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After the Stone Age [1]

The Age of Innocence [5]

Finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the Best Short SF of the Year 1995.

Review by Andrew Breitenbach

Sybil and Gwenan are in charge of looking after their multiple-times removed grandparents, who are hovering around the ripe old age of 400. Trouble is, once a human being enters "ancienthood", self-awareness vanishes, so Sybil and Gwenan's ancient relatives are basically the equivalents of well-meaning chihuahuas (and, in certain key respects, rabbits). Through taking care of them, the two eleven-year-olds learn about life, death, family, and humanity.

This sweet, wonderful little story was a Sturgeon nominee when it came out (the same year as was "Mortimer Gray's History of Death") -- effective despite well-integrated but too-obvious didactic elements.

Not to be missed.

Review by Ian Braidwood

The theme here is senescence and is part of Brian's exploration of emortality.

Many people assume that all causes of death are pathological and so by extension, all that needs to be done to extend life is remove external causes.

This story gives the lie to that idea and shows that there is more to emortality than removing pathology. The body isn't so much programmed to die, but lacks programming to maintain itself indefinitely, an idea first proposed by Sir Peter Medawar.

Medawar pointed out that there would be no reason to expect a gene which extends life to be selected, unless it helps other copies of itself in other bodies (the essence of the Selfish Gene interpretation of Darwinism). This means that we owe our extended life spans to our ancestors' ability to contribute to their grandchildrens' lives by passing on their experience and of course, freeing the parents for other things.

Alfonso the Wise [1]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Another of Brian's sardonic stories in which he names his main charater after a historical figure; though in this case you won't have heard of him.

Figuring that DNA was ripe for improvment Professor Alfonso gets to work on an 'improved' version, which is less likely to mutate.

Of course, when you change the characteristics of your genetic material you change the way your genetic information is transfered...

All You Inherit [7]

Review by Ian Braidwood

All you inherit could be a mansion with a ghost, it could be less extravagant than that or even just the ghost.

All you inherit might be trouble or it might be less clear cut than that, it might be just risk.

You might want to give all you inherit away, or you might have to live with it. It might even be part of you.

A modern ghost story about a spectre of a different kind.

Alternate Worlds [1]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Born of grammatical pedantry and Hugh Everett's Many World's Hypothesis, this is short and sweet.

For those not in the know, there are two equally valid interpretations of Quantum Theory: The Copenhagen Interpretation and The Many Worlds Interpretation:

In the Copenhagen interpretation, when you flip a coin both the heads and tails possibilities exist equally until you lift your hand and look at the result. The act of observation 'collapses a wave function' making - say the 'heads' universe - real and consigning the tails universe to what-might-have-been.

Now for your friend (& I'm assuming you have one) both universes are still equally real until you tell him or her what the result was. Thus the collapse of the wave-form propagates through space.

Trouble is, what constitutes 'observation': is another particle good enough? Or does it take something sentient? Does it have to be human and what about before Humans evolved? Some people have used this to argue for the existence of God, which is ridiculous, because we all know that God is disproved by the existence of Babel fish.

On the other side of the coin is The Many Worlds Interpretation, which gets around these problems by saying that when you tossed the coin, both possibilities came into existence and the act of observation only tells the observer which possibility he or she is actually in.

One of the up-shots of this though, is that the number of real universes is increasing exponentially and has been for something like twelve to fifteen billion years. Where do they all go...?

For a friendly, more complete and accurate overview, I recommend John Gribbin's In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, and In Search of Schrödinger's Kittens.

And He Not Busy Being Born… [6]

Review by Ian Braidwood

This is a lovely story about Adam Zimmerman, a high - flying accountant with a penchant for philosophy.

Whilst reading Sein und Zeit Adam is afflicted by a chronic case of angst and becomes obsessed with dying. He uses his company's investments to build up a trust fund and eventually has himself cryogenically preserved.

As you'd expect things don't go as Mr Zimmerman planned and there's an absolutely beautiful denouement, such as you'd find in a thousand other stories; except this is a Brian Stableford story and Brian specialises in undermining expectations.

Apparently, this was the first piece of fiction Brian had written in five years and having delivered an entertaining tale, he carefully brings Adam to a thoughtful and satisfying conclusion.

Wonderful.

And Justify The Ways Of God To Men [4]

And the Hunter Home From the Hill [7]

The Annual Conference of the Prophets of Atlantis [1]

Review by Ian Braidwood

A witty account of the 999th annual conference of The Prophets of Atlantis, which descibes the contibutions of various speakers, including its first woman. None of the attendees however, forsee what's about to happen.

Another Bad Day in Bedlam [5]

Another Branch of the Family Tree [8]

Review by Ian Braidwood

This isn't one of Brian's best, largely because Beth Galton is about as sympathetic as her namesake Francis; who is referred to in the text. Perhaps that's the point: to signal that she's as mistaken as he was and for many of the same reasons.

Beth was a twin until her sister died in an accident along with her parents, who were on their way to visit Beth in hospital.

Before that, the two girls had basked in the attention of a host of scientists interested in the relative developmental contributions made by genes and the environment.

For various reasons hinted at above, Beth ends up defending an oak tree which has been condemned, because it threatened to damage her neighbour's house. She has even put mines around the base of the tree to stop anyone approaching.

For some reason I find it difficult to identify with characters who are so chronically self-indulgent; even when they come up against an ex-soldier who seems to have stepped straight out of The British Raj.

Aphrodite and the Ring [2]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Largely set in the catacombs beneath 19th century Paris, this is the story of a magician's apprentice, who murders his master and steals his most precious belonging. However he lacks the wisdom to use it wisely and is dissappointed with the result.

The Architect of Worlds [15]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Connivance and conundrums at Camelot.

Amory is assistant to Merlin, who sends the boy skulking through secret passageways to spy upon the four-way power struggle that threatens to tear Camelot apart.

Taliesin the druid and the Abbot of Glastonbury vie for the soul of Arthur's Britain, while Merlin is locked into a power struggle with Morgan LeFey.

When Amory is caught snooping upon the faery queen, rather than punish him, she gives him a vial of truth serum and sends him to spy for her...

The rest is up to the true architect of worlds...

The Arms of Morpheus [?]

Art in the Blood [8]

Ashes and Tombstones [6]

Review by Ian Braidwood

Paul Neal is a retired professor and technician on Theseus; a project dedicated to putting a ring of early warning satellites between Mars and Jupiter, to help ward off any asteroids on a collision course with Earth.

One day he is quietly tending his garden, when Dennis Mountjoy turns up to try and persuade him to give his public approval for the New European Space Agency's attempt to put a man on the moon. However, Paul is reluctant for fear of re-igniting an old scandal connected with some Theseus launches, which ended up putting payloads on the moon.

Were the payloads the ashes of the 'pharoes of capitalism' or is there a more sinister secret, which Paul is trying to hide?
NOTE: If you buy this story in David G. Hartwell's Years Best SF5, be careful not to read the introduction before the story.