Search Worlds Without End

Ellie heads up her high school yearbook, and until the tornadoes come, her biggest worry is how to raise enough money to print them. But since the day when a rash of powerful tornadoes touched down in Newfoundland, Ohio--killing more than half of the students in her school, not to mention dozens more people throughout the town--she's been haunted: by the ghosts of her best friends, by the boy next door, even by her boyfriend. And the living are haunting her too, all those left behind in the storm's wake to cope with the "gone away" pieces in their lives. A chance encounter with one ghost leads Ellie to discover a way to free the spirits that have been lingering since the storm, and she learns that she's not the only one seeing the ghosts--it's a town-wide epidemic.

These thirteen stories are our own lives, inside out.

A boy's summer romance doesn't end in that good kind of heartbreak, but in blood. A girl on a fishing trip makes a friend in the woods who's exactly what she needs, except then that friend follows her back to the city. A father hears a voice through his baby monitor that shouldn't be possible, but now he can't stop listening. A woman finds out that the shipwreck wasn't the disaster, but who she's shipwrecked with. A big brother learns just what he will, and won't, trade for one night of sleep.

From prison guards making unholy alliances to snake-oil men in the Old West doling out justice, these stories carve down into the body of the mind, into our most base fears and certainties, and there's no anesthetic. Turn the light on if you want, but that just makes for more shadows.

Leilani Maddoc's tenth birthday is nine months away. Micky Bellsong is convinced that in nine months and one day, the girl will be dead. And no one seems to care but Micky herself.

Micky has a history of making wrong choices and living only for her own desires, but her decision to save the child's life - and pit herself against an adversary as fearsome as he is cunning - takes her on a journey of incredible peril and stunning discoveries, a journey filled with tragedy and joy, with humour, terror and hope, a journey that will change her for ever...

Hugo Award winning short story. It originally appeared in the anthology New Dimensions III (1973), edited by Robert Silverberg. The story has been reprinted many times. It can be found in the anthologies:

• The Best Science Fiction of the Year #3 (1974), edited by Terry Carr
• The Hugo Winners, Volume 3: (1970-75) (1977), edited by Isaac Asimov
• The Fantasy Hall of Fame (1983) edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg
• Treasures of Fantasy (1999) edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
• Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century (1999), edited by Orson Scott Card
• The Secret History of Science Fiction (2009), edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
• Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories (2011), edited by John Joseph Adams

The story is included in the collections The Wind's Twelve Quarters (1975), Outer Space, Inner Lands (2012), The Wind's Twelve Quarters & The Compass Rose (2015) and The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin (2016).

There couldn't be a fire along the Jorgmund Pipe. It was the last thing the world needed. But there it was, burning bright on national television. The Pipe was what kept the Livable Zone safe from the bandits, monsters and nightmares the Go Away War had left in its wake. The fire was a very big problem.

Enter Gonzo Lubitsch and his friends, the Haulage & HazMat Emergency Civil Freebooting Company, a team of master troubleshooters who roll into action when things get particularly hot. They helped build the Pipe. Now they have to preserve it—and save humanity yet again. But this job is not all it seems. It will touch more closely on Gonzo's life, and that of his best friend, than either of them can imagine. And it will decide the fate of the Gone-Away World.

Contents:

• 5 - Small War - (1954) - shortstory
• 20 - Laboratory - (1955) - shortstory
• 45 - Can Such Beauty Be? - (1953) - shortstory
• 62 - The Holes Around Mars - (1954) - shortstory
• 83 - Where There's Hope - (1953) - shortstory
• 91 - —And All for One - (1950) - shortstory
• 107 - The Good Dog - (1954) - shortstory
• 115 - Nightride and Sunrise - (1952) - novelette by Jerome Bixby and James Blish [as by Jerome Bixby]
• 145 - The Second Ship - (1952) - shortstory
• 152 - The Bad Life - (1963) - novelette
• 190 - Zen - (1952) - shortstory
• 200 - Mirror, Mirror - (1954) - shortstory
• 212 - Halfway to Hell - (1954) - novelette
• 240 - Angels in the Jets - (1952) - shortstory
• 256 - The Battle of the Bells - (1954) - shortstory
• 274 - One Way Street - (1953) - shortstory
• 299 - The Slizzers - (1953) - shortstory
• 310 - The Monsters - (1953) - shortstory

Eight astronauts. One killer. No way home.

It's the dawn of a new era - and we're ready to colonise Mars. Xenosystems Operations (XO) has won the contract to construct a new Mars base with its audacious promises of highly advanced equipment. Unfortunately, the equipment they've promised doesn't exist yet, there's no way they can create it in time, and XO is desperate enough to cut a lot of corners. The first thing to go is the automation... the next thing they'll have to deal with is the eight astronauts they'll send to Mars, when there aren't supposed to be any at all...

