Today, dear reader, we have a science fiction tale for you. It’s full of worldbuilding, action, and a main character who can handle extremely dangerous situations.
In fact, that’s what makes him such a good pilot.
Life on Earth can be weird, don’t you think? The idea of clouds up above and bugs in the dirt we walk on. We live with it because that’s just how Earth is.
It’s the future, and all Edward cares about is a single vase remaining broken.
But why? What has come over Edward that makes him want to break his favorite vase?
Today’s story is about physics. More specifically, aliens playing around with physics and making humans have to deal with that.
“Slow Time Between the Stars” has almost no plot. And that’s perfectly fine. If you try to read it expecting a plot—or really even conflict—to arise, then you’ll be disappointed. This is pure idea-based science fiction. It’s continuous interesting ideas. That’s it.
The time is the far future.
The crime is murder.
And the detective is very good at his job.
Do you ever wonder what aliens use to communicate with each other?
Well, in this story, the answer is cell phones.
“Just Out of Jupiter’s Reach” is a fascinating, humanist piece of science fiction. Despite having almost no conflicts, barely anything that counts as a propelled plot, it’s intriguing all the way through. Reading it instills so many emotions: sadness, joy, wistful nostalgia, and the exact type of curiosity that incredible concepts have all the power to invoke.
“The Long Game” is actually a story about very short periods of time and the exploitation of a species. Its title refers to one idea in the story, among a few different, some related, some not, concepts—and the greatest strength of this one, like “How It Unfolds,” is how interesting those ideas are.
Imagine, if you will, a series of spaceships housing all of humanity.
Now imagine the level of work it would take to keep such locations livable and pleasant.
“Falling Bodies” is an outlier, so far, in this collection. The concept of time does play a part in the story, but no more than any story that deals with someone’s past. There are plenty of sci-fi elements, but it takes place on a normal time scale.
An extra-dimensional species simply called “Needles” has just arrived—and things have gotten bad.
