From Publishers Weekly
Taking a post-Internet, post-computerized world as its unifying theme, Anders's (The Making of Star Trek: First Contact) uneven anthology showcases 18 mostly male British authors (not all of whom will be familiar to U.S. readers), whose contributions range from disconnected, inconclusive pieces to delightful shaggy-dog stories. Most focus on sophisticated biological technologies, such as Charles Stross's provocative "Rogue Farm," about "multi-human beings" and Stephen Baxter's sad little tale about slave-drones and successive revolutions, "Conurbation 2473." Other established names include Michael Swanwick, David Brin, Rudy Rucker and S.M. Stirling. But the longest entry belongs to relatively obscure Brit John Meaney. In Meaney's entertaining novella, "The Swastika Bomb," bioform animals serve as tanks, airplanes, bombs and deadly viruses, against an alternative history of the Battle of Britain in which the Axis and the Allies race to develop a nucleic instead of a nuclear bomb. All the stories are competently written, but few leave a lasting impression.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
Imagine a future without cyberspace...without virtual reality...without AIs and simulations...and without the Web.

What would you do? What would you fear? What wouldn't you know?

Explore a future without a net in these stories of alternatives to the "information age" by Lou Anders € Stephen Baxter € David Brin € Paul Di Filippo € Pat Cadigan € John Grant € David Hutchinson € Alex C. Irvine € Terry McGarry € John Meaney € Paul Melko € Mike Resnick and Kay Kenyon € Chris Roberson € Adam Roberts € Rudy Rucker € S.M. Stirling € Del Stone, Jr. € Charles Stross € Matthew Sturges € Michael Swanwick

Download Description
"Imagine a future without cyberspace...without virtual reality...without AIs and simulations...and without the Web. What would you do? What would you fear? What wouldn't you know?

About the Author
Lou Anders has published over 500 articles in such magazines as Dreamwatch, Star Trek Monthly, Star Wars Monthly, and Babylon 5. He is the author of The Making of Star Trek: First Contact and editor of the anthology Outside the Box. He currently writes a column called "New Directions" for the website RevolutionSF.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This anthology of stories from today's top masters of speculative fiction offers visions of futures near and far, glimpses of alternative histories, and dark journeys down roads not taken. What does await us at the end of a different tunnel? What would we find in dimensions where the seemingly inevitable vastness of cyberspace has been replaced by things both surprising and strange? The answers are in the startling and ingenious imaginations of the SF masters who dared to go there, to dream, to warn, and to fathom the alternatives. Welcome to science fiction unplugged and set free to be... Live Without A Net.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Taking a post-Internet, post-computerized world as its unifying theme, Anders's (The Making of Star Trek: First Contact) uneven anthology showcases 18 mostly male British authors (not all of whom will be familiar to U.S. readers), whose contributions range from disconnected, inconclusive pieces to delightful shaggy-dog stories. Most focus on sophisticated biological technologies, such as Charles Stross's provocative "Rogue Farm," about "multi-human beings" and Stephen Baxter's sad little tale about slave-drones and successive revolutions, "Conurbation 2473." Other established names include Michael Swanwick, David Brin, Rudy Rucker and S.M. Stirling. But the longest entry belongs to relatively obscure Brit John Meaney. In Meaney's entertaining novella, "The Swastika Bomb," bioform animals serve as tanks, airplanes, bombs and deadly viruses, against an alternative history of the Battle of Britain in which the Axis and the Allies race to develop a nucleic instead of a nuclear bomb. All the stories are competently written, but few leave a lasting impression. (July 1) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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