Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty drew more from traditional oral storytelling techniques than from the usual pulp roots of SF. His inventive style and fondness for tall tales marked him out from his contemporaries, and writers of the calibre of Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman and Gene Wolfe acknowledge him as a major influence and force in the field. His fiction has garnered numerous award wins and nominations and he has been given the prestigious SFWA Grand Master Award and the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. This volume contains three of his early novels: the Hugo- and Nebula-shortlisted Past Master, space opera re-telling of The Odyssey, Space Chantey, and Fourth Mansions, also shortlisted for the Nebula.

Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty has been awarded and nominated for a multitude of accolades over the span of his career, including the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.This collection contains 22 unique tall tales, including:Hugo Award-winning''Eurema''s Dam'' - introduced by Robert SilverbergHugo Award-nominated''Continued on the Next Rock'' - introduced by Nancy Kress''Sky'' - introduced by Gwenda BondNebula Award-nominated''In Our Block'' - introduced by Neil GaimanAnd more stories introduced by other modern masters of SF who acknowledge R.A. Lafferty as a major influence and force in the field.

A constellation of persons or events will have precedent. It will not appear out of nothing; it''s a converging of previous trails and persons. Before one set of adventures, there was always another set; and before those, still another set, back to the beginning of the world.We pass from one set to another now, from the Green-Flame adventure to the Half-Sky adventure. We are still in the middle of the nineteenth century, that most unreal of centuries, looking for reality under stodgy and ridiculous surface.

The golden planet of Astrobe, made in the image of Utopia, now faced a crisis which could destroy it forever; and yet, no one could understand it: In a world where wealth & comfort were free to everyone, why did so many desert the golden cities for the slums of Cathead and the Barrio? Why did they turn away from the Astrobe dream and seek lives of bone-crushing work, squalor and disease?The rulers of Astrobe didn''t know, so they sought in humankind''s past for a leader who could give them the answers. They brought to life the one man out of history who would most want to destroy Astrobe!

Seven very special people blending to create a higher form of humanity...A laughing man living alone on a mountain top, guarding the world...The returnees, men who live again and again, century after century...A dog-ape plappergeist who can be seen only from the corner of the eye...And a young man named Foley, very much like you or me, who begins to find out about these people and these things, and how they are shaping the destiny of the world...

The fall of the Roman Empire was the denouement of a long and dramatic confrontation between powerful ideological forces and legendary men. R. A. Lafferty captures the true meaning of both, and examines the people, places, ideas and feelings that led to this epic struggle.Rome''s demise was not a simple case of fierce barbarians sacking and subduing a decadent, crumbling city. The author has skillfully balanced the turmoil and illusions of a mighty, dying Empire against the vitality of the aggressive Huns, Vandals, and above all, the Goths. The result is one of the most perceptive and stimulating historical accounts ever written.This is history told and read for sheer pleasure: exciting, splendid and complex. The Fall of Rome is a story of the men and women who made things happen, who were as awesome, poignant, and in some cases, as savage as the era itself.

Aurelia was a fifteen-year-old girl from a very advanced world. She''d passed Starship building easily enough, but she''d slept through most of celestial navigation. That was how she ended up on a little back-water dump like Earth, where her advanced powers seemed like miracles. Some thought she was the Messiah. Some thought she was the Devil. No one was prepared for the truth.

OH COME TO KLEPSIS TO CLAIM YOUR SHARE ... AND BREATHE THE RANK AND LAWLESS AIR!Plots and intrigues and romances abound.Smoke pictures, ghosts and treasure chests to be found.Magnifying monocles and hallucinogenic grapes - the unvoiced dreams of the dregs of space.Long John Tony Tyrone, the peg-legged historian, journeys here...And marries a princess with rainbow hair.But the Ghost of Christopher Brannagan will not restUntil mathematician Aloysius has put to the testHis theory concerning the Doomsday EquationWhich might save the plane from total devastation.Or might not.

