author : Charles Sheffield

Contents

• Killing Vector. 1978

• Transition Team. 1978

• Skystalk. 1979

• How to Build a Beanstalk. 1979

• The Long Chance. 1977

• The Treasure of Odirex. 1978

• What Song the Sirens Sang. 1977

• Fixed Price War. 1978

• Marconi, Mattin, Maxwell. 1977

The true story of the revolutionary Mattin link, and Henry Carver's place in its development, explaining why he had to leave Earth.

• Power Failure. 1978

• Dinsdale Dissents. 1977

The story of Waldo Burmeister's time on the Venus terraforming project, how he became a hero, and why President Dinsdale was not amused.

• We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident. 1977

• Bounded in a Nutshell. 1978

• The Dalmation of Faust. 1978

Waldo Burmeister is given the task of conveying a precocious child and his genetically engineered pet to Earth. He fails.

Contents

• The Man Who Stole the Moon. 1980

• Hidden Variable. 1980

• Summertide. 1981

• The Deimos Plague. 1978

The story of Henry Carver's flight from Earth in the company of the planet saving pigs, Penelope and Pomander.

• Forefather Figure. 1981

• Moment of Inertia. 1980

• The New Physics: The Speed of Lightness, Curved Space, and Other Heresies. 1980

• From Natural Causes. 1978

• Legacy. 1977

• The Softest Hammer. 1981

• A Certain Place in History. 1977

Henry Carver, sole survivor of the first Mattin link trial, is required to help with another, alien, link investigation.

• All the Colors of the Vacuum. 1981

• Perfectly Safe, Nothing to Worry About. 1977

Carver and Burmeister safeguard Pintonite, the most powerful explosive known.

• The Marriage of True Minds. 1980

Contents

• Unclear Winter. 1988

• Classical Nightmares and Quantum Paradoxes. 1989

• The Grand Tour. 1987

• The Unlicked Bear-Whelp. 1990

• Counting Up. 1988

• Out of Copyright. 1989

• Tunicate, Tunicate, Wilt Thou Be Mine. 1989

• A Braver Thing. 1990

• Nightmares of the Classical Mind. 1989

• The Double Spiral Staircase. 1990

• The Seventeen-Year Locusts. 1982

• The Courts of Xanadu. 1988

• C-change. 1992

• Godspeed. 1990

• Dancing with Myself. 1989

• Something for Nothing: A Biography of the Universe. 1993

A varied collection of short stories, ranging from barely a page in length, to novelettes, ranging from deadly serious to deliberately crude humour. "Humanity test" is simultaneously a tale about rights of "uplifted" animals and a novel solution to an old SFnal conundrum. Some of the stories have surprisingly unsympathetic narrators, and a couple finish just as the real story gets started.

Contents

• Deep Safari. 1991

Fantastic Voyage brought up to date. A research scientist has injected herself with experimental medical telepresence nanobots, but something has gone wrong, and she is in a coma. The only person who can save her is her ex-lover, who now uses telepresence for running commercial 'Small Game Hunting'.

• Fifteen-love on a Dead Man's Chest. 1993

Carver and Burmeister engage in a strange tennis match, and a hunt for an immortality drug.

• The Feynman Saltation. 1992

An artist with a brain tumour finds himself painting earlier and earlier creatures.

• The Bee's Kiss. 1994

Alien visitors are disturbed by something they learn about our biology: a criminal voyeur is sent to learn about them before they leave for good.

• Millennium. 1994

Whose millennium is it, anyway?

• Beyond the Golden Road. 1989

Science fiction as it might be written in 1250.

• Health Care System. 1990

How far would you go to preserve your life, if you had the money?

• Humanity Test. 1990

A hearing about the human rights of Shimmerhann chimpanzees is thrown into turmoil when a surprise witness is called to testify against them.

• That Strain Again.... 1988

Ethical aliens are surprised and delighted to see humans visiting them.

• Destroyer of Worlds. 1989

Stamps, strange attractors, and biospheres combine.

• The Fifteenth Station of the Cross. 1993

A future despot wants a cure for his terminal illness, and changes history.

• Trapalanda. 1987

A blind millionaire discovers something strange about the weather patterns in Argentina.

• Obsolete Skill. 1987

When you are frozen for 200 years and revived, what contribution will you be able to make to the future society?

• Georgia on My Mind. 1993

New Zealand, Babbage machines, and aliens combine.

Contents

• James P. Hogan. Zap Thy Neighbor. 1995

Gary Summers has inadvertently infuriated some very important people -- and that's a very deadly thing to have done in the world he lives in.

