Search Worlds Without End

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Engineering Infinity (2010), edited by Jonathan Strahan. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection (2012), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six (2012), edited by Jonathan Strahan. The story is included in the collection Obelisk (2016).

Sturgeon Award nominated short story. It originally appeared on Subterranean Online, Spring 2010. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Five (2011), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011, edited by Rich Horton, Year's Best SF 16 (2011), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer and The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection (2011), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collection Adrift in the Noösphere: Science Fiction Stories (2012).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean.

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1965. The story can also be found in the anthologies Best SF Seven (1970) edited by Edmund Crispin and Alpha 3 (1972), edited by Robert Silverberg. It is included in the collection Under Compulsion (1968).

Science fiction chapbook based on "The Aquatic Ape" and "The Descent of Woman" by Elaine Morgan. A stunning story of an alien exiled to an exotic world, the peaceful inhabitants he finds there and his attempts to "civilize" them. Collected in Report to the Men's Club and Other Stories and anthologized in Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy (1998).

Simon Wagstaff narrowly escapes the Deluge that destroys Earth when he happens upon an abandoned spaceship. A man without a planet, he gains immortality from an elixir drunk during an interlude with a cat-like alien queen. Now Simon must chart a 3,000-year course to the most distant corners of the multiverse, to seek out the answers to the questions no one can seem to answer.

Originally published under the pseudonym Kilgore Trout, the fictional SF author created by Kurt Vonnegut.

A young man commits the classic error of jokingly placing his engagement Ring on a park's statue of Aphrodite - which the Goddess animates, loftily accepting his presumed love and causing predictable fiancée trouble.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, December 2016. It can also be found in the anthology The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017, edited by John Joseph Adams and Charles Yu.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Sturgeon Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology Microcosms (2004), edited by Gregory Benford. The story can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 10 (2005), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. It is included in the collection Thumbprints (2004).

Venus Equilateral

It was the nerve center of the solar system, the only interplanetary communication space station that could relay messages around the sun and across the galaxy.

Manned by Dr. Don Channing and acrew of tough, dedicated men and women, Venus Equilateral was vital for all space emergencies.

But it was also vulnerable--Making it ripe for:

TROUBLE ... when an underground power coup surfaced on Venus;

DANGER ...when an efficiency expert's efficiency became deadly;

MADNESS ...when a matter duplicatior doubled up too often;

AND LOTS MORE ...like space pirates, paranormal phenomena, and nor least those villainous chaps who control Terran Electric!

Table of Contents:

• ix - Introduction (The Complete Venus Equilateral) - essay by Arthur C. Clarke
• 2 - QRM - Interplanetary - [Venus Equilateral] - (1942) - novelette
• 41 - Calling the Empress - [Venus Equilateral] - (1943) - novelette
• 69 - Recoil - [Venus Equilateral] - (1943) - novelette
• 104 - Lost Art - [Venus Equilateral] - (1943) - novelette
• 132 - Off the Beam - [Venus Equilateral] - (1944) - novelette
• 168 - The Long Way - [Venus Equilateral] - (1944) - novelette
• 202 - Beam Pirate - [Venus Equilateral] - (1944) - novelette
• 244 - Firing Line - [Venus Equilateral] - (1944) - novelette (variant of The Firing Line)
• 282 - Special Delivery - [Venus Equilateral] - (1945) - novelette
• 317 - Pandora's Millions - [Venus Equilateral] - (1945) - novelette
• 348 - Mad Holiday - [Venus Equilateral] - (1947) - short story
• 406 - The External Triangle - [Venus Equilateral] - (1973) - short story (variant of Interlude)
• 427 - Identity - [Venus Equilateral] - (1945) - novelette

Contains 10 of the 13 stories that are included in "The Complete Venus Equilateral" (1976).

Table of Contents:

• Venus Equilateral - interior artwork by Sol Levin
• 8 - Introduction (Venus Equilateral) - essay by John W. Campbell, Jr.
• 14 - QRM - Interplanetary - (1942) - novelette
• 59 - Calling the Empress - (1943) - novelette
• 93 - Recoil - (1943) - novelette
• 135 - Off the Beam - (1944) - novelette
• 177 - The Long Way - (1944) - novelette
• 217 - Beam Pirate - (1944) - novelette
• 265 - Firing Line - (1944) - novelette (variant of The Firing Line)
• 311 - Special Delivery - (1945) - novelette
• 351 - Pandora's Millions - (1945) - novelette
• 389 - Mad Holiday - short story

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Visual Journeys: A Tribute to Space Artists (2007), edited by Eric T. Reynolds. The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (2008), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection The Radio Magician and Other Stories (2009).

