Synopsis
Including the work of Poul Anderson, Charles Sheffield, and Greg Bear, a collection of five original novellas imagines the fate of humans thousands of years into the future
Reviews
It has been a very good year for hard science fiction, with two outstanding novels-Greg Bear's Legacy and Gregory Benford's Sailing Bright Eternity-revealing the wonders the future may hold. The majority of the five original novellas in this anthology edited by Benford (including one by Bear) do the same. Both Bear's "Judgment Engine," which opens the book, and Charles Sheffield's "At the Eschaton," which closes it, end at what might, or might not, be the final moments of life in the universe. Poul Anderson, whose 25-year-old novel Tau Zero set the standard for end-of-the-universe stories, limits himself to the possible end of organic life on Earth in telling of a very special "Genesis," the most plot-rich and interesting contribution here. Joe Haldeman's "For White Hill," which also deals with the pending extinction of life on Earth, appears, as does Sheffield's considerably weaker tale, to be a love story-at least until its denouement, in which one of its artist-protagonists creates her ultimate work of art. Donald Kingsbury's lengthy "Historical Crisis," which loosely elaborates upon Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy, again affirms its author's ability to transcend and honor his sources. Most notable about all of these oft-apocalyptic novellas-excluding their common acceptance that organic life is destined to be superseded-is their essential vivacity. This volume presents five glorious adventures bound to delight anyone with an abiding curiosity about the distant future.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Fictional scenarios of the remotely distant future, such as Stapledon's classic Last and First Men, are rare in sf, perhaps because humans, at least in their current form, aren't expected to last that long. To fill this void, editor Benford offers five novellas by leading hard-sf veterans that safeguard the human perspective while reaching 10,000 years and more into the future. Greg Bear's eerie opener, "Judgement Engine," fast-forwards to the end of the universe, whose death knell of rapidly dwindling energy is witnessed by the reanimated consciousness of a long-dead human. Poul Anderson's brilliant "Genesis" follows another resurrected human's investigation into the reasons why Earth's powerful cybernetic caretaker has decided to let the home world die. In Charles Sheffield's "At the Eschaton," a twenty-first-century composer preserves his body through cryonics and time dilation to rejoin his deceased wife in the unimaginably distant future. Donald Kingsbury's and Joe Haldeman's contributions round out a superb collection that stretches sf to its imaginative limits. Carl Hays
Five novellas by veteran authors of hard sf focus on imaginary far futures and explore the death of the universe, the end of time, and the evolution of human consciousness. Including Donald Kingsbury's challenge to Asimov's Foundation novels ("Historical Crisis"), Charles Sheffield's saga of a love that transcends the ages ("At the Eschaton"), Poul Anderson's look at the rebirth of humanity as an experiment by machine intelligences ("Genesis"), Greg Bear's vision of entropy's last dance ("Judgment Engine"), and Joe Haldeman's tale of the ultimate war ("For White Hill"), these selections challenge the boundaries of the imagination. A strong addition for most libraries' sf collections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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