"One of the most imaginative, exciting talents to appear on the SF scene in recent years."--Publishers Weekly

"A master of hard science fiction."--Noumenon

This collection contains sixteen stories and science articles by the remarkable author, Charles Sheffield.

The stories range in length from being barely a page ("The Seventeen-Year Locusts") to long novelettes ("The Courts of Xanadu"). They also range in mood from the "very silly to very somber."

Each of them provides a unique and highly imaginative look at the impact of technology on the human condition from one of the most innovative minds in science fiction.

Charles Sheffield was a mathematician and a theoretical physicist who had that rare gift of making complex science understandable to everyone, as evident in this collection.