Primitive literacy is redundant. Mere words are expelled. We inaugurate a world of pure presence. The mind, that intrudes itself between ourselves and those memories too terrible to know, must keep us moving beyond the grasp of their claw. To control the flow, it will be necessary that political order be imposed always temporarily. The state shall enjoy direct, creative access to the real.

It's the end of the twenty-third century. Earth has violently self-destructed. Venusia, an experimental off-world colony, survives under the enlightened totalitarianism of the Princeps Crittendon regime. Using industrialized narcotics, holographic entertainment, and memory control, Crittendon has turned Venusia into a self-sustaining system of relative historical inertia. But when mild-mannered junk dealer Rogers Collectibles finds a book about early Venusian history, the colony--once fully immersed in the present--begins losing its grip on the real. With his Reality-V girlfriend Martha Dobbs, neuroscop operator Sylvia Yang, his midget friend Niftus Norrington, and a sentient plant, Rogers wages a war to alter the shape of spacetime, and in the process, revisions the whole human (and vegetable) condition.

Mark von Schlegell received a PhD in English and American literature from New York University. His criticism and fiction has appeared internationally in anthologies, artist books, magazines, and catalogs, from Brazil to Denmark. He has worked as an editor, archivist, cartographer, security guard, librarian, and plumber's assistant, but currently divides his time between Los Angeles and Cologne, writing and teaching. Venusia is his first novel.

We, the Venusians

Venus and its natives are exploited by humans.

The Water of Thought

One explorer had already disappeared on the primitive planet, Kappa. So the day that a second Terrestrial, Jones, ran away after drinking the sacred Kappan water that he had coerced the natives into giving him, the remaining planetologists meant to find out just what was going on.

Questioning the aliens only deepened the mystery. For they said that what Jones had drunk would enable him to communicate with his animal ancestors. It was their most precious and sacred possession.

But how could it affect a person never born on Kappa, a person without such "animal" ancestors? What had really happened to Jones and the other man - and what would happen if either of them managed to bring this incredible liquid back to Earth?

Under the article on Venus in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, the writer says that "Philip Latham's Five Against Venus is a Venusian Robinsonade." Indeed, in overall form the story is Swiss Family Robinson in space, though the precipitating crisis owes more to the 1950 movie Rocketship X-M.

The Silent Invaders

Abner Harris was sent to Earth on a mission of extreme urgency: the universe was in danger of enslavement by the pebble-skinned Medlins, and the fight against them called for Harris to assume the disguise of a flesh-and-blood Earthman.

But once in that new synthetic body, he discovered that the real villains of space were not the Medlins or the people of Earth; THEY WERE HIS OWN KIND.

Suddenly he was alone, alienated from his own race, hated by the Medlins, and an imposter on Earth. No matter what side he chose he'd be a traitor.

Yet choose he must... or forever remain a man without a planet.

Battle on Venus

Earth's first spaceship to Venus landed amidst a war where strange weapons like the archaic ones used in the old wars on Earth in the twentieth century hurled shells at each other. But this war had lasted over a thousand years--and by remote control!

George Starkey had to find a way to stop the war before the little group of astronauts became early casualties. But how? Where were the headquarters of the contending sides and how do you tell a robot tank that you're neutral?

But George had an ally, a Venusian girl who thought stealing was virtuous--and, unknowingly, he had something else that turned out to be the most valuable substance on Venus--a box of chocolate bars!

The Three Suns of Amara

Wher the natural laws of the universe are suspended, so is sanity.

Battle on Venus

Earth's first spaceship to Venus landed amidst a war where strange weapons like the archaic ones used in the old wars on Earth in the twentieth century hurled shells at each other. But this war had lasted over a thousand years--and by remote control!

George Starkey had to find a way to stop the war before the little group of astronauts became early casualties. But how? Where were the headquarters of the contending sides and how do you tell a robot tank that you're neutral?

But George had an ally, a Venusian girl who thought stealing was virtuous--and, unknowingly, he had something else that turned out to be the most valuable substance on Venus--a box of chocolate bars!

To Venus! To Venus!

S.O.S. from an analogue of hell.

The Jester at Scar

Scar: a harsh, inhospitable world with a vicious and shifting population of prospectors, drawn from every corner of the galaxy by rumours of a miraculous golden spore. To this violent planet come two more travellers, ready to try their luck among its lethal jungles: the cruel, mocking Lord of Jest - and Dumarest, driven by destiny on his endless search for Lost Earth...

