The ten stories of this collection present glimpses of our near, middle, and far futures

“Heathen God,” the author’s first Nebula Award finalist, reveals the consequences of learning that our solar system may have been engineered by an alien race. “In the Distance, and Ahead in Time” and “Wayside World” depict the rediscovery of a ruined Earth’s interstellar colonies by a new culture of mobile habitats. In “Transfigured Night” and “Between the Winds,” we enter two possible destinies as we tamper with human reality and humankind mutates into vastly different offshoots.