A touch of near-future technology, but it is the circumventing of the darker side of that technology, in its capacity to monitor and inform, upon which the story hinges. A love story, would you believe, in which East meets West and love is seen to be possible at first sight. And an evocative one at that. Top quality.

Lizzie O'Brien is part of an expedition on Titan, hamstrung slightly by media fascination and online chats with members of the public back home. Whilst a turbot-cam (and, yes, that is right - a turbot-cam as opposed to a turbo-cam) navigates a methane-ammonia sea, Lizzie takes to the skies in a balloon. And as you might expect, a problem occurs: her harness jams, threating to float her off to a lengthy airborne death. A dream which she had prior to the harness jamming returns, in greater detail. Is she communicating with some form of native intelligence, or is she cracking up under the strain of her imminent demise?

Whilst Lizzie feels herself as being increasingly alone, the intelligence she is communicating with is finding the shock of being not alone as threatening its existence. Lizzie plunges into the sea, to be rescued by turbot-cam.

A wandering poet of this race stumbles upon the scene of a massacre in the hills, one member rescuing a singleton infant. Upon taking refuge in the castle of a local lord, a poem is required in his honour, the absence of which will lead to severe penalty. Despite the attempts of a magician in the lord's employ to sabotage the poem writing by inducing sexual activity, a suitably honorific poem is written and delivered, and the Goxhat poet escapes in the dead of the night.

An intriguing story, although I have to admit not finding the characters quite as enthralling as the author evidently does in her introduction to the story!

A strutting far future man, at once proudly erect and aware of humanity's greatness, yet at the same time aware that the future will bring by constrast even higher achievement. A microscopic being, young children, and small humans living to a different time cycle (with echoes of the setting of 'Raven Dream').

A range of far and post-humanities are described in loving detail, although the big picture remains difficult to grasp!

Can he spot the technical issue and solve the problem. You betcha.

Actually, I'm being a tad unfair as the scientist's relationship with his wife, the tensions caused by his infidelity, and his having to make up his mind over his future, are all actually well-handled, which is more than is often the case with stories of this ilk.

Not that the story relates to dentists drill (if that is the leap my mind has just made), but to the scientific test to determine whether something coming through customs is in fact a diamond.

Halo continues the story of hi-tech semi-anarchistic Manfred Macx, although through the viewpoint of his daughter, whose conception was one of the more remarkable episodes in recent short SF. (hem hem).

Humanity is now in space, joining the lobsters (you'll just have to read the back stories to catch up, dude), out as far as Jupiter, nearer to the teasing undecipherable message from outside the solar system which has been an underpinning if submerged background to the stories to date. Amber, a generation beyond Mafred, is even more wired-up to the processing power which is available. She is out in space thanks to a plan whose cunning was worth of her father (in fact it came via her father and his French partner). Liberating from her domineering mother, or so she thinks, Amber's freedom is threatened by her mum taking the drastic step of becoming a muslim. Is the young woman about to fall under the jurisprudence of muslim law?

Naturally she finds a way out of a sticky situation, and (rather too quickly for my liking) we have an excellent denouement which, and this is difficult to believe if you have read the previous stories, takes the story forward by a quantum leap. More!

A well told story, although with a bit of a feel of being in a graphic novel. The only quibble for me being the rather Hollywood type denouement, with the female gunslinger having Terminator II-type capabilities, which rather balances the odds in their favour!

Egan looks at the quantum nature of life from a slightly different perspective - that of choices made, and actions taken or not taken. A young Australian decides to defend a stranger being beaten up, and in doing so sets his life off onto a different path to that which he was taking, due to now being confident enough to approach an attractive colleague.

The story, which is episodic, jumps a decade. Returning from a project which is attempting to cleanse radioactive contaminated desert in Iraq to find his wife is pregnant. The bad news: she miscarries. During this segment the issue of Many Worlds is raised, and an one too subtle dig in the ribs of cheesy Alternate History stories is made.

Eight years on: some technicals tuff about quantum effects playing a role in consciousness is provided, as the protagonist begins his work on the Qusp - a quantum singleton processor. This gets a little Schrodinger Cat-ty for me - a debate about whether a computer can run in parallel different programs without knowing about it blah blah. Alongside this the couple consider raising an AI child.

Nine years on: the QUSP research has moved on, to encompass white mice (meeses), anbd the decision is made.

Two years on: the child is 'delivered'. Somewhat bizarrely the AI is placed in a babies body, as opposed to being a purely software construct.

Ten years on: the child is now 10 and public opposition to such children is mounting.

Nine years on: the daughter is now a young woman but has run away from home. In searching for her the parents are tracking fetishists who have a 'thing' about having sex with such AI/prosthetic 'humans' (they appear to all intents and purposes human, so I'm not sure what the attraction would be!) The abscondee is found and returned to the family bosom.

A curious story IMHO - it felt almost like work done towards a novel, with the structure and key passages done. The several episodes didn't really work for me, and an author as good as Egan could have found some mechanism for handling the concepts in something other than strictly chronological.

A small community on a remote star find their way of life, a simple life based on faith, is disrupted by a visitor from another planet. His spaceship crash lands and his ruined body is laid to rest in a room in the village. When, in the next morning, his body has repaired itself, the message he has to give the community shatters it. Returning some time later as a saviour, his godhead persuased village members to shun their back on their ways and to give their immortal souls to him.

One he is unmasked as a criminal, the pastor's son has a choice to make, which sees him leaving his family and life far behind him in terms of space and time - a form of afterlife.

An excellent story.