A collection of six novella's in which six different author's create far distant futures where life as we know it no longer exists. The concept is interesting but how will each author's attempts at creating a far flung and almost immeasurable passage of time coalesce? My opinions are...



Good Mountain by Robert Reed
On a planet where minerals are at a premium, and life is dominated by floating islands which merge and break over eon's, the world is coming to an end. Conflagrations and poisonous methane and hydrogen sulphide gasses regularly escape from the oceans and this mixture of freely relapses toxins is an unavoidable occurrence. A man whose intuition warns him that he best flee from his home embarks on a long journey to potential safety. A moderate enjoyable tale in which the only mode of transportation is via giant worms and where a subclass of Mockmen play only a subservient role to humans. Too many flashbacks scenes and not enough time taken to flame a sense of impending doom and danger hurt this tale. However, it is entertaining but told with a very narrow focus. The final outcome of this tale has a wicked finale for some of the fellow traveller's who were lucky enough to escape the flames and fires.




A Piece of the Great World by Robert Silverberg
On an earth long damaged by millennia long winters the new race of a fur covered sentient species, calling themselves the People have risen to power. In their very short two century rise to civilization they have developed an appreciation for the past; both recent and archaic. Nortekku and Thalarne are lovers, one an archaeologist, the other both an accomplished architect and disinherited son. Joining an archaeological expedition to examine the once thought extinct Sea Lords. I found this to a very slow paced and dull novella. Firstly, too much time is spent detailing the taboo love affair between Nortekku and Thalarne. Secondly, the fact that everything that Nortekku sets out to do and achieve he accomplishes. That alone is not my major gripe, the fact that he is not overly driven to seek out what will eventually become his fateful journey, but that he is ever so gently nudged into the right spheres of affluence and influence. Very hackneyed. Finally, the Sea Lords themselves are quite sorrowful and sorry creatures that came across as being unintentionally pejorative with which I was meant to feel empathy for. This tale with its moral dilemmas bored me. I've read much better.




Mirror Image by Nancy Kress
A quirky novella in which four sister selves learn of the faith of their fifth sister and seek to rescue her from a quiet planet. This sister named Haradil has broken the collective and individual hearts of her sister. Found guilty by an isolationist race known as the Mori of her terrible crime, Haradil is stripped of all her technological advancements. Her sisters profoundly feel their sisters' pain. To be now sentenced to live out her days, for all intents and purposes, on a planet which is a prison for the crime of mass genocide confuses her sisters and they seek answers, even if they have to break the laws. An artificial named QUENTIAM is the atypical AI which permeates this story and is connected to all humankind across the known galaxy. I enjoyed reading this tale which introduces us to near godlike beings; a religious sect of the proselytizing Arlbenists who seed lifeless planets with DNA life to a person's consciousness being uploaded and stored before being downloaded into any bodytype of his or her choosing. The story is well paced and the sister selves with their own failures and foibles, strengths and brilliance's, made for a very interesting read. The ending of this story leaves a lot of questions unanswered but suffer not. Even in a far distant future evolved human beings such as the sisters with all that life has to offer them still need to question why and with each answer more questions arise.




Thousandth Night by Alastair Reynolds
Once every two hundred thousand years a near immortal and godlike family line meet up on a planet and share their collective memories. This is done by a process called threading a strand, whereby one individual's memories, an entire two hundred millennia's worth are experienced by all others via a dream sequence. After absorbing the memories the masses judge the individual's worth and generally praise their work. During this one thousand long festival the novella's two main character's - Campion and Purslane, become aware that one of their own, and individual named Burdock, may have falsified and expunged certain memories. They believe he is somehow covering some terrible crime he has committed and seek to unearth the truth. This is a far flung distant future whodunit written very well with likeable and shady characters. His writing is crisp and the technology marvellously detailed and very original. But the actual mystery segment doesn't last that long. He builds up a strong sense of suspense in which everything is resolved on the thousand night. I enjoyed warmly, Reynolds's flair and handling of this narrowly focused novella.




Missile Gap by Charles Stross
An alternate timeline see the earth of 1962 transported to a disc in the Small Magellanic Cloud. A better than average tale recounting how through the new landscape on which humankind now finds itself the cold war paranoia's of between the USA and the USSR took a completely new and bizarre turn. Told through three alternating characters we are given glimpses of a world where the our planet's continents and seas have magically been peeled like a grape and stretched across a miniscule portion of a immense and flat disc. This started is the most surreal and original of the six novella's presented within this volume but the homage's Stross pays to the once real life characters of Yuri Gagarin and Carl Sagan were not necessary and really added no panache or flair to the storyline. Though full of wonderful ideas, including the premise that the USA and USSR may have already mutually annihilated one another over and over again took too long in revealing. It could have been so much better.




Riding The Crocodile by Greg Egan
Leila and Jasim are a very long lived and happily married couple; ten thousand three hundred and nine years to be exact, who wish to do one final and momentous act before they choose to end their lives. This comes to them in the shape of the so far unreachable alien and mysterious Aloof species. This was a very uneventful read. The couple have done almost everything they set their minds and souls to and to seek out and finally become the ones to make contact with a species which has so far very gently and with understated power refused all attempts at communication for millennia as complete hubris. Egan's narrative is often very dry and mechanical tinged with a hard science fiction. The two main characters, Jasim and Leila, are complete bores. The time jumps which occur within this novella mercifully save us from a lot of tedious minutiae but the final question about the Aloof is never answered. I never felt it was going to be and wasn't surprised when I was proved correct. A humdrum adventure punctuated by very brief episodes of discovery and interaction with alien species.

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