Foreword
Stephen Baxter
Science fiction is the literature of our age.
At the dawn of a new millennium our view of ourselves, our world, and our place in it is shaped by science – whether we like it or not.
The geologists have shown us that the rocks under our feet are not stable, but have been shaped by gigantic forces and events deep in the past – and that many more such events lie in wait for us in the future. Copernicus, Newton and the astronomers have taught us that our Earth, seemingly so immense and solid, is a mote suspended in space, orbiting one star out of a hundred billion, in a galaxy which swims through a universe huge beyond our imagination. The cosmologists have proved that our Earth, even the sun, is doomed to extinction – and that the future which lies in wait for us may be literally infinite.
Is it possible something of us will survive the turmoil of the present, to reach a future so distant that the brightly lit universe of our day, time’s bright morning, will seem no more than a post-Big Bang detail? Perhaps – but our children of that remote time may not resemble us. Darwin’s synthesis, perhaps the most shocking of all science, told us that even we are subject to change. According to the fossil record no mammalian species has persisted for more than a million years. Today, Homo sapiens is perhaps a hundred thousand years old ... But perhaps our children will remember us, and forgive us.
Western civilisation has been suffering future shock since the Renaissance. Science fiction is one way of dealing with that shock.
Science fiction is unique: it is the only modern literature which deals seriously with the universe – not as a static stage for our petty human dramas – but as a protagonist: as a force which can shape us even as we try to shape it, as a world beyond our grasp. Science fiction is the first literature since the classical age to take reality seriously.
But science fiction is not about cosmic doom or glossy technology, and it certainly transcends the costume dramas and action stories that clutter our movie theatres and TV screens. The best science fiction is, was and always will be about the impact of the universe on the human soul.
And the stories in this collection are among the best science fiction.
For the last ten years and more I have watched in envy as Eric Brown and Keith Brooke – separately, and more recently in collaboration – have assembled a dauntingly impressive body of mature, richly imagined, satisfying science fiction.
In their novels and short stories Brown and Brooke have prowled the boundaries of science fiction, exploring the impact of possible futures on art and music, on the texture of our relationships, on the feeling of our lives. The tools of science fiction have allowed Brown and Brooke, in the tradition of classics of the genre, to pose dilemmas beyond our current imagining, and so to shed new light on the human condition.
These are stories in the spirit of science fiction giants such as Robert Silverberg, Cordwainer Smith, Michael Coney and others. These are stories imbued with a rich intelligence and a deep sense of humanity. These are stories given to us by writers who are immersed in humanity, and yet have the strength and the clarity of vision to see beyond our current horizon. These are mature stories, tales of love and loss, of pleasure and pain.
Cherish them.
Stephen Baxter