At high-pressure chemical plants in the United States and Germany, the race to process a new wonder chemical is on. The stakes are high - and the competition is reckless, desperate and fierce.Trialine. Wonder Drug. If synthesized, its possibilities are endless. Fabulous. It will revolutionise the 21st century. And it will make somebody famous. And somebody very, very rich.But the key to the process is held by somebody who doesn''t know it. Somebody who will be transformed forever. Somebody who is destined to be...The Catalyst.

From the distant dipoles of the universe, two telepathic computers, Largo and Czandra, known as Control, rule over life on all civilized planets. And now, with Project Cancelar, Control has formulated a plan for achieving immortality...a plan which requires as fodder the collapsing of the universe and the destruction of all life. And there is nothing the humans can do. But there is another force in the universe, hidden in the abyss of the Silent Quarter...plotting destruction of Control. A force that is about to be demolished! Before it expires, it launches from its depths a magic ring, an elixir, and a man and a woman in love - riding within the living spirit of a remarkable spaceship to do battle against the cumulative technology of the entire universe.

On an ecologically seared Earth, James Konteau is a veteran krono, a professional time traveler. His job is to ease the overpopulation crisis by establishing new colonies in Earth''s prehistory, long before human beings evolved. But his job has lost all meaning, for Konteau is a lone and troubled man haunted by his own past.Now, suddenly, his future is also in turmoil: a timequake has reportedly ripped through distant eons, destroying one of Konteau''s colonies. Framed for the disaster, Konteau is hunted by authorities, defying all the powers of technology and politics to escape back through the misty ages on a complex mission of death, justice, love - and incredible destiny . . .

Out of body, out of time...Though basically a skeptic, William Reynolds had known out-of-body experiences in the past. But never before had he floated past the boundaries of Baltimore . . . and across the borders of time. And now, with the fires of Civil War looming on the horizon, the astonished graduate student was hobnobbing with none other than the dark poet Edgar Allan Poe. But their meeting of minds was to have chilling consequences. For a desperate Confederacy planned to use them both to remold the world - and to change history...for the worse.

Set after the Third Great War, North and South America are united into one country: Imperial America. A slave state run by a small noble elite who flaunt their wealth by using, and abusing, the one commodity that only the rich can have: human labour. But working underground, persecuted by the police, is an organization dedicated to the overthrow of government and the existing way of life and the establishment of freedom.The Society of Thieves was the only organization that flouted authority in America Imperial: they robbed the rich to buy freedom for the slaves. They were well equipped and trained for their job and had friends and informers in high places ready to reveal where the wealth of the nobles was hidden. And Alar was the best Thief of them all - for he had senses not found in ordinary men, senses that accurately warned him when danger was near. But Alar had amnesia and did not know his true identity though sometimes he sensed that there was a purpose in his actions that was not entirely his own volition. When Keiris, wife of the Imperial Chancellor saw him, she sensed that he was something special and helped him to elude pursuit even though it put her own life in danger. And in trips to the Moon and even the Sun itself, Alar begins to see what part he is destined to play in the struggle for men''s freedom.

World-saver, or world-breaker?The treaty that ended the civil war decreed that the men of science and the followers of the gods would split all of society between them. Yet Guild apprentice Pol was torn between the logic of science and the lure of faith, unaware that destiny had already chosen a very special role for him to play.For Pol was about to encounter a woman of unique power, the mistress of a mysterious, forbidden castle, who would lead him down the pathways of prophecy to a strange and frightening new world . . .

Composer and dancer Anna van Tuyl is working on her masterpiece, a work she has titled "The Rose". Her progress is stymied, however, when her body begins suddenly to change. For no knowable reason, she begins to grow strange protuberances, her body warping more day by day. Desperate to complete her symphony before her life becomes subsumed by these growths, she encounters a painter suffering from the same affliction.Ruy Jacques is an artist, famed for his works and full of inspiration despite his condition. His wife is a scientist, a woman of logic, working to build the perfect weapon. While Anna at first believes she has found a saviour and kindred spirit in Ruy, she instead finds herself in the middle of a tense battle between art and science, with building jealousy and resentment.Is the true goal the completion of her work, or the possibility of a cure? Is it better to seek immortality through their art, or a full life through science? Award-winning author Charles Harness'' lost classic was rediscovered by Michael Moorcock more than a decade after it was first published, and champsioned by him to great acclaim. IT was awarded the Retro-Hugo award in 2004.

The Plaintiff, Universal Patents, Inc., was heartless.The judge, Rex "Spider" Speyer was merciless. Ellen Welles'' case seemed hopeless.Unless her lawyer could locate the mad creator of FAUST - the robot-inventor who''d given Universal Patents its stranglehold on the world economy - she was sure to die for patent infringement, a capital crime in the twenty-first century.Quentin Thomas, Ellen''s lawyer, already knew that the judge was a psychopath, and he quickly learned just how dirty Universal could play...

Dawn of a new DoomsdayIt was in the light of the swift star "God''s-Eye" - said to have been thrown aloft by the Ancients before the Desolation - that Beatra was captured by raiders from under the Earth.Armed with only a psi-kinetic sand-sword and a Dire Wolf''s eyes, Jeremy Wolfhead followed, and found a strange city ruled by the descendants of an ancient government that had escaped the Desolation - a city that was preparing to emerge and bring to Earth a second, even more horrible, Doomsday!

