Publisher Description
Five novellas of hard science fiction by five modern masters of the form
From Nebula Award winner Gregory Benford comes this ambitious hard SF anthology that collects five original novellas. Each one takes the very long view—all are set at least ten thousand years in the future. The authors take a rigorously scientific view of such grand panoramas, confronting the largest issues of cosmology, astronomy, evolution, and biology.
The last moments of a universe beseiged occupy Greg Bear's Judgment Engine. Can something human matter at the very end of creation, as contorted matter ceases to have meaning and time itself stutters to an eerie halt?
Genesis by Poul Anderson is set a billion years ahead, when humanity has become extinct. Earth is threatened by the slowly warming sun, and vast machine intelligences decide to recreate humans.
Donald Kingsbury contributes Historical Crisis, a starting work on the prediction of the human future that challenges the foundations of psychohistory, as developed in Isaac Asimov's famous Foundation Trilogy.
Joe Haldeman's For White Hill confronts humanity with hostile aliens who remorselessly grind down every defense against them. A lone artist struggles to find a place in this distant, wondrous future when humanity seems doomed.
In At the Eschaton by Charles Sheffield, a man tries to rescue his dying wife from oblivion by hurling himself forward, in both space and time, to the very end of the universe itself.
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“Fictional scenarios of the remotely distant
future, such as Stapledon’s classic Last and First Men,
are rare in sf, perhaps because humans, at least in their current form, aren’t
expected to last that long. To fill this void, editor Benford offers five
novellas by leading hard-sf veterans that safeguard the human perspective while
reaching ten thousand years and more into the future…A superb collection that
stretches sf to its imaginative limits.”
—
Booklist
About the Authors
Greg Bear is an American
author of more than forty books spanning the science fiction, fantasy, and
horror genres. His science fiction works have covered themes of galactic
conflict, artificial universes, consciousness and cultural practice, and
accelerated evolution. His fiction has garnered five Nebula Awards, two Hugo
Awards, the Monty Award, and the Heinlein Award. He has also been an
illustrator of science fiction works in both hardcover and paperback. He has written articles on film for the Los Angeles Times and book reviews for
the San Diego Union. He is a founding
member of the Association of Science Fiction Artists and of the San Diego
Comic-Con. and has served as president and vice president of the Science Fiction
Writers of America. He has also served as a consultant for NASA, the US Army,
the State Department, and other organizations on such matters as crime and
criminal justice, virology and evolution, and bio security.
Alex Hyde-White is an actor and a producer of two films and hundreds of audiobooks thru his label Punch Audio.
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) was one of the most prolific and popular writers in science fiction. He won the Hugo Award seven times and the Nebula Award three times, as well as many other awards, including the Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Writers of America for a lifetime of distinguished achievement. With a degree in physics and a wide knowledge of other fields of science, he was noted for building stories on a solid foundation of real science, as well as for being one of the most skilled creators of fast-paced adventure stories. He was author of over one hundred novels and story collections, several hundred short stories, and several mysteries and nonfiction books.
About the Narrators
James Langton, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and later as a musician at the Guildhall School in London. He has worked in radio, film, and television, also appearing in theater in England and on Broadway. He is also a professional musician who led the internationally renowned Pasadena Roof Orchestra from 1996 to 2002.
Vikas Adam is a classically trained actor with numerous credits in stage, film, commercials, and television, in addition to his over two hundred recorded audiobooks. His narrations have garnered numerous awards and nominations, including AudioFile Earphones Awards, various Best of the Year lists, and the prestigious Audie Award. He was an inaugural inductee into the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame.
Paul Boehmer is an American actor best known for his numerous appearances in the Star Trek universe, in addition to Frasier, Judging Amy, Guiding Light, and All My Children. He is a 1992 Masters of Fine Arts graduate of the Professional Theater Training Program at the University of Delaware. As a narrator, Paul has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie Award.
Paul Boehmer is an American actor best known for his numerous appearances in the Star Trek universe, in addition to Frasier, Judging Amy, Guiding Light, and All My Children. He is a 1992 Masters of Fine Arts graduate of the Professional Theater Training Program at the University of Delaware. As a narrator, Paul has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie Award.
Susan Hanfield is an Audie Award–winning narrator who comes from a strong classical theater background and loves bringing deep characterizations to all of her work. She has narrated over twenty books, including Ru Emerson’s six-book Night-Threads series. On camera, she has been seen commercially and in numerous international, national, and regional network spots. She also played the title character in Magdalene, an award-winning short film.
Alex Hyde-White is an actor and a producer of two films and hundreds of audiobooks thru his label Punch Audio.
Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than five thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than nine hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014, and was named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices in 2012.