Nine new stories from a long-time star of the science fiction field
including the Hugo Award winner The Erdmann Nexus and Nebula Award
winner The Fountain of Age. These stories have been reprinted in The
Year's Best Science Fiction, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the
Year, and Best of the Web.
Kress unpacks the future the way DNA investigators unravelled the double
helix: one gene at a time. In many of these stories gene sculpting is
illegal yet commonplace and the effects range between slow catastrophe
("End Game"), cosmic ("First Rites"), and tragic ("Safeguard"). Then
there's the morning when Rochester disappears and Jenny has to rely on
"The Kindness of Strangers." There's Jill, who is kidnapped by aliens
and trying to learn the "Laws of Survival." And there's Hope, whose
Grandma is regretting the world built "By Fools Like Me."