trench...and the depths are very good at keeping secrets.

A sensational debut novel: gothic, romantic gaslamp fantasy at it's very best. A magical tale of intrigue on dangerous waters and a love story for the ages. Perfect for fans of V.E. Schwab and China Mieville

Arden Beacon arrives in the salt-swept port of Vigil with a job to do. Tasked with using the magic in her blood to keep the lighthouse burning, she needs to prove herself worthy of her family name and her ancestors' profession.

But the coastline Arden must keep alight - battered by a sea teeming with colossal, ancient beasts - is far from the cultured, urban world she knows. It is a place of secrets, rumours and tight-lipped expectations of a woman's place. More than anyone, the town folk whisper about Arden's neighbour, Jonah Riven, the hunter of leviathans. They say he murdered his wife. They say he is as much a monster as his prey.

Amidst all her determination and homesickness Arden cannot get this shadowy stranger out of her head. A plot swirls around the lighthouse keeper, the hunter and the authorities. Arden must make sense of these dark waters - before they wash her away.

The sensational follow up to MONSTROUS HEART; a magical tale of intrigue on dark waters and a love story for the ages. The perfect gothic, gaslamp fantasy - ideal for fans of V.E. Schwab and China Mieville

Since losing her great love to the Queen of the Sainted Isles, Arden must fulfil an impossible promise before she can return home - she must complete the dangerous Rite that will return Jonah's spirit to the abyssal Court of the Deepwater King.

This sets her off on a journey far out at sea to find believers of the old religion on the oil-slick and mysterious islands beyond the horizon. But such a responsibility will not come without sacrifice, for the Deepwater folk who worship the King require the most desperate payments the soul, and with one man Arden may have to pay the greatest price of all...

Astonishingly original, with world-building to rival the depths of the ocean, McKenna has drawn a rich tale of longing and courage - penning the perfect oceanic steampunk fantasy.

Arden Beacon has nothing left to lose.

Having fought monsters, the deep waters and the establishment to fulfil a promise the man she loved -- she is no closer to peace. But against the odds, she has found Jonah once more and they are together now. She means to keep it that way.

Jonah, Arden and Chalice are bound for Clay city. Warnings come that the scorned yet powerful Miah and Bellis have joined forces and turned their eyes to the capital, now following the direction of the slippery Mr Lindsay. Wanton destruction and death will surely follow if they cannot be distracted, tricked and stopped.

All the while, the coins sewn into Arden's hands continue to poison her. Time is running out. With intrigue and beasts behind every wave, Jonah and Arden must face this final chapter together -- or risk losing everything.

As a professional finder, Fergus Ferguson is hired to locate missing objects and steal them back. But it is rarely so simple, especially after his latest job in Cernee. He's been recovering from that experience in the company of friends, the Shipmakers of Pluto, experts at crafting top-of-the-line AI spaceships.

The Shipmakers have convinced Fergus to finally deal with unfinished business he's been avoiding for half his life: Earth. Fergus hasn't been back to his homeworld since he was fifteen, when he stole his cousin's motorcycle and ran away. It was his first theft, and nothing he's stolen since has been anywhere near so easy, or weighed so heavily on his conscience. Many years and many jobs later, Fergus reluctantly agrees that now is the time to return the motorcycle and face his family.

Unfortunately, someone has gotten to the motorcycle before him. And before he can figure out where it went and why the storage unit that held it is now filled with priceless, stolen art, the Shipyard is attacked. His friends are missing, presumably kidnapped.

Accompanied by an untrustworthy detective who suspects Fergus is the art thief and the sole friend who escaped the attack, Fergus must follow the tenuous clues to locate and save his friends. The trail leads them to Enceladus, where Fergus plans to go undercover to the research stations that lie beneath the moon's thick ice sheet deep in a dark, oppressive ocean.

But all movement and personnel are watched, and the limited ways through the thick ice of the moon's surface are dangerous and highly monitored. Even if Fergus can manage to find proof that his friends are there and alive, getting out again is going to be a lot more complicated than he bargained for.

A CITY DIVIDED - For centuries The City of Cries - one of the most desired locales in the Skolian Imperialate - has existed by the thinnest of threads. On the dying world of Raylicon, the "haves" live in great luxury in Cries while the "have-nots" scrape by, eking out a marginal existence in the notorious Undercity beneath the desert. Major Bhaajan, formerly of the Pharaoh's Army, knows both worlds. Born into the Undercity, she nevertheless has made a name for herself in the Imperialate. And now, she has the chance to help her people.

HOPE FOR RECONCILIATION - For the first time, a member of the Royal class wants to extend an olive branch to the Undercity. Hoping to build bridges, Colonel Lavinda Majda recruits Bhaaj and her Dust Knights to act as guides and bodyguards on a mission of goodwill to those who live below the surface of their parched world.

THE DOWN DEEP - But the problems of the Undercity run deeper than anyone knows. To help find peace, the Dust Knights must reach the most hidden rungs in that mysterious underground world, a place known only as the Down Deep, where the scars from centuries of distrust are greatest. There they will face an unseen enemy that may destroy the lives of everyone they know--and threaten interstellar civilization.

A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other.

Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.'s home, and she and Henerey vanish.

A year later, E.'s sister Sophy, and Henerey's brother Vyerin, are left to solve the mystery, piecing together the letters, sketches and field notes left behind - and learn what their siblings' disappearance might mean for life as they know it.

One crashing wave and Tristan Hart was gone for three days. Sucked out to sea in a tidal wave and spit back ashore at Coney Island with no memory of what happened. Now his dreams are haunted by a terrifying silver mermaid with razor-sharp teeth.

His best friend Layla is convinced something is wrong. But how can he explain he can sense emotions like never before? How can he explain he's the heir to a kingdom he never knew existed? That he's suddenly a pawn in a battle as ancient as the gods?

Something happened to him in those three days. He was claimed by the sea... and now it wants him back.

In the quest for the Sea Court throne, Tristan has already watched one good friend die. Now he must lead the rest on a dangerous voyage in search of the trident that will make him king. But while Tristan chases his destiny, the dark forces raging against him are getting stronger, and the sea witch of his nightmares is getting closer.

Battling pirates, sea dragons, and mutant creatures of the deep, Tristan needs his friends' support. But they each have their secrets, and a betrayal will force Tristan to choose between loyalty and ambition, friendship and love. In the race for a throne, all's fair in the savage blue.

Two days. That's all the time Tristan Hart has to prevent all-out war. Since discovering he was part merman and heir to the Sea Throne, Tristan has been fighting for his future, his friends - his life.

Now to win the crown and save the girl he loves, Tristan will have to take the ultimate risk: unleash the ancient magic of Poseidon and release the kraken. Seriously. It's the only way to unite the three scattered pieces of the king's trident and stop the sea witch Nieve from taking the throne for herself.

Tristan's going to need all the help he can get. But the one person he could always depend on has betrayed him - Kurt now wants the throne for himself. Brother against brother - it's a brutal race to the finish, and there can only be one winner.

Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.