evin J. Anderson's first collection of short fiction contains 18 stories that were published between 1985 and the present in a wide variety of professional and semi-professional magazines and anthologies. The stories cover a wide range, from near-future and far-future SF to historical fantasy.
Two of the stories were later expanded into novels. The title story, a grim, paranoid tale of nanotech-derived immortality and government conspiracy, became the X-Files novel Antibodies. "Human, Martian--One, Two, Three" is a story about the last obsolete first generation of bioengineered humans on a Mars being terraformed, and was expanded into the novel Climbing Olympus.
Several other stories also have media connections. "Prisoner of War" is a sequel to Harlan Ellison's famous Outer Limits episode "Soldier." "A Whisper of Caladan Seas" was the first Dune short story ever published, and the first Dune fiction not by Frank Herbert. "Drumbeats," a contemporary fantasy about a rock drummer bicycling through Africa for artistic inspiration, was co-authored with Rush drummer Neil Peart.
Several of the stories are set in a near-future world where "Alternitech Corporation" sends agents to parallel worlds to retrieve ideas--ranging from artistic creations to medical cures--not yet discovered in their world. Several others are historical fantasies, often featuring various famous people (from H.G. Wells and Charles Dickens to Vlad Dracula) or events (such as 19th-century work camps in Tsarist Russia and the fire that destroyed Shakespeare's Globe Theatre). Another story is a historical fantasy set in medieval Japan. Each story is preceded by an introduction by the author describing its genesis.
A wistful look at the future
Kevin J. Anderson is known in the field almost solely as an author of media tie-in novels--especially X-Files and Star Wars novels--that often have become best-sellers. This has contributed to his being critically ignored as an author of stand-alone novels and short science fiction and fantasy. This collection shows Anderson's work to be consistently professional in literary ambition and quality. While none of these stories stands out as award-quality superior, neither does any of them fall flat.
Most of the stories are the type of fiction associated over the years with The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (although only two actually were published there)--wistful, melancholy tales of lost loves or lost opportunities. In one, a man tries to use cloning and time dilation to recreate his dead wife. In another, a man goes to an alternative reality to seek the song he never wrote in his own; in another, a wife is seeking a medical cure for her dying husband. A depressed physicist, remembering his mother's death of cancer, aborts a fusion reactor that may have created an artificial intelligence. A secret band of scientists use their time-travel machine in desperate attempts to avert disasters.
Most of the historical fantasies also have a wistful tone. Charles Dickens is visited by the ghost who inspires him to write A Christmas Carol. Bela Lugosi travels back to visit Vlad Dracula and comes to understand better the reasons for his seemingly insane cruelty. An obsessed Percival Lowell wastes his fortune in an attempt to map the canals on Mars and signal the beneficent aliens he knows must live there.
Because of this sameness in tone, this collection is best read over time, and not all in one sitting. Consumed over time, each of the stories in this collection is worth your time reading.