Her code name is Sparta. Her beauty veils a mysterious past and abilities far surpassing those of a normal human. For she is more than human: Sparta is the first product of advanced biotech engineering. But now she is little more than a cipher to herself-crucial memories of the past three years are locked away in the dark recesses of her brain. When the crippled freighter Star Queen arrives at Venus Station with a lone survivor on board, Sparta must risk her life to investigate what really happened during its deadly voyage in space. She must solve this mystery even as she unlocks another-the truth behind her own identity...

This tautly paced story brings together the genius of Arthur C. Clarke and Paul Preuss, whose work has been described by The New York Times as "Lively, intelligent... hard-driving."

The second volume of the spectacular science-fiction thriller evolving from the works of Arthur C. Clarke, grandmaster of science fiction and author of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Her code name is Sparta. Her beauty veils a mysterious past and abilities of superhuman dimension-the product of advanced biotech engineering. When a team of scientists is trapped in the gaseous inferno of Venus, Sparta must risk her life to save them, unaware that her actions will help recover a mysterious artifact: irrefutable evidence of life on another planet. As the secrets of the artifact are revealed, Sparta uncovers a mystery which may lead her to the truth of her own destiny.

Dare Chin, responsible for the safety of the Martian Plaque, the priceless artifact which proves that intelligent beings existed on Mars a billion years ago, and Dr. Morland, a visiting scientist to the Labyrinth City of Mars interested in experimenting on the plaque, are both found dead, and the plaque stolen. Sparta, alias Inspector Ellis Troy, is sent on an interstellar hunt to retrieve the plaque and trace the killers. Will she be able to overcome the life-threatening pain she frequently experiences and the evil designs of the killers?

The third volume in a series of science-fiction thrillers evolving from the works of Arthur C. Clarke, grandmaster of science fiction.

Recovering from a mission on Mars, Sparta finds herself the guest of the Space Board. But relaxation is short-lived as Sparta soon sets out to investigate the Board itself. It appears that members of Free Spirit, a religious cult bent on galactical control, have infiltrated the Space Board.

The fourth volume in a series of science-fiction thrillers evolving from the works of Arthur C. Clarke, grandmaster of science fiction.

Much excitement has arisen throughout the galaxy over the exploration mission to Jupiter's moon, Amalthea. Led by the renowned Professor J.Q.R. Forster, the dangerous expedition will lead its members to the surface of this strange moon -- and beyond. It is Sparta's mission to monitor the trip on the part of the Board of Space Control. Her task becomes more threatening when Sir Randolph Mays, Forster's rival and nemesis, "accidentally" crash-lands on Amalthea's surface. Far from innocent, Mays has a plan for laying claim to Forster's discoveries, and only Sparta is able to prevent sabotage. But what is Mays really after? And how will they all react to the discovery of an alien life-form...?

The fifth volume in a series of science-fiction thrillers evolving from the works of Arthur C. Clarke, grandmaster of science fiction.

World renowned professor J.Q.R. Forster's expedition to Jupiter's moon has not proven uneventful. In a furious blaze of ice geysers, the moon's surface rips off to reveal an ancient alien world-ship. But when the world-ship suddenly hurtles through space toward a black hole, Sparta must find out why, and soon, from a mysterious alien from an unknowable culture, little knowing that what is about to unfold will determine the future of Earth. As the alien ship charts it's ancient course, the scheming Sir Randolph Mays and Sparta unwittingly head for their final battle through the eons in the midst of galactic civil war.

The concluding volume in a series of science-fiction thrillers evolving from the works of arthur c. clarke, grandmaster of science fiction.

This is a new collection of 13 proto-science fiction tales and other scientific romances, penned between 1796 and 1921, translated and annotated by renowned science fiction writer and scholar Brian Stableford. From cosmic journeys exploring Mars and Jupiter, examining the nature, languages and reproductive methods of various alien species, to the tale of a man who awakens 10,000 years in the future when the Moon has broken apart and rained debris upon the Earth and suspension bridges link the planets of the Solar System; from future war stories, the discovery of automata and telepathy, to speculations about the extraterrestrial origins of Life on Earth, the tales gathered here exemplify the manifest intention of writers from the 18th and 19th centuries to create a new genre of imaginative fiction. The title piece, written in 1913, was the first-ever published item in a series of propagandistic works of fiction by rocket enthusiasts. It is remarkable for its description of space travel, and its attempt to design a hypothetical biosphere for another planet.

