This edition contains an Introduction written for the 1974 edition and updated for the 1983 edition. This collection was among Ellison's first and it shows a writer with a wide-ranging imagination, ferocious creative energy, devastating wit and an eye for the wonderful and terrifying and tragic. Among the gems are "All The Sounds of Fear", "The Sky is Burning", "The Very Last Day of a Good Woman" and "In Lonely Lands". Though they stand tall on their own merits they also point the way to the sublime stories that followed soon after and continue to come even now, more than forty years later.

    Corey...Before his trip to the stars, before the Rocinante, Amos Burton was confined to a Baltimore where crime paid you or killed you. Unless the authorities got to you first. Set in the hard-scrabble solar system of the Expanse, The Churn deepens James S. A. Corey's acclaimed series.The Expanse (a major SyFy Channel television series)Leviathan WakesCaliban's WarAbaddon's GateCibola BurnNemesis GamesThe Expanse Short Fiction The Butcher of Anderson StationGods of RiskThe Churn

    From here the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes.

    The ugly, the flawed, the misfit, the deformed, they are the unwanted, flung to the farthest corners of the galaxy to investigate hostile planets and strange, vicious creatures. Out there, there are a thousand different -- and terrible -- ways to die. Festina Ramos belongs to the well-trained, always-dwindling ranks of ECMs (Expendable Crew Members). Now she and her partner, Yarrun Derigha, have been ordered to escort the unstable Admiral Chee to Melaquin -- the feared "Planet of No Return"-- which has swallowed up countless Explorers before them without a trace.Obviously, this is meant to be the last mission for Ramos and Derigha. But it won't be, if Festina can help it.

    In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one day to discover that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. He seeks help from Dr. William Haber, a psychiatrist who immediately grasps the power George wields. Soon George must preserve reality itself as Dr. Haber becomes adept at manipulating George's dreams for his own purposes. The Lathe of Heaven is an eerily prescient novel from award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin that masterfully addresses the dangers of power and humanity's self-destructiveness, questioning the nature of reality itself. It is a classic of the science fiction genre.

    NASA, NATO, and the UN sent explorers to the asteroid's surface...and discovered marvels and mysteries to drive researchers mad.For the Stone was from space--but perhaps not our space; it came from the future-but perhaps not our future; and within the hollowed asteroid was Thistledown. The remains of a vanished civilization. A human--English, Russian, and Chinese-speaking--civilization. Seven vast chambers containing forests, lakes, rivers, hanging cities...And museums describing the Death; the catastrophic war that was about to occur; the horror and the long winter that would follow. But while scientists and politicians bickered about how to use the information to stop the Death, the Stone yielded a secret that made even Earth's survival pale into insignificance.

    'The two thieves had themselves been robbed by two youths, who eyed each other suspiciously over the sprawled, senseless bodies. Fafhrd said: 'Our motives for being here seem identical.' 'Surely, they must be!' the Mouser answered curtly, fiercely eyeing his huge, potential foe.Fafhrd glanced down at the belts and money-pouches of the fallen thieves. Then he looked up at the Mouser with an honest, open, ingenuous smile. 'Sixty-sixty?' he suggested. Thus was born the most improbable relationship in the whole history of swords and sorceries.Contains:7 • Induction • [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser] • (1957) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber11 • The Snow Women • [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser] • (1970) • novella by Fritz Leiber91 • The Unholy Grail • [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser] • (1962) • novelette by Fritz Leiber123 • Ill Met in Lankhmar • [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser] • (1970) • novella by Fritz Leiber

    Yes, that seemed normal enough---but what was this talk about "death trauma"?Thus was Thomas Blaine introduced to the year 2110, where science had discovered the technique of transferring a man's consciousness from one body to another. Where a man's mind could be snatched from the past, when his body was at the point of death, and brought forward into a "host body" in this fantastic future world. But that was only a small part of it. For the future had proved the reality of life after death, and discovered worlds beyond or simultaneous with our own---worlds where, through scientific techniques, a man could live again, in another body, when he died here. And in the process, the reality of ghosts, poltergeists, and zombies was also established. What did it all mean? How had this discovery of what they called the "hereafter" shaped the world of 2110? Thomas Blaine found himself living in a future where the discoveries and techniques imagined by people of his time, while having come about, were completely overwhelmed by discoveries no one had ever dreamed of.

    Donaldson returns with this exciting and long-awaited new series that takes us into a stunningly imagined future to tell a timeless story of adventure and the implacable conflict of good and evil within each of us.Angus Thermopyle was an ore pirate and a murderer; even the most disreputable asteroid pilots of Delta Sector stayed locked out of his way.  Those who didn't ended up in the lockup--or dead.  But when Thermopyle arrived at Mallory's Bar & Sleep with a gorgeous woman by his side the regulars had to take notice.  Her name was Morn Hyland, and she had been a police officer--until she met up with Thermopyle.But one person in Mallory's Bar wasn't intimidated.  Nick Succorso had his own reputation as a bold pirate and he had a sleek frigate fitted for deep space.  Everyone knew that Thermopyle and Succorso were on a collision course.  What nobody expected was how quickly it would be over--or how devastating victory would be.  It was common enough example of rivalry and revenge--or so everyone thought.  The REAL story was something entirely different.In The Real Story, Stephen R. Donaldson takes us to a remarkably detailed world of faster-than-light travel, politics, betrayal, and a shadowy presence just outside our view to tell the fiercest, most profound story he has ever written.

