Showing results by author "Darkly Lem" in All Categories

After a fall from grace, intelligence officer Malculm Bysotič avoids further punishment when he is assigned to a bold and controversial new initiative: the forced eviction of all foreign travelers from the localities of Burel Hird. Hailed as a stabilizing effort, the program instead demands ever-more-frequent acts of bureaucratic cruelty. As the margins between just and unjust action continue to blur, Malculm is forced to question the motives and goals of the society he serves.

The stories in this anthology range from quietly strange to ambitiously speculative. Humans transform into cosmic energy or sentient algae. A man wakes up in a new body in a world with continents cut out, months absent from the calendar year, and souls misplaced. Students at a high school regularly vanish without a trace. A woman descends into the depths of the ocean and encounters all-knowing creatures who may have the answers to her deepest questions.

Over thousands of years and thousands of worlds, universe-spanning societies of interdimensional travelers have arisen. Some seek to make the multiverse a better place, some seek power and glory, others knowledge, while still others simply want to write their own tale across the cosmos.