It was the End of Summer of the year 2035. The Global Village that was the World was ruled by a Kangaroo Court of Compassionate Aldermen who ordered assassinations when it was deemed to be for the common good. As a sign of their openness, they were always experimenting to find new ways of looking at the World. Most of these experiments would would fail; some of them would succeed to an extent; and others would succeed only too well, and so would have to be crushed in the shell for the good of the World.The Lynn-Randal Experiment raised three children together almost from infancy. Of these three, Lord Randal was human (though somewhat enhanced and tampered with). Axel belonged to the gargoyle-faced ''Golden People'' (''God believes they are the most beautiful creatures he ever made,'' a theologian said, ''and there will be hell to pay when he founds out that we don''t agree.''). And the third child was Inneal who often elicited the comment ''she''s really something different, isn''t she!'' Yes, she was. All of these were super-mega-persons, which meant that they might be able to change the world itself. But why did they begin to change the Ocean first?When these three were just short of ten years old, they were merged with children of three other experiments, and formed with them a Magic Dozen. Immediately they began to have an astonishing effect on the World. And the fave of the children themselves hung in the balance.Was the experiment too successful? Was their effect on the World too dangerous? Would their group be, as other groups had been, adjudged to be a ''Serpent''s Egg'' that had to be crushed in the shell for the good of the world?The Three Days of Summerset, the End of Summer, would give the answer.

There have always been the Twenty One Pillars of Rectitude who sustain the World: Seven Saints to insure the sanity of the world; Seven Technicians to insure its correct mechanical working; and Seven Scribbling Giants to write its scenarios and histories. The Saints and Technicians were always in plentiful supply. But not so the Scribbling Giants.So when Atrox Fabulinus, the greatest of the Scribbling Giants, was most foully murdered with his own nine-foot-long goose feather quill, the World staggered with the collapse of its most sustaining pillar. Then the remaining Scribbling Giants (all of them very old and tired) cried out for replacements so they could go to their restful deaths.This is the story of how the World, at the uneven changing of its supporting pillars, staggered and reeled.It is also the story of the Group of Twelve, an Group remarkable for its creativity and elegance, and how it set out to sustain the World in its new days of tottering terror.Whether the Group will be successful, indeed whether they have been successful, remains to be answered on the ninth day of the week, east of Laughter.

Sixteen stories about secret places and mean men, containing: About a Secret CrocodileMad ManNor Limestone IslandsThe Man UnderneathBoomer FlatsThis Grand Carcass YetIn the GardenGroaning Hinges of the WorldGolden TrabantHow They Gave It BackMaybe Jones and the CitySeven Story DreamAdam Had Three BrothersPig in a PokeyThe Weirdest WorldThe Ultimate Creature

Two novellas by an author who has earned a reputation for original and imaginative writing, with a spark-bladed humour that is unlike anything ever written.Contents:Where have You been Sandaliotis?The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeney

Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty drew more from traditional oral storytelling techniques than from the usual pulp roots of SF. His inventive style and fondness for tall tales marked him out from his contemporaries, and writers of the calibre of Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman and Gene Wolfe acknowledge him as a major influence and force in the field. His fiction has garnered numerous award wins and nominations and he has been given the prestigious SFWA Grand Master Award and the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. This volume contains three of his early novels: the Hugo- and Nebula-shortlisted Past Master, space opera re-telling of The Odyssey, Space Chantey, and Fourth Mansions, also shortlisted for the Nebula.

Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty has been awarded and nominated for a multitude of accolades over the span of his career, including the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.This collection contains 22 unique tall tales, including:Hugo Award-winning''Eurema''s Dam'' - introduced by Robert SilverbergHugo Award-nominated''Continued on the Next Rock'' - introduced by Nancy Kress''Sky'' - introduced by Gwenda BondNebula Award-nominated''In Our Block'' - introduced by Neil GaimanAnd more stories introduced by other modern masters of SF who acknowledge R.A. Lafferty as a major influence and force in the field.

A constellation of persons or events will have precedent. It will not appear out of nothing; it''s a converging of previous trails and persons. Before one set of adventures, there was always another set; and before those, still another set, back to the beginning of the world.We pass from one set to another now, from the Green-Flame adventure to the Half-Sky adventure. We are still in the middle of the nineteenth century, that most unreal of centuries, looking for reality under stodgy and ridiculous surface.

The golden planet of Astrobe, made in the image of Utopia, now faced a crisis which could destroy it forever; and yet, no one could understand it: In a world where wealth & comfort were free to everyone, why did so many desert the golden cities for the slums of Cathead and the Barrio? Why did they turn away from the Astrobe dream and seek lives of bone-crushing work, squalor and disease?The rulers of Astrobe didn''t know, so they sought in humankind''s past for a leader who could give them the answers. They brought to life the one man out of history who would most want to destroy Astrobe!

Seven very special people blending to create a higher form of humanity...A laughing man living alone on a mountain top, guarding the world...The returnees, men who live again and again, century after century...A dog-ape plappergeist who can be seen only from the corner of the eye...And a young man named Foley, very much like you or me, who begins to find out about these people and these things, and how they are shaping the destiny of the world...

