He didn't understand how he could communicate with the animals or why they were contacting him. But from the moment he began work at Kyger's pet emporium on Korwar he was enmeshed in a perilous intrigue... an intrigue that would leave more than one man dead, an entire government in jeopardy, and Horan himself both master and captive of the most extraordinary band of warriors his world had ever known.

    So the Terran government made a law--no further contact would be allowed with sentient creatures anywhere in the galaxy. Therefore Doona could be colonized only if an official survey established that the planet was both habitable and uninhabited.But Spacedep had made a mistake--Doona was inhabited. Now the colonists' choice was limited. Leave Doona and return to the teeming hell of an overpopulated Terra. Or kill the catlike Hrrubans. Or learn, for the first time in history, how to coexist with an alien race.

    The Nonesuch follows Doris as she discovers that a mind-reading, flesh-eating alien is stalking her. Also includes stories from the Draco's Tavern series.Table of contentsReprinted from The Shape of Space"Bordered in Black" (Nebula Award nominee)"One Face""Like Banquo's Ghost""The Meddler""Dry Run""Convergent Series" (fantasy)"The Deadlier Weapon" (mainstream work of short fiction, not sf or fantasy)Newer stories"The Nonesuch" (sf based loosely on Little Red Riding Hood)"Singularities Make Me Nervous" (whose protagonist has an art collection of "Eddie Jones originals")"The Schumann Computer" (Draco's Tavern)"Assimilating Our Culture, That's What They're Doing!" (Draco)"Grammar Lesson" (Draco)"The Subject is Closed" (Draco)"Cruel and Unusual" (Draco)"Transfer of Power" (fantasy inspired by Lord Dunsany's stories set at the "edge of the world")"Cautionary Tales""Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation""Plaything""Mistake""Night on Mispec Moor""Wrong Way Street"[source: wiki]

    Named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, Cat's story has been continued by Hugo-award winning and international best-selling author Joan D. Vinge with the very popular Catspaw and Dreamfall. Now, 25 years later, this special anniversary edition of Psion contains a new introduction by the author and "Psiren," a story never before included in any trade edition of Psion. This tough, gritty tale of an outsider whose only chance for redemption is as an undercover agent for an interstellar government that by turns punishes and helps him, is as fresh and powerful today as it was in 1982.

    An odyssey of discovery, from a shattered society through the solar system with a handful of men and women who ride a cold, hurtling ball of ice to the shaky promise of a distant, unknowable future.

    feel things that no flesh-and-blood creature has ever felt. He can create visions so compelling that they literally seem to dance before your eyes. He can push you back to the beginnings of time and then suddenly, without warning, thrust you forward t the outmost limits of the future. He can make you so much a part of his strange worlds that you literally scream to get out.Seventeen breathtaking stories by the master of the weird and wonderful, including the space-age classic, FROST AND FIRE.

    It has since been in print for 50 years in paperback, and now returns to hardcover for a new generation. Travel to other planets is a reality, and with overpopulation stretching the resources of Earth, the necessity to find habitable worlds is growing ever more urgent. With no time to wait years for communication between slower-than-light spaceships and home, the Long Range Foundation explores an unlikely solution--human telepathy.Identical twins Tom and Pat are enlisted to be the human radios that will keep the ships in contact with Earth. The only problem is that one of them has to stay behind, and that one will grow old while the other explores the depths of space.Always a master of insight into the human consequences of future technologies, this is one of Heinlein's triumphs.

    1 RefugeeCALIGULA OF THE STARSThough he was later accused of every crime and sexual perversion in the galaxy, Hope Hubris began as an innocent. Because he defended his older sister against the violent lusts of a wealthy scion, Hope and his peasant family were forced to flee Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter. Pursued by the bloodthirsty scions across the airless desert, they barely escaped with their lives. The illegal space bubble was overcrowded with refugees, all hoping to reach Jupiter for asylum.But the space travelers had not reckoned on the terrible threat of high space-the pirates, barbaric men who rape, rob, and murder, with no thought but to satisfy their bestial appetites. It will take all Hope's ingenuity to survive, but the atrocities he witnesses will never die. There is only one way he can be rid of them . . . REVENGE

    So how is it that, in competition with the worst villains the universe has to offer, he's become the proud owner of the last seedship of Earth's legendary Ecological Engineering Corps? Never mind, just be thankful that the most powerful weapon in human space is in good hands-hands which now control cellular material for thousands of outlandish creatures. With his unique equipment, Tuf is set to tackle the problems human settlers have created in colonizing far-flung worlds: hosts of hostile monsters, a population hooked on procreation, a dictator who unleashes plagues to get his own way...and in every case the only thing that stands between the colonists and disaster is Tuf's ingenuity - and his reputation as an honest dealer in a universe of rogues...Tuf Voyaging features interior illustrations by Janet Aulisio. Included in it will be her original eight illustrations, along with 28 newly commissioned ones.

    A legend as old as the stars rules this constructed world; When the seventh seventh seventh human Heptarch is crowned, he will be the Kristos and will bring eternal salvation . . . or the destruction of the cosmos.Patience is the only daughter of the rightful Heptarch, but she, like her father before her, serves the usurper who has destroyed her family. For she has learned the true ruler's honor.Duty to one's race is more important than duty to one's self. But the time for prudence has passed, and that which has slept for ages has awakened. And Patience must journey to the heartsoul of this planet to confront her destiny . . . and her world's.

    Jonathan-Thomas Meriweather, part-time wannabe rock guitarist and janitor, makes magic to his well-worn rock repertoire on his duar instrument. While lyrics may be righteous, the magic is too often something else.

    It all depended on the survival of the last of the entities known as Calebians.But the Caleban was dying - subjected to systematic torture by the richest, most wicked woman in the Galaxy. Unless she could be stopped, the end was only a few days away, or hours - or even minutes!

    based on some real, honest, practical ethical thinking. It is an idea book.' - Groff Conklin in Galaxy Science FictionAsher Sutton has been lost in deepest space for twenty years. Suddenly arrives a warning from the future, that he will return- and that he must be killed. He is destined to write a book whose message may lead to the death of millions in centuries to come. For this reason Sutton is hounded by the sinister warring factions of the future who wish to influence or prevent the writing of this book he has not yet begun to write.Yet already a copy has been found in the burnt-out wreckage of a space-craft on Aldebaran XII.

    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.

    Helliconia is emerging from its centuries-long winter. The tribes of the equatorial continent emerge from their hiding places and are again able to dispute possession of the planet with the ferocious phagors. In Oldorando, love, trade and coinage are being redisovered,This is the first volume of the Helliconia Trilogy -- a monumental saga that goes beyond anything yet created by this master among today's imaginative writers.