New Releases by Charles Wilson

In an alternate world, peace comes at a terrifying cost—as aliens kill to maintain their secret—in this novel by the Hugo Award–winning author of Spin. Cassie Klyne, nineteen years old, lives in the United States in the year 2015—but it''s not our United States, and it''s not our 2015. Cassie''s world has been at peace since the Great Armistice of 1918. There was no World War II, no Great Depression. Poverty is declining, prosperity is increasing everywhere; social instability is rare. But Cassie knows the world isn''t what it seems. Her parents were part of a group who gradually discovered the awful truth: that for decades—back to the dawn of radio communications—human progress has been molded, made more peaceful and benign, by an extraterrestrial entity. That by interfering with our communications, this entity has tweaked history in massive and subtle ways. That humanity is, for purposes unknown, being farmed. Cassie''s parents were killed for this knowledge, along with most of the other members of their group. Since then, the survivors have scattered and gone into hiding. Cassie and her younger brother Thomas now live with her aunt Nerissa, who shares these dangerous secrets. Others live nearby. For eight years they have attempted to lead unexceptional lives in order to escape detection. The tactic has worked. Until now. Because the killers are back. And they''re not human.

In an altered America where machines no longer work and magic holds sway, former lawyer-turned-visionary leader Cal Griffin guides his small band on a quest toward the Source of the Change -- following a trail he hopes will reunite him with his abducted sister, Christina, transformed into one of the powerful, enigmatic beings called "flares." Armed with little more than compassion and a determination to heal the world, Cal, the warrior Colleen Brooks, Russian physician Doc Lysenko, and bipolar street wizard Herman "Goldie" Goldman encounter old foes and new friends in a landscape of unimaginable beauties and magnificent horrors -- forced to confront the frightful secrets of an emissary from a dread region and to trust in a brilliant triumvirate of grad students who could get things running again ... at a terrible cost—as the final moves in humankind''s ultimate nightmare are played out in the depths of the Ghostlands.

This title is part of UC Press''s Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1970.

Although humankind today can peer far deeper into the universe than ever before, we still find ourselves surrounded by the unknown and perhaps the unknowable. All great science fiction has used the human imagination to explore that realm beyond the known, just as theistic religions have done since long before the genre existed. As Hugo Award-winning author Robert Charles Wilson argues in Owning the Unknown, the genre''s freewheeling speculation and systematic world-building make it it a unique lens for understanding, examining, and assessing the truth claims of religions in general and Christianity in particular. Drawing on his personal experience, his work as a science fiction writer, and his deep knowledge of the classics of the genre, he makes the case for what he calls intuitive atheism—an atheism drawn from everyday personal knowledge that doesn''t depend on familiarity with the scholarly debate about theology and metaphysics, any more than a robust personal Christianity does. And as he reminds us, the secrets that remain hidden beyond the borders of the known universe—should we ever discover them—will probably not resemble anything currently found in our most prized philosophies, our most sacred texts, or our most imaginative science fiction.

La vie de Scott Warden bascule le jour où il est témoin de l''apparition du premier Chronolithe à Chumphon, en Thaïlande. Ce monument hors du commun célèbre la victoire du seigneur de la guerre Kuin. Mais cette victoire n''aura lieu que dans vingt ans et trois mois. Qui peut bien être ce Kuin dont on ignore tout ? Et comment ce monument a-t-il pu venir quasi instantanément du futur ? Autant de questions auxquelles vont tenter de répondre Scott et son ancien professeur de physique, Sulamith Chopra, pendant qu''autour d''eux le monde semble s''écrouler, dans l''attente de l''avènement de Kuin. Un grand roman de science-fiction aux allures de thriller scientifique empreint, comme souvent chez Robert Charles Wilson, d''humanisme et de mélancolie.

MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE It is 1975. GERDA VROUWENDIJK, under the name of Edith Bicknell, arrives in the isolated rural town of Binawarra to take up a teaching position in the local high school. Ms. Vrouwendijk is confident she can keep her disguise and purpose hidden, as well as her sinister connections. But she has not reckoned on Florence Barker. Independent Miss Barker, of mature age, outwardly severe, and feared by the townspeople (‘you will call me Miss Barker’), is not at all what she seems. Nor has the memory of a brief meeting fifteen years earlier in Middelburg, Holland, with the crippled local priest, Fr van Engelen, come back to Ms. Vrouwendijk. These slips in her otherwise meticulous planning will prove critical. Canny Miss Barker and Fr van Engelen set about discovering what Edith Bicknell is doing in their obscure little country town, and why she has an interest in the beautiful, outwardly aloof Estella Winterbine. Her motivations appear ideological but what the ideology is exactly is a mystery. A tense game of cat and mouse follows as Ms. Vrouwendijk’s manipulation of people and events becomes ever more complex. When a senior teacher is found dead at the bottom of a peak (called Death Rock by the local youth), and the local newspaper begins attacking staid Bill Huckerby, the principal of Binawarra High School, Ms. Vrouwendijk’s plans – whatever their aim – seem to have an unstoppable momentum. Then Estella goes missing. Former SAS captain and Vietnam veteran, Geoffrey Shawcross, sets off in a pursuit that takes him across the world to France and then to the Castle of Heavenly Bliss in the Dutch province of Zeeland. Mystery and thrill go together as Geoff searches for the girl he has grown to love. He discovers Gerda Vrouwendijk''s deadly purpose and fears he may be too late. SIXTIES SERIES The SIXTIES SERIES will consist of eight connected but stand-alone stories. The cultural revolution of the 1960s (1960-1975) and the Second Vatican Council are the social, cultural, and political background. The author who lived through the turmoil of those times recreates its atmosphere. The themes of neo-paganism and Gnosticism are threads through the stories. Book 1 TIMES OF DISTRESS Book 2 IN THIS VALE OF TEARS Book 3 COUNTERCULTURE DREAMS Book 4 THE DREAM BECOMES A NIGHTMARE due Sept 2024 Book 5 THE CASTLE OF HEAVENLY BLISS Book 6 A SENSE OF LOSS due 2025 Book 7 WHERE TO NOW? due 2026 Book 8 A LONG WAY BACK due 2027

Building effective state institutions before introducing democracy is widely presumed to improve different development outcomes. Conversely, proponents of this “stateness-first” argument anticipate that democratization before state building yields poor development outcomes. In this Element, we discuss several strong assumptions that (different versions of) this argument rests upon and critically evaluate the existing evidence base. In extension, we specify various observable implications. We then subject the stateness-first argument to multiple tests, focusing on economic growth as an outcome. First, we conduct historical case studies of two countries with different institutional sequencing histories, Denmark and Greece, and assess the stateness-first argument (e.g., by using a synthetic control approach). Thereafter, we draw on an extensive global sample of about 180 countries, measured across 1789–2019 and leverage panel regressions, preparametric matching, and sequence analysis to test a number of observable implications. Overall, we find little evidence to support the stateness-first argument.

MYSTERY SUSPENSE AND ROMANCE Fr Jos van Engelen, a Dutch missionary priest, stationed in New Guinea before World War II, is recalled to Holland to help his superior general combat ideological subversion within his fraternity. He arrives in March 1940. British intelligence enlists him for covert operations, but after the Nazis invade Holland, it all goes horribly wrong. He flees from betrayal and the murder of trusted colleagues to Amsterdam, where he joins the Dutch resistance. For the next five years, directed by the mysterious Femke, he works in covert roles, staying ahead of Nazi detection units and dealing with the occult. When the Nazis fire on a crowd in May 1945, he saves a young woman and her baby from being crushed. So begins an unspoken relationship with the Strict Reformed Truus van den Donker and a deadly tussle with her brutish occultist husband. After the war, the conflict continues with those he suspects of betraying him. The conflict comes to a head during and after the Second Vatican Council and results in more measures to get him out of the way. At the same time, he must confront sinister occultist forces that want him dead. This is a story of unswerving faith and commitment against diabolical forces Fr Jos can hardly conceive. SIXTIES SERIES The SIXTIES SERIES will consist of eight connected but stand-alone stories. The cultural revolution of the 1960s (1960-1975) and the Second Vatican Council are the social, cultural, and political background. The author who lived through the turmoil of those times recreates its atmosphere. The themes of neo-paganism and Gnosticism are threads through the stories. Book 1 TIMES OF DISTRESS Book 2 IN THIS VALE OF TEARS Book 3 COUNTERCULTURE DREAMS Book 4 THE DREAM BECOMES A NIGHTMARE due Sept 2024 Book 5 THE CASTLE OF HEAVENLY BLISS Book 6 A SENSE OF LOSS due 2025 Book 7 WHERE TO NOW? due 2026 Book 8 A LONG WAY BACK due 2027

A fictionalized account of a past life experience that has no bearing on people or places in the 20th century. The book is to entertain with ideas and concepts. These ideas and concepts are made up.

