But the governments and power structures didn't yet control space, where bold new techniques could freely be applied and the vast resources of the solar system could be utilized by such courageous men and women as: • Aneas MacKenzie—he had believed in the man he had helped to reach the office of the presidency of the United States, and had tirelessly rooted out corruption wherever he found it, until the trail led straight back to the White House. After that, no place on Earth was safe for him. • Laurie Jo Hansen—she controlled a multi-national corporation more powerful than many governments. Unlike those governments, she wanted to see Earth’s problems solved and reaching the high frontier was the only way to do that. • Kevin Senecal—he had made the mistake of fighting back against a juvenile gang, and accidentally killing one of them while escaping. Both the gang and the law were after him, and on all of Earth there was no place to hide. • Ellen MacMillan—a young employee of the Hansen Corporation who fascinated Kevin, she was on a secret mission, and the biggest secret was her real name.   Two complete novels—High Justice and Exiles to Glory—in one volume by a New York Times best-selling author, telling of an Earth sinking into a morass of corruption, red tape, and failure of nerve, while a dedicated few dare to reach for the stars.

    

    Two skeptical, modern engineers find their lives turned upside down when they accidentally stumble upon the legendary Western Isles, the mythical home of King Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon.

    Reprint.

    R. Martin has thrilled a generation of readers with his epic works of the imagination, most recently the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling saga told in the novels A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords. Lisa Tuttle has won acclaim from fans of science fiction, horror, and fantasy alike— most recently for her haunting novel The Pillow Friend. Now together they gift readers with this classic tale of a brilliantly rendered world of ironbound tradition, where a rebellious soul seeks to prove the power of a dream.The planet of Windhaven was not originally a home to humans, but it became one following the crash of a colony starship. It is a world of small islands, harsh weather, and monster-infested seas. Communication among the scattered settlements was virtually impossible until the discovery that, thanks to light gravity and a dense atmosphere, humans were able to fly with the aid of metal wings made of bits of the cannibalized spaceship.Many generations later, among the scattered islands that make up the water world of Windhaven, no one holds more prestige than the silver-winged flyers, who bring news, gossip, songs, and stories. They are romantic figures crossing treacherous oceans, braving shifting winds and sudden storms that could easily dash them from the sky to instant death. They are also members of an increasingly elite caste, for the wings—always in limited quantity—are growing gradually rarer as their bearers perish.With such elitism comes arrogance and a rigid adherence to hidebound tradition. And for the flyers, allowing just anyone to join their cadre is an idea that borders on heresy. Wings are meant only for the offspring of flyers—now the new nobility of Windhaven. Except that sometimes life is not quite so neat.Maris of Amberly, a fisherman's daughter, was raised by a flyer and wants nothing more than to soar on the currents high above Windhaven. By tradition, however, the wings must go to her stepbrother, Coll, the flyer's legitimate son. But Coll wants only to be a singer, traveling the world by sea. So Maris challenges tradition, demanding that flyers be chosen on the basis of merit rather than inheritance. And when she wins that bitter battle, she discovers that her troubles are only beginning.For not all flyers are willing to accept the world's new structure, and as Maris battles to teach those who yearn to fly, she finds herself likewise fighting to preserve the integrity of a society she so longed to join—not to mention the very fabric that holds her culture together.

    In the years between the first two Bugger Wars, the Hegemony is desperate to recruit brilliant military commanders to repel the alien invasion. They may have found their man--or boy--in John Paul Wiggin....In "Teacher's Pest"-a novella written especially for this collection--a brilliant but arrogant John Paul Wiggin, now a university student, matches wits with an equally brilliant graduate student. "The Investment Counselor" is set after the end of the Bugger Wars. Banished from Earth and slandered as a mass murderer, twenty-year-old Andrew Wiggin wanders incognito from planet to planet as a fugitive--until a blackmailing tax inspector compromises his identity and threatens to expose Ender the Xeoncide. Also reprinted here is the original award-winning novella, "Ender's Game," which first appeared in 1977.

