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 besieged 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?
In the Bahamas the carnal hours occupy the time between dark and daylight. They also occupy the sharp mind of Chicago shamus Nathan Heller, once again sleuthing his way through a period mystery that tosses real characters in with invented ones and juxtaposes a documented death with an imagined one. Collins is a master of this sub-genre: Heller's previous adventures have produced many award nominations and three outright wins, the last being a Shamus for Stolen Away , in which Nate found himself solving the Lindbergh case. Here he's sweating in the Caribbean heat after local millionaire Sir Harry Oakes hires him to get the goods on his smooth...