• Lawrence Watt-Evans. Choice. 1995

• Geoffrey A. Landis. The Meetings of the Secret World Masters. 1995

• James Kirkwood. The Invasion of Space. 1995

• Larry Niven. The South Los Angeles Broadcasting System. 1995

• Kathe Koja, Barry N. Malzberg. Buyer's Remorse. 1995

• Arlan Andrews. Souls on Ice. 1995

• Nick Pollotta. Raw Terra. 1995

• Brenda W. Clough. The Product of Extremes. 1995

• Jerry Oltion. My Soul to Keep. 1995

• Doug Beason. Defense Conversion. 1995

• Mary A. Turzillo. The Guatemala Cure. 1995

• Jerry Pournelle, Charles Sheffield. Higher Education. 1995

Drake Merlin's beloved wife Ana is dying of an incurable disease. So he has her body frozen, waiting for a time when science has advanced enough to cure her. He also freezes himself, to be sure they can be together again.

In this expansion of the short story "At the Eschaton", this simple premiss is taken to staggering conclusions, as Drake is reawakened at exponentially increasing time intervals for various good reasons, but with a cure for Ana still not possible, also for good reasons. Drake discovers he will have to wait until the Omega Point, the Big Crunch, the end of the Universe itself, before he can be reunited with Ana.

This is hard SF at its best -- there's even a 40 page appendix after the end of the novel explaining the various scientific concepts, including Tipler's idea of the eschaton. (Eschatology is the theological study of judgement day.) We get very little characterisation -- even Drake himself is a bit of a cypher. Personally, I prefer that for this kind of 'landscape novel' -- nothing to get in the way of the 'plot as hero'. Characterisation isn't the point here. We get to see humanity advancing throughout the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe; we get to see the entire history of the universe, with a convincing feeling of the sheer scale. James White made us feel the passage of millions of years with "Second Ending", H. G. Wells gave us billions of years with The Time Machine, but with a limited spatial scope. Here Sheffield is the master of the truly grand scale: billions of years, unimaginable distances, billions of galaxies, inconceivable changes in humanity, and then the End of the Universe.

A collection of stories about Burmeister and Carver, Shysters-at-Law, and their bizarre adventures across the solar system. The stories are mildly amusing, sometimes gross (sewage recycling seems to feature quite heavily), and usually have some SFnal core to the plot.

Contents

• The Deimos Plague. 1978

The story of Henry Carver's flight from Earth in the company of the planet saving pigs, Penelope and Pomander.

• A Certain Place in History. 1977

Henry Carver, sole survivor of the first Mattin link trial, is required to help with another, alien, link investigation.

• Perfectly Safe, Nothing to Worry About. 1977

Carver and Burmeister safeguard Pintonite, the most powerful explosive known.

• Marconi, Mattin, Maxwell. 1977

The true story of the revolutionary Mattin link, and Henry Carver's place in its development, explaining why he had to leave Earth.

• Dinsdale Dissents. 1977

The story of Waldo Burmeister's time on the Venus terraforming project, how he became a hero, and why President Dinsdale was not amused.

• The Dalmation of Faust. 1978

Waldo Burmeister is given the task of conveying a precocious child and his genetically engineered pet to Earth. He fails.

• Parasites Lost. 1981

Carver and Burmeister go to Earth to recover a lunar truffle hunting pig in a million.

• With the Knight Male. 2000

Burmeister and Carver, Attorneys, act for Helga Svensen, better known as the Warrior Queen, in a jousting competition on Vesta. Their ability to read the fine print comes in handy.

• The Decline of Hyperion. 1992

Norbert Knox has invented a food converter, but his bosses on Hyperion are trying to claim it as their own. Carver and Burmeister resolve the problem in their own highly unique manner.

• Fifteen-love on a Dead Man's Chest. 1993

Carver and Burmeister engage in a strange tennis match, and a hunt for an immortality drug.

• Space Opera. 1988

Carver and Burmeister get involved in a strange operatic production on the moon, including the Charge of the Light Brigade as performed by midgets on pigs [and the author gets to let fly with every Operatic pun he can find].

Contents

• The Devil of Malkirk. 1982

• The Treasure of Odirex. 1978

• The Lambeth Immortal. 1979

Contents

• The Devil of Malkirk. 1982

• The Treasure of Odirex. 1978

• The Lambeth Immortal. 1979

• The Heart of Ahura Mazda. 1988

• The Phantom of Dunwell Cove. 1995

• The Solborne Vampire. 1998

Although publication-date-wise, it's been a long gap between volume 3 and 4 of this series, it isn't so long for me: I didn't find Transcendence until 1995. Sheffield has changed publisher for this 4th, and probably last, episode, in the saga of the Builders.

All the usual characters rush, or are pushed, around the galaxy, from Artifact to Artifact, trying to understand what's happening. A new Artifact, the Labyrinth, has appeared, and the other Artifacts have started to change. Professor Darya Lang, infuriated by the theories of Quintus Bloom, rushes off to explore Labyrinth, accompanied by the Hymenopt Kallik and the Lo'tfian J'merlia. Hans Rebka and the embodied computer E. C. Tally explore Paradox. Bloom, along with Louis Nenda and the Cecropian Atvar H'sial, go back to the Zardalu planet in the Torvil Anfract. But the Artifact changes mean few end up where they expected. Can Darya solve the mystery of the Builders before everyone is killed by the contracting, disappearing Artifacts?

