and expert at seeing the cosmos on 30 Altairian dollars a day. Ford lives by the Guide's seminal bit of advice: Don't Panic. Which comes in handy when their first ride--on the very same vessel that demolished Earth to make way for a hyperspacial freeway--ends disastrously (they are booted out of an airlock). with 30 seconds of air in their lungs and the odd of being picked up by another ship 2^276,709 to 1 against, the pair are scooped up by the only ship in the universe powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive.But this (and the idea that Bogart movies and McDonald's hamburgers now exist only in his mind) is just the beginning of the weird things Arthur will have to get used to. For, on his travels, he'll encounter Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-President of the Galaxy; Trillian, a sexy spacecadet he once tried to pick up at a cocktail party, now Zaphod's girlfriend; Marvin, a chronically depressed robot; and Slartibartfast, the award-winning engineer who built the Earth and travels in a spaceship disguised as a bistro.Arthur's crazed wanderings will take him from the restaurant at the end of the Universe (where the main dish of the day introduces itself and the floor show is doomsday), to the planet Krikkit (locked in Slo-Time to punish its inhabitants for trying to end the Universe), to Earth (huh? wait! wasn't it destroyed?!) to the very offices of The Hitchhiker's Guide itself as he and his friends quest for the answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything ... and search for a really good cup of tea.Ready or not, Arthur Dent is in for one hell of a ride!

    In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fancy often leads him astray—he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants—Sancho acquires cunning and a certain sagacity. Sane madman and wise fool, they roam the world together, and together they have haunted readers' imaginations for nearly four hundred years.With its experimental form and literary playfulness, Don Quixote has been generally recognized as the first modern novel. The book has been enormously influential on a host of writers, from Fielding and Sterne to Flaubert, Dickens, Melville, and Faulkner, who reread it once a year, "just as some people read the Bible."

    As a ragged impoverished boy, he had been one with the villagers. Now, as the new Earl, he's met with hostility and resentment, especially from his childhood sweetheart, Marged Evans. To make things right with his people (and to win back Marged), he masquerades as a "Rebecca," one of the bewigged, white-cloaked leaders of the 1842 riots against Welsh toll roads. Disguised as a man, Marged rides as one of Rebecca's "daughters," and, as to be expected, falls in love with the man behind the mask.

    Levine * Paul J. McAuley * Mary Rosenblum * Daryl Gregory * Jack Skillingstead * Paolo Bacigalupi * Greg Egan * Elizabeth Bear * Sarah Monette * Ken MacLeod * Stephen Baxter * Carolyn Ives Gilman * John Barnes * A.M. DellamonicaSupplementing the stories are the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and a list of honorable mentions, making this book a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart. Contentsxiii • Summation: 2006 • (2007) • essay by Gardner Dozois1 • I, Row-Boat • (2006) • novelette by Cory Doctorow28 • Julian: A Christmas Story • (2006) • novella by Robert Charles Wilson66 • Tin Marsh • (2006) • novelette by Michael Swanwick81 • The Djinn's Wife • [India 2047] • (2006) • novelette by Ian McDonald112 • The House Beyond Your Sky • (2006) • shortstory by Benjamin Rosenbaum121 • Where the Golden Apples Grow • (2006) • novella by Kage Baker164 • Kin • (2006) • shortstory by Bruce McAllister172 • Signal to Noise • (2006) • novelette by Alastair Reynolds204 • The Big Ice • (2006) • shortstory by Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold221 • Bow Shock • (2006) • novelette by Gregory Benford251 • In the River • (2006) • shortstory by Justin Stanchfield266 • Incarnation Day • (2006) • novella by Walter Jon Williams295 • Far As You Can Go • (2006) • shortstory by Greg van Eekhout305 • Good Mountain • (2005) • novella by Robert Reed350 • I Hold My Father's Paws • (2006) • shortstory by David D. Levine360 • Dead Men Walking • (2006) • novelette by Paul J. McAuley374 • Home Movies • (2006) • novelette by Mary Rosenblum395 • Damascus • (2006) • novelette by Daryl Gregory418 • Life on the Preservation • (2006) • shortstory by Jack Skillingstead431 • Yellow Card Man • [The Windup Universe] • (2006) • novelette by Paolo Bacigalupi457 • Riding the Crocodile • (2005) • novella by Greg Egan492 • The Ile of Dogges • (2006) • shortstory by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette499 • The Highway Men • (2006) • novelette by Ken MacLeod524 • The Pacific Mystery • (2006) • shortstory by Stephen Baxter540 • Okanoggan Falls • (2006) • novelette by Carolyn Ives Gilman566 • Every Hole Is Outlined • (2006) • novelette by John Barnes589 • The Town on Blighted Sea • (2006) • shortstory by A. M. Dellamonica606 • Nightingale • [Revelation Space] • (2006) • novella by Alastair Reynolds653 • Honorable Mentions: 2006 • (2007) • essay by Gardner Dozois