The fall of the Roman Empire was the denouement of a long and dramatic confrontation between powerful ideological forces and legendary men. R. A. Lafferty captures the true meaning of both, and examines the people, places, ideas and feelings that led to this epic struggle.Rome''s demise was not a simple case of fierce barbarians sacking and subduing a decadent, crumbling city. The author has skillfully balanced the turmoil and illusions of a mighty, dying Empire against the vitality of the aggressive Huns, Vandals, and above all, the Goths. The result is one of the most perceptive and stimulating historical accounts ever written.This is history told and read for sheer pleasure: exciting, splendid and complex. The Fall of Rome is a story of the men and women who made things happen, who were as awesome, poignant, and in some cases, as savage as the era itself.

Aurelia was a fifteen-year-old girl from a very advanced world. She''d passed Starship building easily enough, but she''d slept through most of celestial navigation. That was how she ended up on a little back-water dump like Earth, where her advanced powers seemed like miracles. Some thought she was the Messiah. Some thought she was the Devil. No one was prepared for the truth.

OH COME TO KLEPSIS TO CLAIM YOUR SHARE ... AND BREATHE THE RANK AND LAWLESS AIR!Plots and intrigues and romances abound.Smoke pictures, ghosts and treasure chests to be found.Magnifying monocles and hallucinogenic grapes - the unvoiced dreams of the dregs of space.Long John Tony Tyrone, the peg-legged historian, journeys here...And marries a princess with rainbow hair.But the Ghost of Christopher Brannagan will not restUntil mathematician Aloysius has put to the testHis theory concerning the Doomsday EquationWhich might save the plane from total devastation.Or might not.

It was the End of Summer of the year 2035. The Global Village that was the World was ruled by a Kangaroo Court of Compassionate Aldermen who ordered assassinations when it was deemed to be for the common good. As a sign of their openness, they were always experimenting to find new ways of looking at the World. Most of these experiments would would fail; some of them would succeed to an extent; and others would succeed only too well, and so would have to be crushed in the shell for the good of the World.The Lynn-Randal Experiment raised three children together almost from infancy. Of these three, Lord Randal was human (though somewhat enhanced and tampered with). Axel belonged to the gargoyle-faced ''Golden People'' (''God believes they are the most beautiful creatures he ever made,'' a theologian said, ''and there will be hell to pay when he founds out that we don''t agree.''). And the third child was Inneal who often elicited the comment ''she''s really something different, isn''t she!'' Yes, she was. All of these were super-mega-persons, which meant that they might be able to change the world itself. But why did they begin to change the Ocean first?When these three were just short of ten years old, they were merged with children of three other experiments, and formed with them a Magic Dozen. Immediately they began to have an astonishing effect on the World. And the fave of the children themselves hung in the balance.Was the experiment too successful? Was their effect on the World too dangerous? Would their group be, as other groups had been, adjudged to be a ''Serpent''s Egg'' that had to be crushed in the shell for the good of the world?The Three Days of Summerset, the End of Summer, would give the answer.

There have always been the Twenty One Pillars of Rectitude who sustain the World: Seven Saints to insure the sanity of the world; Seven Technicians to insure its correct mechanical working; and Seven Scribbling Giants to write its scenarios and histories. The Saints and Technicians were always in plentiful supply. But not so the Scribbling Giants.So when Atrox Fabulinus, the greatest of the Scribbling Giants, was most foully murdered with his own nine-foot-long goose feather quill, the World staggered with the collapse of its most sustaining pillar. Then the remaining Scribbling Giants (all of them very old and tired) cried out for replacements so they could go to their restful deaths.This is the story of how the World, at the uneven changing of its supporting pillars, staggered and reeled.It is also the story of the Group of Twelve, an Group remarkable for its creativity and elegance, and how it set out to sustain the World in its new days of tottering terror.Whether the Group will be successful, indeed whether they have been successful, remains to be answered on the ninth day of the week, east of Laughter.

Sixteen stories about secret places and mean men, containing: About a Secret CrocodileMad ManNor Limestone IslandsThe Man UnderneathBoomer FlatsThis Grand Carcass YetIn the GardenGroaning Hinges of the WorldGolden TrabantHow They Gave It BackMaybe Jones and the CitySeven Story DreamAdam Had Three BrothersPig in a PokeyThe Weirdest WorldThe Ultimate Creature

Two novellas by an author who has earned a reputation for original and imaginative writing, with a spark-bladed humour that is unlike anything ever written.Contents:Where have You been Sandaliotis?The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeney