The Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novel from the New York Times–bestselling author of The King’s Daughter. On an Earth scarred by nuclear war, Snake harnesses the power of venom to cure illnesses and vaccinate against disease. The healer can even ease patients into death with the power of her dreamsnake. But she is not respected and trusted by all, and when she tries to help a sick nomad child, the frightened clan kills her dreamsnake. Ashamed of being misjudged and grieving the loss of her dreamsnake, Snake has one choice to maintain her livelihood: she must travel to the city, which jealously guards its knowledge. And before she faces the prejudices and arrogance of the people there, Snake must make her way across a barren desert, surviving storms and radiation poisoning, helping those she can—all while a madman stalks her every move . . . “[Dreamsnake] is filled with scenes as suspenseful as anyone could wish . . . but most of all it addresses the humanity in all of us.” —The Seattle Times “A haunting, rich, and tender novel that explores the human side of science fiction in a manner that’s all too uncommon.” —Robert Silverberg “A splendid tale, combining the sensitivity and attention to mood of the new generation of SF writers with a gripping and well-worked-out adventure . . . The novel is rich in character, background and incident—unusually absorbing and moving.” —Publishers Weekly “Instead of kicking butt, the lead character is dedicated to saving lives. . . . Snake’s blighted world is expertly drawn, and her encounters with dysfunctional societies can be bracing and challenging reading.” —The Guardian “This is an exciting future-dream with real characters, a believable mythos and, what’s more important, an excellent, readable story.” —Frank Herbert, author of the Dune series

Can she find the courage to defy a king? In seventeenth-century France, Louis XIV rules with flamboyant ambition. In his domain, wealth and beauty are all; frivolity begets cruelty; science and alchemy collide. From the Hall of Mirrors to the vermin-infested attics of the Chateau at Versailles, courtiers compete to please the king, sacrificing fortune, principles, and even sacred family bonds. 'A wonderful book! Adventure, love, history, magic - it's an engrossing story with magnificent characters, balanced perfectly on the edge between,' says DIANA GABALDON By the fiftieth year of his reign, Louis XIV has made France the most powerful state in the western world, but the Sun King's appetite for glory knows no bounds. In a bold stroke, he sends his natural philosopher on an expedition to seek the source of immortality: the mythical sea monster. For the glory of his God, his country, and his king, Father Yves de la Croix returns with his treasures: one heavy shroud packed in ice . . . and in a covered basin, an imprisoned sea-creature. Marie-Josephe de la Croix has been looking forward to assisting her brother Yves in the scientific study of the sea monster, until she makes a discovery that will threaten everything her brother, the court and the King believe. 'The finest alternate history ever, light-hearted and wise - a luminous, radiant novel,' said URSULA K. LE GUIN But in the decadent court of King Louis, where morality is skewed and corruption reigns, will anyone listen to a single voice? Somehow, she must find the courage to follow her heart and her convictions - even at the cost of changing her life forever.

The Exile Waiting was the first novel by the Hugo and Nebula award-winning novelist Vonda N McIntyre, published in 1975. It introduces the world that McIntyre later made famous with her multi-award-winning Dreamsnake: a post-apocalyptic world in which Center, an enclosed domed city, is run by slave-owning families who control the planet's resources, and are strangling the city's economy by their decadence. Mischa is a thirteen-year old sneak thief, struggling to support her drug-addict elder brother Chris, and their predatory uncle who uses their telepathic link with their captive younger sister Gemmi to control them. The alien pseudosibs Subone and Subtwo have come to Earth to take over Center's resources. Subone is attracted by the decadent living on offer and begins to unlink from his sibling's conditioning. Subtwo has fallen unexpectedly in love with a slave. When Mischa defends Chris from Subone's malice, Subtwo hunts her beneath Center's foundations, and discovers how terrible Center's cruelty has been to its inhabitants with genetically distorted bodies and minds. They have to rescue them and leave, but how? Also included in this edition, the first republication of McIntyre's short story 'Cages', originally published in Quark 4 in 1972, in which she first created the pseudosibs and their terrible origins.

A collection of eleven stories from the New York Times–bestselling author, including Nebula Award winner “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand.” This brilliant collection of short fiction showcases renowned author Vonda N. McIntyre’s sparkling lyricism, captivating vision, and advocacy of the different. The titular story is one of alienation and discrimination, as a woman transformed into an “ugly” lifeform—a clumsy “digger”—seeks to escape her servitude to humans, but is denied sanctuary by the beautiful and graceful “flyers.” Also included is the acclaimed story “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand,” which became the first section of McIntyre’s Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novel, Dreamsnake. In it, a woman who harnesses the power of snakes’ venom to heal saves the life of a nomad boy in the desert—but the price she pays may be too much to bear. In “Aztecs,” later expanded into the novel Superluminal, a woman undergoes biological modifications in order to pilot ships during faster-than-light travel. “A quality selection . . . Zoning in on McIntyre’s penchant for intense, dark stories with human pain and transcendence at their core . . . Fireflood, as with all of McIntyre’s fiction, is written in a brooding, pulsing prose that drops the reader into a setting with little to orient themselves save the words on the page.” —Speculiction “Eleven stories by one of the most widely admired of the younger science-fiction writers . . . From awkward to wonderful—an interesting record of an up-and-coming talent’s present whereabouts.” —Kirkus Reviews

The timeless National Book Award-winning story of the epic struggle between good and evil. “Far and away the most literate and intelligent story of the year … Mr. Wangerin’s allegorical fantasy about the age-old struggle between good and evil produces a resonance; it is a taut string plucked that reverberates in memory” —New York Times “Belongs on the shelf with Animal Farm, Watership Down and The Lord of the Rings. It is, like them, an absorbing, fanciful parade of the war between good and evil. A powerful and enjoyable work of the imagination.” —Los Angeles Times In a time when the sun revolved around the Earth, and the animals could speak, Chauntecleer the Rooster rules justly over his kingdom. But while peace reigns for Chauntecleer, evil is brewing across the river, as the monstrous Cockatrice pillages his own lands and people, preparing for the return of Wyrm. Imprisoned within the Earth to contain this ancient evil, Wyrm is determined to return, with the help of Cockatrice. Keeping Wyrm in his prison is a task too great for any individual animal, so it is up to Chantecleer to rally all of the animals, great and small, to work together to keep the Earth safe once again. “Good and evil were never seen more distinctly not pitted more ferociously than in this animal fable, reverberating with the righteousness of the Bible or a medieval morality play … The animals are not mere literary symbols but are invested with a humanness all their won.” —The Saturday Evening Post “Wangerin’s story functions as a frightening representation of modern evil … a parable for adults to ponder.” —The Christian Century “Wangerin has so fluidly woven all these legends together into one small gem.” —Washington Post Book World

This 1979 American Book Award nominee contains five interlocked stories that tell of the slave Gorgik in a long-ago land, and a masked swordswoman narrates an astonishing feminist creation myth.

The recounting of a reoccurring and terrifying dream…