Table of Contents:

• Posthumous Correspondence - short fiction by Restif de La Bretonne (trans. of Les posthumes, lettres reçues après la mort du mari par sa femme qui le croit à Florence (excerpt) 1802)
• Perfectibility - short fiction by Charles Nodier (trans. of Hurlubleu grand Manifafa d'Hurlubière ou la perfectibilité: Histoire progressive 1833)
• he Story of a Naiad - short fiction by Louis Ulbach (trans. of Histoire d'une naïade 1858)
• Astronomical Journeys - short fiction by X. B. Saintine (trans. of Courses astronomiques 1864)
• War in 1894 - short fiction by Adrien Robert (trans. of La guerre en 1894 1867)
• The Origin of Life - short fiction by Eugène Mouton (trans. of L'origine de la vie 1877)
• Quiet House - (1885) - short fiction by Jules Lermina
• The Automaton - short fiction by Remy de Gourmont (trans. of L'automate 1889)
• The Future Terror - short fiction by Marcel Schwob (trans. of La terreur future 1891)
• A Rival of Edison - short fiction by Louis Mullem (trans. of Un rival d'Edison 1909)
• Erebium - (1904) - short fiction by Alphonse Allais
• The Germans on Venus - short fiction by André Mas (trans. of Les Allemands sur Vénus 1914)
• Telepathy - (1921) - short fiction by Théo Varlet

An unmanned probe returning from Venus crashes in the African desert; a Venusian spore on board thrives in its new environment; a grey mold quickly spreading and killing all it touches. An urgent manned mission to Venus is launched from Lunaville, the now permanent Moon base.

Chris Godfrey, Morrey Kant, Serge Smyslov, Tony Hale and Pierre a scientist are sent to try and discover what limits the mould's growth in its natural environment. The plan is to collect samples from the Venusian atmosphere but in the end a forced landing is required...

"You want me to help you eat your children?" Ian said.

Jellenhut's eye-stalks twitched. "How else would we remember them?"

Venus is dying. When the Doctor, Barbara and Ian arrive they find an ancient and utterly alien civilization on the verge of oblivion. War is brewing between those who are determined to accept death, and those desperate for salvation whatever the cost.

Then a spacefaring race arrives, offering to rescue the Venusians by moving them all to Earth -- three billion years before mankind is due to evolve. Are the newcomers' motives as pure as they appear? And will the Doctor allow them to save his oldest friends by sacrificing the future of humanity?

Charlie Johns has been snatched from his home on 61 North 34th Street and delivered to the strange future world of Ledom. Here, violence is a vague and improbable notion. Technology has triumphed over hunger, overpopulation, pollution, even time and space. But there is a change Charlie finds even more shocking: gender is a thing of the past. Venus Plus X is Theodore Sturgeon's brilliant evocation of a civilization for whom tensions between male and female and the human preoccupation with sex no longer exist.

As Charlie Johns explores Ledom and its people, he finds that the human precepts he holds dear are profane in this new world. But has Charlie learned all there is to know about this advanced society? And why are the Ledom so intent on gaining Charlie's approval? Unsettling, compelling, and no less than visionary, here is science fiction at its boldest: a novel whose wisdom and lyricism make it one of the most original and insightful speculations on gender ever produced.

In the sprawling spheres far below the boundless seas of the planet, the earthmen had established an incredible civilization. But now, a series of seemingly trivial accidents threatened to obliterate all that the men had created.

It was Lucky's job, as a representative of the powerful Council of Science, to find the evil and root it out.

Yet by the time he discovered the insidious force which preyed on the minds of men, the only enemy he could hope to destroy . . . was firmly lodged within his own head!

More than a 150,000 women have been kidnapped without a trace or any ransom demand in the 'normal' world run by the Federalists and the bureaucracy. But that is not the only problem, because the freedom loving population in the 'alternate' reality of the North American Confederacy are facing their own crises.

People are disappearing across the Probability Broach, including Win Bear's closest friend, Featherstone-Haugh (who heads the Confederacy), and even Win's wife and assistant.

Ill (and deadly) winds are blowing and threatening to destroy the Probability Broach as we know it. Win Bear, keeping one step ahead of lethal assassins and fighting incredible odds, must solve multiple apparantly disparate cases that all seem to lead to the end of freedom.