A discounted ebundle of author Robert Charles Wilson''s Hugo Award-winning and critically-acclaimed Spin Saga Trilogy, which includes: Spin, Axis, and Vortex “Robert Charles Wilson is a hell of a storyteller.” —Stephen King on Spin “Wilson does so many fine things, it’s hard to know where to begin to praise him.” —The Washington Post on Spin Spin One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives... Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger. Axis Visit the "world next door"—the planet engineered by the mysterious Hypotheticals to support human life, and connected to Earth by way of the Arch that towers hundreds of miles over the Indian Ocean. Humans are colonizing this new world—and, predictably, fiercely exploiting its resources, chiefly large deposits of oil in the western deserts of the continent of Equatoria. Vortex Turk and his young friend Isaac Dvali are taken up by a community of fanatics who use them to enable a passage to the dying Earth, where they believe a prophecy of human/Hypothetical contact will be fulfilled. The prophecy is only partly true, however, and Turk must unravel the truth about the nature and purpose of the Hypotheticals before they carry him on a journey through warped time to the end of the universe itself. Tor books by Robert Charles Wilson Last Year The Affinities Burning Paradise Julian Comstock Blind Lake The Chronoliths The Perseids and Other Stories Bios Darwinia Mysterium A Bridge of Years A Hidden Place At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The recovery of Jerusalem - A narrative of exploration and discovery in the city and the Holy Land is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1871. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become rare and historical knowledge for the future.

The Hugo Award–winning author of Spin, praised as “a hell of a storyteller” by Stephen King, gives time travel his own mind-bending twist . . . Two events made September 1st a memorable day for Jesse Cullum. First, he lost a pair of Oakley sunglasses. Second, he saved the life of President Ulysses S. Grant. In the near future of Robert Charles Wilson’s Last Year, the technology exists to open doorways into the past—but not our past, not exactly. Each “past” is effectively an alternate world, identical to ours but only up to the date on which we access it. And a given “past” can only be reached once. After a passageway is open, it’s the only road to that particular past; once closed, it can’t be reopened. A passageway has been opened to a version of late 19th-century Ohio. It’s been in operation for most of a decade, but it’s no secret, on either side of time. A small city has grown up around it to entertain visitors from our time, and many locals earn a good living catering to them. But like all such operations, it has a shelf life; as the “natives” become more sophisticated, their version of the “past” grows less attractive as a destination. Jesse Cullum is a native. And he knows the passageway will be closing soon. He’s fallen in love with a woman from our time, and he means to follow her back—no matter whose secrets he has to expose in order to do it. “Wilson’s prose is beautifully constructed in this intelligent and gripping novel.” —Chicago Review of Books

Kids love fast food. And the fast food industry definitely loves kids. It couldn''t survive without them. Did you know that the biggest toy company in the world is McDonald''s? It''s true. In fact, one out of every three toys given to a child in the United States each year is from a fast food restaurant. When Eric Schlosser''s best-selling book, Fast Food Nation, was published for adults in 2001, many called for his groundbreaking insight to be shared with young people. Now Schlosser, along with co-writer Charles Wilson, has investigated the subject further, uncovering new facts children need to know. In Chew On This, they share with kids the fascinating and sometimes frightening truth about what lurks between those sesame seed buns, what a chicken ''nugget'' really is, and how the fast food industry has been feeding off children for generations. This edition features a new introduction by Eric Schlosser.

The South Louisiana Sleep Disorders Institute promises to let you live out your dreams in your sleep—to experience them so strongly that afterwards you won''t be able to tell the difference between them and real memories. The Institute Director claims to use these lucid dreams only as therapy for her clients. But when one of the clinic''s clients and two of its neighbors are murdered, Detective Mark French finds that the institute also has more sinister purposes.

