Product Description
When a group of humans accidentally reawakens a hoard of alien Zardalu caught in suspended animation for aeons, the ancient Zardalu rein of terror over the galaxy threatens to reemerge once again. Original. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

In Praise of Idiocy
Transvergence is the the combined edition of the 3rd and 4th books in the Heritage Universe series about a quest to find the "Builders" of a series of mysterious "Artifacts" left behind in our galaxy.

Perhaps the most aggrivating thing about Transvergence (and the "Heritage Universe" series in general) is that it is written with the craftsmanship of an eigth-grader's cribbed book report.

As before, our band of adventurers (some of whom are supposed to be the galaxy's best troubleshooters or super-human intelligences) manage to stumble blindly through a series of adventures, surviving by luck alone. Every character in the book survies to the end only with the help of various deus ex-machina plot devices. ("Hey, who left that ship there? Thanks Builders!")

The book also stretches suspension of disbelief beyond its normal limits as the protagonists - who are often separated by planets or entire solar systems - REPEATEDLY regroup by accident. It's almost as if the seven of them spent the weekend at a cabin together instead of separately running around the galaxy's spiral arm.

Logistical and intelligence problems aside, each of the two sub-books (like their predecessors) offer new explanations for the Artifacts (and the Builders' motivations) which contradict and/or invalidate the explanations given in the previous books. It's somewhat like a dadaist attempt at storytelling, because after the third explanation, you're not sure what to believe.

The worst explanation of them all comes at the end of sub-book #2 ("Convergence") in what is sure to go down as one of the great "WTF?" moments in sci-fi history. Without giving anything away, the book might as well have told us the Artifacts were decorations left over from a Builder office party.

That's not to say all is wrong with this book (even with its clumsy attempts at low-brow humor.) There are some neat ideas for the hard sci-fi buff to chew on, such as macroscopic quantum effects and the multiply-connected spaces inside the artifacts. It's just that all the interesting ideas are hampered by the book's flawed execution.

The Heritage Universe
Agree this is an excellent series.Readers should also be aware that the first three books were published by Guild America books under the title "The Heritage Universe".

Read "Convergent Series" First
This series is an excellent series, but the title shifting and confusion that has been done in the reprinting of it is unfortunate.The first two books in the series, "Summertide" and "Divergence" werereprinted as a double book in October 1998 called "ConvergentSeries". This was an unfortunate choice of name since the fourth bookof the series is named "Convergence" and it appears together withthe third book of the series "Transcendence" in a double bookreleased in November 1999 named "Transvergence", the book subjectto this review.

Dropped Into the Middle of a Series
First off, before you even consider picking up this title, you need to be aware of the fact that Transvergence is the reprinting of the 3rd and 4th volumes of 'The Convergent Series.' Unfortunately the 1st and 2nd parts of this series are currently out of print (although I believe this will changewith the release of Convergent Series in June 2000) and as such the readeris essentially dropped into the middle of an ongoing story.

That aside,Transvergence is actually an enjoyable read by itself. Having missed out onthe first part of the series the reader has to catch up with the variouscharacters and situations of the story, but there is usually enoughrecapping done to bring you up to speed. The only complaint I have is thatafter reading the first part of Transvergence the second part tends tofollow the same predictable plotline. Heroes go separate ways->Heroeshave adventures->Heroes come back together under extraordinarycircumstances.

All in all though the storylines are good even though theydo feel somewhat rushed towards the finales. You may want to wait and seeif the first part of the series is reprinted before picking this book up,but if you can get past that then Transvergence is actually a good way tokill an afternoon. ... Read more

Product Description

TIME-SHARING TWINS

Lionel Salkind was a rising musical star. His twin brother, Leo Foss, was a researcher in government work that he couldn't talk about. Then the helicopter they were flying crashed.

When he woke up, Lionel learned that both he and Leo had sustained fatal injuries, and he was only alive because the surgeon had used organs from Leo to repair Lionel's slightly less damaged body. More than half of Lionel's brain was gone, and had been replaced with Leo's. Lionel, in fact, had become His Brother's Keeper! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Pretty silly
This is marketed as science fiction, but it is only nominally so. The story is about Lionel Salkind, who is a concert pianist. His twin brother, Leo Foss, works for the U.S. government. His exact work is unkown to Salkind. Foss, who is a helicopter pilot, takes Salkind on a ride one day and tells him he has something important to tell him. Before he can do so, the helicopter crashes, and Foss is killed. Salkind suffers horrific injuries, and survives by receiving some of Foss's organs during surgery. Part of Foss's brain is also implanted in Salkind's head. That ends the science fiction angle. The rest is a mostly lame adventure story, which follows Salkind as he tries to unravel the mystery of his brother's secrets and the circumstances of the crash. The crash is never fully explained. There are some uninteresting passages involving the effects of the fusing of Foss's mind parts with Salkind's.

