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The long-awaited companion volume to "Future on Fire", this anthology is designed to freeze readers in their tracks and change the way they think. Here are early stories from widely varied and immensely talented authors who have since shattered the face of science fiction.

YA-A popular YA novelist and sci-fi writer has put together a second anthology of 18 short stories by important SF writers of the 1980s. It is just as powerful as Future on Fire (Tor, 1991). Set in places uncannily familiar or disturbingly bizarre, the selections tell of family love, robot ambitions, language and loneliness, misguided political negotiations, and, of course, an assortment of very strange creatures. Card's notes tell in a particularly humorous and anecdotal tone about his encounters with the authors. The book is also worth having just for Card's introductory essay in which he takes an intriguing look at the way religious "ideas" can be and are often explored at some depth in this genre. Thought-provoking and illuminating reading, but best of all, entertaining.-Cynthia J. Rieben, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA Copyright 1999 School Library Journal Reviews