Facets

Williams, best known as a writer of cyber-punk novels ( Hardwired ), branches out in this collection of nine well-crafted short pieces ``Video Star'' and ``Wolf Time'' are fast-action cyber-punk. ``Flatline'' and ``The Bob Dylan Solution'' edge into a new subgenre, bio-punk, more fully realized in ``Dinosaurs'' and ``Witness.'' The latter is the introductory story for George R. R. Martin's Wildcard series, but it stands well on its own.what is this a reference to?/mc .``Side Effect'' is also bio-punk, but is so depressingly contemporary and believable as to hardly qualify as science fiction. have restored cut phrase because it doesn;t make sense otherwise. sss The best story is ``No Spot of Ground,'' set in an alternate universe where Edgar Allan Poe is a general in the Confederate Army. (Mar.)