The epic, adventure-filled 'Wild West' meets Steampunk' adventure continues. It's August 1884. The consumptive Doc Holliday is preparing to await his end in a sanitarium in Leadville, Colorado, when the medicine man Geronimo enlists him on a mission. The time the great chief has predicted has come, the one white man he's willing to treat with has crossed the Mississippi and is heading to Tombstone - a young man named Theodore Roosevelt. The various tribes know that Geronimo is willing to end the spell that has kept the United States from expanding west of the Mississippi. In response, they have created a huge, monstrous, medicine man named War Bonnet, whose function is to kill Roosevelt and Geronimo and keep the United States east of the river forever. And War Bonnet has enlisted the master shootist John Wesley Hardin. So the battle lines are drawn: Roosevelt and Geronimo against the most powerful of the medicine men, a supernatural creature that seemingly nothing can harm; and Holliday against the man with more credited kills than any gunfighter in history. It does not promise to be a tranquil summer.

Eleven new tales set in the legendary worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs.Most people don’t know it, but the best‑selling American writer of the 1920s wasn’t Hemingway or Fitzgerald, but Edgar Rice Burroughs. Everyone knows that he created Tarzan, but he wasn’t limited to that one classic creation.  There was John Carter, Warlord of Mars.  There was Pellucidar, the wondrous world that exists at the center of the Earth, and  Carson of Venus, the Wrong‑Way Corrigan of space, who set off for Mars and wound up on Venus for four novels and part of a fifth.Many top science fiction and fantasy writers of today grew up reading Burroughs, and this anthology is their way of “paying back” and thanking him for stirring their imaginations. Join their celebration with these all new tales set in the astounding worlds that Edgar Rice Burroughs brought to life: giving their own spin on the unforgettable characters conceived by one of the great masters of science fiction, adventure, and fantasy.

The Chronicles of Lucifer Jones

The Traanskei Coalition's greatest weapon is the Q bomb, and after years of failure, the Democracy has come up with a defense against it. The problem is that they killed most of the team that created it. The sole survivor, Edgar Nmumba, was kidnapped by the Coalition. Only Nmumba can duplicate the work fast enough to prevent the loss of another dozen populated planets. Nathan Pretorius and his team of Dead Enders will require all their skills and cunning to rescue him, sane and in one piece, from the Coalition's best-hidden and best-guarded prison, somewhere in the Antares sector. But in a game of cross and double-cross, can they find him before it's too late?From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Chronicles of Lucifer Jones 1934-1938

The Democracy is at war with the alien Traanskei Coalition. War hero Colonel Nathan Pretorius has a record of success on dangerous behind-enemy-lines missions, missions that usually leave him in the hospital. Now he's recruited for a near-impossible assignment that may well leave him dead. At the cost of many lives, the Democracy has managed to clone and train General Michkag, one of the Traanskei's master strategists. Colonel Pretorius and a hand-picked team must kidnap the real Michkag if they can, assassinate him if they can't, but no matter which, put the clone in his place, where he will misdirect the enemy's forces and funnel vital information to the Democracy.Against the odds, Pretorius, along with Cyborg Felix Ortega, computer expert Toni Levi, convict and contortionist Sally "Snake" Kowalski, the near-human empath Marlowe, the alien Gzychurlyx, and Madam Methuselah - the Dead Enders - must infiltrate the Fortress in Orion, accomplish their mission, and...

Science Fiction. 4965 words long. First published in Asimov's SF Magazine, December 2004 Hugo Award Nominee

ContentsPrologue: One Perfect Morning, With Jackals1. Kirinyaga2. For I Have Touched the Sky3. Bwana4. The Manamouki5. Song of a Dry River6. The Lotus and the Spear7. A Little Knowledge8. When the Old Gods DieEpilogue: The Land of NodAuthor's AfterwordAmazon.com ReviewKirinyaga: A Fable of Utopia collects Mike Resnick's famous Kirinyaga stories and ties them together in a thematic arc that has novel-like continuity. The story focuses on Koriba, a mundumugu (sort of like a witch doctor and a wise man rolled into one) of the Kikuyu tribe. Koriba feels that his tribe has been corrupted by "European" technology, so he helps to establish a small, utopian planetoid named Kirinyaga where the Kikuyu can return to their roots, farming the land and worshipping the god Ngai without technological or cultural interference. As utopias go, Kirinyaga experiences its fair share of problems--both from within and without--each of which is detailed in the individual chapters and stories. The writing is not stylish but the stories are all excellent, and Resnick does a good job of integrating the traditional Kikuyu way of life into tales that any culture can appreciate. Readers looking for a novel may come away a bit disappointed because this book is really a collection of stories, but as far as collections go, few are better than Kirinyaga. From School Library JournalYA-Set in the 22nd century, this stunning sci-fi allegory describes the struggles and ultimate failure of a utopian colony on a terraformed planetoid. In the African nation of Kenya, polluted cities crawl up the side of Mount Kirinyaga. The magnificent animal herds of the past are but distant memories and native crops have been supplanted by European imports. Koriba, a well-educated man, is determined to reinstate the ancient customs and strict laws of his Kikuyu ancestors and invites others to join him in a new society named for their sacred mountain. As the mundumugu-witch doctor-Koriba faces numerous challenges to the utopian society's survival. He must deny a brilliant young woman an education because it is not the ancient way of his people. He watches helplessly as his charges insist on bringing in a white hunter with a gun to kill marauding hyenas when the colony's primitive weapons prove insufficient. With the technology comes subservience to white men's ways. But, in an ultimate irony, Koriba maintains his pure society with a computer link to the rest of humanity, even adjusting weather patterns by communicating his needs to an outside "Maintenance" group. It is the thirst for knowledge that this computer represents that becomes the ultimate threat to the colony. Young adults will love this provocative tale that examines the need for an orderly society, the rights of the individual, and the siren's lure of knowledge.

Hard-luck gumshoe Eli Paxton is hired to find a missing cat--a very important cat, it turns out, because its collar is studded with diamonds worth a small fortune. What starts as a routine search of animal shelters soon becomes a perilous journey through a murky underworld. The woman who hired Paxton is the wealthy widow of a recently murdered financial adviser with an alias and mobster ties.Eli finds the cat, but not the collar. Eventually, he's forced to unravel an intricate plot involving a Bolivian drug cartel. On top of all this, the temperamental widow is more likely to throw things at Eli than pay him for his services. As he turns up one clue after another, leading him ever deeper into a treacherous maze, Eli hopes, first, to survive, and then to make enough money to afford a new transmission for his broken-down car.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Some writing classes caution their students to avoid first-person stories—too traditional, too dated, too difficult to sell. We’ve convinced 5-time Hugo Award winner Mike Resnick to show you how it’s done with two dozen of his best first-person stories.