Synopsis
ALL-NEW STORIES OF ANCIENT ALIEN ARTIFACTS FROM THE TOP NAMES IN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY
THE UNIVERSE IS OLDER AND MORE ALIEN THAN WE CAN EVER UNDERSTAND
We were not alone. The farther we push into the universe, the more obvious it becomes. The signs are everywhere: canals and pyramids on Mars, old roads on the moons of Jupiter, ruined cities on worlds about the nearer stars. The galaxy once teemed with life, or so it seems. Which begs the question: What happened to it all?
These stories explore the ruins of lost civilizations, solve ancient mysteries . . . and awaken horrors from beyond the dawn of time.
Featuring stories by Orson Scott Card, Griffin Barber, Adam Oyebanji, Jessica Maguire, Patrick Chiles, and an all-new entry in the Sun Eater universe from editor Christopher Ruocchio. Join us for your next adventure to Worlds Long Lost!
Praise for Worlds Long Lost:
"Ruocchio (the Sun Eater series) and Korsgaard bring together 14 mind-bending and often disturbing tales of ancient extraterrestrial civilizations throughout the universe . . . Full of creepy flights of imagination and thought-provoking science, this will be a hit with fans of first contact sci-fi."—Publisher's Weekly
"Ruocchio and Korsgaard have shown themselves to have the taste and the discernment of master vintners, going through the grapevine of the science fiction genre to find the sweetest berries. Worlds Long Lost is no mere vinegar, but the finest vintage you can find today. If science fiction were wine, this anthology sparkles, both like champagne, and like the stars in the heavens."—Warped Factor
About Star Destroyers, coedited by Christopher Ruocchio:
“. . . spectacular space battles and alien contacts . . . themes of military ethics, the uses of artificial intelligence, and the limits of the capacity of the human mind. . . . it is the human interactions and decisions that ultimately drive the stories. . . . will appeal to fans of military and hard science fiction and any readers fascinated by the possibilities of space travel.”—Booklist
“. . . stories of giant spaceships at war, at peace, and in the often-gray areas between. . . . a worthy addition to a long tradition of ship-based fiction, and its authors portray captains, arcane astrogators, and civilian child passengers with equal depth. It’s recommended for fans of military SF and space adventure.”—Publishers Weekly
“. . . you’d probably expect some tight, action-filled space opera stories of giant space battles . . . and there’s some of that. But there are also espionage stories, rescue missions, political conflicts, alternate histories, even a few humorous tales. . . . each author took the premise in a different direction . . . if I had to identify one common feature to all the stories, it would be that they’re all fun. . . . Like it says, big ships blowing things up. What’s not to like?”—Analog
About Sword & Planet, edited by Christopher Ruocchio:
". . . the wide mix of stories, and the surprising places they go make this anthology a particular joy from start to finish . . . ofers a glimpse into everything that made stories like these a popular standby since the pulp era, with enough creativity, variety and talent showcased to prove that there's still plenty of life in the century-old genre . . . I recommend it heartily."—Analog
"Sword & Planet breathes new life into a genre that many understandably felt was left moldering in the grave. It’s old-school wonder with twenty-first century polish—what’s not to like?"—Warped Factor
About the Author
Christopher Ruocchio is the author of The Sun Eater, a space opera fantasy series, as well as a former assistant editor at Baen Books, where he has edited several anthologies. He is a graduate of North Carolina State University, where he studied English Rhetoric and the Classics. Christopher has been writing since he was eight and sold his first novel, Empire of Silence, at twenty-two. To date, his books have been published in five languages.
Christopher lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife, Jenna.
Sean CW Korsgaard is a US Army veteran, award-winning photojournalist and freelance reporter, and an assistant editor and media relations manager at Baen Books. As a reporter he has over 1,500 bylines to his name, and his work has been featured in outlets as diverse as The New York Times, VFW Magazine, and Analog. He is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, where he studied mass communications and history.
Sean lives in Richmond, Virginia, with his wife, Suzy.
Gray Rinehart writes science fiction and fantasy stories, songs, and . . . other things. He is the only person to have commanded an Air Force satellite tracking station, written speeches for presidential appointees, devised a poetic form, and had music on The Dr. Demento Show. He is currently a contributing editor (the “Slushmaster General”) for Baen Books.
