A monk struggles to preserve spiritual life and wisdom in the years following a nuclear holocaust

Eighteen science fiction stories deal with love, madness, and death on Mars, Venus, and in space.

In Second Variety, UN forces have retreated to a moon base in the aftermath of early Soviet victories in a nuclear conflict. In response, the UN forces developed special robots, called Claws, which feature spinning blades and rudimentary artificial intelligence. Six years later, the Soviet leadership asks for negotiations to end the war. A UN officer travels back to earth to discover that not only have the Claws learned to replicate themselves, they...

Stories by the master of science fiction and fantasy include "The Dragon," "All Summer in a Day," and "The Gift"

What if Robert E. Lee won the Battle of Gettysburg and his army went on to capture Philadelphia? What if the United States government was forced to recognize Confederate independence? In this acclaimed work of alternative history, the wealthy and prosperous Confederacy is a superpower, locked into a bitter struggle with its European rival, the German Union. The United States, conversely, is utterly destitute, a sinkhole of lawlessness and corruption....

This omnibus volume gathers the stories from two out-of-print collections, Sunfall (1981) and Visible Light (1986), plus 16 additional tales.