Between Two Thorns

Something is wrong in Aquae Sulis, Bath's secret mirror city.The new season is starting and the Master of Ceremonies is missing. Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is assigned with the task of finding him with no one to help but a dislocated soul and a mad sorcerer.There is a witness but his memories have been bound by magical chains only the enemy can break. A rebellious woman trying to escape her family may prove to be the ally Max needs.But can she be trusted? And why does she want to give up eternal youth and the life of privilege she's been born into?File Under: Urban Fantasy [ Gargoyle Sidekick | Finder's Keepers | A Rose By Any Other Name | Manners ] Contents 9 Introduction (Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe and Other Stories) essay by John Varley 11 The Funhouse Effect [Eight Worlds] (1976) novelette by John Varley 37 Retrograde Summer [Eight Worlds] (1975) novelette by John Varley 59 In the Bowl [Eight Worlds] (1975) novelette by John Varley 93 Blue Champagne [Anna-Louise Bach] (1981) novella by John Varley 159 Bagatelle [Anna-Louise Bach] (1976) novelette by John Varley 185 Equinoctial [Eight Worlds] (1977) novella by John Varley 235 Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe [Eight Worlds] (1977) novelette by John Varley 267 Lollipop and the Tar Baby [Eight Worlds] (1977) novelette by John Varley 291 The Black Hole Passes [Eight Worlds] (1975) novelette by John Varley 317 The Unprocessed Word (1986) short story by John Varley 333 The Manhattan Phone Book (Abridged) (1984) short story by John Varley This stellar collection by John Varley contains eleven provocative, utterly distinctive stories and novellas. None of them are currently available in any other book. Some have been unavailable in any form for twenty-five years or more. The result is a publishing event that no admirer of Varleyor of first-rate imaginative fictioncan afford to miss. The bulk of these stories comprise what the author calls a Grand Tour of the Solar System, moving from one thoroughly imagined setting to another with deceptive ease. The Funhouse Effect is a tale of mystery, intrigue, and illusion that takes place on a mechanized comet moving toward the suns corona. Retrograde Summer is an account of gender reversals and family secrets set against the radically unstable backdrop of Mercury. Bagatelle pits a recurring Varley characterPolice Chief Anna-Louise Bachagainst a living bomb that threatens to devastate Lunas Dresden City. Other stories range from Venus (In the Bowl) to an underground disneyland on Pluto (Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe) to the unexplored reaches of deep space (The Black Hole Passes). The collection ends with two very different offerings that are nonetheless vintage Varley. The Unprocessed Word is a whimsical reflection on one writers relationship with a ubiquitous, constantly evolving technology, while The Manhattan Phone Book (Abridged) is a brief, absolutely chilling meditation on the consequences of nuclear proliferation. Whatever the tone, style, or subject matter, Varley remains in complete control of this impressively varied material. Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe and Other Stories provides intellectual stimulation and pure entertainment in equal measure, and bears the unmistakable hallmark of a master storyteller on every page. The third of three volumes. The Ultimate Grandeur. Fantasy and Science Fiction Grandmaster Jack Vance is very much a writer of the Space Age. His time 'traveling' the magic highways of his imagination spans the period bracketed by the final years of World War II and the Cassini Huygens probe reaching Saturn space in late 2004, the year he brought his magnificent career to a close. In those first thrilling, dangerous, heady days, science did seem to promise all the answers, and it was in a 'double' universe of the familiar workaday world and the utterly unlimited one of the imagination that the ever-practical yet romantic, diligently physics-savvy yet as often wildly improvisational Jack Vance worked. Even as he wrote tales set in the far future of his acclaimed Dying Earth, even as he produced mysteries and suspense stories of a much less fanciful kind, Jack's determined quest to become a 'million words a year' man saw him ranging a universe criss-crossed with busy interstellar highways: a network of flourishing trade and tourist routes leading to new frontiers, far-flung colonies, alien worlds, with ample room for exotic races, travelers, traders and scoundrels, even space pirates, ample opportunity for grand schemes of every kind. Magic Highways gathers sixteen of those early space adventures from that exciting first decade, spanning the years 1946 to 1956. In these frequently inventive, often surprising space operas, Jack takes us to vivid destinations along the vast interstellar highways of a future where anything is possible. Contents, 16 stories: Introduction: The Ultimate Grandeur • essay by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan; Phalid's Fate (1946); -- Planet of the Black Dust (1946); -- Dead Ahead (variant of Ultimate Quest 1950) (1986); -- The Ten Books (1951); -- The Uninhibited