A team of scientists explore an uncharted region of the Amazon, seeking exotic plants that may yield cures for the diseases afflicting humanity. But their mission goes horribly wrong when the party is attacked by the area''s mysterious natives, and when they learn too late that they''ve landed in the cauldron of a deadly, unknown virus.

Young ER doctor Michael Sims feels too many of his patients are dying without cause. Shannon Donnelly, the Congressman''s beautiful daughter, believes the police are wrong in ruling her father''s death a suicide. Now they''re teaming up uncover the truth about a terrifying medical experiment involving nerve regeneration and organ transplants. It''s backed by millions of dollars. It''s protected at the highest levels of government. But there are no volunteers, no donors. There are only ordinary people who check into this Mississippi hospital...and discover that death isn''t he worst thing they have to fear. Getting "chosen" is....

National bestselling author Charles Wilson delivers a cutting-edge thriller based on real-life experiments at improving human intelligence currently underway in both government and private circles. Imagine a computer chip no bigger than the tip of a pencil. This chip, if implanted in a human brain, could give someone encyclopedic knowledge, lightning-fast reflexes and superior learning skills. In a remote military hospital in Montana, an experiment is being performed: implant the chip into the brains of five volunteers. These volunteers, four men and one woman, are all serving life sentences in prison. The experiment works...but the five criminals escape. One young doctor is pulled into the intrigue by the baffling murder of his medical school mentor. Can this one doctor stop the conspiracy of five powerful opponents...whose driving desire is absolute and total control?

Paleontologist Cameron Malone has discovered a 500,000-year-old man. Renegade scientist Dr. Noel Anderson has plans for the ancient man. When Anderson steals tissue from the frozen corpse, he uses the DNA to create a modern Ancient Man. Now, Dr. Malone must stop this waking nightmare of genetic engineering. "Paleontologist Malone discovers a 500,000-year-old man, only to have a rival scientist defile the find in his search for genetic material to implant in an unsuspecting woman. What grows from the ancient DNA is a twin horror so unpredictible and terrifying that it shakes modern science and those who try to control the new arrivals." -- Midwest Book Review

IN MEXICO...the charred remains of a medical clinic hold a clue to an experiment that can change the world. IN LOS ANGELES...a famous model, desperate to have a baby of her own, sends a detective to track down a legend...and a doctor missing for twenty years. IN BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI...a little boy plays with matchs and smiles. IN A SECRET LOCATION...the radical procedure begins, leading to a scientific miracle ...or the beginning of a nightmare. What does the next step in high-tech reporduction hold for humankind? In a tale as real as tomorrow''s headlines, a rich, successful woman takes a desperate gamble to have a child. A young lawyer discovers a fatal flaw in an unethical experiment. And a new life begins -- a life that could signal a revolution in modern medicine...or the end of us all.

After becoming a part of the Tau, one of twenty-two large global network Affinities in the near future, young Adam Fisk thinks his life has improved for the better until the different Affinities begin to go to war with one another in a conflict that will change Adam''s world forever.

Botschaften aus der Zukunft Rätselhafte Artefakte erscheinen eines Tages auf der Erde – doch sie stammen nicht von Außerirdischen, sondern von uns selbst, von einer zukünftigen Menschheit, die Botschaften in die Vergangenheit schickt. Doch was haben diese Botschaften zu bedeuten? Ein Wettlauf gegen die Zeit beginnt ...