Gray is the author of the lunar colonization novel Walking on the Sea of Clouds (WordFire Press), and his short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, and multiple anthologies. As a singer/songwriter, he has two albums of mostly science-fiction-and-fantasy-inspired music. During his unusual USAF career, Gray fought rocket propellant fires, refurbished space launch facilities, “flew” Milstar satellites, drove trucks, encrypted nuclear command and control orders, commanded the largest remote tracking station in the Air Force Satellite Control Network, and did other interesting things. His alter ego is the Gray Man, one of several famed ghosts of South Carolina’s Grand Strand, and his web site is graymanwrites.com.
Patrick Chiles is a graduate of The Citadel, a Marine Corps veteran, and a private pilot. In addition to his novels, he has written for magazines including Smithsonian’s Air & Space.
Sean Patrick Hazlett is an Army veteran, speculative fiction writer and editor, and finance executive in the San Francisco Bay area. He holds an AB in history and BS in electrical engineering from Stanford University, and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. As a cavalry officer serving in the elite 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, he trained various Army and Marine Corps units for war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sean is a 2017 winner of the Writers of the Future Contest. More than forty of his short stories have appeared in publications such as The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror, Terraform, Galaxy’s Edge, Writers of the Future, Grimdark Magazine, Vastarien, and Abyss & Apex, among others. He is an active member of the Horror Writers Association and Codex Writers’ Group. Hazlett’s award-winning short story “Adramelech” appeared in the Wall Street Journal best-selling anthology Writers of the Future: Volume 33.
Les Johnson is a futurist, author, and retired NASA Chief Technologist at Marshall Space Flight Center. Publishers Weekly noted that “The spirit of Arthur C. Clarke and his contemporaries is alive and well . . .” when describing his novel, Mission to Methone. His most recent novels, The Spacetime War and Saving Proxima (with coauthor Travis S. Taylor), were published in 2021. He and Travis S. Taylor were also the authors of Back to the Moon and On to Mars. In his day job at NASA, Les has worked on the development of next-generation space technologies—including solar sails, which he believes will eventually take us to the stars. He has recently appeared on Fox News and the Ingraham Report as a commentator on the latest expedition to the moon, Artemis II.
Brian Trent is the award-winning author of the sci-fi thrillers Redspace Rising and Ten Thousand Thunders, and more than a hundred short stories appearing in the world's top fiction markets. This includes the New York Times' bestselling Black Tide Rising series, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Apex, Cosmos, Flash Fiction Online, Flame Tree Publishing’s Gothic Series, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk, Galaxy’s Edge, and numerous year’s best anthologies including back-to-back installments of The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF (for which he was the recipient of the 2019 Reader’s Choice Award). He is also a Writers of the Future winner.
Trent is a frequently published author with Baen Books as well, with stories appearing in Worlds Long Lost, Weird World War III, Weird World War IV, Weird World War: China, Cosmic Corsairs, The Cackle of Cthulhu, and Tales of the U.S. Space Force. Short stories featuring characters from Perdition’s Storm have appeared in the Black Tide Rising anthologies We Shall Rise and United We Stand.
Trent lives in Connecticut. A lifelong aficionado of classic science fiction, fantasy, and horror, he is the host of the podcast Space Station Squid where he discusses the genre. He can be found online at www.briantrent.com.
D.J. (“Dave”) Butler grew up in swamps, deserts, and mountains. After messing around for years with the practice of law, he finally got serious and turned to his lifelong passion of storytelling. He now writes adventure stories for readers of all ages, plays guitar, and spends as much time as he can with his family. He is the author of City of the Saints, Rock Band Fights Evil, Space Eldritch, and Crecheling from Wordfire Press, and from Baen: Witchy Eye, Witchy Winter, Witchy Kingdom, and Serpent Daughter; The Cunning Man series with coauthor Aaron Michael Ritchey; In the Palace of Shadow and Joy as well as Between Princesses and Other Jobs; Abbott in Darkness; and with M.A. Rothman, the Time Trials series.
USA TODAY best-selling author M.A. Rothman is one of the most unlikely novelists you’ll ever meet. He’s an engineer first and foremost, with a background in the sciences, and somehow or another, this writing habit of his has turned into a bit more than just a run-of-the-mill hobby.
He primarily writes stories that focus on two things: technology and international intrigue. This writing tends to span the genres of science fiction, techno-thriller, and mainstream thrillers.
When not writing, he enjoys cooking, learning about new technology, travel, and spending time with his family.
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