From Booklist
Editor Benford challenged sf scribes to write about just what the title suggests, and they came up with interesting stories that run the gamut of possible responses, including, in Howard V. Hendrik's "Once out of Nature," a surprisingly thoughtful piece concerning the death of the main character's father. Geoffrey A. Landis provides an unnerving, if familiar, take on infinitely recursive computer simulations in "Ouroboros." Pamela Sargent contributes "Venus Blooms at Night," about employing virtual technology to further the dream of making another world habitable. Mike Resnick and Dean Wesley Smith's collection closer, "A Moment of Your Time," more or less neatly solves the familiar time-travel hitch of changing the future by interfering in the past by keeping those traveling from the future within a single moment of the past, free to move around but not to change anything. As Benford points out, sf writers have used microcosms for years, which accounts for why the quality of these works is so high. Regina Schroeder
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Book Description
Award-winning author and scientist Gregory Benford has collected all-new, hard-science stories about miniature universes of every imaginable kind. These 13 stories will open portals into unforgettable universes that exist within or outside our own.

With stories by Stephen Baxter, Pamela Sargent, Robert J. Sawyer Robert Sheckley, George Zebrowski, and other masters.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Gregory Benford, Nebula Award–winning author of Timescape, has collected 13 hard science fiction stories dealing with the theme of microcosms -- worlds within worlds. Authors included in this highly intelligent anthology include Stephen Baxter, Robert J. Sawyer, George Zebrowski, and Robert Sheckley.

The story that most exemplifies the anthology's theme is Zebrowski's "My First World," the account of a group of criminals sentenced to 50 years on a primitive habitat built within an asteroid. As part of the government's timed asteroid prison system, the Rock is scheduled to return to Earth after the allotted sentence. But when half a century passes and no one comes for them, the small community must come face to face with reality. What has transpired on Earth since they've been gone? Is there a civilization to return to? Do they even want to return to it?

Other notable inclusions are "Dream Walking" by Jamil Nasir, the tale of a man unsatisfied with his life who (with a little help from a fly-by-night mail order business) blurs the line between waking and dreaming with incredible results; and "A Moment of Your Time," a story by Mike Resnick and Dean Wesley Smith about whole communities of time travelers who can live their entire lives in an instant.

While a few of the selections hit on vaguely similar plotlines, there are still a wide variety of diverse stories to choose from: universes within computer programs, hunters and gatherers on the moon, virtual reality mind tours that can create civilizations. Entertaining and enlightening, this anthology contains the latest variations on "a grand though tiny theme." Paul Goat Allen

FROM THE PUBLISHER