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How would first contact--on earth, in space, on another planet--transform our understandings of technology, philosophy, and what it means to be human? What kind of cognitive dissonance would society experience, if we discovered a previously unrecognized sentience on Earth?
What would life be like if it originated in a frigid ocean beneath an impenetrable shell of ice? Or on a world whose haze obscures any view of the universe beyond? Or on an unfathomable scale in the depths of space? Or . . .
Life--beyond us.
Dive in as the European Astrobiology Institute presents fifty-four original SF Stories and Science Essays on life, from microbial to macro, from automatic to sagacious. Each speculative story is followed by a professional essay illuminating the scientific underpinnings of the story and providing a new window into the cutting-edge knowledge about exploration for life in the universe.
SF STORIES BY: Eugen Bacon, Gregory Benford, Renan Bernardo, Jana Bianchi, Tobias S. Buckell, Eric Choi, Julie E. Czerneda, Tessa Fisher, Simone Heller, Valentin D. Ivanov, Mary Robinette Kowal, Lisa Jenny Krieg (translated by Simone Heller), Geoffrey A. Landis, Rich Larson, Liu Yang (translated by Ladon Gao), Lucie Lukäovi¿ová, Premee Mohamed, G. David Nordley, Malka Older, Deji Bryce Olukotun, Tomá¿ Petrásek, Brian Rappatta, Arula Ratnakar, D.A. Xiaolin Spires, Bogi Takács, Peter Watts, and B. Zelkovich.
SCIENCE ESSAYS BY: Jacques Arnould, William Bains, José A. Caballero, Dimitra Demertzi, Martina Dimoska, Tessa Fisher, Dennis Höning, Valentin D. Ivanov, Fabian Klenner, Nina Kopacz, Geoffrey A. Landis, Natuschka Lee, Ania Losiak, Stephen Francis Mann, Connor Martini, Tony Milligan, Philippe Nauny, Julie Nováková, Erik Persson, Tomá¿ Petrásek, Joanna Piotrowska, Giovanni Poggiali, Amedeo Romagnolo, Stefano Sandrelli, Floris van der Tak, Jan Toman, Sheri Wells-Jensen, and Raymond M. Wheeler
INTRODUCTION BY: Stephen Baxter
FOREWORD BY: Julie Nováková
AFTERWORDS BY: Wolf D. Geppert; Lucas K. Law & Susan Forest
EDITED BY: Julie Nováková, Lucas K. Law & Susan Forest
Previous anthologies by Laksa Media (Strangers Among Us, The Sum of Us, Where the Stars Rise, Shades Within Us, Seasons Between Us) have been recommended by Publishers Weekly, Booklist (American Library Association), Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, School Library Journal, Locus, Foreword Reviews, and Quill & Quire.
About the author
Stephen Baxter was born in England in 1957. He worked as a teacher of maths and physics, and in information technology. He is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, and a Vice-President of the HG Wells Society. Stephen has been a full-time author since 1995, and his science fiction novels have been published in the UK, the US, Germany, Japan, France, and elsewhere, and have won several awards. His non-fiction includes Deep Future, Omegatropic, TheScience of Avatar, and Revolutions in the Earth: James Hutton and the True Age of the World.
