Half a millenia hence. The solar system has seen a war between two factions - the collective faction, in which humans which have uploaded into computers wish to co-operate to the extent of merging brains, and the faction who choose to remain individually uploaded into computers. The 'real' humans are lost, lost in simulations and no longer relevant.

The collective faction have won, although one lone individual, an AI construct smaller than a grain of sand, is fleeing the solar system in a desperate attempt to escape and survive. However, chase is given, and in a story resonant of Larry Niven's best, early, work we are treated to a chase which is dramatic despite taking centuries.

In the Dec 2001 issue of F&SF, Reed's 'Raven Dream' brought us a strange story told as if through a distorting lens. This story is similarly unsettling, with a variety of perspectives on what are somehow linked events.

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!

Warfare in quantum space, with all possible scenarios being enacted. Rachel Kilterhawk, known and feared throughout q-space as The Hawk, is a brutally successful commander. Her training-camp companion is faced, across many different quantum strands, with the task of assassinating her.

A far-future postmodern couple in deep space come across an ancient planet which suceeds in driving a wedge between them. A fierce battle is fought out on the planet, and there is a chance for the couple to be reunited.

Only the second story from Rosenbaum, and this promises a lot for the future - if I had read this without the author's name provided, I would have been thinking of people like Robert Reed or Jim Kelly as the writer.

This novella carries on generations after the 'Isabel of the Fall' story (Interzone #169, July 2001) which was well received. My slight concern is that this story does not quite reach the heights of that earlier story - I would urge readers to make a point of seeking that one out (a Dozois collectee this year perhaps?)

With more than a touch of the Ursula K Le Guin's, we follow young Jalila from her home in the cold, high mountains which seem to be part of the stars, down to the coast. In shedding the breathmoss which helped her lungs cope at the higher altitude, the young girl finds her horizons expanded by the colourful community, the meeting up with a boy (one of only two males in the community), and a wizened old lady who has travelled the great distances between the stars.

Without the lyrical touches and sheer strangeness of the first story, this current provides an intriguing view of a female society, although the lesbian love interest was to me just a bit too by the numbers in this kind of story. However, it is one of the better stories this year.