At high-pressure chemical plants in the United States and Germany, the race to process a new wonder chemical is on. The stakes are high - and the competition is reckless, desperate and fierce.Trialine. Wonder Drug. If synthesized, its possibilities are endless. Fabulous. It will revolutionise the 21st century. And it will make somebody famous. And somebody very, very rich.But the key to the process is held by somebody who doesn''t know it. Somebody who will be transformed forever. Somebody who is destined to be...The Catalyst.

From the distant dipoles of the universe, two telepathic computers, Largo and Czandra, known as Control, rule over life on all civilized planets. And now, with Project Cancelar, Control has formulated a plan for achieving immortality...a plan which requires as fodder the collapsing of the universe and the destruction of all life. And there is nothing the humans can do. But there is another force in the universe, hidden in the abyss of the Silent Quarter...plotting destruction of Control. A force that is about to be demolished! Before it expires, it launches from its depths a magic ring, an elixir, and a man and a woman in love - riding within the living spirit of a remarkable spaceship to do battle against the cumulative technology of the entire universe.

On an ecologically seared Earth, James Konteau is a veteran krono, a professional time traveler. His job is to ease the overpopulation crisis by establishing new colonies in Earth''s prehistory, long before human beings evolved. But his job has lost all meaning, for Konteau is a lone and troubled man haunted by his own past.Now, suddenly, his future is also in turmoil: a timequake has reportedly ripped through distant eons, destroying one of Konteau''s colonies. Framed for the disaster, Konteau is hunted by authorities, defying all the powers of technology and politics to escape back through the misty ages on a complex mission of death, justice, love - and incredible destiny . . .

Out of body, out of time...Though basically a skeptic, William Reynolds had known out-of-body experiences in the past. But never before had he floated past the boundaries of Baltimore . . . and across the borders of time. And now, with the fires of Civil War looming on the horizon, the astonished graduate student was hobnobbing with none other than the dark poet Edgar Allan Poe. But their meeting of minds was to have chilling consequences. For a desperate Confederacy planned to use them both to remold the world - and to change history...for the worse.

Set after the Third Great War, North and South America are united into one country: Imperial America. A slave state run by a small noble elite who flaunt their wealth by using, and abusing, the one commodity that only the rich can have: human labour. But working underground, persecuted by the police, is an organization dedicated to the overthrow of government and the existing way of life and the establishment of freedom.The Society of Thieves was the only organization that flouted authority in America Imperial: they robbed the rich to buy freedom for the slaves. They were well equipped and trained for their job and had friends and informers in high places ready to reveal where the wealth of the nobles was hidden. And Alar was the best Thief of them all - for he had senses not found in ordinary men, senses that accurately warned him when danger was near. But Alar had amnesia and did not know his true identity though sometimes he sensed that there was a purpose in his actions that was not entirely his own volition. When Keiris, wife of the Imperial Chancellor saw him, she sensed that he was something special and helped him to elude pursuit even though it put her own life in danger. And in trips to the Moon and even the Sun itself, Alar begins to see what part he is destined to play in the struggle for men''s freedom.

World-saver, or world-breaker?The treaty that ended the civil war decreed that the men of science and the followers of the gods would split all of society between them. Yet Guild apprentice Pol was torn between the logic of science and the lure of faith, unaware that destiny had already chosen a very special role for him to play.For Pol was about to encounter a woman of unique power, the mistress of a mysterious, forbidden castle, who would lead him down the pathways of prophecy to a strange and frightening new world . . .

Composer and dancer Anna van Tuyl is working on her masterpiece, a work she has titled "The Rose". Her progress is stymied, however, when her body begins suddenly to change. For no knowable reason, she begins to grow strange protuberances, her body warping more day by day. Desperate to complete her symphony before her life becomes subsumed by these growths, she encounters a painter suffering from the same affliction.Ruy Jacques is an artist, famed for his works and full of inspiration despite his condition. His wife is a scientist, a woman of logic, working to build the perfect weapon. While Anna at first believes she has found a saviour and kindred spirit in Ruy, she instead finds herself in the middle of a tense battle between art and science, with building jealousy and resentment.Is the true goal the completion of her work, or the possibility of a cure? Is it better to seek immortality through their art, or a full life through science? Award-winning author Charles Harness'' lost classic was rediscovered by Michael Moorcock more than a decade after it was first published, and champsioned by him to great acclaim. IT was awarded the Retro-Hugo award in 2004.

The Plaintiff, Universal Patents, Inc., was heartless.The judge, Rex "Spider" Speyer was merciless. Ellen Welles'' case seemed hopeless.Unless her lawyer could locate the mad creator of FAUST - the robot-inventor who''d given Universal Patents its stranglehold on the world economy - she was sure to die for patent infringement, a capital crime in the twenty-first century.Quentin Thomas, Ellen''s lawyer, already knew that the judge was a psychopath, and he quickly learned just how dirty Universal could play...

Dawn of a new DoomsdayIt was in the light of the swift star "God''s-Eye" - said to have been thrown aloft by the Ancients before the Desolation - that Beatra was captured by raiders from under the Earth.Armed with only a psi-kinetic sand-sword and a Dire Wolf''s eyes, Jeremy Wolfhead followed, and found a strange city ruled by the descendants of an ancient government that had escaped the Desolation - a city that was preparing to emerge and bring to Earth a second, even more horrible, Doomsday!