L. Neil Smith

From thirteen Australian writers comes a collection of original speculative fiction short stories that will take you from the great unknown of our own planet, to the stars, and beyond to mystical fantasy worlds. These stories of ‘hope’ include High Tide at Hot Water Beach (Paul Haines), Burned in the Black (Janette Dalgliesh), The Haunted Earth (Sean Williams), Eliot (Benjamin Solah), Boundaries (Karen Lee Field), The Encounter (Sasha Beattie), The God on the Mountain (Graham Storrs), Deployment (Craig Hull), Flowers in the Shadow of the Garden (Joanne Anderton), Blinded (Jodi Cleghorn), The Choosing (Rowena Cory Daniells), Duty and Sacrifice (Alan Baxter) and A Moment, A Day, A Year… (Pamela Freeman). With a preface written by Karen Henderson and the introduction by Simon Haynes, these brilliantly crafted stories, combined with essays donated by Beyondblue and Dr Myfanwy Maple and Mr Warren Bartik, from the University of New England, are accompanied by short snippets of information on suicide. Did you know approximately one million people die by suicide each year worldwide? Suicide happens on a daily basis. It can affect you. Are you suicide aware? Everything in this anthology is donated by Australians to help raise suicide awareness. All profits will be donated to suicide awareness.

199 p. ; 18 cm

Gambler, rogue, and con-artiste, Lando Calrissian was born with a well-developed taste for the good life. More comfortable at the dealer's end of a fast shuffle than at the rear end of a blaster, Lando always had his sensors scanning for the chance to pick up easy credits. So when he heard that the planets of the Rafa System were practically buried in ancient alien treasure, he hopped aboard the Millennium Falcon and brushed up on his rusty astrogation. He never stopped to think that someone might be conning the con man…

A solar system with little more than luxury hotels catering to the underemployed filthy-rich, the Oseon was every gambler's dream come true. And so it was for Lando Calrissian, gambler, rogue, and con-artiste. Until he broke the gambler's cardinal rule: never beat a cop at high-stake games of chance. Soon Lando and his feckless five-armed robot companion were being stalked by two enemies—one they knew but could not see, and one they saw but did not recognize…until it was too late.

For a year Lando Calrissian and Vuffi Raa, his five-armed robot astrogator, had roamed space in the Millennium Falcon, seeking or creating opportunities to turn an easy, but not too dishonest, credit. But now their partnership seemed doomed—for Lando's uncharacteristic impulse to help a race of persecuted aliens had suddenly made him and Vuffi vulnerable to several sets of their own enemies…not least of whom was the evil Rokur Gepta, the Sorcerer of Tund!

The Lando Calrissian Adventures is a compilation of the series of the same name by L. Neil Smith. It details the experiences of Lando Calrissian as captain of the Millennium Falcon before he lost it to Han Solo. Lando is accompanied by his droid co-pilot, Vuffi Raa, and opposed by Rokur Gepta (part of a mystic order called the Sorcerers of Tund).