The "adventure" story is never really suspenseful, because of the nature of the bad guys. They are the perfect example of the gang who couldn't shoot straight. Although they are adept at repeatedly predicting where they will find Salkind, they are continually thwarted in their efforts to hang on to him. He doesn't need genius or ingenuity to survive. Their own inattention is repeatedly their undoing. They are even thwarted by a lawn sprinkler, while escorting Salkind across some grass. The showdown at the end involves a chase across a zoo, where a snake exhibit foils the bad guys. Their evil nature is hinted at, but never really sold, with the exception of one torture scene. And it doesn't involve Salkind. One of the bad guys just so happens to be a talented piano player. Of course he develops a connection with Salkind because of that, and becomes an ineffective evil character. The ending hints at a possible book sequel. I don't know if it was completed. Hopefully not. If it was, hopefully the bad guys attended some training at advanced bad guy school, where they worked on strategies to tackle lawn sprinklers. In the end, this was an accidental comedy. Sheffield has always provided reliable science fiction. This wasn't really science fiction. Perhaps that explains the awkward attempt at an action/suspense book.

Great Action Thriller - Misleading cover
I am glad that this book is being reprinted. I have worn out previous copies reading them.

As a mystery thriller, it is one of the best I have read. On top of that, as an SF book, the 'science' of the storyis intriguing.

The plot and the characterization of the two brothers is what takes this book from 4 stars to 5 stars. The antagonist is truly evil.

Oh yes, the cover.. Have a sense of humor.. The 'hero' is supposed to be a pianist. The cover looks like the 'Hulk'.

Enjoy!!!!

Does two (minds) into one (body) go?
Lionel Salkind, a world-class pianist, meets his twin brother Leo Foss (a naturalised american CIA agent) only for both of them to sustain fatal injuries in a not-so-accidental helicopter crash. Doctors manage to save Lionel by transplanting half of Leo's brain into his less-damaged body. In consequence, Lionel finds that his dead twin is still alive, buried within his brain. In three months, Leo will be able to communicate directly with Lionel and the outside world - but Leo's enemies don't know which twin survived, and are taking steps to protect themselves, and the mysterious "Belur package" they took from Leo's body...

An interesting premise - all the more so when you consider that everything in the novel is theoretically possible. Lionel is clearly a more conservative character than his James Bond clone brother (who seems to have girlfriends or wives in every corner of the globe), and is desperately trying to make a new life for himself, knowing that his brain damage has almost certainly ruined his playing, while his emotional centres have been replaced by Leo's. And, of course, there is a 70% chance that when his brain and Leo's finally knit together, that he will suffer a fatal stroke.

A gripping biotechno-thriller, with a limping, battered, possibly dying protagonist, I strongly recommend this book

a younger effort but a great read!
i read this one by accident, years ago, when i thought it lookedinteresting in the bookstore and i had never heard of the author before.since then i think i have reread it a dozen times. a little choppy in theprogression of the storyline, but a neat premise. twin brothers, separatedat birth and raised apart by different family members, develop differentlives as adults. but being twins enables them to be perfect matches foreach other when an accident nearly takes both lives and the organs of oneare harvested to save the other. this includes part of each brother'sbrain- when the nerves begin to reconnect, the survivor starts experiencingmemories of the dead twin's secret life... and it turns out he's not theonly one who wants to understand the rest.

Twisted Twins - Or the case of the Unfortunate Organ Swap
This book was better then I had thought it would be.I didn't initially search out this book rather I picked it up because nothing else was available.I have to admit initially I did not hold out much hope on this novel as it was much different then the type I usually enjoy.

Despite my initial trepidation I did enjoy the novel.It was a fast and good read that satisfies much as a sandwich satisfies hunger.It was not a steak but it was fine.

Even though I liked the book I did find the premise as a bit of a stretch and the writing is sometimes confusing.Even with all these faults I found thebook a good read and I have no regrets spending a few hours with it.

The plot is interesting and perhaps the best feature of the book.With the merging of body parts between twins to save one from awful injuries to both we see behavioral and mental changes in the surviving twin.The fun is following these changes while the rest of the plot unfolds.As strange as it sounds the somewhat out there plot was not an issue.If there was an issue it was the plot execution.

A good read that deserves 3 stars but I really can't give it 4 stars which I reserve for novels I intend to read again perhaps.A good but not great novel. ... Read more

Product Description
Basing their projections on technological, scientific, environmental, and biomedical forecasts, four leading science fiction authors--Ben Bova, Frederik Pohl, Jerry Pournelle, and Charles Sheffield--offer unique, vastly different views of the future. Reprint. ... Read more

Product Description
Twenty-second century science gives human beings the ability to change form at will, leading to experiments on human subjects and threatening the essence of humanity itself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Top notch sci-fi, Sheffield at his best
Charles Sheffield is perhaps the best science fiction writer actively writing today, especially if (like me) you disdain fantasy sci-fi. The two novels in this paperback both introduce a joyful litany of great concepts,great plot, and great characters skillfully interwoven. Sheffield not onlycomes up with earth-shaking ideas, like form changing for humans, he worksout the practical details. The effect is complete believability for thereader. The moment you finish this book, you'll want to then read"Proteus in the Underworld". (Charles: write more! Please!) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Not Free SF Reader
An artificial intelligence escapes its creators, and has its own plans for what it wants to do, and it seems it is happy to be violent to get them done.

