Eve Erixour is a mercenary with a past no one would envy and more enemies than anyone should have. Death stalks her relentlessly. So when she gains the attention of a League assasin, she considers it par for the course.

"The Allies and the Empire of New Britain Isles now stand united against the attacks of both the savage Grik and the tenacious Japanese. But Designated Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces Matt Reddy has a new foe to contend with: the Holy Dominion, a warped mixture of human cultures whose lust for power overshadows even the Grik's. Only a risky naval engagement and a desperate land battle can preserve freedom and prevent swift conquest by the Dominion....

"The emperor is dead; long live the emperors! The assassinated Shah Jahan lies entombed beside his beloved wife in the Taj Mahal, while their progeny drag the Mughal Empire into a three-sided struggle over the succession to the Peacock Throne. The diplomatic and trade mission from the United States of Europe is openly siding with Princess Jahanara and her brother Dara Shikoh. The mission, made up largely of Americans transplanted in time by the Ring...

"'The war has turned us into light. Transforming us into light is the fastest way to travel from one front to another, and there are many fronts, now. I always wanted to be a hero. I always wanted to be on the side of light. It's funny how things work out.' Soldiers in the war against Mars, The Light Brigade, live brief lives, but the veterans are starting to be affected by changes in their bodies and minds, slipping in and out of time, or are they...

"It's been more than a year since the cruise ship Queen of the Sea was transported in time and space to the ancient Mediterranean not long after the death of Alexander the Great. Captain Lars Floden and the other "Ship People" are trying to plant the seeds of modern civilization. It's not an easy task, to put it mildly, even if they have a tacit alliance with the co-regents of Alexander's empire, his widow Roxane, and Eurydice, the wife of his half-brother....

"Three stars--of fire, water, and ice--have fallen from the skies, and now three women and three men have come together to find them. But on the quest for the final star, they'll discover that possessing it won't be enough to stop the destruction of themselves--and of their world... As the hunt for the Ice Star leads the six guardians to Ireland, Doyle, the immortal, must face his tragic past. Three centuries ago, he closed off his heart, yet his...

This second of two volumes surveying the best science fiction novels of the 1950s presents works by five of the field's most admired and influential practitioners. In Robert A. Heinlein's Double Star (1956), an actor forced to impersonate a twenty-second-century political leader intent on forging bonds between Earthlings and Martians learns hard lessons about the nature of power. Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination (1956), which Neil Gaiman has...