by Ian Whates
“You may leave now,” said the majestic voice of an angel. “The one you call Restituta is safe with us, back once more where she belongs.”
“No!” shouted Frank. “Duke, pick this place up and drop it on them! We’ll rescue her somehow!”
Restituta spoke now in their minds, in a relaxed and gentle tone. “No, Frank, there is no return for me. You can only do yourself harm to cling to what I was. Please, go back to Earth safely now, while you still can. Just remember me in your heart.”
Frank lunged toward the controls that would send them aloft and hurtling suicidally into the crystal towers—
The Moon was suddenly below them, and then in the next eyeblink had shrunk to where it filled only a single pane in the array of loggia windows.
The angels had hurled them at least halfway back to Earth.
Frank howled, then started batting the floating objects around him. But all his massless punches could not assuage his grief.
By the time the Earth loomed large, the three men had all reached an emotional and spiritual accommodation, one way or another, with what had happened. Frank had even found it within himself somehow to do a number of sketches of the angelic lunar city, several of which featured Restituta striding toward it like some numinous pilgrim.
But all joy and pride in his drawings had evaporated with the loss of the woman he had loved. (And could he ever love that intensely again?) He knew he would never display his artwork from this incredible voyage, or otherwise advertise his trip. And he suspected the Duke and Ludovico felt the same. The Ca’ d’Oro would settle down onto its former foundations and be reintegrated with the city. The scaffolding would come down, the inert cavourite be warehoused, and people would soon forget the day a palazzo had taken off for the stars.
Then they were in the upper atmosphere of Earth, with the Duke at the controls, searching visually for the motherland of Italy where it lay waiting below.
Ludovico had ceased cranking the no-longer-necessary Gramme Dynamos and was scratching at the tied-off ends of his trousers.
“What’s the matter?” asked Frank.
“I don’t know, but there is a confounded itching on my stumps.”
Frank felt bad. “You must have sustained damage there while rescuing me. Probably frostbite or abrasions. And we never checked. Let me look.”
Frank unknotted one fabric leg and skinned it back.
Ludovico’s stump was no longer a mass of scars and dead cells. The skin gleamed pink and alive, and from the growing surface, five perfect embryonic toes poked forth.
Solaris Rising presents nineteen stories of the very highest calibre from some of the most accomplished authors in the genre, proving just how varied and dynamic science fi ction can be. From strange goings on in the present to explorations of bizarre futures, from drug-induced tragedy to time-hopping serial killers, from crucial choices in deepest space to a ravaged Earth under alien thrall, from gritty other worlds to surreal other realms, Solaris Rising delivers a broad spectrum of experiences and excitements, showcasing the genre at its very best.
‘What, then, are Solaris publishing? On the basis of this anthology, quite a wide-ranging selection of SF, some of it very good indeed.’
– SF Site on The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction
‘A cliché it may be, but there really is something for everyone here... an ideal bait to tempt those who only read novels to climb over the short fiction fence.’
– Interzone on The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Vol. 2
‘The stories presented in this latest volume are intended to showcase the diverse nature of science fiction. Does it succeed? Absolutely.’
– SF Signal on The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Vol. 3
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The universe shifts and changes: suddenly you understand, you get it, and are filled with wonder. That moment of understanding drives the greatest science-fiction stories and lies at the heart of Engineering Infinity. Whether it's coming up hard against the speed of light - and, with it, the enormity of the universe - realising that terraforming a distant world is harder and more dangerous than you'd ever thought, or simply realizing that a hitchhiker on a starship consumes fuel and oxygen with tragic results, it's hard science-fiction where a sense of discovery is most often found and where science-fiction's true heart lies.
This exciting and innovative science-fiction anthology collects together stories by some of the biggest names in the field, including Gwyneth Jones, Stephen Baxter and Charles Stross.
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Shine - An Anthology of Optimistic Science Fiction
A collection of near-future, optimistic SF stories where some of the genre's brightest stars and most exciting talents portray the possible roads to a better tomorrow. Definitely not a plethora of Pollyannas - but neither a barrage of dystopias - Shine will show that positive change is far from being a foregone conclusion, but needs to be hard-fought, innovative, robust and imaginative. Let's make our tomorrows Shine.
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On the brink of perfecting the long sought-after human/AI interface, Philip Kaufman finds his world thrown into turmoil as a scandal from the past returns to haunt him and dangerous information falls into his hands. Pursued by assassins and attacked in his own home, he flees. Leyton, a government black-ops specialist, is diverted from his usual duties to hunt down the elusive pirate vessel The Noise Within, wondering all the while why this particular freebooter is considered so important. Two lives collide in this stunning space-opera from debut novelist Ian Whates!
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It's a time of change. While mankind is adjusting to its first encounter with an alien civilisation, black-ops soldier Jim Leyton has absconded from the agency that trained him, and allied himself with a mysterious faction in order to rescue the woman he loves.
Since his death, scientist and businessman Philip Kaufman has realised that there is more to the virtual world than he'd suspected. Yet it soon becomes clear that all is not well in Virtuality.
Both men begin to suspect that the much heralded 'First Contact' was anything but, and that a sinister con is being perpetrated on the whole of humankind. Now all they have to do is prove it.
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