The Ship has traveled the universe for longer than any of the near-immortal crew can recall, its true purpose and origins unknown. It is larger than many planets, housing thousands of alien races and just as many secrets. Now one of those secrets has been at the center of the Ship is . . . a planet. Marrow. But when a team of the Ship's best and brightest are sent down to investigate, will they return with the origins of the Ship—or will they bring doom to everyone on board? Robert Reed, whose fantastic stories have been filling all the major SF magazines for the past several years, spins a captivating tale of adventure and wonder on an incredible scale in this novel based on his acclaimed novella.

An immortal child is born in the most horrid conditions. But luck delivers her to a world that will embrace her, first as a god and then as an alien. And before she is finished, Mere will help make a society that deserves to live to the ends of time. Then a soft voice asked, “Will you accept a worshipper, madam? I should like very much to see you.” Mere rose and said, “Yes. Always.” Her guest was dressed in a truth-seeker’s gown, but his teeth were orange and there was no wig on his wide head. In his hands was a sheet of green copper, ancient and decorated with old words. Mere recognized the dialect with a glance. It was from the time when she first fell from the sky, and along the top margin of that single sheet was the official mark of the original truth-seeker. Beneath the mark, someone had written, “Should it become necessary, tomorrow or at the end of time, this is how you may kill the god.” Following the newcomer were twenty soldiers armed with keen swords and buckets full of fire. They stood together in a tight, nervous mass. There was a moment when Mere felt that she could convince them to surrender their weapons. But the new truth-seeker threw a platinum coin to the floor, and he said, “In this one shadow of everything, you will become rich men. I promise.”

In The Well of Stars, Hugo award-nominated author Robert Reed has written a stunning sequel to his acclaimed novel Marrow . The Great Ship, so vast that it contains within its depths a planet that lay undiscovered for generations, has cruised through the universe for untold billions of years. After a disastrous exploration of the planet, Marrow, the Ship's captains face an increasingly restive population aboard their mammoth vessel. And now, compounding the captains' troubles, the Ship is heading on an irreversible course straight for the Ink Well, a dark, opaque nebula. Washen and Pamir, the captains who saved Marrow from utter destruction, send Mere, whose uncanny ability to adapt to and understand other cultures makes her the only one for the job, to investigate the nebula before they plunge blindly in. While Mere is away, Pamir discovers in the Ink Well the presence of a god-like entity with powers so potentially destructive that it might destroy the ship and its millions. Faced with an entity that might prevent the Ship from ever leaving the Ink Well, the Ship's only hope now rests in the ingenuity of the vast crew . . . and with Mere, who has not contacted them since she left the Ship… With the excitement of epic science fiction adventure set against a universe full of wonders, the odyssey of the Ship and its captains will capture the hearts of science fiction readers.

Contains the novellas "Eater-of-Bone," "Veritas, ""Truth," and "A Billion Eves." In the Marrow universe, humans are touring the Milky Way inside a derelict machine the fabled Great Ship. They are immortal and durable souls, and as they travel, some become colonists on distant worlds. Eater-of-bone is the brutal, lovely and wrenching story of a lost colony on one ancient, metal-starved world. In that wilderness, humans are nearly indestructible monsters, and they are their own worst enemies, and a young woman survives a brutal assault, finding herself washed to the shore of the oddest island paradise. Veritas is set in a distant, profoundly transformed past. The aging emperor sits before cameras, explaining how a couple of college students in the 21st century could assemble a private army, buy a few time machines, and then invade Rome in the days after the death of Julius Caesar. Which is when the difficult work began. Truth is another invasion-by-time-travel story. But it is our world that is being invaded by temporal Jihadists, or so it seems. A man from the future sits inside a secret prison, telling stories to his American captors, while the world outside goes horribly wrong. What if there was a machine that could take you and your surroundings to an alternate Earth? And what if a frustrated young man used that device to steal away the young women inside a sorority house, setting himself up as the ruler of a new world? A Billion Eves carries that what-if to its logical, borderline-hopeful conclusion.

Since the beginning of the universe, the giant starship wandered the emptiest reaches of space, without crew or course, much less any clear purpose. But humans found the relic outside the Milky Way, and after taking possession, they named their prize the Great Ship and embarked on a bold voyage through the galaxy’s civilized hearts. Larger than worlds, the Great Ship is laced with caverns and oceans, scenes of exalted beauty and corners where no creature has ever stood. Habitats can be created for every intelligent species, provided that the passengers can pay for the honor of a berth, and the human captains make the rules and dispense the justice in what soon becomes thousands of alien species joined a wild, unpredictable journey. The first Great Ship story was "The Remoras", published in 1994 by THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. All but the most recent titles in the series have been included in this volume, arranged in a rough chronological order, each story partly rewritten to capture the author’s growing expertise in the starship. New material has been added to bridge the centuries, hopefully enriching the resident confusion. Robert Reed is the author of a dozen science fiction novels, including two titles about the Great Ship: MARROW and THE WELL OF STARS, both from Tor Books. He has also published more than two hundred shorter works, winning a Hugo in 2007 for his novella, "A Billion Eves". Reed is a long-term resident of Lincoln, Nebraska. Contents: Alone (2010) Hoop-of-Benzene (2006) Mere (2004) The Remoras (1994) Rococo (2006) River of the Queen (2004) Night of Time (2003) Aeon's Child (1995) The Caldera of Good Fortune (2007) Camouflage (2005) The Man with the Golden Balloon (2008) Hatch (2007)

Diamond is an odd little boy, a seemingly fragile child—who proves to be anything but. An epic story begins when he steps into the world his parents have so carefully kept him from, a world where gigantic trees each house thousands of humans and another human species, the papio, rule its far edges. Does Diamond hold the promise to remake one species and, perhaps, change all of the Creation?