A group of alien races work together, including humans, but have different political factions, with different ideas on how to deal with this.They decide to put a cross-race team together to handle it, but political infighting continues while these teams train for their mission.

One of the members of this team is a retarded young man who undergoes treatment to bring him to normal intelligence and usefulness.

Endlessly inventive
Hundreds of years in the future, human exploration and colonization of space has expanded far beyond the limits of our own solar system, and continues to expand, but what dangers lie beyond our sphere?Solar Security hires "needler" Livia Morgan to build autonomous cybernetic patrolmen code-named "Morgan Constructs" to guard the perimeter.They are designed to be extremely intelligent and well-armed.They are also murderous and insane, and they have escaped.It falls to Solar Security to recruit, train, and deploy pursuit teams consisting of one human, one Angel, one Tinker, and one Pipe-Rilla to find the Morgan Constructs and do the unthinkable: Destroy the sentient, intelligent Constructs at all costs.

Note: Sheffield also did a somewhat different re-telling of this story as "The Mind Pool."

An awesome book deserving to be reprinted
I found this book at a out of print book sale. i put off reading it but found it one day. It totally shocked me. I was expecting some dainty "sci-fi" novel that avoided all contreversy and toes, but what i found was a gut wrenching novel where the seemingly "bad guy" was NOT always bad. The characters had depth and the plot was very intertaining.

Excellent
Hard to find, but well worth it ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Among Sheffield's best work
At his best, Sheffield fits in the category with Larry Niven in that Sheffield is able to deliver a fully developed world driven by several far-sighted predictions of where technology and need will drive mankind.Sheffield seems to produce his very best material when he writes solo and (frankly) when he writing 20 years ago.

"Sight of Proteus" fits both those parameters, and in my opinion is among the two or three best that Sheffield ever produced.The story is based in a world where changes to the human form can be ordered from a public catalog - and of course the darker underworld where prohibited changes can be obtained.

In an over-populated world where underground scientists are willing to push the envelope of human form and evolution, this novel broke new ground pushing the "what if?" question related to human potential.I have the paperback in its 1978 edition and it has a permanent place in my SF collection.

Just proves again what a genius he is.
Its the first book in a series of three. Some real good advanced biothechnology,intristing lead charecter,good plot. He really took his time and thoght about all kinds of human forms. Get the trilogy,if you knowwhats good hard science fiction is. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Rather sophmoric look at the future
Hear ye, Hear ye! It is the future and Earth is over populated, the economy and the ecology are near ruin (sound familiar?). So, as an answer the (in)famous form-changing, mind-altering machines are invented that allow anyone with enough money to become whoever or whatever they want.(How this goes about solving the previously listed problems is not explained but then this IS fiction).

Naturally there is a bad guy (who may or may not be bad) and there is a tracker, Beh Wolf (ain't that knee slapper) who must find and make that determination as to which category he falls. There is a lot of business, several conversations, but one cannever forget that this is just a book - and an unconvincing one at that. Wolf runs into the same problems and even uses the same dialogue as 19th century detectives (only jazzed up with techojargon).Unfortunately it appears that this story duo will become a trio. ... Read more

Product Description
Growing up on the isolated space colony of Erin, Jay Hara dreams about the legendary days of interstellar trade and the Godspeed ships, until an old, sick spacer named Paddy Enderton tells him of a hidden Godspeed base. Reprint. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Masterful story-teller
Wonderful tale. I stayed up late finishing it. Did find it amusing that the back cover synopsis compared it to RLS's Kidnapped, when it's obviously mimicing Treasure Island. Captain Shaker was a very credible Long John Silver and Jay Hara as Jack Hawkins. Great pity that Sheffield has passed away. He was a very entertaining story teller.

A really great slant on alien invasion stories
I'm a huge fan of Charles Sheffield, and he doesn't disappoint with this story.

The plot is great. Two people discover a way to travel faster than light, but are told it is impossible even after they have the pictures to show it. They continue to pursue it anyway. Then aliens show up to warn the Earth about the dangers of experimenting with faster than lightspeed, claiming they spent 25 years traveling across the galaxy to warn Earth. The two smell fraud, but are thrown in jail before they can do anything about it.

