Tales of Time and Space

Twelve eloquent stories from Hugo-winner Steele showcase the author’s breadth, encompassing near-future hard SF and a tribute to Herman Melville. Stories set in the well-known Coyote series allow Steele to expand the background a bit. “Locomotive Joe and the Wreck of Space Train No. 4” is an atypical tall tale in which trains travel between the Earth and the Moon in the 1930s. “Martian Blood” pays homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Barsoom stories, with a modern sensibility. Many of the stories, such as “The Heiress of Air,” offer a charmingly down-to-earth view of regular working people in science-fictional situations; the advances readers see as wonders of the future are simply ordinary reality to those who encounter them every day. This is a wonderful introduction to Steele’s work, in which he stretches his talents well beyond the scope of his novels before returning to familiar themes. (May)