H. Beam Piper Beloved author of Little Fuzzy, Space Viking and other classics, has left behind a veritable treasure trove of short fiction in his passing. Collected here for the first time anywhere are four of the best stories by one of the Grand Old Masters of science fiction. Contents: Introduction by John F. Carr The Edge of the Knife A Slave is a Slave Ministry of Disturbance The Return by H.Beam Piper and John J. McGuire The Keeper

Grattan, Texas is a bad place to get an education—and a worse place to be a teacher. One by one, the school masters and marms were given a choice: Take a permanent recess...or a bullet in the brain. In no time at all, the schoolhouse was empty. But now there's a new instructor in town. He's packing a six-shooter in his primer. He plans to teach a deadly lesson in revenge. And his name is Dusty Fog...

#3 The Stone Trilogy - THE DEATHSTONE is, as the Boston Globe describes, the "expertly written, chilling finale to the 'Stone' series," Ken Eulo's trilogy of horror that has sold over 3,000,000 copies.The occult nightmares of Chandal Knight are long past and she has spent seven loving years with her supportive husband, Ron Talon. The couple has been living happily in California where they have been raising a daughter, Kristy. After a Hollywood writer's strike, Ron is under enormous stress to keep his Hollywood talent agency going, he's drinking a lot and not acting like himself. Little Kristy has begun acting out as well and Chandal is eager to get her family out of LA on a vacation. The Talons set out to drive across the West but an accident in Utah strands them in a remote mountain village. The townspeople there are friendly but their customs seem a little strange. Ron begins experiencing visions and hallucinations about violence and twisted sex and little Kristy becomes...

A brilliant high school senior girl is quite taken with the science of behavioral modification. When her father suffers a stroke, she experiments with her own family, turning her home into a laboratory, unbeknownst to her teachers and neighbors who have only the highest regard for her. It isn't until a teacher becomes suspicious that her terror is exposed....

Mary Ingles was twenty-three, married, and pregnant, when Shawnee Indians invaded her peaceful Virginia settlement, killed the men and women, then took her captive. For months, she lived with them, unbroken, until she escaped, and followed a thousand mile trail to freedom--an extraordinary story of a pioneer woman who risked her life to return to her people. From the Paperback edition.

Michael X in Trinidad, Peronism in Argentina, the cult of Kingship in Mobutu's Zaire — the author brings his novelist's questioning to bear upon the "half-made" societies, those still suffering from the profound deprivations of colonialism and prey to corruption.A collection of pieces of reportage and reflections on societies which are still suffering from the profound deprivations of colonialism. Amongst the topics covered are Michael X in Trinidad, Peronism in Argentina, and the cult of Kingship in Mobuto's Zaire.In four essays, Naipaul assesses contemporary "half-made societies"—those in Argentina, Trinidad, and the Congo—and compares Conrad's vision of Africa, South America, and the Far East with his own views of those places today

Death stalks Jubal Cade on the peaceful streets of St Louis.He has come East to visit Andy, the blind orphan he had sworn to care for, in the prestigious Lenz Clinic.For a short while, life seems good again, and the sharp-shooting medico lowers his guard. Just long enough for a cold-blooded gunman to get him on the wrong end of a rifle barrel.And when Jubal recovers from his near-fatal wounds, he discovers that Andy has been snatched — to killing-ground of Kansas, where ghost towns echo with the nerve-tearing agony of violent death...

When Theo agrees to print a traveling showman's pamphlet, he only thinks of the money it will bring in. Instead, it sets off a chain reaction that results in the smashing of the press and the murder of his master. Caught on the wrong side of the law, Theo must flee the city. Soon, he has teamed up with the traveling showman Count Las Bombas (who is actually a con artist) and his servant. The trio is soon joined by Mickle, a clever, strong-willed girl with a mysterious past. Performing feats that astound and amaze, the motley crew falls into a trap set by Chief Minister Cabbarus, who is determined to wrest power from the grief-stricken king. Now they must not only save themselves-they must save the kingdom...

There's been an accident! Something's wrong!She doesn't know who she is, and doesn't know why she's invisibly floating through the buildings and grounds of a half-remembered boarding school. Then, to her horror, she encounters the ancient evil that four peculiar sisters have unwittingly woken -- and learns she is their only hope against a deadly danger.

Valerie Jordan felt that her own life had ended with the death of her fiancé, but she was wrong. Life--and love--beckoned to her once more in the person of Jonas Thorne. A man of moods, of bewildering arrogance and stunning tenderness, he made her his wife. His kisses gave her breath; his touch lit a fire in her, and with firm determination he led her into a future brighter than any she had ever known.

The seventies are over. All across America, the overgrown kids of the middle class are getting their acts together--and getting older. The once-tight Chicano community of Chamisaville is long gone, and the Anglo power brokers control almost everything. Joe Miniver--faithful husband, loving father, and all-around good guy—is about to sink roots. To buy the land he wants, he dreams up a coke scam that will net him the necessary bread. Joe is also about to embark on a series of erotic adventures with three headstrong women, bringing him face-to-face with the terrors (and absurdity) of the modern man-woman scene. This final volume in the New Mexico trilogy, like its predecessors, is a lusty, visionary novel that blends comedy and tragedy, reality and fantasy, tenderness and bite, to illuminate some very troubling truths about America--truths no less pointed and accurate today than they were twenty years ago. John Nichols is the author of nine novels and six works of nonfiction. He lives in Northern New Mexico.