Sixteen all-new stories by science fiction's top talents, collected by bestselling author George R. R. Martin and multiple-award-winning editor Gardner Dozois

From pulp adventures such as Edgar Rice Burroughs's Carson of Venus to classic short stories such as Ray Bradbury's "The Long Rain" to visionary novels such as C. S. Lewis's Perelandra, the planet Venus has loomed almost as large in the imaginations of science fiction writers as Earth's next-nearest neighbor, Mars. But while the Red Planet conjured up in Golden Age science fiction stories was a place of vast deserts and ruined cities, bright blue Venus was its polar opposite: a steamy, swampy jungle world with strange creatures lurking amidst the dripping vegetation. Alas, just as the last century's space probes exploded our dreams of Mars, so, too, did they shatter our romantic visions of Venus, revealing, instead of a lush paradise, a hellish world inimical to all life.

But don't despair! This new anthology of sixteen original stories by some of science fiction's best writers--edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois--turns back the clock to that more innocent time, before the hard-won knowledge of science vanquished the infinite possibilities of the imagination.

Join our cast of award-winning contributors--including Elizabeth Bear, David Brin, Joe Haldeman, Gwyneth Jones, Mike Resnick, Eleanor Arnason, Allen M. Steele, and more--as we travel back in time to a planet that never was but should have been: a young, rain-drenched world of fabulous monsters and seductive mysteries.

Table of Contents:

• "Frogheads" by Allen M. Steele
• "The Drowned Celestrial" by Lavie Tidhar
• "Planet Of Fear" by Paul Mcauley
• "Greeves And The Evening Star" by Matthew Hughes
• "A Planet Called Desire" by Gwyneth Jones
• "Living Hell" by Joe Haldeman
• "Bones Of Air, Bones Of Stone" by Stephen Leigh
• "Ruins" by Eleanor Arnason
• "The Tumbledowns Of Cleopatra Abyss" by David Brin
• "By Frogsled And Lizardback To Outcast Venusian Lepers" by Garth Nix
• "The Sunset Of Time" by Michael Cassutt
• "Pale Blue Memories" by Tobias S. Buckell
• "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" by Elizabeth Bear
• "The Wizard Of The Trees" by Joe R. Lansdale
• "The Godstone Of Venus" by Mike Resnick
• "Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts By Ida Countess Rathangan" by Ian Mcdonald

Journey to Venus, the Primeval World; Its Wonderful Creations and Gigantic Monsters.

The book was a sequel to Pope's novel of the previous year, Journey to Mars. The Venus volume features the same hero and heroine, Lt. Frederick Hamilton, USN, and his love interest the Martian princess Suhlamia. They travel to Venus on a Martian "ethervolt" spacecraft.

The publisher promoted the book as "full of exciting adventures, hairbreadth escapes, and perilous vicissitudes, among primeval monsters and semi-human creatures, the episodes following each other in such breathless succession that the interest of the reader never flags."

A Trip to Venus (1897) is an account of a journey by Spaceship - powered by a new Antigravity as a sustaining Power Source - to an idyllic Utopia on Venus, with a brief excursion to Mercury.

Earth has been destroyed by the nuclear folly of her children, and mankind's remnant now lives in dome-enclosed colonies on Venus. Will history repeat itself as warring factions threaten to reintroduce the scourge of nuclear weapons? Not if Johnnie Gordon can help it.

Venturing to the surface of the sea to wage war for the Keeps--the domed undersea worlds where human colonists live on Venus--Ensign Brainard and his mercenary naval troops are about to face their greatest foe.

Here is Venus, Inc., a two-in-one volume containing the 1952 classic, The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, and The Merchants' War, Pohl's brilliant new sequel to the previous masterpiece - a blistering satirical vision of Earth's foreseeable future, when advertising has gone mad, and society is divided into those who sell and the lowly consumers who buy . . and buy . . .and buy. It is a civilization in which no one eats natural foods, artificially cultivated meat cells provide all protein, soft drinks are laced with "harmless" addictives to ensure product loyalty - and onle the Conservationist rebels, or Consies, battle the status quo, waging an underground war against the powerful, exploitative advertising agencies that run the world.

The Star Company, a renegade theatre troupe, was run off of Earth, so they set their sites on New Venus. The name sounded good, but life on the planet was thoroughly regulated by Amalgamated Petroleum--where even the air and water came at a high cost. Enter the Star Company, with its incendiary mix of veteran troupers, innocent ingenues, and volatile prima donnas. When Amalgamated approved a production of MACBETH, little did anybody imagine how much trouble those three witches would stir up!

The swashbuckling Arabella Ashby is back for brand new adventure in the ongoing story of her life among the stars.

Arabella's wedding plans to marry Captain Singh of the Honorable Mars Trading Company are interrupted when her fiancé is captured by the French and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp on swampy Venus. Now, Arabella must find passage to an enemy-controlled planet in the middle of a war, bribe or fight her way past vicious guards, and rescue her Captain.