    There he meets the fifteen foot tall, four armed, green men of mars, with horse-like dragons, and watch dogs like oversized frogs with ten legs. His adventures continue as he battles great white apes, fights plant men, defies the Goddess of Death, and braves the frozen wastes of Polar Mars. In other adventures, the Prince of Helium encounters a race of telepathic warriors, the Princess of Helium confronts the headless men of Mars, Captain Ulysses Paxton learns the secret of human immortality, and Tan Hadron's idealized notion of love is tested as he fights off gigantic spiders and cannibals. Edgar Rice Burroughs vision of Mars was loosely inspired by astronomical speculation of the time, especially that of Percival Lowell, who saw the red planet as a formerly Earth-like world now becoming less hospitable to life due to its advanced age. Burroughs predicted the invention of homing devices, radar, sonar, autopilot, collision detection, television, teletype, genetic cloning, living organ transplants, antigravity propulsion, and many other concepts that were well ahead of his time. The books in the Barsoom series were an early inspiration to many, including science fiction authors Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury, they influenced renowned scientist Carl Sagan in his quest for extraterrestrial life, and were instrumental in the making of James Cameron's Avatar, and George Lucas' Star Wars. This edition includes 35 illustrations by Frank Schoonover, J. Allan St. John, V. Cutta, P. J. Monahan, George Wildschut & Frank R. Paul.

    Neither the affection that surrounds him, nor the good living conditions can make him overcome his innermost desire to go back to his roots...

    For aeons this golden-skinned, golden-eyed race had provided the universe mercenary soldiers of almost unimaginable ability. But now the mri have faced an enemy unlike any other - an enemy whose only way of war is widespread destruction. These "humans" are mass fighters, creatures of the herd, and the mri have been slaughtered like animals.Now, in the aftermath of war, the mri face extinction. It will be up to three individuals to save whatever remains of this devastated race: a warrior - one of the last survivors of his kind; a priestess of this honorable people; and a lone human - a man sworn to aid the enemy of his own kind. Can they retrace the galaxy-wide path of this nomadic race back through millennia to reclaim the ancient world which first gave them life?

    Scrupulously following the fluidity and breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, Mark Harman’s new translation reveals levels of comedy, energy, and visual power, previously unknown to English language readers.

    

    When Rufus' growing reputation as an animal trainer and his friendship with Cupido, one of Rome's greatest gladiators, attract the cruel gaze of the Emperor, Rufus is bought from his master and taken to the imperial palace as the keeper of the imperial elephant. Rufus soon sees that life here is dictated by Caligula’s ever shifting moods—he is as generous as he is cruel and he is a megalomaniac who declares himself a living god who simultaneously lives in constant fear of the plots against his life. Caligula's paranoia is not misplaced, and Rufus and Cupido find themselves unwittingly placed at the center of a conspiracy to assassinate the Emperor.

    At first sight, he described it as "a most picturesque and beautiful city, situated in one of the loveliest landscapes that I have ever seen." Irving was preparing a book called A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, a history of the years 1478–1492, and was continuing his research on the topic. He immediately asked the then-governor of the historic Alhambra Palace as well as the archbishop of Granada for access to the palace, which was granted because of Irving's celebrity status. Aided by a 17-year old guide named Mateo Ximenes, Irving was inspired by his experience to write Tales of the Alhambra. Throughout his trip, he filled his notebooks and journals with descriptions and observations though he did not believe his writing would ever do it justice. He wrote, "How unworthy is my scribbling of the place." Irving continued to travel through Spain until he was appointed as secretary of legation at the United States Embassy in London, serving under the incoming minister Louis McLane. He arrived in London by late September 1829.

    This volume includes the titles Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

    Become entranced with the basic struggle of good vs. evil as you travel to a galaxy far, far away.

    With brilliant wit, idiosyncratic intelligence, and a bold grasp of intricate political realities, the celebrated author of Flaubert's Parrot turns his satiric glance homeward to England, in a sparkling collection of essays that illustrates the infinite variety of contemporary London life.

    Leskov deftly layers social satire and subtle criticism atop myth and fable, resulting in a richly entertaining collection.