Scott Warden is a man haunted by the past--and soon to be haunted by the future. In early-twenty-first-century Thailand, Scott is an expatriate slacker. Then, one day, he inadvertently witnesses an impossible event: the violent appearance of a 200-foot stone pillar in the forested interior. Its arrival collapses trees for a quarter mile around its base, freezing ice out of the air and emitting a burst of ionizing radiation. It appears to be composed of an exotic form of matter. And the inscription chiseled into it commemorates a military victory--sixteen years in the future. Shortly afterwards, another, larger pillar arrives in the center of Bangkok--obliterating the city and killing thousands. Over the next several years, human society is transformed by these mysterious arrivals from, seemingly, our own near future. Who is the warlord "Kuin" whose victories they note? Scott wants only to rebuild his life. But some strange loop of causality keeps drawing him in, to the central mystery and a final battle with the future. The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson is a 2002 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel and the winner of the 2002 John W. Campbell Memorial Award. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"The First Peace; My Search for the Better Angels" is a spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and perhaps educational memoir that spans fifty-plus years, eleven states, three countries, military and seminary, birth and death, marriage and divorce, three Christian denominations, and a monastery. This memoir is a journey through faith and knowledge, hope and reality, love and experience. The author attempts to reconcile what he has been taught, what he believes, what he experiences, what he knows, what he wants, and what he perceives. His unacknowledged question: What do we do when we evolve beyond the "faith of our fathers" (and/or mothers)? After a life of seeking to understand through the lens of Christianity (and other religions), the author comes to understand that religious beliefs and dogma may become a barrier to faith and understanding. The author learns that liberty entails responsibility, faith requires self-reliance, and enlightenment is found within. Liberty and freedom entail responsibility, responsibly that no other person or institution can assume for use. We remain responsible for our actions and inactions. No person, government, or religious institution can assume or remove our responsibility for our actions, for our lives. "The First Peace; My Search for the Better Angels" is an attempt to weave a tapestry of stories, ideas and ideals, ethics, experiences, and expressions - with the goal (and hope) to entertain, inform, educate, persuade, stimulate, and even challenge. Perhaps "The First Peace; My Search for the Better Angels" will remind you of your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings that provide some measure of contentment, but also some measure of challenge, even conflict. The silence beyond those reminders is where we find "the first peace" and where we are "at liberty to be real" and where "the better angels of our nature" touch us.

From the Hugo-winning author of Spin, an exuberant adventure in a post-climate-change America In the reign of President Deklan Comstock, a reborn United States is struggling back to prosperity. Over a century after the Efflorescence of Oil, after the Fall of the Cities, after the Plague of Infertility, after the False Tribulation, after the days of the Pious Presidents, the sixty stars and thirteen stripes wave from the plains of Athabaska to the national capital in New York City. In Colorado Springs, the Dominion sees to the nation''s spiritual needs. In Labrador, the Army wages war on the Dutch. America, unified, is rising once again. Then out of Labrador come tales of a new Ajax-Captain Commongold, the Youthful Hero of the Saguenay. The ordinary people follow his adventures in the popular press. The Army adores him. The President is...troubled. Especially when the dashing Captain turns out to be his nephew Julian, son of the falsely accused and executed Bryce. Treachery and intrigue dog Julian''s footsteps. Hairsbreadth escapes and daring rescues fill his days. Stern resolve and tender sentiment dice for Julian''s soul, while his admiration for the works of the Secular Ancients, and his adherence to the evolutionary doctrines of the heretical Darwin, set him at fatal odds with the hierarchy of the Dominion. Plague and fire swirl around the Presidential palace when at last he arrives with the acclamation of the mob. As told by Julian''s best friend and faithful companion, a rustic yet observant lad from the west, this tale of the 22nd Century asks- and answers-the age-old question: "Do you want to tell the truth, or do you want to tell a story?"

He was designed to be the perfect man. And at first the experiment seemed a success. John Shaw - the product of secret government research into enhanced intelligence - was from birth far beyond anything human. Brilliant and charismatic, John could have been anything he wanted - except that which he longed for more than anything. To be normal. So John created Benjamin: an alternative persona, a way of coping with people who hated what they could not understand. He was everything that John wasn''t - but now those very differences are killing him. Benjamin has become the dominant personality, more and more often in control. John''s altered body has left his mind at risk - and unless he can discover the truth that will fuse both parts together, both he and Benjamin will die. Robert Charles Wilson spins one of his most stirring, tightly woven tales with The Divide. Reminiscent of Flowers for Algernon, it is at once an adventure story and a sensitive look at the consequences of man''s actions - and of one man''s quite literal search for himself.

From the Hugo Award–winning author of Spin, an early classic of time-travel and human transformation. Originally published in 1991, we are bringing this back as a reprint.

