Book description
This is the first published collection of short stories by one of the
foremost voices in science fiction today. This significant volume
contains many characters and situations that later evolved into their
own novels. "Mandala" features technologically perfect cities
that eject their sinful human occupants, a premise that can be found at
the root of Bear's later novel, STRENGTH OF STONES. In
"Hardfought", Bear brilliantly handles the classic science
fiction dilemma of human communication with aliens. Other stories
include "The Wind From a Burning Woman" in which a woman holds
the world hostage by controlling a giant asteroid;
"Scattershot", in which the inhabitants of many universes meet
in an undefined limbo space; and "Petra", a story of a world
where chaos rules, stone moves and the mind controls reality. Hailed by
readers and critics alike, THE VENGING has been described as "an
excellent collection" and its author praised as "one of the
freshest writers to break into the science fiction field in many a
year". Gregory Dale Bear was born in San Francisco in 1951 and is
regarded as one of the world's leading hard SF authors. He sold his
first short story, at the age of fifteen, to Robert Lowndes's
Famous Science Fiction
, and began to write full time in 1975, since which time he has produced
a body of work of huge significance and influence to the science fiction
canon. He is the winner of 5 Nebulas and 2 Hugos, amongst many other
awards, and is regarded as one of the natural successors to Olaf
Stapledon and Arthur C. Clarke. A full-time writer, he lives in
Washington State with his family. He is married to Astrid Anderson Bear,
daughter of award-winning SF writer, the late Poul Anderson.