    A young hero overcomes implacable foes to lead a planet fallen into a dark age back to the high point of its lost technological civilization. Contains The Anvil and The Steel in the General series.  Series relaunched in The Heretic and continuing in The Savior.After the collapse of the galactic Web, civilizations crumbled and chaos reigned on thousands of planets. Only on planet Bellevue was there a difference. There, a Fleet Battle Computer named Center had survived from the old civilization. When it found Raj Whitehall, the man who could execute its plan for reviving human civilization, he and Center started Bellevue back on the road leading to the stars. Now Raj Whitehall has come close to reuniting the entire planet of Bellevue. Because of his victories and because of the way he won them, Raj is loved by the people—and his army would follow him to Hell. Even those closest to him, his band of sworn companions and his wickedly subtle but utterly loyal wife, hold him in awe. And that's the problem. For though Raj battles only in the name of his emperor and has proven his loyalty again and again, still the half-mad jealousy and fear of that emperor Clerett is about to give Raj no choice but to revolt or face death and the loss of all he has gained for freedom.About prequel omnibus volume, Hope Reborn:"The various battles and intrigues–all of them very clever and some of them very unexpected–make up the core of these extremely well-written and unabashedly fun books. And really, the action never stops. I highly recommend them to you as they’ve come out in a tasty trade format that’s very easy to hold and lug around (they are, in other words, backpackable)."—Amazing Stories About the Raj Whitehall series:“[T]old with knowledge of military tactics and hardware, and vividly described action. . .devotees of military SF should enjoy themselves.”—Publishers Weekly“[A] thoroughly engrossing military sf series. . .superb battle scenes, ingenious weaponry and tactics, homages to Kipling, and many other goodies. High fun.”—Booklist

    But when he and his party were in the Aegean Bronze Age and unable to return to the 24th century until a predetermined instant, they were to find that there was more to the ancient legends than they had imagined.

    Stardance: Shara Drummond was a gifted dancer and a brilliant choreographer, but could not pursue her dream of dancing on Earth, so she went to space, creating a new art form in three dimensions. And when the aliens arrived, there was only one way to prove that the human race deserved not just to survive, but to reach the stars. The only hope was Shara, with her stardance. Starseed: Years later, another dancer of genius faced the end of her career when her body failed her, and Rain McLeod followed Shara into space. If she joined with a symbiotic lifeform that would let her live without artificial protection in the vacuum of space, she would take a quantum leap in human evolution. Starmind: Rand Porter has been offered the job of a lifetime, as a shaper of visual effects and music for the world's most famous zero-gravity dance company in High Orbit. But his beloved novelist wife Rhea Paixao has her roots sunk deep in the Earth, in her beloved Cape Cod. And as they wrestle with their private dilemma, bizarre things-small miracles-are beginning to occur everywhere on Earth and throughout the entire Solar System. The human race-and its evolutionary successors, the space-dwelling Stardancers-find themselves approaching the terrifying cusp of their shared destiny, an appointment made for them a million years ago, a make-or-break point beyond which nothing, anywhere, can ever be the same again.