The scientific ideas are good. The social ramifications are great. The twist on Aliens was really nice. And the dialogue and writing itself is excellent. I highly recommend this story to lovers of classic scifi.

Not Free SF Reader
A Science Fiction Story

Alien FTL fib busting.


4.5 out of 5

Fantastic Science Fiction
This is a good no nonsense Science Fiction story.It's easy to read and is not filled up with nonsensical crap as in Ringworld or similiar novels.It's just honest believable science fiction.

Treasure Island in the Space-Time Continuum
A very well done takeoff of the RLS masterpiece with science used cleverly. ... Read more

Product Description
It was just before Summertide, the time when the twin planets, Opal and Quake, would orbit closest to their sun, subjecting both -- but Quake in particular -- to vast tidal forces. And it was to be the most violent Summertide ever, due to the Grand Conjunction of the system's stars and planets, something that happened only every 350,000 years.
Access to the unstable Quake was supposed to be prohibited, but some very insistent travelers were determined to make the trip. Professor Darya Lang, who had made a career studying artifacts left by the long-vanished aliens called the Builders, had a hunch that during this unusal Summertide she might find the Builders themselves. Louis Nenda and the Cecropian Atvar H'sial had their own interests in Quake, and would do anything to get there. And Councilor Julius Graves was hunting murderers -- if they were hiding on Quake, he needed no one's permission to search for them.
Planetary Administrators Hans Rebka and Max Perry had no choice but to go to Quake themselves -- risking their lives to protect the others -- and to learn, just maybe, the secret of Summertide and the Builders . . .
"A well-made puzzle story in the manner of Arthur C. Clarke's Rama books." -- The New York Times
... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Middling at best
I just finished reading all four books in this series. I read them mostly because of the ideas that were presented, knowing pretty clearly after the first book that character depth and presentation isn't the author's strong point.

Good: The artifacts are interesting and unique, and present a great backdrop of the story that Sheffield is telling. He also has a great description of the aliens and presents them interestingly enough.

Bad: It was quite hard to care about these characters. They seemed like caricatures more than people, and they didnt seem real to me...they were mostly stereotypical, especially the characters presnted in the last two books.These people are in the middle of events of epic proportions on a galactic scale, but they repeatedly acted with only their own interests in mind. Which brings me to my main gripe...The plot focused only on the charactures, and you never got a sense that the rest of the galactic arm cared about what was going on. I cant help but compare books like this to Hyperion and its sequels, and these books pale in comparison. I felt like I was reading a Piers Anthony space epic. Decent fun, not a bad read, but could have been so much better.And the secret to the Builders was cool, I must admit.

not good
The synopsis:Evil space squid threatens sexy, two-dimensional human female.Male hero saves her and they hook up.I'm not kidding.

Interesting characters brighten hunt for alien secrets
SUMMERTIDE is the first novel of Sheffield's Heritage Universe series.Though a complete story in itself, it is a teaser for the later and better books.Sheffield peppers his universe with a series of Builder artifacts, remanents of a long vanished alien race.The surviving sentient races, particularly humans and the insectoid Cecropians, seek to discover the secrets of the Builders.

An interesting collection of characters independently come to the conclusion that some of those secrets may be unlocked during Summertide, a time of violent seismic disturbances on the planet Quake caused by a rare alignment of planets.There's Darya Lang, the leading, but naive, human authority on Builder artifacts.Julian/Steven Graves, elite Alliance counciler and possessor of two personalities and two brains.He's in pursuit of two teenage girls charged with genocide.There's the ruthless Cecropian, Atvar H'sial, sometime ally of Louis Nenda, a shady, equally ruthless human, and Kallik, Nenda's smart but cong

A fun, captivating, and suspensful classic scifi adventure.
This story explores a detailed universe that you only get a taste of in this first of four books. Each chapter makes you yearn for the discoveries to come in the next, and the book as a whole makes you eager to learn about the rest of the 'mysterious artifacts'. The characters are fairly well developed with ahint of romantic interest here and there. The story centers on the action and a relentless countdown to the event the book is named after; "Summertide". I haven't had a book stay on my mind between readings like this in a while.I'm ordering the next three books so I can continue with the characters and artifacts introduced in this book as soon as possible. It was a fun escape into a well developed future universe. ... Read more

Product Description
When the Cyborgs, non-living biological constructs, threaten the entire galaxy, it is up to the despised inhabitants of the planet Earth--the humans--to protect the galaxy from them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Look for the hidden image
Enjoyable. However my main comment is that there is a hidden image on the cover.
Find it. :-)

Flawed but interesting SF remake of The Count of Monte Cristo. 3.6 stars
..
More accurately, Charles Sheffield's THE NIMROD HUNT, revised as THE MIND POOL, is explicitly an hommage to Alfred Bester's classic THE STARS MY DESTINATION, as Sheffield makes clear in his intro to the revised ed.: "I wanted to emulate the multitude of ideas...the blowzy rococo decadence of [Bester's] future society." Good line, that. And that part is pretty neat, and the best part of the novel. Bester explicitly based STARS on Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo (which you can read online for free).

