OmegatropicStephen Baxter
BSFA, £8.99
Order from BSFA, 1 Long Row Close, Everdon, Daventry, Northants N11 3BE
Review by Mike Don (2001)
And so the British Science Fiction Associaton follows the lead of the British Fantasy Society in entering the publishing arena. Many of the essays in this collection have previously appeared in journals not easily accessible to the casual reader: the academic Foundation (published by the Science Fiction Foundation), the Science Fiction Writers of America’s Bulletin, and the BSFA’s own Vector and Focus.
Some of these essays are historical overviews of popular genre ideas, and critical assessments of their treatment over the years. Others deal with the nuts and bolts of an SF writer’s work, and on the role of research in that most demanding of genres, hard science SF. Personally, I’d be tempted to suggest that these days only individuals with experience as a working scientist or, at the least, degree level qualifications, can hope to produce credible work in that field without their inconsistencies being exposed by devastating peer review in Foundation. All in all, the quality of the work in this book confirms Baxter’s growing rep as essayist as well as fictioneer.
The fiction top and tail provide an interesting contrast, between the ambiguous but powerful title story, set at the battle of Culloden, and Baxter’s first published story, which by his standards is light, almost flippant; near enough a Larry Niven clone!