The weirdness of the Artifacts is well described: the sheer vastness and alienness of the constructs is vividly evoked. It's also good to have a load of alien species, none of which is in the least bit humanoid, and none of which is 'comic relief' or 'evil monster'. Even the Zardalu, past scourge of the Galaxy, aren't just cardboard villains. Well, no more cardboard than most of the other characters, anyway. Example: Atvar H'sial is a wonderfully-designed alien, who 'sees' by sonar and 'hears' and 'speaks' by smell. But she doesn't come across as alien: she and the human Louis Nenda are partners-in-crime, and have virtually identical motivations. Her only alienness is the running joke of her failing to understand 'human mating rituals'. Similarly, Kallik and J'merlia's only alienness is that they are slaves who want to be slaves; J'merlia is constantly described as 'mad', yet exhibits no mad behaviour (except possibly for his desire to continue as Atvar H'sial's slave). Even E. C. Tally, a computer in a human body, seems as human as (all) the others, except for an ability to think faster. They aren't even that alien to each other: nobody ever seems to misunderstand anyone else's motives for long. The only character I find distinguishable from the rest is Darya, and I find her intensely irritating. How anyone with such a fragile, childish ego has survived so long in academia, I have no idea.

I don't read hard SF for its characterisations, however. I agree that "criticising [a 'Landscape Novel'] for a lack of characters is like criticising the expressions on the faces in Constable's landscapes". I just wish that writers didn't feel the need to try to put in 'real' characters -- and end up drawing stick figures. The Artifacts are by far the most interesting characters in this series, and the attempts to understand them are the best parts of the plot. This is probably the ultimate 'Big Dumb Objects' series.

Sheffield returns to his Heritage Universe of incomprehensible Builder Artefacts, and ups the stakes yet again. It's two years since all the artefacts disappeared, and the various characters have been getting on with their lives. But then a ship arrives from the Sagittarius Arm, asking for help, and there appears to be a large dark cold hole growing there, destroying solar systems. So the gang are reassembled, and sent off to investigate. And they find a big danger: something that is more powerful than the mysterious but benign Builders, and inimical to life.

This has all the features of the previous Heritage tales: really Big, not-so-dumb Objects, a tremendous feeling of sheer scale, aliens with wonderfully alien physiologies, yet all too human mentalities and motivations. It is clearly the beginning of another trilogy or so, which will sadly now never be completed. However, despite not solving the overriding problem, it does have a satisfactory conclusion of its own.

16 year old Rick Luban finally plays a practical joke on the wrong person, and is expelled from his useless school. The fact that no-one is allowed to be a failure has reached its illogical conclusion: the whole curriculum is so watered down that no-one learns anything. But Rick gets a second chance, to join an asteroid mining company as a trainee. Now he gets some real education, in a hostile environment where a mistake can mean death.

This is a deliberate, and not that bad, attempt at a Heinleinesque juvenile, coupled with a savage attack on the US educational system, 'political correctness' and lack of discipline. The political message is laid on with a trowel.

The plot is typical of its kind: we see Rick and his classmates grow from semi-literate surly thugs to hard-working apprentices, learning both how to learn, and the value of learning, on the way. And, of course, there's the obligatory little plot twist to enliven the action at the end. We've seen this before, in Heinlein's Have Space Suit, Will Travel, and Space Cadet --- although Higher Education has a more up-to-date level of sex and violence, more unpleasant protagonists, and rather less polished info-dumping.

Teenager Shelby Cheever is fabulously wealthy, totally spoiled, and bored out of his mind. On a whim, he decides to go on a space cruise to the outer solar system. But even that is boring. So, when he is told that he will have to wait a whole day before he can go on his special trip to the outer system, he takes matters into his own hands, but ends up stranded 27 light years from home on a mining ship where no-one knows, or cares, who he is. It will be months until he can be sent home, and, in the meantime, he will have to earn his passage as one of the crew.

This is a retelling of Kipling's Captains Courageous, a coming of age tale where a spoiled youngster discovers the value of hard work and friendship, and comes good. However, it's all a bit shallow and under-told, presumably because it's being written explicitly as a juvenile (part of the Jupiter Novel series). The technology is lovingly described, but Shelby's transformation is all just a bit too easy.

Contents

• Killing Vector. 1978

• Moment of Inertia. 1980

• All the Colors of the Vacuum. 1981

• The Manna Hunt. 1993

• Shadow World. 1993

• The Invariants of Nature. 1993

• Rogueworld. 1993