Frank -- father, architect, murderer -- is recruited for the mission from XO's private prison with the promise of a better life, along with seven of his most notorious fellow inmates. But as his crew sets to work on the red wasteland of Mars, the accidents mount up, and Frank begins to suspect they might not be accidents at all... As the list of suspects grows shorter, it's up to Frank to uncover the terrible truth before it's too late.

They were sent to build a utopia, but all they found on Mars was death.

Frank Kitteridge has been abandoned. But XO, the greedy -- and ultimately murderous -- corporate architects of humanity's first Mars base made a costly mistake when they left him there: they left him alive. Using his skills and his wits, he's going to find a way back home even if it kills him.

Little does he know that Mars isn't completely empty. Just over the mountain, there's another XO base where things are going terribly, catastrophically wrong. And when the survivors of that mission find Frank, they're going to want to take even the little he has away from him.

If there's anything in Frank's favor, it's this: he's always been prepared to go to the extremes to get the job done. That's how he ended up on Mars in the first place. It just might be his ticket back.

The Lost Ones are wanderers who come here from a distant world known as "Japan." No one knows how or why they leave their homes. The only thing that is certain is that they bring disaster and calamity. The duty of exterminating them without remorse falls to Menou, a young Executioner. When she meets Akari, it seems like just another job... until she discovers it's impossible to kill this girl! And when Menou begins to search for a way to defeat this immortality, Akari is more than happy to tag along! So begins a journey that will change Menou forever...

Journey to where the fog never lifts... Libelle, a city by the sea. Those who venture into its fog are said never to make it back alive--;a murderous phenomenon that's another of the Four Major Human Errors that has ravaged the world. But for Menou, it just may be the solution she's looking for. To fulfill her role as Executioner, she needs to find a way to murder Akari, the girl who seems to spring back to life whenever she's killed. Maybe this time, Menou will be successful in carrying out her duty... but a calculated encounter with Manon, the daughter of Count Libelle, shifts all their fates in a direction that even Akari never could have predicted. Just what will become of the Executioner and her seemingly unkillable target...?

To kill Akari, Menou scours the outer reaches of the West in search of a legendary blade that turns all it touches into salt. There, she stumbles across Sahara, a monk, who has history with the young Executioner and begs her to take her life for reasons unknown. Meanwhile, the one of the Four Great Calamities begins to unfold in the undeveloped regions of the East and slowly inches toward them, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake...

Pandmonium in the mountains.

Hoping to avoid a future where Menou dies trying to save Akari, the girl from Japan runs away with her sworn enemy, Momo. The pair ride the rails to a secluded village in the mountains where they believe they'll be safe for a few days. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones who decided to stop off there. Manon and Pandmonium have arrived as well, and they aren't alone. Akari had hoped keeping away from Menou would be enough to spare the girl she holds dear, but keeping the Executioner alive may require a more drastic course of action...

Menou sets out after Flare, determined to take back Akari. If Akari must die, Menou is determined to be the one that kills her, at the very least. To do so, Menou must seek the Sword of Salt; a difficult task even without a time limit. Still, the Executioner is determined to triumph and surpass her former teacher, no matter what taboos she must commit...

The duel with Master Flare in the land of salt continues. Menou should have the upper hand now that she's linked with Akari and her immense supply of Guiding Force, yet reality suggests otherwise. Master Flare still has a few secrets up her sleeve, and she'll do anything to win. Meanwhile, a mysterious entity that's hidden in the Star Memory for centuries emerges, ready to enact a plan one thousand years in the making. Menou and Akari have managed to triumph over every challenge set before them thus far, but they've never faced anything like what's coming. Not everyone will escape alive this time...

Menou on the run.

Half a year has passed since the battle with Master Flare. In the time since, Menou has become the most wanted person on the continent, evading the Lord's Executioners at every turn while hunting for a way to restore Akari. Her search brings her to the north and the Starhusk floating above. The bizarre creation could make for a powerful weapon against Hakua, but Menou will have to reach it first. And to do so, she'll need to get past the Inquisitor Michele, whose overwhelming power is strikingly similar to that of Archbishop Elcami...

Long-buried secrets.

Menou and her group venture deep into the City of Ruins to reach the Astrologer, who controls the Starhusk. Instead of finding the ultimate weapon to defeat Hakua, they discover a lost one who should've died a thousand years ago. And she's not the only one hiding below. Genom Cthulha has left the Mechanical Society to set himself up in the ancient city. Does Menou stand a chance against an enemy even Master Flare couldn't beat?

A craftsman, visionary, and warrior, Shef has risen from slavery to become king of a mighty Viking nation. But his growing kingdom menaces all of Europe, and he has made many powerful enemies.

Chief among his enemies are the Knights of the Lance, a fanatical order of soldiers sworn to bring Shef down, no matter what the cost. To defeat Shef, they will go to extraordinary lengths to find the sacred spear of Christ--and resurrect the Holy Roman Empire.

Driven by dreams, Shef battles to change the course of history, but even the gods themselves may be plotting against him....