    A new world rises--one of unshackled AIs, indestructible starships, ethereal quantum spaces & potent new weapons--& the race is on to determine who will control its future.When faced with its greatest challenge, will humanity rise to triumph or fall to ruin?*SIDESPACEHumanity is saved. But its troubles are just beginning.To achieve their extraordinary triumph over the Metigen armada, humanity put aside its myriad of conflicts & united against a common foe intent on annihilating civilization. In victory, unparalleled peace & prosperity are theirs for the taking--if they can keep hold of them.When the secrets behind the Metigens' defeat escape the shadows, the people who won the war find their lives in danger. Facing anti-synthetic terrorists who want them dead, power-hungry politicians who want them chained, & a rapidly dwindling number of people they can trust, the Prevos--individuals & AIs sharing a single body--must take their fate into their own hands.51 Portals. 51 Universes.Intent on learning the purpose behind the Metigens' elaborate multiverse network, Alex Solovy, Caleb Marano & Valkyrie embark on a gripping journey through the network's portals, each one leading to a universe not their own. In a mosaic of spaces inhabited by fantastical aliens & worlds both beautiful & deadly, they will be forced to question everything they thought they knew, including the nature of life itself.*DISSONANCEKnow this: you need not be afraid. They own the fear. They fear us because they believe we are powerful, and they are correct to do so.The technology behind Project Noetica is on the loose. Prevos are spreading across the galaxy. Now two opposing but inexorably related forces threaten to plunge the galaxy into chaos. The Order of the True Sentients believes Prevos are monsters who endanger humanity,& it intends to destroy them by any means necessary. Underworld despot Olivia Montegreu, now a radically enhanced Prevo, is its doomsday warnings made flesh.As society splinters from within & the Earth Alliance falls to reactionaries, a formidable new player emerges on the galactic stage, one not afraid to do whatever it takes to protect all sentient life--human, Artificial and Prevo.The Metigen surged forward to engulf her in light. I see you, Alexis Solovy.Killers & saviors. Deceivers & protectors. Destroyers & creators. Could the Metigens truly be all these things? The search for answers leads Alex and Caleb to the most shocking revelation of all--the true face of the enemy.*ABYSMIn the quest to be the masters of their own fate, will humanity rise to become liberators or follow the path of their ancestors into darkness?Alex Solovy & Caleb Marano risked everything to learn the hidden purpose behind the Metigens' multiverse portal network, but nothing prepared them for the answer. Humans are a genetic recreation of the Anaden, the dictators & overlords of the master universe. Aurora is a recreation of their origins created by the Metigens in a desperate gambit to understand their enemy & find a way to defeat them.Aurora's future hangs in the balance as the Earth Alliance goes to war with itself over the right of synthetics and Prevos--human/AI hybrids--to exist. Terrorists sow chaos in a wave of bombings and assassinations. The next evolution of the human species will not be so easily defeated, but they must move quickly to win the day, because the true enemy is closing in faster than anyone realizes.

    

    Though far from cuddly and rather large, it had always been obedient and docile. Except, that is, for the time it had eaten the secondhand Buick . . .But now, all of a sudden and without explanation, Lummox had begun chomping down on a variety of things—not least, a very mean dog and a cage of virtually indestructible steel. Incredible!John Thomas and Lummox were soon in awfully hot water, and they didn't know how to get out. And neither one really understood just how bad things were—or how bad the situation could get—until some space voyagers appeared and turned a far-from-ordinary family problem into an extraordinary confrontation.

    It is a lonely job, and a thankless one for the most part. Until something goes wrong. Until a ship is in distress. In the 23rd century, this job has moved into outer space. A network of beacons allows ships to travel across the Milky Way at many times the speed of light. These beacons are built to be robust. They never break down. They never fail. At least, they aren't supposed to.

    As anyone knows who has been touched by the storytelling magic of Anne McCaffrey, to read of the exotic world of Pern is to inhabit it—and to experience its extraordinary dragons is to soar aloft with them and share their dazzling adventures.Now, A Gift of Dragons brings together three beloved stories and a thrilling new tale of Pern in a single volume illustrated with beautiful artwork by Tom Kidd.In “The Smallest Dragonboy,” -Pern (Publication Order) #4.5- Keevan is the youngest dragonrider candidate, determined to impress a dragon when the next clutch of eggs hatches. But what transpires will surprise everyone—Keevan most of all.In “The Girl Who Heard Dragons,” -Pern (Publication Order) #8.5- a young girl’s rare ability to communicate with dragons puts her family in danger and will bring her face to face with her greatest fears—and with her most secret desire.The “Runner of Pern” -Pern (Publication Order) #15.5- is a girl named Tenna, who follows family tradition by delivering messages—and who will find her destiny on the mossy traces that runners have used for centuries under the dragon-filled sky.And finally, a very special gift: an exciting new Pern adventure, published here for the first time, fresh from the imagination of Anne McCaffrey. “Ever the Twain” -Pern (Publication Order) #16.5-

    Afraid of being thrown into an isolation chamber, Michael goes home, but quickly falls violently ill. By the time he recovers and returns to work scary things are happening. Everyone who has come into contact with that patient is being systematically killed. On the run, he accidentally infects a woman living in the shadows of the underworld. She becomes ill as well, but survives. Then they begin feeling younger-and younger. Why would the government want to suppress something like this? After barely escaping federal gunmen, the two of them set out to discover what kind of infection they are harboring even though it might mean the end of their freedom.