What Readers Are Saying

When I first opened this mainly science fiction anthology, I asked myself why on earth would it begin with a two-page-long weather report from the New Colony, where the temperatures ranged from a high of 200 degrees Celsius to a low of -30, plus predicting a bunch of bizarre precipitation like oobleck (which actually exists as a non-Newtonian fluid). And then I got it. The reader is being told to get ready for something completely different: a journey across the space-time continuum where imagination rules and anything goes.
 
The 32 stories in this 363-page-long book range from very short to novella length. It’s the perfect read for a Winter evening if you’re into really well-written sci-fi and are tired of all the military space opera that seems to have inundated the field. Feeling tired? Go for short. Can’t sleep? Then go long.
 
Every piece in this book is character-based. You won’t find a single AI-robot-written yarn. You’ll encounter things like a very useful smartphone camera feature that not only deletes unwanted pictures, but unwanted anything. (Gotta be careful about spoilers here, lol!). And then there’s the marooned spaceship pilot who, Robinson Crusoe-style, with the aid of his salvaged AI, forges a new life on a forgotten world. Or how about a Hitchcockian murder mystery involving Santa?
 
It’s impossible to summarize all the wonderful stories contained in this book, but I do want to point out a personal favorite that I plan to read again. And again, “Triskellion’s Maze.” The tale defies a category. Is it a Gothic ghost story? A time travel story? You’ll have to answer that on your own. Whatever you do, don’t pass this book by. It’s a brilliant potpourri by modern writers of imaginative fiction, all published authors at the top of their form.

— Elliott Swanson | Former Librarian and Booklist Reviewer | Dec 16, 2025