To Shape the Dark

Andreadis's extraordinary follow-up to The Other Half of the Sky dazzles with 15 SF stories about respected and daring women scientists in their fields. Celebrating scientific discovery, the imaginative stories feature diverse cultures, intriguing settings, and intelligent plots. Vandana Singh's standout "Of Wind and Fire" is utterly gorgeous, featuring villages in the clouds and a courageous young mother. In Constance Cooper's amusing murder mystery, "Carnivores of Can't-Go-Home," botanists discover human bones in a giant pitcher plant. M. Fenn conjures Arsenic and Old Lace with "Chlorophyll Is Thicker than Water" as octogenarian wives sic their plants on a corporate spy burglar. In Shariann Lewitt's "Fieldwork," a volcanologist working under Europa's ice remembers her mother's tragedy. In Aliette de Bodard's "Crossing the Midday Gate," a virologist proves herself worthy after her vaccine causes unintended deaths. After 15,000 years of humans alone in the galaxy, an orbital mechanic may have discovered an alien signal in Jack McDevitt's suspenseful "Pegasus Project." In Gwyneth Jones's adventurous "The Seventh Gamer," an anthropologist enters a virtual reality game looking for AI. This collection will remind readers why they love science fiction as it celebrates scientists and science in deeply meaningful stories full of well-realized characters. (May)