For an overpopulated Earth, whose resources are strained to the breaking point, there is only one place to look for relief: straight up. With the successful completion of the Padrugoi Space Station, humanity has at last achieved its first large-scale permanent presence in space. Additional bases are feverishly being built on the Moon and on Mars, stepping-stones to the greatest adventure in all history.

The kinetically gifted, trained in mind/machine gestalt, are the most valued citizens of the Nine Star League. Using mental powers alone, these few Prime Talents transport ships, cargo, and people between Earth's Moon, Mars' Demos and Jupiter's Callisto.

Strange things are happening on the icy planet of Petaybee. Unauthorized, genetically engineered species have been spotted, and the locals may be deliberately hiding something—perhaps even plotting rebellion. As a combat veteran and a medical retiree, Yana is the ideal person to get close to the natives. She is quickly adopted by the people of Petaybee, who feed her a home remedy that soothes her ragged lungs. Her strength and health return, and she becomes determined to protect her new home and her people from a greedy and increasingly ruthless corporation.

A new "shellperson"—someone born with grave physical disabilities that required her human body to be encased in a massive titanium column—is provided a direct link between her mind and the computer of her ship, XN-935. Nancia is now a brand-new member of the elite Courier Service of the Central Worlds, the “brainship” of the most advanced interstellar ships around. But her innocent vision of human nature is shattered on her first voyage. Nevertheless, the idealistic Nancia and her worldly-wise new “brawn” partners must band together to save the galaxy.

It's the dawning of a new age for mankind when the Catteni descend to Earth and easily overcome the Earth's population. Thousands are herded onto slave ships headed for the intergalactic auction block. Kris Bjornsen is captured in Denver on her way to her college classes and wakes up on the primitive planet Barevi.

Like Helva, The Ship Who Sang, Carialle was born so physically disadvantaged that her only chance for life was as a shell person. And again, like those others, Carialle decided she would strap on a spaceship. Her brawn is a guy named Keff. Their mission: to search the galaxy for intelligent beings.

On Vega III, where the jaded inhabitants pursue lives of malicious intrigue and decadent pleasure, Lady Nimisha Boynton-Rondymense has always been an anomaly. Disdainful of the frivolity of her fellows, she prefers the exciting and challenging world of her father, Lord Tionel, owner and principal starship designer of the famous Rondymense shipyards.

Thomas's Duchess is no ordinary cat. She's a purebred Barque Cat, trained to patrol the ship on which she serves, sniffing out oxygen leaks and spotting other problems. But when a corrupt government announces it has found an epidemic that requires the impounding and possible destruction of animals across the galaxy - Barque Cats included - two young people, a kitten, and a mysterious, powerful cat with a hidden agenda, are all that stand between the galaxy's animals and total destruction.

Nebula Award-winning duo Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough add another thrilling chapter to their sweeping Petaybee saga with Changelings. Yana and Sean are beside themselves with joy over the arrival of their twins Ronan and Murel. But the children's shape-changing abilities attract unwanted attention from an off-world scientist. Now Yana and Sean will do anything to protect their precocious youths from danger.

On the border between Valdemar and the deadly Pelagirs Forest, the gryphon hero Kelvren returns from a near-fatal self-sacrifice that won him the approval of Valdemar's ground troops, but caused a diplomatic crisis. Frustrated by his lack of a hero's welcome, Kelvren is talked into helping with an expedition by his old friend, Firesong. Firesong struggles with his own age and mortality, and he intends to solve a vast mystery at the center of legendary Lake Evendim as his crowning achievement.

In Trio of Sorcery, Mercedes Lackey presents three exciting short urban fantasy novels, including the return of Diana Tregarde and the debut of a brand-new heroine for the twenty-first century.

Within the Eastern Empire, Duke Kordas Valdemar rules a tiny, bucolic Duchy that focuses mostly on horse breeding. Anticipating the day when the Empire's exploitative and militant leaders would not be content to leave them alone, Korda's father set out to gather magicians in the hopes of one day finding a way to escape and protect the people of the Duchy from tyranny.

Stephanie Harrington had always expected to be a forest ranger on her homeworld of Meyerdahl until her parents relocated to the frontier planet of Sphinx in the far distant Star Kingdom of Manticore. It should have been the perfect new home - a virgin wilderness full of new species of every sort, just waiting to be discovered. But Sphinx is a far more dangerous place than ultra-civilized Meyerdahl, and Stephanie's explorations come to a sudden halt when her parents lay down the law: no trips into the bush without adult supervision!

In this chronicle of the early history of Valdemar, Mercedes Lackey's best-selling world, a 13 year-old orphan named Magpie escapes a life of slavery in the gem mines when he is chosen by one of the magical Companion horses of Valdemar to be trained as a Herald. Thrust into the center of a legend in the making, Magpie discovers talents he never knew he had - and witnesses the founding of the great Heralds' Collegium.

There he was in his sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic, all alone and loving it. Well, there was a US Navy carrier group on his southern horizon, but he was a Navy guy himself, so he didn't mind. Then came the UFOs, hurtling in from the Outer Black to overfly the carriers at Mach 17. Their impossible aerobatics were bad enough—but then they started shooting at each other, and at the Navy, with nukes. Little ones at first, but winding up with a 500 megatonner at 90 miles that fried every piece of electronics within line-of-sight.