Description:
Beginning with a harrowing, high-speed ride through the Upper South (a TVA baby is a good ol' boy with a Yankee father and a 12-gauge) and ending in a desperate search through New Orleans graveyards for Darwin's doomsday machine ("Charlie's Angels"), Terry Bisson's newest collection of short stories covers all the territory between--from his droll faux-FAQ's done for Britain's Science magazine, to the most seductive of his Playboy fantasies ("Private Eye"), to an eerie dreamlike evocation of the 9/11 that might have been ("A Perfect Day"). On the way we meet up with Somali Pirates, a perfect-crime appliance (via PayPal) and a visitor from Atlantis who just wants a burger with fries, please.
Readers who like cigarettes, lost continents, cars, lingerie, or the Future will be delighted. For those who don't, there's always Reality TV.
Brief description:
Terry Bisson, who was for many years a Kentuckian living in New York City, is now a New Yorker living in California. In addition to his Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction, he has written biographies of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Nat Turner. He is also the host of a popular San Francisco reading series (SFinSF) and the Editor of PM's Outspoken Authors pocketbook series. He lives in Oakland and rides a KLR650.
Review Quotes:
"Bisson's work is a fresh, imaginative attempt to confront some of the problems of our time. It is the Bissons of the field upon whom the future if science fiction depends."
--Washington Post Book World
"With his sharp accuracy and sharp humor, he seems to me the Mark Twain of science fiction."
--Kim Stanley Robinson
"Terry Bisson is one of the sharpest short story writers in science fiction today."
--Sacramento Book Review