Search Worlds Without End

What happened to the Greek gods when people stopped believing in them? This fantasy classic speculates by revisiting the myth of Prometheus. Twenty-eight parables and fairy tales unfold in medieval China, pre-Islamic Arabia, ancient Rome, and other historic settings.

Table of Contents:

• The Twilight of the Gods - shortstory
• The Potion of Lao-Tsze - shortstory
• Abdallah the Adite - shortstory
• Ananda the Miracle Worker - (1872) - shortstory
• The City of Philosophers - shortstory
• The Demon Pope - shortstory
• The Cupbearer - shortstory
• The Dumb Oracle - (1878) - shortstory
• Duke Virgil - shortstory
• Madam Lucifer - shortstory
• The Elixir of Life - (1881) - shortstory
• The Poet of Panopolis - shortstory
• The Purple Head - (1877) - shortstory
• The Bell of Saint Euschemon - shortstory
• Bishop Addo and Bishop Gaddo - shortstory
• The Poison Maid - shortstory

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Federations (2009), edited by John Joseph Adams. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection (2010), edited by Gardner Dozois.

"They're Menoptera," the Doctor exclaimed, "and this must be Vortis! But why are you treating them like this? They're a peaceful people, not slaves! What's been happening here?"

Many years have passed since the Doctor's first visit to the Web Planet, and he finds a very different world from the one he knew; a world now embroiled in a bitter interplanetary war between the opposing factions of a divided race.

To restore peace, the Doctor must first resolve a deadly ideological conflict, solve the paradox of the nature of life on Vortis, and finally confront the Gods of Light themselves.

As the stakes are raised, can the Doctor contain the ancient terror that threatens to devastate an entire star system?

It is the year of Our Lord 1218 and in the land of the Raven-Geats, the Old Ways reach deep. And while the Geats pay a tax to the King in the name of the White Christ, their hearts and souls belong to the gods of Asgardr. But no man can serve two masters.

Pledging to burn this Norse heresy from the land, famed crusader Konradr the White leads a host against the Raven-Geats, using torch and sword to bring forth the light of the new religion. But the land of the Raven-Geats has an ancient protector: Grimnir, the last in a long line of monsters left to plague Midgardr. And he will stand between the Raven-Geats and their destruction.

Aided by an army of berserkers led by their pale queen, Grimnir sparks off an epic struggle--not only against the crusaders, but against the very Gods. For there is something buried beneath the land of the Raven-Geats that Odin wants, something best left undisturbed. Something the blood of the slain, Christian and pagan, will surely awaken.

THE CURSE -- Blackhearted Surt lay dying on the battlefield, screaming to the dark gods for vengeance against Borr Skullcracker, the Aesir warlord who had left him behind for raven food. -- And so the curse began... -- On that day, immortal Voden was conceived, born of Skullcracker and his captured bride, the warrior of Destiny, healer and destroyer in the confrontation with the evil Dark!

Voden Wanderer sets out to a far-distant land to seek the Well of Mimir and drink of Knowledge there. But Mimir asks much of those who would dare taste her wonders.

Voden, son of Borr Skullcracker and Vestla Ravenhair, had wandered far through countless realms in search of that Destiny foretold for him before his birth. Now he must return to the land of his father, to face one last terrible challenge of bloody axe and blackhearted magic.