Full Spectrum 2 Author:Lou Aronica, Shawna McCarthy, Amy Stout, Patrick LoBrutto This is no ordinary collection of the stories of disparate authors. Rather, this book marks the debut of twenty-seven powerful tales of imagination, science, wonder, fantasy -- a true distillation of the magic and invention that draw thousands of new readers to science fiction and fantasy every year. — These stories push the imagin... more »ation to its limits -- and a step beyond. They span the spectrum of the human heart and mind, and create new hues of possibility in the palette of the world's imagination.
Here for the first time in any popular edition is Greg Bear's "Sleepside Story," a sompelling tale of poverty, character, and courage, set in a place at once fantastic, impossible, and unnervingly familiar. The story is rich with echoes of Charles Dickens -- but the people Bear shows us andthe problems he addresses belong unmistakably to our time.
David Brin's "The Giving Plague," a terse, strong-willed tale of biological science fiction, extrapolates the AIDS crisis to the logical -- and stunning -- conclusion.
Vonda N. McIntyre's "Malheur Maar" is a haunting tale of an alien visitation that touches the earth ... touches the world at its deepest geological roots.
"The Part of Us That Loves," by Kim Stanley Robinson, a novelette of faith and miracles in suburban Illinois, strikes chords at once human and divine.
Michael Swaneick's "The Edge of the World" is a bittersweet story of three confused teenagers who set out to descend a stairway down a magical cliff whose ultimate destination is the stuff of legends -- and find their own deepest fears and desires waiting for them.
These journeys into the past, the present, and the future represent some of the most important speculative fiction being written today; the vision and breadth of the acknowledged masters and exciting new voices in this volume are literally unmatched. Rich with invention and vivid with detail, ripe with incredible fantasy and terrifying truth, Full Spectrum 2 is a collection that no reader of science fiction and fantasy should be without.« less