Unlucky number 13. Here you will find 13 short stories that will disturb your rest.

Something has gone wrong on the planet of Paradise.The human settlers - farmers and scientists - are finding that their crops won't grow and their lives are becoming more and more dangerous. The indigenous plant life - never entirely safe - is changing in unpredictable ways, and the imported plantings wither and die. And so the order is given - Paradise will be abandoned. All personnel will be removed and reassigned. And all human presence on the planet will be disestablished....

'Chevalier & Gawayn fulfils all the requirements a reader of speculative fantasy could hope for' Landfall ReviewThe earth has been ruined; plague is rife and people huddle behind city walls, underground or in remote villages. There are no animals, no birds - and no freedom. And the divide between rich and poor is growing ever greater.Into this world comes Chevalier, an unassuming tax inspector by day but a secret law-break...

Blue Genes...Ape-like and with one arm replaced by a claw, the not-quite-human Angelo and his beautiful female partner Ariadne are genetically bred rescuers programmed to travel vast distances through space in suspended animation to bring back Pioneers - explorers sent out from Earth generations ago to settle other planets. The latest mission is to rescue Pioneer Murray from the planet La Plage and to return to Earth where - as usual - decades have passed while they have been trave...

Britannia, 1993.In a world where the Roman legionaries never left Britain a man can walk from the walls of York - or Eburacum - to the southern seas without leaving the shade of the greenwood, inhabited by wildcats, wolves and bears, as well as the descendants of the folk who built Stonehenge. Solar-powered air cars journey along straight roads that connect them to the Roman settlements - and link them to the cities of a global empire.When a jealous feud forced three young p...

In its northern fastness Britannia - despite all the benefits of the Pax Romana, with its technology and brutally rationalist philosophy - has kept its mysterious secrets, hidden deep in the wild forests that still cover much of the land.As the Empire gathers its forces, three young people hold the future in their hands: the Roman Viti, now known as Coll, Angus the mechanic-turned-revolutionary and Mirana the student, now in touch with strange powers.And as the cold, ration...

Long before Paradise was properly colonised and investigated, one young woman was sent to explore the strange new world. Her mission - to find and rescue the discoverer of the planet, a young man obsessed with finding alien species and protecting them from rapacious humanity.Crispin's initial reports were positive, but became increasingly infrequent and jumbled. And then they stopped altogether. But his life support systems show green, and his hard-earned knowledge is needed.

Six stories from Phillip Mann, taken from his long and varied career.Includes stories from the Out of Time Cafe, a very unusual refuge from reality. It attracts people afflicted with a deep malaise. It offers what seems from the outside to be sanctuary, but it can be subversive too, for on entering the cafe, one gives up a certain amount of independence, and before one knows it one is trapped. There is no escape... save one: the lift which services the cellars descends... but no on...

The Japanese Military Field Code was explicit: 'Japanese forces do not surrender to the enemy under any circumstances.' How then would the eight hundred or so prisoners who found themselves in the first Japanese prisoner-of-war camp anywhere in the world behave? They had been brought from the Soloman Islands to Featherstone in 1942. Six months later an incident occurred in which forty-nine prisoners and one New Zealand guard were killed. Vincent O'Sullivan explores the implications of this...

Britannia is a land of forests - it is said a man can walk from the walls of Eboracum to the southern sea without leaving the shade of the greenwood - inhabited by wildcats, wolves and bears, as well as by the descendants of the folk who built Stonehenge. Traversing the forests, linking the Roman cities, are the straight Roman roads on which solar-powered aircars travel from the far north of Britain to expressways that link with London, Rome, Constantinople and beyond.In this world...

Vengeance of the oppressed...Pawl Paxwax was now Master of the eleven human families who rule the galaxy, and free to marry his loved one, the remarkable Laurel Beltane.But Pawl's happiness was to be short-lived. The many oppressed alien species who paid dearly for humanity's triumph were about to rise up in bloody retribution - with Pawl as their unwitting instrument.The Fall Families is the epic sequel to Master of Paxwax, an extraordinary interstellar revenge tra...

It is the far distant future. Humanity has spread across the galaxy, systematically wiping out, imprisoning and enslaving every species, hostile or not. Now the galaxy is ruled by the Eleven Families, each supreme in its own, vast realm.But beneath the surface of one dead and obscure planet lie the seeds of rebellion. For here, the survivors of the ravaged alien races have taken refuge, to plot their revenge on their barbaric conquerors - and the downfall of the human empire.