The Best of Elizabeth Bear contains 27 stories and novellas, many never before collected, that encompass an astonishing range of themes, settings, ideas and emotions

Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear concludes her highly-acclaimed epic fantasy trilogy, The Lotus Kingdoms, which began with The Stone in the Skull and The Red-Stained Wings. It all comes to a surprising, satisfying climax in The Origin of Storms!The Lotus Kingdoms are at war, with four claimants to the sorcerous throne of the Alchemical Emperor fielding three armies between them. Alliances are made, and broken, many times over—but in the end, only one can sit on the throne. And that one must have not only the power, but the rightful claim.The Lotus Kingdoms#1 The Stone in the Skull#2 The Red-Stained Wings#3 The Origin of StormsThe Eternal Sky Trilogy#1 Range of Ghosts#2 Shattered Pillars#3 Steles of the SkyAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A space salvager and her partner make the discovery of a lifetime that just might change the universe in this wild, big-ideas space opera from multi award-winning author Elizabeth Bear.Halmey Dz and her partner Connla Kurucz are salvage operators, living just on the inside of the law...usually. Theirs is the perilous and marginal existence—with barely enough chance of striking it fantastically big—just once—to keep them coming back for more. They pilot their tiny ship into the scars left by unsuccessful White Transitions, searching for the relics of lost human and alien vessels. But when they make a shocking discovery about an alien species that has been long thought dead, it may be the thing that could tip the perilous peace mankind has found into full-out war. Energetic and electrifying, Ancestral Night is a dazzling new space opera, sure to delight fans of Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, and Peter F. Hamilton.

She wasn't born for this mission. She was modified for it.The year is 2062, and after years on the run, Jenny Casey is back in the Canadian armed forces. Those who were once her enemies are now her allies, and at fifty, she' s been handpicked for the most important mission of her life—a mission for which her artificially reconstructed body is perfectly suited. With the earth capable of sustaining life for just another century, Jenny—as pilot of the starship Montreal—must discover brave new worlds. And with time running out, she must succeed where others have failed. Now Jenny is caught in a desperate battle where old resentments become bitter betrayals and justice takes the cruelest forms of vengeance. With the help of a brilliant AI, an ex-crime lord, and the man she loves, Jenny may just get her chance to save the world. If it doesn't come to an end first. . . .

As long as there's an Earth to defend, Jenny Casey has a job. But she may outlast the world she was custom-built to save. . . . Give Canada's Master Warrant Officer Jenny Casey an inch and she'll take a galaxy. That's just the kind of person a world on the brink of destruction needs. The year is 2063, and Earth has been brutalized. An asteroid flung at Toronto by the PanChinese government has killed tens of millions and left the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in its wake. Humanity must find another option. . . . Perched above the devastation in the starship Montreal, Jenny is still in the thick of the fray. Plugged into the worldwire, connected to a brilliant AI, her mind can be everywhere and anywhere at once. But it's focused on the mysterious alien beings right outside her ship. Are they there to help—or destroy? With Earth a breeding ground for treason and betrayal as governments struggle to assign blame, Jenny holds the fate of humankind in her...

The Red Mother is a fantasy novella by Hugo Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear.Auga follows his brother's fate-thread into the village of Ormsfjoll, where he expects to deliver good news and be on his way. What he doesn't expect is that he'll be sent to contend with the truth at the heart of the volcano wreaking havoc on the village.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In Deriving Life, love has no time limits, but life does. Award-winning author Elizabeth Bear gives us a future where life and love and identity have so many more options than they do today, in this visonary short story, a Tor.com Original.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Hugo Award–winning author Elizabeth Bear returns to the epic fantasy world of the Lotus Kingdoms with The Red-Stained Wings, the sequel to The Stone in the Skull, taking the Gage into desert lands under a deadly sky to answer the riddle of the Stone in the Skull.The Gage and the Dead Man brought a message from the greatest wizard of Messaline to the ruling queen of Sarathai, one of the Lotus Kingdoms. But the message was a riddle, and the Lotus Kingdoms are at war. Elizabeth Bear created her secondary world of the Eternal Sky in her highly praised novel The Range of Ghosts and its sequels.The Lotus Kingdoms#1 The Stone in the Skull#2 The Red-Stained WingsThe Eternal Sky Trilogy#1 Range of Ghosts#2 Shattered Pillars#3 Steles of the SkyAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In this compelling and addictive novel set in the same universe as the critically acclaimed White Space series and perfect for fans of Karen Traviss and Ada Hoffman, a space station begins to unravel when a routine search and rescue mission returns after going dangerously awry. Meet Doctor Jens. She hasn't had a decent cup of coffee in fifteen years. Her workday begins when she jumps out of perfectly good space ships and continues with developing treatments for sick alien species she's never seen before. She loves her life. Even without the coffee. But Dr. Jens is about to discover an astonishing mystery: two ships, one ancient and one new, locked in a deadly embrace. The crew is suffering from an unknown ailment and the shipmind is trapped in an inadequate body, much of her memory pared away. Unfortunately, Dr. Jens can't resist a mystery and she begins doing some digging. She has no idea that she's about to discover horrifying and life-changing...

An academic's whimsical decision to take a DNA test leads her into uncharted territory, where she discovers some extraordinary truths about herself and new possibilities for her future.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

It’s hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean, and a hundred times too big to be a ship. It looks like nothing anyone ever saw. And it’s crashed just outside Tombstone with something alive inside.

Rife with intrigue and betrayal, heroism and sacrifice, Grail brings Elizabeth Bear’s brilliant space opera to a triumphant conclusion. At last the generation ship Jacob’s Ladder has arrived at its destination: the planet they have come to call Grail. But this habitable jewel just happens to be populated already: by humans who call their home Fortune. And they are wary of sharing Fortune—especially with people who have genetically engineered themselves to such an extent that it is a matter of debate whether they are even human anymore. To make matters worse, a shocking murder aboard the Jacob’s Ladder has alerted Captain Perceval and the angel Nova that formidable enemies remain hidden somewhere among the crew. On Grail—or Fortune, rather—Premier Danilaw views the approach of the Jacob’s Ladder with dread. Behind the diplomatic niceties of first-contact protocol, he knows that the deadly game being played is likely to erupt into full-blown war—even civil war. For as he strives to chart a peaceful and prosperous path forward for his people, internal threats emerge to take control by any means necessary.