"The Anvil of the World" is the tale of Smith and his feud-prone people, the Children of the Sun. Smith, formerly a successful assassin, is trying to retire, hoping to live an honest life in obscurity in spite of all those who have sworn to kill him. But when he agrees to be the master of a caravan from traveling from the inland city of Troon to Salesh by the sea, trouble follows.
As always, Baker's approach is charmingly distinctive. Smith's adventure is certainly the only fantasy featuring a white-uniformed nurse, gourmet cuisine, one hundred and forty-four glass butterflies, and a steamboat.

When the British Arean Company founded its Martian colony, it welcomed any settlers it could get. Outcasts, misfits, and dreamers emigrated in droves to undertake the grueling task of terraforming the cold red planet--only to be abandoned when the BAC discovered it couldn't turn a profit on Mars.

This is the story of Mary Griffith, a determined woman with three daughters, who opened the only place to buy a beer on the Tharsis Bulge. It's also the story of Manco Inca, whose attempt to terraform Mars brought a new goddess vividly to life; of Stanford Crosley, con man extraordinaire; of Ottorino Vespucci, space cowboy and romantic hero; of the Clan Morrigan; of the denizens of the Martian Motel, and of the machinations of another Company entirely; all of whom contribute to the downfall of the BAC and the founding of a new world. But Mary and her struggles and triumphs are at the center of it all, in her bar, the Empress of Mars.Based on the Hugo-nominated novella of the same name, this is a rollicking novel of action, planetary romance, and high adventure.

Before the Riders came to their remote valley the Yendri led a tranquil pastoral life. When the Riders conquered and enslaved them, only a few escaped to the forests. Rebellion wasn't the Yendri way; they hid, or passively resisted, taking consolation in the prophecies of their spiritual leader.
Only one possessed the necessary rage to fight back: Gard the foundling, half-demon, who began a one-man guerrilla war against the Riders. His struggle ended in the loss of the family he loved, and condemnation from his own people.
Exiled, he was taken as a slave by powerful mages ruling an underground kingdom. Bitterer and wiser, he found more subtle ways to earn his freedom. This is the story of his rise to power, his vengeance, his unlikely redemption and his maturation into a loving father--as well as a lord and commander of demon armies.
Kage Baker, author of the popular and witty fantasy, "The Anvil of the World," returns to that magical world for another story of love, adventure, and a fair bit of ironic humor.

A prestigious anthology series, Best American Fantasy is guest edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, with Matthew Cheney serving as the series editor, showcasing the best North American fantasy short fiction from the preceding year.

More than five-hundred pages, over one-quarter of a million words... Space Opera spans a vast range of epic interstellar adventure stories told against a limitless cosmos filled with exotic aliens, heroic characters, and incredible settings. A truly stellar compilation of tales from one of the defining streams of science fiction, old and new, written by a supernova of genre talent.

These eight stories, reprinted for the first time in this collection, delve further into the history and exploits of the Company.  The book opens with the novella, "To the Land Beyond the Sunset," starring Lewis and Mendoza, and involving a strange tribe in Bolivia whose members claim to be gods. "Standing in His Light" features Van Drouten's role in the career of the artist Jan Vermeer. Other stories include "Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst," which opens up intriguing questions about The Company, and the original novelette, "Hellfire at Twilight," which concludes the volume and tells of Lewis infiltrating the famous Hellfire Club in eighteenth century England. "Gods and Pawns" is a compelling read for every Baker fan, and essential for Company addicts

Facilitator Joseph has outlasted entire civilizations during his twenty-thousand years of service to Dr. Zeus, the twenty-fourth century Company that created immortal operatives like him to preserve history and culture. The year is 1699 and Joseph is now in Alta California, to imitate an ancient Native-American Coyote god, and save the native Chumash from the white Europeans. He has the help of the Botanist Mendoza, who hasn't got over the death of her lover Nicholas, in Elizabethan England.

In the twenty-fourth century, Dr. Zeus Incorporated discovered the secret of time travel, but only how to move backward. Now cyborg operatives are enduring the epochs of Earth's history -- immortals dedicated to the company's great goal: "to make money and improve the lot of humankind".

After centuries of disappointments -- including the death of her lover -- the Botanist Mendoza is stranded at a remote stagecoach inn in the unspoiled desert destined to be renamed Los Angeles. Back East, a Civil War is raging. But in Cahuenga Pass, there is little for Mendoza and her fellow operatives to do. Until one day the door swings open and in walks the doppelganger of Mendoza's love. And suddenly the Botanist's life is careening toward disaster . . . again.

"Imagine if Monty Python wrote the Mayo Clinic Family Health Book, and you sort of get the idea. Afraid you're afflicted with an unknown malady? Finally you have a place to turn!" --Book Sense
You hold in your hands the most complete and official guide to imaginary ailments ever assembled--each disease carefully documented by the most stellar collection of speculative fiction writers ever to play doctor. Detailed within for your reading and diagnostic pleasure are the frightening, ridiculous, and downright absurdly hilarious symptoms, histories, and possible cures to all the ills human flesh" isn't heir to, including Ballistic Organ Disease, Delusions of Universal Grandeur, and Reverse Pinocchio Syndrome.
Lavishly illustrated with cunning examples of everything that" can't go wrong with you, the Lambshead Guide provides a healthy dose of good humor and relief for hypochondriacs, pessimists, and lovers of imaginative fiction everywhere. Even if you don't have Pentzler's Lubriciousness or Tian Shan-Gobi Assimilation, the cure for whatever seriousness may ail you is in this remarkable collection.

You wouldn't take Lewis for an immortal cyborg: he looks like a dapper character from a Noel Coward play. And Joseph - short and stocky in his Armani suit, with a neatly trimmed black moustache and beard that give him a cheerfully villainous look - you'd never guess that his parents drew the Neolithic cave paintings in the Cevennes. What are these two operatives of the Company doing in an amusement arcade in San Francisco in 1996? They're looking for Mendoza, fellow cyborg of Dr. Zeus Incorporated, who has been banished Back Way Back. They're also trying to solve the mystery of her impossibly-reappearing mortal English lover. Soon they will begin uncovering some extremely hush-hush stuff about what the Company has been doing with the cyborgs it no longer wants in the field.