Contents: * · Preface · George R. R. Martin · pr * · The Campbell Touch · Isaac Asimov · in * · Beatnik Bayou · John Varley · nv * * · Haute Falaise Bay · Brenda Pearce · nv * * · Scorched Supper on New Niger · Suzy McKee Charnas · nv * * · Stage Whisper · Alan Brennert · nv * * · Queen of the Magic Kingdom · Alan Brennert · ss * * · The Wishes of Maidens · Felix C. Gotschalk · nv * * · Virtual Image · P. J. Plauger · na * * · The John W. Campbell, Jr. Awards, 1973-1978 · Misc. · bi

When Lelys, ambassador of the plague-ridden colony planet of Orakisa, approaches the Federation seeking help for her dying world, the U.S.S. Enterprise speeds to the rescue. Captain Picard and his crew escort the Orakisan delegation to its long-lost sister-world, Ne'elat, where the ambassador and the Away Team are initially welcomed, but then endangered. As the Enterprise officers make their way through a web of planet-wide intrigue, time is running out the people of Orakisa and the inhabitants of their sister-worlds as well.

Rule of Blood: Once they had been humanity's last best hope: a race of genetically engineered killing machines known as the Phaestor and their army of deadly Moktar Dragons. Now, the enemy long vanquished, the Phaestor themselves have become the enemy, seizing control of the galaxy and subjugating all less species -- including humans -- to feed their appetite for terror and blood. On a small, insignificant planet called Thoska-Roole, a ragtag alliance of humans, androids, and bioforms make a last desperate stand against Phaestor domination. Among their numbers are two bounty hunters, a mercenary starship captain, and a disgraced reptilians warrior. As the Phaestor begin a new reign of unprecendented terror, these rebels prepare to strike back against their vampire overlords and bring revolution to the stars.

After Lt. Shea fails a simulation test, she is given a second chance. She is to play pilot to a minimal-hassle scientific mission which turns out to be mankind's first contact with alien life.

Lenora and Coren journey to Winnipeg to meet Carol Matas and Perry Nodelman! Suddenly transported against their will, the Princess Lenora and her fiance, Prince Coren, find themselves in a strange place-bone-chilling cold and snow outside, garish marketplaces and angry people inside. The inhabitants call it the city of Winnipeg. Lenora and Coren, however, have no idea where it is or whyhey are there. They can't return home because, yet again their imaginative powers have deserted them. The Winnipeggers refuse to believe Lenora and Coren are who they say they are. Strangely enough, though, they have read about Lenora and Coren in a series of fantasy novels by the authors Carol M. and Perry N. But just who created whom, Lenora and Coren wonder. And how will they ever manage to escape this frightening city, worse than their worst nightmare, so that their long-awaited wedding can finally take place?"

Magic happens on a Martha's Vineyard farm when the moon comes out. Flowers sing, animals talk, and everyone is swinging to the jazzy beat. Full-color illustrations.

"Although the wombat is real and the dragon is not, nobody knows what a wombat looks like and everyone knows what a dragon looks like."Not a novel, not a book of short stories, Adventures in Unhistory is a book of the fantastic-a compendium of magisterial examinations of Mermaids, Mandrakes, and Mammoths; Dragons, Werewolves, and Unicorns; the Phoenix and the Roc; about places such as Sicily, Siberia, and the Moon; about heroic, sinister, and legendary persons such as Sindbad, and Aleister Crowley, and Prester John; and-revealed at last-the Secret of Hyperborea.

"After decades of strife, peace has finally been achieved in Kavet--but at a dark cost. Sorcery is outlawed, and anyone convicted of consorting with the beings of the other realms--the Abyssi and the Numini--is put to death. The only people who can even discuss such topics legally are the scholars of the Order of the Napthol, who give counsel when questions regarding the supernatural planes arise. Hansa Viridian, a captain in the elite guard unit tasked with protecting Kavet from sorcery, has always led a respectable life. But when he is implicated in a sorcerer's crimes, the only way to avoid execution is to turn to the Abyss for help--specifically, to a half-Abyssi man he's sworn he hates, but whose physical attraction he cannot deny. Hansa is only the first victim in a plot that eventually drags him, a sorcerer named Xaz, and a Sister of the Napthol named Cadmia into the depths of the Abyss, where their only hope of escape is to complete an infernal task that might cost them their lives"--Page 4 of cover.

These science fiction stories here were published just last year and honored in April. The winners are: Connie Willis's "A Letter from the Cleary's" and "Firewatch," John Kessel's novella "Another Orphan" and an excerpt from Michael Bishop's novel No Enemy But Time. Equally impressive is the quality of the nominees that didn't win. Joanna Russ's "Souls" is a medieval setting. Barry Malzberg's "Corridors," actually from the inside. "Swarm," one of the best stories ever about living with aliens, by Bruce Sterling. Also includes stories by Silverberg and William Gibson.