To do this she must enlist the help of the dashing privateer, Daniel Fox of the Touchstone and build her own clockwork navigational automaton in order to get to Venus before the dread French general, Joseph Fouché, the Executioner of Lyon.

Once on Venus, Arabella, Singh, and Fox soon discover that Napoleon has designed a secret weapon, one that could subjugate the entire galaxy if they can't discover a way to stop Fouché, and the entire French army, from completing their emperor's mandate.

The last chapter of the dimension-spanning Daedalus series brings the 19th and 22nd centuries together for an explosive finale in the jungles of Venus!

In the year 2135, dangerous alien life forms freed in the destruction of Saturn's moon Enceladus are making their way towards Earth. A task force spearheaded by Lt. Cmdr. Shaila Jain is scrambling to beat them there while simultaneously trying to save crewmember Stephane Durand, who was infected during the mission to Saturn and is now controlled by a form of life intent on reopening a transdimensional rift and destroying the human race. But Jain doesn't realize that the possessed Stephane has bigger plans, beaming critical data to other conspirators suspiciously heading not for Earth, but for Venus...

In 1809--a Napoleonic era far different from our own--the French have occupied England with their Corps Eternélle, undead soldiers risen through the darkest Alchemy. Only the actions of Lord Admiral Thomas Weatherby and the Royal Navy have kept the French contained to Earth. But the machinations of old enemies point to a bold and daring gambit: an ancient weapon, presumed lost in the jungles of Venus.

Now, Weatherby must choose whether to stay and fight to retake his homeland or pursue the French to the green planet. And Shaila must decide if it's possible to save the man she loves, or if he must be sacrificed for the good of two dimensions. In the dark, alien jungles of Venus, humanity's fate in both dimensions hangs in the balance--forcing past and present to once again join forces against an ancient terror.

The surface of Venus is the most hellish place in the solar system. The ground is hot enough to melt aluminum. The air pressure is so high it has crushed spacecraft landers as though they were tin cans. The sky is perpetually covered with clouds of sulfuric acid. The atmosphere is a choking mixture of carbon dioxide and poisonous gases.

This is where Van Humphries must go. Or die trying.

His older brother perished in the first attempt to land a man on Venus, years before, and his father had always hated Van for surviving when his brother died. Now his father is offering a ten billion dollar prize to the first person to land on Venus and return his oldest son's remains.

To everyone's surprise, Van takes up the offer. But what Van Humphries will find on Venus will change everything--our understanding of Venus, of global warming on Earth, and his knowledge of who he is.

Lee sets her darkly terrifying new series amidst the timeless beauty of Venice, weaving intricate plots around the elements of water, fire, earth, and air. The first book immerses readers in the secret terror that lies beneath the ancient Venetian canals.

Starting with the premise of four novels based on the phases of alchemy and the four elements, Tanith Lee has created an evocative alternate Italy in her new series The Secret Books of Venus. In Saint Fire, the second volume in the series, Volpa is a strangely beautiful servant girl who glows with an inhuman inner fire. When her master, an abusive woodseller, is mysteriously incinerated, Volpa discovers her power of fire. Her gift is noticed by the Church leaders, who see her as a mighty weapon in their holy wars. This gripping fantasy of a mysteriously gifted Joan of Arc is stunning from beginning to end.

The third book in Tanith Lee's compelling series based on alchemy and the elements focuses on the element of earth. It is a haunting journey to a parallel version of sixteenth-century Venice, where a fierce territorial rivalry between two noble families-the della Scorpias and the Barbarons-unearths a supernatural force from beneath the placid surface of the canals and rotting understructure of the city.

The struggle between the two families for space on the Isle of the Dead, the overcrowded burial ground for generations of Venetian nobility, becomes more and more heated, and fourteen-year-old Meralda della Scorpia is forced to pay the ultimate price. But as the years pass on, parties complicit in her disappearance-from both houses-begin to suffer the consequences in a series of shocking deaths that could emanate from none other than a supernatural foe. As these bizarre events throw the city into a panic, a humble apprentice gravedigger is left to sort out the mysteries-an effort that will enable him to unearth the secrets of his own shadowy past.

Tanith Lee concludes her compelling Secret Books of Venus quartet with a haunting and suspenseful tale set in her brilliantly reimagined alternate Venice. Centuries into the future, the sunken city of Venus has been salvaged from beneath the sea and rebuilt there under a dome, where it is supported by a vast network of computers that regulate weather, noise, and the most precious undersea commodity of all-air.

