The starliner Pollyanna has experienced a catastrophic nav failure and is marooned in the far reaches of space. On board is Lucieus Estarion, powerfully talented member of the Psi-Corps, that was on his way home. Now, he is the only asset the stranded passengers and crew have as they experience humanity's First Contact.

Poppy Wilde is a free-spirited budding photographer who falls in love with the enigmatic writer, Aurion Mooreland, who worksfor a big-time nature magazine and has a BIG-time secret.Poppy is an orphan and has learned to guard her heart well until Aurion and Avianna's lovebreak past her barriers.Along with his mother Avianna they have so far lived a safe and ordinary life untiltheir past and their secrets are put in danger by Samuel Geissler.Samue...

Powerful mage and dandy, Vaj Uldarian, has settled down into a rather quiet life after decades of wild adventuring. He has long since escaped the memories of his youth and settled into his role as semi-respectable, sometime decadent adult. So when he receives word from his first lover that his mother is ill, for the first time in decades he returns to his childhood home and the family he left behind one horrible, heart-breaking night.A lush, fantasy world of magic and danger seen t...

To anyone interested in the roots of modern science fiction, the name of Ray Cummings should be well known. He wrote science fiction and fantasy before the name "science fiction" had been coined, publishing fantastic yarns in Argosy, Munsey's Magazine, and other mainstream magazines. Of course, as soon as the science fiction pulps debuted, he moved to them, where his work received a hearty welcome from fans. Cummings publishing more than 750 novels and short stories over ...

The final contact made by the Daedalus Mission begins badly, even before the ship makes a hard landing in the middle of nowhere. The situation of the colony doesn't seem to make any sense, and neither does the situation of the indigenous aliens--the Sets--that have helped the colony survive and thrive. Alex Alexander doesn't take long to work out a hypothesis that might explain the mystery--a hypothesis that the people on the ground have already worked out for themselves--and he's fortunat...

Mack Reynolds was a frequent and prolific contributor to the science fiction magazines from the 1950s through the 1970s. This volume collects 23 choice tales, ranging from space opera to social science fiction—over a thousand pages vintage work from a master storyteller!Included are:HAPPY ENDINGULTIMA THULEGUN FOR HIREADAPTATIONSTOWAWAYMEDAL OF HONORI’M A STRANGER HERE MYSELFSTATUS QUOUNBORN TOMORROWSUMMIT...

n Damien Broderick’s haunting tale, “The Meek,” the survivors of humanity’s drive toward racial suicide must pay an awful price for their continued survival. John Glasby’s “Innsmouth Bane” tells how the alien entity Dagon first came to nineteenth-century America. In “Helen’s Last Will,” James C. Glass shows us that death may not always be “the end.” Charles Allen Gramlich’s “I Can Spend You” is a futuristic western which puts prospecting in a whole new light! “The Voice of the Dolphin in A...

The planet Attica has two continents: Lambda and Delta. The indigenous alien population being restricted to Delta, Earth's colony was planted on Lambda. Before the arrival of the Daedalus, two sailing ships had set out from Lambda to cross the ocean separating the two continents, and neither had returned. Now a third is on its way, and Mariel Valory and Alex Alexander of the Daedalus have hitched a lift, in order that Mariel might use her talent to try to make contact with the aliens. Unfo...

Jorie Taylor has lived her whole life on the generation ship Beacon. Fleeing an Earth tearing itself apart through its exhaustive demand for resources, the Beacon is finally approaching Sarbras, the planet circling Tau Ceti which they hope to make humanity's new home.But Earth has recovered from its near-death experience and is now under the control of a ruthless dictator whose sights are set on Tau Ceti as well. President Jurudu knows how to get what he wants - and he wants Sarbra...

Captain Neal Bishop hasn't been having very good luck. While recovering from injuries, he had the misfortune of catching his Commander spending quality time with a superior's wife. That landed him a rather dull rehab assignment body-guarding a group of scientists at an archeological site.But this site wasn't like any other. This moon had never been colonized by humans, and until a miner's drill pierced one wall just three weeks ago, this cavern had never been exposed to air.S...

It is a time of peace and stability in the galaxy, all the major powers that inhabit it, E.O.C.A, Solarian, Krenaran and Dracos have largely kept to their own affairs. This is not to last however as a new threat looms on the far fringes of the galaxy, an enemy like no other, intent on eradicating all life is sweepeing through space and destroying all before it. Only by working together can the major powers hope to prevail against this ancient enemy, their ships blot out the stars, their le...

Five years have passed since the great Krenaran war, and humanity have began to rebuild from the devastation wrought upon them.A love survey ship drops out of plasma drive on the fringes of the far flung Auriga system, searching for potential new colony worlds.As it ventures further in-system, the crew are excited to discover what appears to be an immense alien installation built upon the surface of one of the planets. An installation abandoned for some three hundred years....