Unfortunately, MINDPOOL never really manages to integrate the good bits into a successful novel -- it's very episodic and disjointed, and deteriorates into pulpy silliness towards the end. I don't know if his first cut at it, NIMROD, was better.

Huh. I guess Sheffield's Matin Link, introduced as a semi-joke in "Marconi, Mattin, Maxwell" (77), was intended as a mechanical jaunte-device all along...

Anyway, I like the idea of successive remakes -- though it's been too long since I read MONTE CRISTO to recall if any of that survived into the Sheffield -- or indeed, if Sheffield knew of this influence on Bester. The endless, cross-generation sfnal internal dialogue,to paraphrase Greg Benford.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

Another space opera.
I did finish the book but it barely kept my interest enough for me to do so.The story does not amount to much really and there is not much of an ending at all.So much more could have been done with the idea of several aliens, one manmade construct and one human coming together in a mind meld.

Flawed, often hard to get into, but a must-read
Charles Sheffield's The Mind Pool is a rework of an older novel, The Nimrod Hunt. Centered around the hunt for a renegade artificial life-form, the novel paints a mixed picture of the future, with humans living in harmony with alien species, genetic engineering rampant and uncontrolled, a divided, violent, and irrelevant Earth, and a militaristic outer system.

This is a difficult book to get into. Initial chapters are tedious and there are a lot of key characters who inter-develop as the the book continues which devolves quickly into a confusing mess. Sheffield's humour barely holds the story together as empathy with the main, distant and too many, characters seems close to impossible, and the reader is expected to take in a little too much, from different technologies to the behaviors of three wildly different species. The book, initially, also seems to live up to its back-cover synopsis, which in science fiction can be a bad thing, especially if the synopsis seems to be written to appeal to John W Campbell.

The novel is saved by a number of factors: Sheffield's humour, naturally, helps. Certain characters become fleshed out and sympathetic. Some time about half way through the novel the pace and understandability of what is going on becomes quicker and easier.And then there's an absolutely beautiful twist concerning the very subject of the novel - and I say beautiful not just to describe the twist itself but the subject matter and the novel at that point, which just turned my opinion of the book on its head.

This is a flawed novel. You should read it anyway.

Something Missing
The Mind Pool tells the story of a future in which humans have encountered only three other intelligent species in the explored universe. The explored universe is essentially an ever exapanding sphere that radiates out as probes continue to move out through space and everything within this sphere is easilt reachable using "Mattin Links."

What I find intiguing about this story is the description of three very different alien species and how they are thrown together with humans, the only "aggressive" species, to form a team. However, I felt that this particular plot point wasn't dealt with in an engrossing manner. The whole novel felt somewhat pieced together and was shorter than it should have been. The catalyst for the story, the Morgan Construct that poses a threat to the universe and the teams are sent to find, felt almost forgotten and I was unclear what role it served in the story except as a launching point.

I enjoyed the story, but there were so many aspects to this universe that I would have liked to learn about and I felt like none of them were really explored in any depth. There was a subplot that was apparently left out of the original version of this story, called The Nimrod Hunt, that I felt was a hinderance to the story rather than adding anything and the author added back in merely because he was fond of it. The ending was somewhat confused and just seemed to stop and I wasn't really satisfied. I think I will pick up another of his books that isn't a rewrite of an earlier story and see how I like it. ... Read more

Product Description
Set loose after millions of years trapped in stasis, a handful of Zardalu are transported to galactic parts unknown, free to ravage any world and any race within their grasp. Reprint. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The first ending to Sheffield's Heritage Universe series
Originally planned as just a trilogy, Sheffield's Heritage Universe series originally ended with this book.Like the preceding novels, it's a treasure hunt story with an element of scientific speculation, here about quantam mechanics, thrown in.

Here the hunt is for the Zardalu, the villains of DIVERGENCE.They're alive and well and breeding, but the Federation doesn't believe they've returned after their 11,000 year absence, so Darya Lang and company from DIVERGENCE set out to bring back a live specimen.They find the Zardalu homeworld in a mysterious region of space called the Torvil Anfract, a place where the some of the phenomena of quantam physics manifest themselves on a macrosopic level.