It is here that a macabre experiment takes place. Conducted by geneticists at the university, it consists of the resurrection of two lost souls, both murdered in their times: Jula, a first-century gladiatrix, and Cloudio Del Nero, the eighteenth-century composer who met his fate in Lee's acclaimed first volume of the Venus series. An unexplained catastrophe occurs, claiming several lives. Was it merely an accident, computer failure, or has the experiment unleashed an airborne virus? Or is there an even more sinister danger afoot, a force from beyond that threatens the survival of Venus itself? To answer these questions, a traveler from the surface is forced to confront mysteries in his own past that have remained buried, and to reveal the connection that ties him to the unavenged spirits wreaking havoc on the doomed city.

When a mysterious enemy attacks his adopted nation of Korva, Earthman Carson Napier discovers his own arrival on Venus years ago may have unknowingly triggered the strike. The invaders' trail of death and destruction leads Carson and his beloved princess Duare headlong into battle against a seemingly invincible, primordial race. But that is not Carson's only challenge, for an uncanny phenomenon has entangled him with two strange individuals from beyond spacetime. Will Carson be able to solve the mysteries of his past and the enigmatic visitors before the entire planet descends into chaos?

This book also contains a Pellucidar Sequel novellette "Pellucidar: Dark of the Sun" by Christopher Paul Carey.

When Robert Grandon swapped bodies with a prince of the planet Venus, he was concerned only with the thrill and interest of living on a different world. But the situation he found himself in was hardly that of a leisurely sightseer. Instead he found himself smack in the center of a whirlwind of intrigue, danger and desperation.

Planet of Peril is a science-fiction adventure on a world of semi-barbaric nations, ferocious beasts, gigantic reptiles and maidens in distress.

Through the discoveries of the scientist, Dr. Morgan, a young Martian's astral body is projected into the body of one Harry Thorne on Earth, and from Earth to Venus, or "Zarovia," where the man of Mars becomes Prince Zinlo of the mighty empire of Olba. Zinlo is instructed by Morgan's fellow-scientist Vorn Vangal in the universal language of Venus and other skills. An attempt to kidnap Zinlo by Taliboz, a secret foe of the empire, forces him to flee in an Olban airship. He crashes in the empire of Adonijar, where his quarrel with Prince Gadrimel over the Princess Loralie of Tyrhana is interrupted by Taliboz, who seizes the girl. Zinlo and Gadrimel pursue Taliboz, and many thrilling adventures are encountered by Prince Zinlo.

THE PORT OF PERIL continues the fantastic adventures of Robert Grandon as he encounters the Huitsenni, a weird, buccaneering race who prey upon all the nations of Venus alike, and who attack only in overwhelming numbers so as to insure victory and to prevent pursuit. When these strange beings abduct Grandon's bride, the latter realizes that he must conduct a campaign for their extermination. And out of this comes a tale of action in which event follows event at unparalleled speed, and always against a background of the most fantastic creatures and horrible men.

The shimmering, cloud-covered planet of Venus conceals a wondrous secret: the strikingly beautiful yet deadly world of Amtor. In Amtor, cities of immortal beings flourish in giant trees reaching thousands of feet into the sky; ferocious beasts stalk the wilderness below; rare flashes of sunlight precipitate devastating storms; and the inhabitants believe their world is saucer-shaped with a fiery center and an icy rim. Stranded on Amtor after his spaceship crashes, astronaut Carson Napier is swept into a world where revolution is ripe, the love of a princess carries a dear price, and death can come as easily from the blade of a sword as from the ray of a futuristic gun.

Pirates of Venus is the exciting inaugural volume in the last series imagined and penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was originally serialized in Argosy magazine in 1932.

Second in the Venus series. Carson Napier begins this episode in the Room of the Seven Doors. He can leave any time he wants, but six of the seven doors lead to hideous deaths; only one is the door of life.

After navigating his way out of this logic puzzle, Carson continues his quest to rescue the planet's fairest princess. He pursues this with singlemindedness, even though more terrible dagners lie ahead; even though the princess wishes neither his help or his affection; even though her people will execute him if he enters their country! Such is the honor of an Earthman's pledge.

In Carson of Venus our intrepid hero and his beloved Duare flee from Havatoo but are soon attacked by a brutal female tribe; Carson is left for dead and Duare is enslaved. Carson's only mission now is to find and rescue Duare and make his escape with her to their new kingdom of Korva.

Originally serialized in 1938 in Argosy.

