Paul Di Filippo's 'A Year in the Linear City' presents the idea of a city a few blocks wide but of near-infinite length, suspended between Heaven and Hell. A mixture of the everyday and the bizarre; the hero (nice touch!) is the equivalent of a pulp SF writer, whose imaginiative tales describe something not unlike our world. The overall approach reminded me of China Mieville, in fact more so than Mieville himself, whose 'The Tain' immediately follows. This offers a whole new take on the vampire theme, although the vampyric (not strictly true, but near enough) invasion of a devastated London has slight resonances to the likes of I Am Legend. A story guaranteed to make the reader think twice about looking in mirrors.

'Firing the Cathedral' offers nothing unexpected: simply a new Jerry Cornelius tale, updated for the post Sept. 11 world but with a return of all the old favourites -- Jerry, Bishop Beesley, Shakey Mo, Una Persson -- and in its own sly way offering an oblique commentary on the present US adninistration. Moorcock back to his roots.

Finally, there's Geoff Ryman's 'V.A.O.'. The joker in the pack, neither overtly 'city' oriented nor in any sense fantasy. It's closer to the cyberpunk idiom than anything else, a slick story with hard-boiled dark humour and a dry social commentary on the treatment of the elderly. Grey Panthers strike again! No reflection on the rest, but my personal preference.