Bridging Infinity
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BUILDING TOWARDS TOMORROW Sense of wonder is the lifeblood of science fiction. When we encounter something on a truly staggering scale – metal spheres wrapped around stars, planets rebuilt and repurposed, landscapes re-engineered, starships bigger than worlds – the only response we have is reverence, admiration, and possibly fear at something that is grand, sublime, and extremely powerful. Bridging Infinity puts humanity at the heart of that experience, as builder, as engineer, as adventurer, reimagining and rebuilding the world, the solar system, the galaxy and possibly the entire universe in some of the best science fiction stories you will experience. Bridging Infinity continues the award-winning Infinity Project series of anthologies with new stories from Alastair Reynolds, Pat Cadigan, Stephen Baxter, Charlie Jane Anders, Tobias S. Buckell, Karen Lord, Karin Lowachee, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Gregory Benford, Larry Niven, Robert Reed, Pamela Sargent, Allen Steele, Pat Murphy, Paul Doherty, An Owomoyela, Thoraiya Dyer and Ken Liu.
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The next in the ....Infinity series of anthologies edited by Jonathan Strahan. This one is themed around massive engineering projects, with a scope that ranges from the strictly Earthbound out to the rest of the solar system and then on into deep space (and time). In some ways it feels like quite an old fashioned anthology, with a fair chunk of the stories feeling like something I might have come across in Asimov's circa 1989, but in others it's more up to date - several of the stories tackle climate change head on, which wouldn't have been half as likely back then. As ever with an anthology I preferred some stories to others, so I'll highlight a few of my favourites.
‘Cold Comfort' by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty is one of those climate change stories, a near future tale of methane farming in the Arctic, helped by a great sense of place. Charlie Jane Anders' ‘Rager In Space' is probably the most fun, as Clueless-esque teen slang meets the last surviving AI. ‘Apache Charlie & The Pentagons Of Hex' is one of the stories that made me come up with the Asimov's comparison above, perhaps because that was where I first met Mr Steele. It's an easy going tale of (basically) a biker gang, but the huge alien construct they roam over is a fine idea. Probably the best story is Ken Liu's ‘Seven Birthdays'. It's certainly the most wide ranging one in the whole book, over an epic canvas of space and time.
