When Marl Judson, fleeing a rapacious government that wanted not just his fabulous wealth but his life, crash-landed on a uninhabited planet, he thought he was marooned without hope of rescue, so he prepared himself to live out his remaining years as best he could amidst the planet's weird hallucinogenic flora. But head-twistting flowers (which Judson learned to avoid) were only part of the planet's weirdness: it was possessed of some sort of field effect which made time play strange tricks; temporal anomalies sometimes resulted in cause preceding effect and bizarre compressions and expansions of the normal pace of events. In such an environment time had no meaning; has Jusdson lived centuries alone, or only decades? Or is it years? Or all of the above? He doesn't quite know, but when another ship crashes the strange time effects allow(ed) him to conduct an experiment aimed at producing a perfect society, a veritable Judson's Eden. The the Snake arrives in the form of the government that marooned him - and the Snake wants Judson's Eden for itself.

Consists of book reviews and essays written for The magazine of fantasy and science fiction.

The wedding’s abandoned, and the clouds of political disaster loom overhead. The fire that almost ended Eden’s life has put an end to the promise of marriage. While saving Eden, Rafe lost not only his eyesight, but also his independence, his determination, and his pride. In a short letter, he ends Eden’s hope for happiness. Hurt and angry, Eden sails to the leper colony on the island of Molokai, where her mother is suffering. During Eden’s year-long absence, Rafe seeks medical care in San Francisco and eventually regains his sight. Returning to his coffee plantation on the Big Island, Rafe finds the beautiful Bernice Judson waiting. This is the year of decision. Hawaii is on the brink of revolution. The anti-Royalists threaten to depose the Hawaiian queen and bring the Hawaiian Islands under the Stars and Stripes. Eden must choose a side in politics and where to put her trust. Will Eden discover the painful lesson God wants her to learn? And will she ever find healing for her broken heart, with or without a life that includes Rafe?

Draftsmen can't fight dragons. Then again, that's usually no problem - they generally don't have to. But Lafayette O'Leary does. When an accidental overdose of self-hypnosis wrenches him out of the dull (but safe) Mrs. MacGlint's Clean Rooms and Board and deposits him in the feudal, bedragoned world of Artesia, it takes him a little while to catch on, even with the attentions of the beautiful Princess Adoranne. Then he decides that he likes this new life of his - except for the part where he's supposed to get killed...

Billy Danger had gone past hitting the skids - now he was freezing to death in a blizzard. So he took shelter in a corn silo that turned out to be a disguised alien starship, and woke up light years from Earth.

Appearing from the remote future, Nexx Central agent Ravel is emplaced in America, circa 1936. His mission: to undo successive tamperings of the time stream which threaten the survival of Mankind. He falls in love with a lovely, simple girl, Lisa, but in the midst of his happiness is called away to Dinosaur Beach. Dinosaur Beach is a Nexx Central station located millions of years in the past, in the Jurassic Age. But shortly after Ravel's arrival, the station is attacked and destroyed, and Ravel begins a terrifying odyssey through time. For the attackers were another time-tampering team from still a different future era. And Ravel himself is not only in growing danger but the human world as we know it...

A Wall Street trader leaves the bulls and bears - and comes face-to-face with hungrier dinosaurs. A Roaring '20s gangster gets roughed up - by real cavemen. A pioneer hitches up his covered wagon on the Oregon Trail - and winds up in a modern shopping mall. And Roger Tyson, who thought the space-time continuum had finally settled down to normal, is flung helplessly from the distant past to the far future, and back again. Superbeings from the end of time are struggling for control of the universe with aliens from another galaxy. And if a few random humans get caught in one of their time gates, they don't much care. So Roger and his friends find themselves facing everyone from the cast of the original Mutiny on the Bounty to real pirates of the Spanish Main in a wild quest to their own time and bring everything back to insanity as usual...

The twenty-seventh century planet of Quopp is a world where Earthmen walk cautiously or not at all. The inhabitants are weirdly diabolical creatures, possessing spoked-wheel limbs and sprouting steel-sharp talons. Plans are afoot to place these singular beings under a single government friendly to Earth. But Jame Retief, officer of the distinguished Corps Diplomatique Teresstienne, a supra-national organization devoted to keeping the peace, has discovered that evil forces are undermining the whole scheme. Deviously sincere, uncompromisingly venal, fearlessly cowardly, Retief goes to work against mounting planetary intrigue and more than once brings those around him to the brink of nervous collapse.

How are thing on Rockamorra? Bad, very. Earth Ambassador Pinchbottle has contracted to fight a dinosaur, and it's up to troubleshooter Jame Retief to keep him from being stomped, mangled, or eaten. Things are tough on other planets, too, with a civil war on Skweem, a dying race om Sulinore, and mudstorms on Schweinhund's World. These seven stories show the Galaxy's hippest diplomat at his unexpected and jaunty best.