Novelization of four novelettes, all published in Fantastic Adventures:

• "Slaves of the Fish Men" (March 1941)
• "Goddess of Fire" (July 1941)
• "The Living Dead" (November 1941)
• "War on Venus" (March 1942)

With his beloved princess, Duare, at his side, Carson Napier has once again managed to escape the scheming webs of Amtor's fearsome powers – only to fall prey to a hideous race of humanoid amphibians, ruled by the dread king Tyros the Bloody.

But Carson is far more than a fugitive and a captive: he is the only Earthman to have penetrated the forbidding clouds surrounding Venus, there to become a pirate, an explorer, and finally a prince of her cities. His determination to survive the horrors of the savage world that fate has cast him onto, and to bring his lovely bride home to her people in safety, take them both through some of the most thrilling and courageous adventures ever penned by the Master of Adventure.

When Carson Napier and his Venusian princess Duare found their way to the peaceful kingdom of Korva, it seemed that they could live out their days in quiet tranquility. But tranquility was not for Carson, and when the impetuous Earthman made a routine test flight of an airplane he had designed himself, he rushed headlong into a new adventure - in which the price of failure was death...

"The Wizard of Venus" is a novelette that first appeard in 1964 in Tales of Three Planets from Canaveral Press. Ace published it in 1970 as the final volume of the Venus series, pairing it with the late novel Pirate Blood.

Table of Contents:

• About The Wizard of Venus - essay by Richard A. Lupoff
• Foreword - (1941) - essay by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Wizard of Venus - (1964) - novelette by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• About Pirate Blood - (1970) - essay by Donald A. Wollheim
• Pirate Blood - (1970) - novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Life can exist anywhere. And anywhere there is life, there is home.

In the swirling clouds of Venus, the families of la colonie live on floating plant-like trawlers, salvaging what they can in the fierce acid rain and crackling storms. Outside is dangerous, but humankind's hold on the planet is fragile and they spend most of their days simply surviving.

But Venus carries its own secrets, too. In the depths, there is a wind that shouldn't exist.

And the House of Styx wants to harness it.

This novel was originally serialized in Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine, in the March-April, May-June, and July-August issues of 2020.

George-Étienne and his children have formed The House of Styx, after finding a mysterious artefact on the surface of Venus herself. But with the discovery comes great risk, not only from a planet that kills with its very touch but also from the banks and powers of old Earth, who will stop at nothing to claim this new technology for themselves.

From humble origins, The House of Styx is determined to become one of the most powerful families in the known galaxy or die trying.

Iris Angharads, a determined, independent woman, sets herself one massive goal: to make the poison-filled atmosphere of Venus hospitable to humans. She works day and night to realize her dream, with only one person sharing her passion, Liang Chen. It seems impossible to make Venus, with its intolerable air and waterless environment, into a paradise, but Iris succeeds. And in doing so, she also creates a powerful dynasty, beginning with her first born, Benzi Liangharad.

The Venus Project calls upon the strongest and most courageous to create a prosperous world in the dismal wilderness of Venus. Those who demonstrate the skill and the passion to embark on this adventure must transform the barren planet in the midst of political and cultural unrest. When Risa and Benzi, children of Iris, one of the first people to partake in this project, find themselves in opposing forces on the battlefield, it is their love and perseverance that will determine the destiny of the new land.

In CHILD OF VENUS, The Project--the terraforming of Venus--has been going on for centuries and it will be many more years before the planet's surface has been rendered fully habitable and the human settlers , the Cytherians, can leave their protective domes--but there are those who are foolishly unwilling to wait. In a colony still ravaged by the after-effects of a battle between two religious cults that divided families and created civil war, Mahala Liangharad, a true child of Venus, conceived from the genetic material of the rebels and brought to birth only after their deaths, is seen as a beacon of hope and a pointer to the way of the future. Nonetheless, Mahala sees herself in conflict, bearing the burden of a strange birthright and the responsibility of lifelong service to The Project.

Mahala fears the expectation of duty and that she may miss the chance to discover her own destiny. Her world (and the worlds) are being torn apart by a drive for independence from Earth by the Venus colonists and by the rumors of a secret plan developed by the "Habbers," cybernetically enhanced dwellers in the mobile asteroid "Habitats" who are another, and very different, set of humans no longer tied to Earth. A mysterious call from deep space offers a chance at her dream of destiny, along with a terrifying possibility of losing touch with everything she has ever known and loved.

CHILD OF VENUS completes the Venus sequence and Pamela Sargent delivers a dramatically and emotionally satisfying ending to this epic tale of the terraforming of Venus by human colonists as she builds imaginatively-detailed new worlds of breathtaking wonder and shows that humanity may travel far but retains all the challenges that come with being human, whatever form their evolution may take.