"Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, a winner of the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty (1914-2002) was an American original, a teller of acute, indescribably loopy tall tales whose work has been compared to that of Avram Davidson, Flannery O'Connor, Flann O'Brien, and Gene Wolfe. The Best of R. A. Lafferty presents 22 of his best flights of offbeat imagination, ranging from classics...

The third and final volume of an overview of the author's work features novels written during his later years, including "A Maze of Death" and "The Divine Invasion," when the themes of religious revelation became predominant.

The beautiful planet Pern seemed a paradise to its new colonists-a return to an agrarian way of life-until unimaginable terror turned it into hell. Lethal spores began to fall like silvery thread-like rain from the sky, vaporizing everything-and everyone-in their path. The colony, cut off from Earth and lacking the resources to combat the menace, was doomed. The colonists noticed that small, dragon-like lizards in their new world were joining the...

"In this original collection of eight interwoven short stories, an alien virus ravages the world. Those infected either die, receive superpowers, or are bizarrely mutated. Dubbed "The Sleeper," Croyd Crenson undergoes hibernations that span days, weeks, or even months. After each hibernation, he awakens with a new appearance and set of powers until his next sleep shuffles the cards anew. His latest awakening has left him split into six different incarnations....

"Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts--as a means of self-conception--could be controlled or erased by a select few. And whether human, A.I., or other, your life and sentience was dictated by those who'd convinced themselves they had the right to decide your fate. That was until Jane 57821 decided to remember and break free. Expanding from that mythos, these stories fully explore what it's like to live in such a totalitarian existence--and...

An ageless hermit runs a secret way station for alien visitors in the Wisconsin woods in this Hugo Award–winning science fiction classic Enoch Wallace is not like other humans. Living a secluded life in the backwoods of Wisconsin, he carries a nineteenth-century rifle and never seems to age-a fact that has recently caught the attention of prying government eyes. The truth is, Enoch is the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War and, for...