Robot (variant of The Plagian Siphon) (1951); -- Dover Spargill's Ghastly Floater (1951); -- The Visitors (variant of Winner Lose All) (1951); -- Sabotage on Sulfur Planet (1952); -- The House Lords (1957); -- Sanatoris Short-Cut [Magnus Ridolph] (1948); -- The Unspeakable McInch [Magnus Ridolph] (1948); -- The Sub-Standard Sardines [Magnus Ridolph] (1949); -- The Howling Bounders [Magnus Ridolph] (1949); -- The King of Thieves [Magnus Ridolph] (1949); -- The Spa of the Stars [Magnus Ridolph] (1950); -- To B or Not to C or to D [Magnus Ridolph] (1950). Cover illustration: Tom Kidd. "Centuries after the ecological collapse of Earth, humanity has spread among the stars. Under the governance of the League, our endless need for resources has driven us to colonize hundreds of planets, all of them devoid of other sentient life. Humanity is apparently alone in the universe. Then comes the sudden, brutal decimation of Kassa, a small farming planet, by a mysterious attacker. The few survivors send out a desperate plea for aid, which is answered by two unlikely rescuers. Prudence Falling is the young captain of a tramp freighter. She and her ragtag crew have been on the run and living job to job for years, eking out a living by making cargo runs that aren't always entirely legal. Lt. Kyle Daspar is a police officer from the wealthy planet of Altair Prime, working undercover as a double agent against the League. He's been undercover so long he can't be trusted by anyone--even himself. While flying rescue missions to extract survivors from the surface of devastated Kassa, they discover what could be the most important artifact in the history of man: an alien spaceship, crashed and abandoned during the attack. But something tells them there is more to the story. Together, they discover the cruel truth about the destruction of Kassa, and that an imminent alien invasion is the least of humanity's concerns"-- Provided by publisher 'Ditch Witch,' set in rural Oregon, concerns a young man on the run in a stolen car, a hitchhiker who may or may not have witch-like powers, and the bizarre inhabitants of the seemingly innocuous Elfland Motel. 'The Flock' is a tale of high school football and small town malaise set against an impossible intrusion from the natural world. A washed-up actor and a Malaysian 'woman of power' stand at the center of 'Vacancy,' the account of a man forced to confront the very real demons of his past. 'Dog-eared Paperback of My Life' follows a writer (Thomas Cradle) on his erotically charged journey down the Mekong River, a journey enveloped in a maze of multiple, interpenetrating realities. 'Halloween Town' tells the story of a small, extremely strange town and one of its denizens, Clyde Ormoloo, a man who sees too deeply into the 'terrible incoherence' of human affairs. The final story, 'Rose Street Attractors,' takes us into 19th century London and the heart of the steampunk era in the richly atmospheric tale of a most unusual haunting. Rounding out this generous volume is an Introduction in which Shepard offers a startlingly frank assessment of his own troubled adolescence, identifying the 'alternate versions' of himself that appear in these pages and illuminating those points at which fiction and 'near-autobiography' converge Something is wrong in Aquae Sulis, Bath's secret mirror city. The new season is starting and the Master of Ceremonies is missing. Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is assigned with the task of finding him with no one to help but a dislocated soul and a mad sorcerer. There is a witness but his memories have been bound by magical chains only the enemy can break. A rebellious woman trying to escape her family may prove to be the ally Max needs. But can she be trusted? And why does she want to give up eternal youth and the life of privilege she's been born into? File Under : Urban Fantasy [Gargoyle Sidekick | Finder's Keepers | A Rose By Any Other Name | Manners] "Something is wrong in Aquae Sulis, Bath's secret mirror city. The new season is starting and the Master of Ceremonies is missing. Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is assigned with the task of finding him with no one to help but a dislocated soul and a mad sorcerer. There is a witness but his memories have been bound by magical chains only the enemy can break. A rebellious woman trying to escape her family may prove to be the ally Max needs. But can she be trusted? And why does she want to give up eternal youth and the life of privilege she's been born into?"--Back cover 2012 TOR hardcover, M. C. Planck (Sword of the Bright Lady). Centuries after the ecological collapse of Earth, humanity has spread among the stars. Under the governance of the League, our endless need for resources has driven us to colonize hundreds of planets, all of them devoid of other sentient life. Humanity is apparently alone in the universe.- Amazon In the days when science did seem to promise all the answers, Vance wrote tales set in the far future of his acclaimed Dying Earth. His alien worlds had ample room for exotic races, travelers, traders and scoundrels, and even space pirates. Here are sixteen of those early space adventures, spanning the years 1946 to 1956