From Harry Turtledove, the master of alternate history, comes After the Downfall, a novel of magic, epic warfare, and desperate choices. 1945: Russian troops have entered Berlin, and are engaged in a violent orgy of robbery, rape, and revenge. Wehrmacht officer Hasso Pemsel, a career soldier on the losing end of the greatest war in history, flees from a sniper's bullet, finding himself hurled into a mysterious, fantastic world of wizards, dragons, and unicorns. There he allies himself with the blond-haired, blue-eyed Lenelli, and Velona, their goddess in human form, offering them his knowledge of warfare and weaponry in their genocidal struggle against a race of diminutive, swarthy barbarians known as Grenye. But soon, the savagery of the Lenelli begins to eat at Hasso Pemsel's soul, causing him to question everything he has long believed about race and Reich, right and wrong, Ubermenschen and Untermenschen. Hasso Pemsel will learn the difference between following orders... and following his conscience. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

When this master storyteller breaks new ground, he does it with a flame-thrower. The first part of this book was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, sparking both outrage and acclaim. The next two sections, published here for the first time, unravel visions even more dangerous. Both heart-breaking and heart-warming, this is a violent, sexy, no-holds-barred tale of a ferocious soul coming to terms with a brutal, uncompromising world. From the desperate streets of Los Angeles' urban jungle to the greener jungles of Vietnam, from the sanctuary of a Saigon whore house to the heat-scorched follies of Arizona, a disabled veteran discovers that true intimacy is something to be feared as much as cherished. This astonishing work dives headlong into the darkest parts of the heart, coming out again on the far side, to discover the most human of all human adventures. Take this journey and you will never be the same.

The scum of the galaxy are the last hope of humankind . . . Aboard the stolen, renamed starship Endeavor, the Stone Cowboys rocket across the heavens toward a confrontation they cannot avoid . . . and, most likely, will not survive. But first, Jim Endicott must mold the street-hardened gang of thugs and hoodlums into a disciplined commando unit. Once harboring dreams of joining the Space Academy, Endicott has already altered one past using the astonishing powers of Omega. And now the untried captain and his misfit crew must take on a powerful alien race devoted to the obliteration of the human "cancer." With tension, unrest, and mutiny brewing dangerously all around him, Endicott faces the deadliest challenge he has ever known. Because the cutthroats riding the Endeavor into the enemy's turf for a war to the death are the only champions courageous -- and foolhardy -- enough for the mission. And they have nothing in the universe left to lose . . .

ICE AGE--NEW YORK CITY 2650 A.D. UNDERGROUND! By 2300, everyone knew what was happening, and why. The sun and all its planets, as they moved together through the galaxy, had been engulfed by a vast cloud of cosmic debris, and an all but infinite number of dust motes was screening and blocking the sun's radiation from Earth. To the eye, everything still looked the same, but so immense was the cloud that it would take centuries for the solar system to pass entirely through it. Nothing could hold back the ice age. Miles beneath the layer of ice that covered Earth in 2650, men survive in the subterranean cities they built to save themselves as the ice crept with killing cold over all living things. For three hundred years no one has seen the surface or communicated with any other city. Until now. Now the few scientific instruments that remain seem to indicate that the Ice Age may be ending; outside temperatures are reaching a level that may make life possible--though not easy--on the outside. But life in the underground cities is comfortable, and those few who are brave enough to be curious about the unknown frozen world above are suspect; troublemakers. A small party of these 'troublemakers, ' led by Dr. Raymond Barnes, with a few scientists and others who think they might prefer freedom to safety, has been allowed to take the long-unused elevator up through the ice to the outside. But they go more as exiles than as a scientific expedition; they are not expected --and may not be allowed--to return.

IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES.... Fifteen feet tall, the Entities land in cities across Earth. lgnoring humankind, they wall themselves in impenetrable enclaves, enslaving a few willing collaborators with their telepathic PUSH. Then they plunge humans into a new Dark Age without electricity, allowing us to live -- but no longer as a dominant species. But a few refuse to submit to fate, including the Carmichael family, whose patriarch, an aging colonel devoted to resistance, will inspire a daring new generation of dissidents. United in spirit, these diverse rebels -- an aging hippie, a cold-blooded Muslim assassin, a prodigal son, and a renegade hacker -- will carry on the colonel's legacy as they attempt to kill the mysterious Prime Entity and free the planet.

As the Thallonian homeworld faces catastrophe, Captain Calhoun must confront his own bloody past in a life-or-death struggle for survival and honor. But when the planet's ultimate secret is revealed, only the "U.S.S. Excalibur" can save the last remnants of the empire from total destruction.

At last - the answer to the secret that New Frontier fans have been waiting for: the supernatural origins of USS Excalibur's navigator Mark McHenry. Always displaying talents far beyond those of mortal men, McHenry discovers the source of his power reaches back incredibly to ancient Greece - and to specific events from Star Trek: The Original Series.

Following the dramatic conclusion of 'After the Fall', the crew of the USS Excalibur are lost in space, somehow thrown headlong into the mysteries and dangers of the distant Andromeda Galaxy. No sooner do they arrive than they are caught up in the middle of a genocidal interstellar war.

Rebecca and her mechanical companion investigate the mysterious disappearance of two rare, dog-like animals known as owsers.