Besides exciting escapes, scientific puzzles, and more encounters with the sentient constructs of the Builders, Sheffield does a nice job with his characters.Louis Nenda continues to deny, unconvincingly, that he has feelings for Lang.Kallik and J'merlia joyously return to servitude.One of the fe ... Read more

Product Description
Omnibus of two novels originally published separately in paperback: Sight of Proteus (1979 Locus Poll Award, Best SF Novel (Place: 14)), and Proteus Unbound. This is the only hardcover edition of these two novels, combined or separately. Another novel was added to the series in 1995, Proteus in the Underworld. Sight of Proteus was originally published as three separate stories: Sight of Proteus, Legacy, and The Grooves of Change. ... Read more

Product Description
Outrageous times call for outrageous measures. From the terraforming of Titan to viruses that alter wrongdoers' DNA, from legalized electronic dueling to contraceptives that select for sex, here is a fistful of provocative, engaging, and above all entertaining tales of Big Science brought to bear on the woes of the world.Amazon.com Review
Do desperate times call for desperate measures? CharlesSheffield asked a bunch of writers who commonly speculate about thefuture's fringe to consider how to save the world from its mostdebilitating disease--humanity. James P. Hogan imagines a future whereanyone can be killed instantly if five others agree that the offendingperson should die. The result is an amazingly polite and courteous (ifterrified) society. Geoffrey Landis indulges the idea that alteringDNA to eliminate our differences might look like a good solution toracism, at least to an earnest group of biotech wizards. Otherauthors, such as Larry Niven, Kathe Koja, and Jerry Pournelle, offervisions of humans leaving Earth altogether, of extreme sex selectionto reduce the population, and of legalized virtual dueling. Almostevery reader will find something alarming somewhere in thiscollection, which means How to Save the World is jam-packedwith food for thought.

In the introduction Sheffield writes, "Unfortunately, we, as a species,are on our own. We have no friendly advisor looking over our shoulder." But let's hope that we can come up with some less extreme solutions than thescenarios offered here. --Therese Littleton ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The unevenness of the stories was disappointing, especially considering the superb title
"We have no friendly advisor looking over our shoulder. We will have to make do with the next best thing: humans who are close observers of the actions of our species, but who are not directly involved in trying to run the affairs of humanity.

This of course is exactly what writers are and have been through recorded history.... Even among writers, I argue that the writers of science fiction form a special sub-group. They tend to be interested in global problems, in the impact of science and technology, and in the long-term future of humanity. They are observers of events at the largest scale." (pp. 12-13)

This then is a collection of these observations, examining themes as far ranging as the failure of public education in the US to the breakthrough in space exploration to the cure for patriarchy to an ugly dilemma inherent in the feminist rhetoric of "reproductive choice." For those of us who (often) feel motivated to save the world, this book provides an entertaining meditation on the shadow side of the utopian and of the unknowable consequences of our wholly benevolent intentions.

Sheffield writes, "Some of the stories in this book may offend. I certainly hope so." (p. 14). None of the stories offended this reader, but disappointingly most didn't make much of an impression either way. The unevenness of the stories was a definite let-down, particularly considering the devastatingly understated (or, as Sheffield puts it, "unduly modest") title. After all, what self-respecting Christian anarchist bodhisattva utopian would pass up the manual on how to save the world?

So here are some thoughts on the stories that impressed a little SF wisdom on me, providing visions of possible futures and of some pitfalls that might face us along the way. They also all rocked as stories.

--- "Zap Thy Neighbor" by James P. Hogan. I'd read this one almost a decade ago in an anthology of Hogan's stories and science writing called Rockets, Redheads & Revolution, and enjoyed rereading it. Hogan has envisioned a world in which everyone has a listing in a big directory, and that anyone with a grudge or grievance, if she can find two willing accomplices, can "call your number." It's a simple system with a twist that ensures that it really works as promised---in creating a more civil society.

--- "Choice" by Lawrence Watt-Evans. In college anthropology I was first introduced to the dilemma faced by many feminists in Asia (and other locales) regarding abortion. It is, in short, that the rhetoric of "reproductive choice" that has dominated liberal discourse on the issue for almost two generations (i.e., that a woman's choice to terminate a pregnancy is absolute and absolutely hers) stands in uncomfortable company with third-world cultural realities which lead most women with free access to contemporary reproductive technologies to abort only female fetuses. Watt-Evans presents a "culturally pure" (read: third world) society, presumably in the Middle East, where poverty, disease, overpopulation, etc. have been become things of the past. How? By allowing women to make their free choices, aborting females and keeping males until the ratio of men to women is over 10 to 1. This, as we see in the story, poses its own interesting problems.

--- "The Meetings of the Secret World Masters" by Geoffrey A. Landis. This story reminded me of the film The Last Supper except that instead of serving individuals poisoned meals, a handful of scientists genetically engineer myriad changes to the human race. A pretty chilling story about way too much power being in the wrong hands--or in any hands.

--- "The Invasion of Space" by James Kirkwood. Reminisces about the crucial "Big Bang" moment in deep space exploration and how it was a poet (and an inadvertent martyr), and not a scientist, who was needed to get humanity's mythological juices flowing in the direction of outer space. Because without that, you can only get so far off the earth.

