Search Worlds Without End

Imaginative roleplaying provides relief for some of the crew on the long, dull trip to Saturn. However their imaginary world becomes hazardously confused with the real one when a team begins the exploration of one of Saturn's moons.

Hugo Award winning and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Galaxy Magazine, December 1968. It can also be found in The Hugo Winners, Volume 2: (1963-70) (1971) and edited by Isaac Asimov, More Stories From the Hugo Winners, Volume 2 (1973), also edited by Isaac Asimov. It is included in the collections The Night Face and Other Stories (1978), Winners (1981), The Dark Between the Stars (1981), The Long Night (1983), Call Me Joe (2009) and Flandry's Legacy (2011).

The Buck Starts Here!

Think there's an unbridgeable gulf between human and alien thought Not so! There's a common tongue, all right -- and Nicholas Van Rijn speaks it fluently: TRADE. For behind the buffoonish blarney and bawdy bonhomie of the Falstaffian Van Rijn is a man who gets things done. A born wheeler-dealer who usually leaves both sides better off in the bargain. (While pocketing a hefty cut of the profits himself, of course!)

With The Man Who Counts and a passel of other tales included, this is the first of three volumes set to contain the complete cycle of "Polesotechnic League" books and stories by transcendently-gifted science fiction master (how does seven Hugos and three Nebula Awards strike you ) Poul Anderson – and starring Nicholas Van Rijn, his most famous character of all!

Table of Content:

• "The Saturn Game" (1981)
• "Wings of Victory" (1972)
• "The Problem of Pain" (1973)
• "Margin of Profit" (1956)
• "How to Be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson" (1974)
• "The Three-Cornered Wheel" (1963)
• "A Sun Invisible" (1966)
• "The Season of Forgiveness" (1973)
• "The Man Who Counts" (1958)
• "Esau" (also known as "Birthright") (1970)
• "Hiding Place" (1961)

When You Trade Upon a Star!

Think self-congratulating Federation lackeys are going to be the ones to boldly go where no one has gone before Think again! Now second-son of nobility David Falkayn, hot to prove his worth, leads a team of alien capitalists through deadly threat and gnarly interplanetary dilemma. The mission: to keep intergalactic trade forever free--and always profitable!

The second of three volumes of the complete cycle of ''Polesotechnic League'' books and stories by transcendently-gifted science fiction master (how does seven Hugos and three Nebula Awards strike you ) Poul Anderson!

Table of Content

• "Territory" (1963)
• "Plus Ça Change, Plus C'est La Même Chose" (1966)
• "The Trouble Twisters" (also known as "Trader Team") (1965)
• "Day of Burning" (also known as "Supernova") (1967)
• "The Master Key" (1964)
• "Satan's World" (1969)
• "A Little Knowledge" (1971)
• "Lodestar" (1973)

Nicholas van Rijn, the most flamboyant member of the Polesotechnic League of star traders, could see dark times ahead. Fellow league members were using tactics verging on outright piracy, and others were all too eager to sell starships and high-tech weapons to alien barbarians. A planet not previously known for interstellar commerce suddenly revealed a secret fleet of armed starships, and started building an empire. Even if Van Rijn and his right-hand man David Falkayn could find a way to stop this blatant aggression, the glory days of the League were over. Hereafter, for its own protection against well-armed alien marauders the Earth must maintain a strong military fleet, and one charismatic man would found an empire that would learn nothing of the lessons history taught about the fates of other empires as it began annexing other star systems, whether they wanted to join the Terran Empire or not...

This is the third volume in the first complete edition of Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization saga, and it includes a classic novella which appears here in book form for the first time. And the next volume begins the adventures of Poul Anderson's other legendary character, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry.

Table of Content

• Mirkheim (1977)
• "Wingless" (also known as "Wingless on Avalon") (1973)
• "Rescue on Avalon" (1973)
• "The Star Plunderer" (1952)
• "Saragasso of Lost Starships" (1951)
• The People of the Wind (1973)

It is the twilight of the Terran Empire. The warriors who made it great are long gone now, and the Traders of the Polesotechnic League who made it possible are the dimly-remembered stuff of legend. Alien enemies prowl its outer precincts, and Sector Governors conspire for the Throne of Man. On Terra herself, those who occupy the labyrinthine corridors of power busy themselves with trivialities and internal politics, as outside the final darkness gathers.

In this scene of terminal disarray one man stands like a giant: Dominic Flandry, Agent of the Terran Empire. In three full-length novels, he will rise from young ensign to lieutenant commander as he outthinks rivals and thwarts adversaries, blazing a trail across the galaxy in defense of an Empire which barely appreciates him and against alien enemies who appreciate him all too well.

Table of Content

• Ensign Flandry (1966)
• A Circus of Hells (1970)
• The Rebel Worlds (1969)

It's blazing science fiction adventure starring Dominic Flandry--Science Fiction's James Bond--in the Fifth Volume of the Complete Technic Civilization Saga.

Table of Contents:

• "Outpost of Empire" (1967)
• The Day of Their Return (1975)
• "Tiger by the Tail" (1951)
• "Honorable Enemies" (1951)
• "The Game of Glory" (1957)
• "A Message in Secret" (1959)

A KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOR IN A SAVAGE GALAXY

Captain Dominic Flandry has been knighted for his many services to the Terran Empire--an Empire which is old, jaded, and corrupt, as Flandry well knows--but he also knows that the Empire is better than anything that is likely to take its place. And while that "Sir" before his name may be an added attraction to comely ladies (not that he has ever lacked for the pleasant company of the same), he expects that it will also bring him less welcome attention from envious "colleagues" within the empire.

What it is not likely to do is make him more of an object of interest to the alien Merseians, whose plots against the Empire he has repeatedly foiled. They already are as aware as they can be of how much simpler their plans to rule the galaxy would be if their most dangerous adversary were the late Sir Dominic Flandry.

This is the sixth volume in the first complete edition of Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization saga.

Table of Contents:

• "The Warriors From Nowhere" (1954)
• "Hunters of the Sky Cave" (also known as "A Handful of Stars" and We Claim These Stars) (1959)
• "The Plague of Masters" (also known as "A Plague of Masters" and Earthman, Go Home!) (1960)
• "A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows" (1974)

Sir Dominic Flandry is now an Admiral, but takes little joy in his new rank. He sees the rot in the Terran Empire on every hand and knows that the Long Night will inevitably fall upon the galaxy. His consolation is that measures he has taken while doing what he can to postpone the Empire's final collapse may shorten the coming galactic dark age and hasten the rise of a new interstellar civilization. In the meantime, he'll enjoy the comforts of a decadent civilization-and he'll always be ready for one more battle against the Empire's enemies.

Table of Contents:

• "A Stone in Heaven" (1979)
• "The Game of Empire" (1985)
• "A Tragedy of Errors" (1967)
• "The Night Face" (1978) (also known as "Let the Spacemen Beware!" (1963), a shorter 1960 version was known as "A Twelvemonth and a Day")
• "The Sharing of Flesh" (1968)
• "Starfog" (1967)