New Legends
(editor)
Slant
Greg Bear
writes very good, interesting science fiction. His fiction tends to deal
with large-scale science - biological plague sweeping the earth, the colonization
and independence of Mars, the aliens coming to earth - big events with realistically
done future science. I would say Greg Bear is the premier writer of hard
science fiction active today. 
I took this collection
of short stories with me on my three week trip to Europe, and read most
of it in a park next to the river in Florence. So it is possible that my
reaction may be tinted by the rosy glow of my trip, but I don't think so.
This collection is excellent for several reasons. First, all the work is
new, so I didn't have to read "Nightfall" for the eighty-third
time to be able to say I read the whole thing. Second, Bear has set and
stuck rigorously to the theme. This is a collection of science fiction.
No fantasy, no wild speculation. To qualify "a science fiction story
has to take place in the universe as perceived by science, or as science
might come to perceive it". (Which seems to me a good place to draw
the line between science fiction and fantasy.) Third, and most important,
the stories are excellent.
"A Desperate Calculus" by Sterling Blake. This story is a perfect example of combining science with social speculation to explore possibilities which we might have to face in our lifetimes. In a world of rampant population growth, fixed resources, ecological damage, and tailored viruses, what might you get?
"Recording Angel" by Paul J. McAuley. I loved this story, even though I'm still not entirely sure what happened or what it meant. Ah, the hell with it. This is one cool far future story...
"When Strangers Meet" by Sonia Orin Lyris and "The Day the Aliens Came" by Robert Sheckley. Two variations on the collisions of species, with two very different results. Some day, when the damn aliens do appear, those of us who have read these stories should at least be able to remember not to make any assumptions about the motives of those weird critters coming out of the saucer.
And after a couple more good stories (like "Gnota" and "Rorvik's War") we end with...
"One" by George Alec Effinger, not to be confused with "One" by Metallica. This is a devastatingly sad story which reminds us that while science fiction fans tend to be optimists about some things, one of the purposes of science fiction is to explore all the possibilities.
"Wang's Carpets" by Greg Egan. The last, and my favorite, story in the collection. A far future, super-advanced technology society, reminiscent of the Culture written about by Iain Banks. I don't know if this sort of thing will ever be possible, and I doubt that if it is that I'll live to see it, but stories like this always amaze me and make me wish I'd been born in the year 2483....
Overall, this collection is almost without weakness, and contains some gems that will be part of my recommended reading list for quite a while.
Sequel to Queen of Angels, equally confusing but moderately
rewarding.
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