--- "Buyer's Remorse" by Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg. Why is this story here? I absolutely hated, hated, hated, hated this story. Completely pretentious short story told in the form of letters to an advice columnist about life in the far future and the columnist's responses. Confusing and didn't say much to me, which means I probably need to re-read it a couple of times until I finally get it. (That or simply forget about it).

--- "My Soul to Keep" by Jerry Oltion. In the near-future US, religion is seen as a dangerous, infectious neurological disorder and so free exercise of said infection is therefore no longer enshrined in the US Constitution. When the Pope is injured while on a clandestine trip to the US, and the contagion is released, all hell (ahem) breaks lose. One scientist begins to regain her faith, and so her fellows protect her from the illness. For her own benefit, of course.

Food for Thought
When I was still in middle school, I was an avid reader of science fiction, more so then than I am now.That said, one of the few books I remember vividly was this one.I still bring up the stories and the rather extreme solutions when given the opportunity.If this book is anything, it is a 'food for thought' kind of book.The ideas the book illustrates has stayed with me for a longer time than I can remember, and, perhaps, they will affect you just as remarkably.

Perspectives on the Human Problem
Many people would agree that humanity is currently on the path to its owndestruction.The problem is, no two people would agree on how to get usoff that path.The fourteen stories in this anthology provide some ideason how this can be done.The nice thing about these stories is that theyprovide what may be feasible soltuions, while also demonstrating thecomplications that would arise from them.Some of these stories introduceconcepts that are downright disturbing, and most of them are enjoyable. ... Read more

Product Description
Georgia on My Mind and Other Places is a brilliant collection of visionary short fiction by Charles Sheffield, author of The Ganymede Club and Godspeed. It includes the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning title story, as well as other widely praised works.Amazon.com Review
Charles Sheffield has been publishing "hard SF" since 1977,and he has been widely touted for his impeccable scientific accuracyand foresight.But more importantly, Sheffield is a wonderful storyteller who has the ability to make his characters and the worlds theylive in resonate with readers. This literary one-two punch is theshowcase of Sheffield's latest short story collection, which containsfourteen of his stories written between 1987-94. While the NebulaAward-winning title story "Georgia on My Mind" is clearly thecenterpiece here, these are all first-rate tales by one of SF's finestwriters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Not Free SF Reader
A Science Fiction Story

Analytical Engine kiwi discovery.


4.5 out of 5

Coping with High Tech
Georgia On My Mind is a collection of fourteen SF stories published between 1987 and 1994.It also contains an introduction by the author and afterwords for most of the stories.

In The Feynman Saltation, an artist with a brain tumor starts having visions of the past.In the Bee's Kiss, a convicted voyeur uses his skills to spy on a pair of aliens.In Millennium, a Christian tries to postpone judgment day.In Fifteen-Love On the Dead Man's Chest, a tennis game and a funeral lead to confusion and distress.In Deep Safari, a spurned lover rushes to the rescue in a small way.

In Beyond the Golden Road, a Christian monk finds a soulmate in the Great Khan's court.In Health Care System, a medical researcher creates a bleeding edge support system.In Humanity Test, Godwin's The Cold Equations meet Heinlein's Jerry Was a Man, with a new twist.In That Strain Again, falling leaves repel aliens from Vegas IV.In Destroyer of Worlds, space fanatics attempt ecological engineering.

In the Fifteenth Station of the Cross, the dying ruler of the world decides to bring a miracle healer from the past.In Trapalanda, a Andean explorer guides a blind man to an extraordinary discovery.In Obsolete Skill, a science fiction writer waking in the future finds that old methods work better for him.In Georgia On My Mind, a pair of computer geeks discover evidence of a working analytical engine in New Zealand.

The author is better known for his high tech, world spanning novels, but these stories show that he can produce small gems of science fiction as well.Of course, these stories are mostly about people who use or encounter some facet of human technology or alien supertech. Some of these characters are unforgettable, especially the couple in Georgia On My Mind, even though they are known only through letters and journal entries.

Highly recommended for Sheffield fans and for anyone who enjoys short tales about humans struggling to live in a technological environment.

-Arthur W. Jordin

A mixed bag
Sheffield has probably gotten more acclaim than he deserves because he is a "real" scientist, I admit it influenced me. His dialog and characterisations are often poor and laboured. He has the ideas okay, but Georgia on my Mind is the only story that makes it as a piece of fiction.

