From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this collection of dense and challenging short stories, many tied to her novels but all easily read alone, BSFA Award winner Jones (Life, Bold as Love) demonstrates that traditions and beliefs dictate the course of the future more than advances in technology or science. Whether cloning the perfect offspring ("La Cenerentola"), subtly undermining a princely succession ("The Eastern Succession") or assassinating a reactionary alien to allow a progressive to ascend ("Saving Tiamaat"), her characters find their fond hopes (or their fears, as in "Grazing the Long Acre" and "The Voyage Out") diminished by the persistence of the past. Pairing naïve Americans with world-wearier Europeans, Jones exposes the utopian impulse of SF to feminist and anti-colonial critiques suffused with literary, genre, film and pop music references. Genre fans will recognize their favorite ideas and images but are sure to be pleasantly surprised by the ways Jones handles them.
