This new collection by the man Anne McCaffrey calls "an absolutely marvelous writer" includes Hugo Award nominee "Shed Skin," Nebula Award nominee "Identity Theft," and Aurora Award winner "Ineluctable." In these pages, you'll discover the dark secret of the only priest on Mars, revisit H.G. Wells's Morlocks, and learn what really happens when aliens beam us the Encyclopedia Galactica.

"Sawyer's fans will be gratified to find many of his favorite themes amply represented here, from evolution gone awry to sentient dinosaurs to the perilous loopholes created by quantum physics. He has a gift for casting jarringly original ideas in lucid, sharp-edged prose that mainstream-fiction as well as SF readers should appreciate."-Booklist

"Sawyer has a way of taking familiar ideas, looking at them from new angles and in greater depth than almost anybody before him, and tying them together to create extraordinarily fresh and thought-provoking stories."-Analog

"Sawyer writes my favorite kind of science fiction: interesting characters, fast-paced plotting, science threaded elegantly into the prose - he does it all with grace and style. I am constantly amazed by the depth of Sawyer's characters - their humanity, their failings and their instincts."
-Rodger Turner on SF Site