Mixed bag.
I don't think Sheffield is as well known as other hard sf authors likeBaxter, Bear, Egan, Niven, etc. After reading some of his stuff I thinkthat's justified. Although more human then Egan's work (but then again adead mackerel is more human then Egan's average fair) & fairly eloquentthere's nothing I couldn't get out of Clarke, Asimov, etc. (I mentionedthem because he's sort of old school, but I'd like to add that I like theold school which is perhaps why I hate saying the things I'm saying.) Thefact that I haven't mentioned any of the stories is kind of because theydidn't strike me as that memorable. Science fiction authors (all authorsreally) tend to have bad marriages so it is nice to read stories about anapparently good marriage since the lost wife imagery is strong in some ofhis stories. (He recently remarried so it's pleasing to know he's movedon.)I've read too much hard sf I guess because if I'd started withSheffield I'm sure I'd have a higher opinion of his stories. I'm being tooharsh these are good stories there's just too much great science fictionbeing produced these days to make them stand out. Don't let my mood biasyou & I am glad I bought it. To further defend him Asimov's my favoriteauthor, but I've read better written stories then Asimov's. I'm sure somewill have the same view of Sheffield. A good hard sf author worth reading,but his overshadowed status is understandable since hard sf is such a bigfield. ... Read more

Product Description
1982 Locus Poll Award, Best Single Author Collection (Place: 15). Collects 14 stories with introduction and afterwords by the author, including: The Man Who Stole the Moon, The Deimos Plague, Forefather Figure, Moment of Inertia (McAndrew series), The New Physics: The Speed of Lightness, Curved Space, and Other Heresies, From Natural Causes, Legacy (later incorporated into the novel Proteus), The Softest Hammer (1982 Locus Poll Award, Best Short Story (Place: 19)), Hidden Variable, A Certain Place in History, All the Colors of the Vacuum (McAndrew series), Perfectly Safe, Nothing To Worry About, Summertide (later incorporated into the novel Summertide), The Marriage of True Minds. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Short stories... some awesome, some oddball
Hidden Variables is a collection of Sheffield's short stories. I love Sheffield's stuff and I found most of this book utterly fascinating.These include some of the chapters you can find in "The Compleat McAndrew," a unique perspective on time travel, a short but well-written piece on one man's conversion after a murder, and a very nifty murder mystery involving a special friction-reducing chemical. For those stories, I would rate the book a solid 5.However, he also wrote a few stories involving pigs in order to prove a point or satisfy a bet of some sort.I think the book would have been better off without them.But the rest were well worth reading. I recommend it. ... Read more

Product Description
Contributed articles. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Worth a read
When this book was written, the authors attempted to peer out 50 years to 2044. Now, it is 10 years after publication. Twenty percent there. Yet how far have we really come to the authors' suggestions?

Well, several predictions looked out and up to the solar system. Here, progress seems glacial. In conventional launch capability, there has been no significant reduction in launch costs. Though a positive point is the recent upsurge in innovative and cheap launch strategies. Without any breakthroughs here, the book's space visions will mostly come to naught.

Back on earth, technological changes have surged forward in computing. The authors wrote on the dawn of the Web. But they were farsighted enough to foresee an increasingly wired world. In the biological sciences, we are still at the start of a hard slog into such fields as a significant defeat of cancer or of a significant extension of longevity.

Science fiction fans may also be attracted to this book by its contributions from noted SF authors like Sheffield and Pournelle.

Overall, the book is quite commendable. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Adventures of Dr. Darwin
What an absolutely dandy idea! What if Erasmus Darwin-- doctor, poet, inventor, philosopher, and grandfather of Charles-- now and again got into a number of scrapes involving the supernatural or some kind of eighteenth century weird science? It's the best idea since Lillian de la Torre came up with the idea of having Dr. Samuel Johnson become a "detector" during this same time period.

A good idea of this sort has often been skuttled because the author was ignorant of history. Charles Sheffield does not fall into this trap. He certainly did his homework on both Darwin and late eighteenth century Britain. I agree with Sheffield that Erasmus Darwin was a man ahead of his time, but I think that it is overstating the case to argue that he was the single greatest Englishman of his century. This is a minor quibble, however. Sheffield provides an excellent historical appendix.

And yet, I found myself mildly dissatisfied with the book. I think that it had to do with the length of the stories. They are told in the form of three long novellas; and while they are not badly written, they tend to drag at times. I would have preferred to see a larger number of short, tight, snappy tales that revealed a greater variety of wonders for Dr. Darwin to encounter. The book is worth your attention. But it is not quite the same sort of historical fantasy that Avram Davidson used to do so well.

Amusing Sherlock-Holmes-style mysteries.
Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin is the protagonist in thiscollection of three separate stories.In them, Erasmus uses deductivereasoning and his powers of observation, a la Sherlock Holmes, to penetratethree mysteries which at first blush appear to involve the supernatural. At the same time, matters are not so simple, because Sheffield's backdropis a fantasy England where supernatural explanations cannot necessarily beruled out . . .The first episode is not so great--Darwin comes off asonly slightly brighter than average.But the episodes which follow areengaging and interesting, well worth the read.Sheffield is a skilledpractitioner who holds the reader's attention.I enjoyed the book, butwound up feeling slightly disappointed that Darwin, billed as"arguably the greatest Englishman of the 18th century," is noteven more witty and brilliant. ... Read more