Utterly defenseless, they trekked through the grotesque jungle of multiform mushrooms and dense spore-clouds, hoping to unlock the secret of this strange world. The stunning climax of their mission was just the beginning of a complex drama in which their survival--and return to earth-could spell the extinction of humanity.

    Strange fireballs race through the sky above the deepest trenches of the oceans. Something is about to show itself, something terrible and alien, a force capable of causing global catastrophe.

    P. Lovecraft's "Pickman's model" - was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, while "Proboscis" was nominated for an International Horror Guild award and reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19. In addition to his previously published work, this collection contains an original story.

    What they find reveals the true, terrible cost of perfection—the cruelty of the surgeon's knife—the folly of the cull—and a monstrous pact with beings that use perfection as a weapon, and faith as a trap.

    He accidentally stumbles upon the probability broach, a portal to a myriad of worlds--some wildly different from, others disconcertingly similar to our own. Win finds himself transported to an alternate Earth where Congress is in Colorado, everyone carries a gun, there are gorillas in the Senate, and public services are controlled by private businesses.

    Each sought his own brand of happiness. But none could have guessed what awaited them. Not even in a million years....

    It was a 1961 Hugo Award nominee, losing to Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz. A novella-length version of the story was included in the anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 2, edited by Ben Bova.Before 1969, every science fiction writer wrote his or her own version of the first Moon landing. Few carry the horror of Budrys' unsettling story.During all recorded history, the Moon has hovered above our heads, a timeless symbol for lovers' ecstasy. Goddesses & Gibson Girls have tripped the light fantastic of her beams while sonneteers & scientists have scanned her changing phases. Now humans had actually reached the Moon, & on it the explorers found a structure, a formation so terrible & incomprehensible that it couldn't even be described in human terms. It was a thing that devoured people; that killed them again & again in torturous, unfathomable ways.Earthbound are the only two men who could probe the thing: Al Barker, a reckless thrill-seeker, whose loving mistress was death, & Dr. Edward Hawks, a scientific murderer, whose greatest mission was rebirth.

    But this is not the devil you know. This is a being who deals fairly with immense—but not unlimited—power, who offers opportunities to people who want to make a deal, and makes sure they always get what they deserve. But his land is a wild west that needs a human touch, and that’s where Izzy comes in. Inadvertently trained by him to see the clues in and manipulations of human desire, Izzy is raised to be his left hand and travel the circuitous road through the territory. As we all know, where there is magic there is power and chaos…and death.

    On the day of the launch of the first expedition to Mars, by giant cannon, he outdoes himself with an audacious attack. For young poet Orphan, trapped in the screaming audience, it seems his destiny is entwined with that of the shadowy terrorist, but how? Like a steam-powered take on V for Vendetta, rich with satire and slashed through with automatons, giant lizards, pirates, airships and wild adventure, The Bookman is the first of a series. (Description from Amazon.com)

    In the twenty-third century pioneers have escaped the crowded earth for life in self-sustaining orbital colonies.  One of the colonies, Rotor, has broken away from the solar system to create its own renegade utopia around an unknown red star two light-years from Earth:  a star named Nemesis.  Now a fifteen-year-old Rotorian girl has learned of the dire threat that nemesis poses to Earth's people--but she is prevented from warning them.  Soon she will realize that Nemesis endangers Rotor as well.  And so it will be up to her alone to save both Earth and Rotor as--drawn inexorably by Nemesis, the death star--they hurtle toward certain disaster.

    . . Science fiction’s most illustrious and visionary authors hold forth the ultimate alternate history collection. Here you’ll experience mind-bending tales that challenge your views of the past, present, and future, including:• "The Lucky Strike": When The Lucky Strike is chosen over The Enola Gay to drop the first atomic bomb, fate takes an unexpected turn in Kim Stanley Robinson’s gripping tale.• "Bring the Jubilee": Ward Moore’s novella masterpiece offers a rebel victory at Gettysburg which changes the course of the Civil War . . . and all of American history.• "Through Road No Wither": After Hitler’s victory in World War II, two Nazi officers confront their destiny in Greg Bear’s apocalyptic vision of the future.• "All the Myriad Ways": Murder or suicide, Ambrose Harmon’s death leads the police down an infinite number of pathways in Larry Niven’s brilliant and defining tale of alternatives and consequences.• "Mozart in Mirrorshades": Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner explore a terrifying era as the future crashes into the past–with disastrous results.. . . as well as works by Poul Anderson • Gregory Benford • Jack L. Chalker • Nicholas A. DiChario • Brad Linaweaver • William Sanders • Susan Shwartz • Allen Steele • and Harry Turtledove himself!The definitive collection: fourteen seminal alternate history tales drawing readers into a universe of dramatic possibility and endless wonder.

    For the first time in one volume: every word Bruce Sterling has ever written on the Shapers-Mechanists Universe.In the last decade, Sterling has emerged a pioneer of crucial, cutting-edge science fiction. Now Ace Books is proud to offer Sterling's stunning world of the Schismatrix--where Shaper revolutionaries struggle against aristocratic Mechanists for ultimate control of man's destiny. This volume includes the classic full-length novel, Schismatrix, plus thousands of words of mind-bending short fiction.

    He also possesses raw magical talent and the ability to make objects in his vicinity light as a feather or as heavy as depleted uranium, all with a magical thought. It's no wonder the G-men turn to Jake when they need someone to go after a suspected killer who's been knocking off banks in a magic-enhanced crime spree. Problems arise when Jake discovers the bad girl behind the robberies is an old friend, and he happens to know her magic is just as powerful as his, and the Feds have plunged Jake into a secret battle between powerful cartels of magic-users--a cartel whose ruthless leaders have decided that Jake is far too dangerous to live. . . .

    Once they were human; now they are unkin, transformed by the ancient machine-code language of reality itself. They seek The Book of All Hours, the mythical tome within which the blueprint for all reality is transcribed, which has been lost somewhere in the Vellum - the vast realm of eternity upon which our world is a mere scratch.The Vellum, where the unkin are gathering for war.The Vellum, where a fallen angel and a renegade devil are about to settle an age-old feud.The Vellum, where the past, present, and future will collide with ancient worlds and myths.And the Vellum will burn. . . .

    But even Blaine was unprepared for what happened when he communed with the soul of an utterly alien being lightyears from Earth. After recovering from his experience, he becomes a dangerous man: not only has he gained startling new powers—but he now understands that humankind must share the stars.Hunted through time and space by those who he used to trust, Blaine undergoes a unique odyssey that takes him through a nightmarish version of small-town America as he seeks to find others who share his vision of a humane future. Blaine has mastered death and time. Now he must master the fear and ignorance that threatened to destroy him!