    Rails must be freshly laid ahead of the city & carefully removed in its wake. Rivers & mountains present nearly insurmountable challenges to the ingenuity of the city's engineers. But if the city does not move, it will fall farther & farther behind the optimum & into the crushing gravitational field that has transformed life on Earth. The only alternative to progress is death. The secret directorate that governs the city makes sure that its inhabitants know nothing of this. Raised in common in creches, nurtured on synthetic food, prevented above all from venturing outside the closed circuit of the city, they're carefully sheltered from the dire necessities that have come to define human existence. Yet the city is in crisis. People are growing restive. The population is dwindling. The rulers know that, for all their efforts, slowly but surely the city is slipping ever farther behind the optimum. Helward Mann is a member of the city's elite. Better than anyone, he knows how tenuous is the city's continued existence. But the world he's about to discover is infinitely stranger than the strange world he believes he knows so well.

    Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he’s available…for a price.For a new kind of killer roams the streets of the Arab ghetto, a madman whose bootlegged personality cartridges range from a sinister James Bond to a sadistic disemboweler named Khan. And Marid Audrian has been made an offer he can’t refuse.The 200-year-old “godfather” of the Budayeen’s underworld has enlisted Marid as his instrument of vengeance. But first Marid must undergo the most sophisticated of surgical implants before he dares to confront a killer who carries the power of every psychopath since the beginning of time.Wry, savage, and unignorable, When Gravity Fails was hailed as a classic by Effinger’s fellow SF writers on its original publication in 1987, and the sequence of “Marid Audrian” novels it begins were the culmination of his career.

    This brilliant collection, often cited as the first of its kind, explores fundamental questions about ourselves and our treatment of the universe (and other beings) around us and ultimately what it means to be human.Contents: * Cordwainer Smith: The Shaper of Myths (1975) • essay by John J. Pierce [as by J. J. Pierce] * The Instrumentality of Mankind (timeline) (1975) • essay by John J. Pierce * Scanners Live in Vain [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1950) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith: meet Martel, a human altered to be part machine-a scanner-to be able withstand the trauma space travel has on the body. Despite the stigma placed on him and his kind, he is able to regrasp his humanity to save another; Fantasy Book #6 ’50 * The Lady Who Sailed The Soul [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1960) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith, Genevieve Linebarger; Galaxy Apr ’60 * The Game of Rat and Dragon [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1955) / short story by Cordwainer Smith; Galaxy Oct ’55 * The Burning of the Brain [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1958) / short story by Cordwainer Smith; If Oct ’58 * Golden the Ship Was - Oh! Oh! Oh! [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1959) / short story by Cordwainer Smith, Genevieve Linebarger; Amazing Apr ’59 * The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1964) / short story by Cordwainer Smith; Amazing May ’64 * The Dead Lady of Clown Town [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1964) / novella by Cordwainer Smith: get to know the underpeople-animals genetically altered to exist in human form, to better serve their human owners-and meet D'Joan, a dog-woman who will make readers question who is more human: the animals who simply want to be recognized as having the same right to life, or the people who created them to be inferior; Galaxy Aug ’64 * Under Old Earth [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1966) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith; Galaxy Feb ’66 * Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1961) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith; Galaxy Jun ’61 * Alpha Ralpha Boulevard [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1961) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith; Galaxy Jun ’61 * The Ballad of Lost C'mell [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1962) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith: the notion of love being the most important equalizer there is, is put into action when an underperson, C'mell, falls in love with Lord Jestocost. Who is to say her love for him is not as valid as any true-born human? She might be of cat descent, but she is all woman!; Galaxy Oct ’62 * A Planet Named Shayol [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1961) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith: it is an underperson of bull descent, and beings so mutilated and deformed from their original human condition to be now considered demons of a hellish land, who retain and display the most humanity when Mankind commits the most inhumane action of all; Galaxy Oct ’61aka: Paul M. A. Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, Paul Linebarger, Felix C. Forrest, Carmichael Smith, Kordvejner Smit..

    Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war -- and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.The Flow is eternal -- but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals -- a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency -- are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

    Anderson * Doug Beason * M. Shayne Bell * David Bischoff * A.C.Crispin * Kenneth C. Flint * Barbara Hambly * Rebecca Moesta * Daniel KeysMoran * Jerry Oltion * Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens * Jennifer Roberson* Kathy Tyers * Tom Veitch & Martha Veitch * Dave Wolverton * TimothyZahn

    But when a dubious government deal with an alien emissary goes awry, her name is at the top of the list for a covert recovery.While the centuries-long war rages on only one thing is certain: the world’s best chance for peace rests in the hands of its most ruthless killers. . .