Past Lives Present Tense (Ace Science Fiction) [Paperback]

Various (Author), Elizabeth Anne Scarborough (Editor), Tom Knowles (Author)

Book Description

Series: Ace Science Fiction | Publication Date: November 1, 1999

Download the dead in this provocative new collection of original stories by the finest names in science fiction.

Suppose you could pick a famous historical figure and experience your own life as that person. What would you do? Excel in science under the extraordinary influence of Leonardo Da Vinci? Spice up your daily grind with a dash of Mata Hari? Unnerve your neighbors as Edgar Allan Poe? Or, for those who like to live dangerously, there are whispers of a black market--where no one is forbidden.

A word of caution: previous performance does not guarantee future predictability. And in the hands of these masters of science fiction and fantasy, your experience of past lives reborn may not be at all what you expect...

The complete list of contributors:* Elizabeth Moon * Carole Nelson Douglas * Kristine Kathryn Rusch * Jerry Oltion * Rod Garcia Y Robertson * Margaret Ball * Janet Berliner * David Bischoff * Gary Braunbeck * Nina Kiriki Hoffman * Tom Knowles * Lillian Stewart Carl * Sharan Newman * Sandy Schofield * Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

* All new and original stories
* The stories draw on a diverse range of characters--from Doc Holliday to Mata Hari--each fully researched by the author with fascinating results

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you could mind-meld with any historical figure, who would it be? Einstein, Shakespeare, Helen of Troy? Somewhere in the near future, a fascinating method is developed to encode a client with all of the memories--indeed, the entire personality--of another person. The characters' selections range from the mundane (Babe Ruth) to the offbeat (Anne Boleyn) to the downright terrifying (Jesus), with varying results. What's surprising is how lightly these people enter into permanent symbiosis with a stranger--marriage seems hardly a commitment at all compared to having someone's entire being hardcoded into your brain!

Reading this book is like walking the same path at different times of day: some plot points repeat like a worker on an assembly line while others, viewed in a different light, suddenly seem more sinister or powerful. Several of the stories seem overly familiar, while some have been sculpted into truly affecting, original tales--most notably those of Margaret Ball, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Gary A. Braunbeck. While the cadence of the stories becomes lulling at times, there are some magnificent twists and tangents to uncover. A satisfying read, but one can't help wondering what would've happened had the writers been given more leg room. --Jhana Bach

From Publishers Weekly

Having cooked up a way of reconstituting the dead from their DNA to merge them with living humans, Scarborough (The Healer's War) gathered 14 fellow fantasy and SF writers to imagine the consequences. The perennially popular Kristine Kathryn Rusch is among them, as are the prolific Jerry Oltion and the meticulous and writerly R. Garcia y Robertson. There is some lovely prose here. Gary A. Braunbeck's "Who Am a Passer By" abounds with passion and poetry. Carole Nelson Douglas, invoking Florence Nightingale, crafts an interesting composition through clever jump-cuts and ellipses. Scarborough's setup is a fertile one for SF fabulation, and there are three or four different approaches represented here, stylistically (e.g., monologues by one or both symbionts or the viewpoint of an interested third party) and thematically (e.g., the procedure as therapy or as a selfish plot). The conceit becomes a bit tedious by the ninth or 10th application, though. Several of the stories end abruptly in predictable moralisms, the conclusions logical but emotionally undeserved. Most are marred to some degree by awkward floods of facts that derail the narrative or violate the believability of the character; perhaps this is due to the preponderance of historical themes, requiring elucidations of actual circumstances. For the many SF fans more interested in ideas than in stylistic virtues, this will be no obstacle to the book's enjoyment. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 342 pages
• Publisher: Ace Trade; Ace Trade edition (November 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441006493
• ISBN-13: 978-0441006496
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,078,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a fascinating journey into "what if", July 8, 2002

By 

Rowan Fairgrove (San Francisco Bay Area, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Past Lives, Present Tense (Paperback)

What if one could "host" the memories of a famous person, of someone who has qualities that you wish you had, of your deceased beloved. How would you be changed? How would the long-deceased react to the modern world? These are some of the questions that the stellar authors in this anthology attempt to explore.

A scientist discovers how to extract memories from genetic material. He becomes Dr. Chimera - a blend of himself and his beloved wife. An inventor hosts Leonardo da Vinci and finds there is more to life than inventing. A mother gets more than she bargained for when she melds an explorer with her comatose daughter.

A variety of authors from the science fiction, fantasy and mystery genres tackle this premise of experiencing the memories of another and a very satisfying anthology is born.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good idea badly handled . . ., July 20, 2003

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Past Lives, Present Tense (Paperback)

This anthology centers on an interesting idea but the execution is problematical. The set-up is in the introductory story: If you can locate a few scraps of DNA from any deceased individual -- Leonardo da Vinci, Anne Boleyn, your own father -- the personality of that person can be "injected" into you by broadcasting it into your eye and thereby into your brain. Scarborough never goes very far into just how this is done, which is okay. She's much more interested in exploring the effects of having another personality either piggy-backing your own or being fully integrated into yours. So a modern-day inventor enamoured of perpetual motion uploads Leonardo, but is distracted when he begins to view the rest of the world through the eyes of a Renaissance man. Or, a shallow tycoon acquires the skills of an Elizabeth fencing master so he can show off at the local SCA faire, but hasn't expected the Elizabethan religious values that accompany them. All the stories are pretty much like that, the moral apparently being that you never get quite what you expect to get. (Sounds kind of like Forrest Gump. . . .) There are some very professional writers here, including Elizabeth Moon, Kristine Rusch, and Carole Nelson Douglas, which makes the generally mediocre plotlines and two-dimensional characterizations especially disappointing.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars pretty good idea, not so good execution, April 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Past Lives Present Tense (Ace Science Fiction) (Paperback)

The idea is good, but the execution is poor. Characters are one dimensional and tend to be sterotypical. There's a bra burning feminist who learns the error of her ways from Anne Boleyn, a racist reinforced by George Silver, and so on. Really can't say enough about the single dimensionality of the characters.