Fred Saberhagen

It's been a thousand years since the time of Ardneh, the transcendant being that saved humanity from the vicious archdemon Orcus. It was a legndary battle between magic and technology that killed them both, but left behind tales of Ardneh's heroism and newly found hope for humanity. But, in the passing years only a few remain that actually believe these legends as truths. Chance Rolfson comes from a long line of Ardneh's followers, descendants from...

I mentioned to BCW's acquiring editor Michael Bracken that I was enjoying the mystery/science fiction crossover stories he had been selecting for BCW, many of them originals, and he confessed to challenging writers to come up with stories that mixed the two genres. I thought, Aha! So that's where they have all been coming from! It's a Good Thing in my opinion. And this issue we have another one-For Blood," by Eve Fisher, which works well as both science...

Five hundred years have passed since the combined fleets of humanity met and broke the berserker armada at Stone Place. But though the human victory was total, one of the killer machines—weaponless, its star drive a ruin—managed to limp to a secret sanctuary on a planet called Hunter's World. Over the years since then, a new cult has arisen there: a cult dedicated to Death as the only and ultimate Good. For Hunter's World has become Berserker's...

There had been a battle, and the Berserker had met some terrible opponent, taking an awful wound. The cavity reached through level after level of machinery, deck after deck of armor, stopped only by the last inner defenses of the buried, unliving heart. The Berserker had survived, and crushed its enemy. When Hemphill saw the blasted cavity, he felt a shrinking fear, stunned by the realization of just what it means to fight the Berserker. Hemphill,...

The great blue Berserker's destruction of the human colony Shubra was swift and merciless. And when it was over, Niles Domingo's daughter lay among the dead. Now Niles is a man with a mission: vengeance at any cost. With one small ship, Niles sets out against the great Berserker called Leviathan, tracking it through the interstellar mists of the Milkpail Nebula. He is sure he is ready for anything, but nothing can prepare him for the astonishing discoveries...

Our wars were behind us. Mankind was moving out from the planet of its birth. New worlds were settled, and with the wealth of the galaxy at hand, poverty was eliminated. Then out of a clear summer sky came the first berserker attack. The great battles began-between life and nonlife, between freethinking humanity and the preprogrammed killing machines we came to call berserkers. And some of those battles would be waged with lies. This collection of...

The art of speculative fiction lies in the ability to create a plausible future that tells us a great deal about our present. This critically acclaimed recording by narrators Aaron Lustig and Henry Strozier chronicles human reactions on earth to an invasion by alien exterminators intent upon wiping out all sentient life on earth.

In a sector of the galaxy occupied by Earth-descended people, one berserker computer has suddenly and mysteriously developed a tactical strategy unlike anything the human opposition has seen before. Shiva, like the Hindu god of destruction after which it was named, annihilates entire colonies with the help of its fiendish subordinates. Commander Claire Normandy struggles to prepare for Shiva's attacks, while Pilot Harry Silver realizes that he must...

Woundhealer's story, Sightblinder's story, Stonecutter's story.