MYSTERY ROMANCE AND THE OCCULT Virginia Pearson and the beautiful Aine O’Riordan are among a group of young women entering the convent of the Sisters of the Suffering Saviour. Strange happenings torment the sensitive and withdrawn Aine O’Riordan. Virginia tries to comfort her, but dark mysterious events force Aine out of the convent. Deeply saddened, she leaves behind her dear friend to deal with the unexplained happenings and an atmosphere of foreboding that seems to infect the life of the convent. Virginia (later Sister Agnes), suspicious of fellow postulant Margaret McGuigan’s (later Sister Catherine) role in convent’s atmosphere, enters into a barely suppressed conflict with her through their religious training to their university course in 1962. The intrusion of Virginia Pearson’s resentful former fiancé – and senior lecturer Dr Philip Stevenson – into her life as Sister Agnes adds an unexpected problem. Meanwhile, Aine has been lured into the world of fashion modelling and appears unaware of where personable photographer Harry is leading her. She unwittingly plays a connecting role in the deepening conflict and the continuing mysteries that see Virginia and Aine each rushing towards a crisis. The SIXTIES SERIES will consist of eight connected but stand-alone stories. The cultural revolution of the 1960s (1960-1975) and the Second Vatican Council are the social, cultural, and political background. The author who lived through the turmoil of those times recreates its atmosphere. The themes of neo-paganism and Gnosticism are threads through the stories. Book 1 TIMES OF DISTRESS Book 2 IN THIS VALE OF TEARS Book 3 COUNTERCULTURE DREAMS Book 4 THE DREAM BECOMES A NIGHTMARE due Sept 2024 Book 5 THE CASTLE OF HEAVENLY BLISS Book 6 A SENSE OF LOSS due 2025 Book 7 WHERE TO NOW? due 2026 Book 8 A LONG WAY BACK due 2027

Paul Martin is not sure what he is, where he is going, and who he is going with – until he meets Persephone Stickx with whom he falls in love. Super confident modern Persephone is determined to lead Paul to inner enlightenment through the divine feminine. Paul meets Persephone when friend property dealer Brad brings Persephone and her partner Hayden to Paul’s house in the pristine hinterland, a haven for environmentalists and counterculture enthusiasts. Persephone and Hayden show a keen interest in an old religious picture Paul bought at the local market. They say the picture represents bondage for Paul. They want to help Paul break that bondage. Their enthusiasm to help intensifies when they learn Paul knows Fr Robbie Pleasance, who is before the courts for the sexual abuse of a minor. Paul was in a relationship with the priest, and he needs to act. They enlist brilliant lawyer Aleta Broadbent. To lead a reluctant Paul to inner enlightenment, Persephone and Hayden expose him to a ritual that aims to expose the divine feminine. But it does not go as Persephone plans. The ritual fails. Instead of Persephone leading Paul to the divine feminine, she finds her growing affection for Paul leading her away from her salvific task. Hayden sees the relationship sabotaging their enterprise and breaks it up. Paul is despairing. By this time, a band of media people and lawyers pursuing clerical sexual abuse is circling Paul. What can he do to escape Aleta’s manipulation and the media’s attention and have Persephone with him again? The barriers seem invincible as he drawn farther into a vortex of a national media frenzy over the alleged abuse of a minor by the city’s Catholic archbishop.

A collection of the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2009 by current and emerging masters of the genre. In “Erosion,” by Ian Creasey, a man tests the limits of his exo-suit prior to leaving a dying Earth. In “As Women Fight,” by Sara Genge, a hunter, in a society of body-switchers, has no time to train for a fight to inhabit his wife’s body. In “A Story, with Beans,” by Steven Gould, the role of religion in a dystopian future plagued with metal-eating bugs is considered. In “Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance,” by John Kessel, a monk, in the far future, steals the only copy of a set of plays from a repressive regime and uses this loot to free his people. In “On the Human Plan,” by Jay Lake, a mysterious alien visits a far-future, dying Earth in search of the death of Death. Set in the Jackaroo sequence, “Crimes and Glory,” by Paul McAuley, a detective chases a thief to recover alien technology that both aliens and humanity are desperate to recover. Set in the Lovecraftian “Boojum” universe, “Mongoose” by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, a vermin hunter and his tentacled assistant come on board a space station to hunt toves and raths. In “Before My Last Breath,” by Robert Reed, a geologist discovers a strange fossil in a coal mine that leads to the discovery of a peculiar graveyard. In the Hugo Award winning novelette “The Island,” by Peter Watts, a woman on a spaceship must decide whether to place a stargate near an alien society that will ultimately destroy it. Finally, “This Peaceable Land; or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe,” by Robert Charles Wilson, is an alternate American Civil War history in which the war was never fought, slavery gradually disappeared, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin was never published.