A collection of 67 contemporary American science fiction writers including some rarely anthologized gems from well-known authors as well as starling work by today's rising stars. Readers will appreciate the sophisticated range of voices exploring the nature of reality and the condition of the human spirit.

Includes index.

Handler /Damon Knight -- Alpha Ralpha Boulevard / Cordwainer Smith -- Tandy's story / Theodore Sturgeon -- 2064, or thereabouts / David R. Bunch -- Balanced ecology / James H. Schmitz -- House the Blakeneys built / Avram Davidson -- Over the river and through the woods / Clifford D. Simak -- How beautiful with banners / James Blish -- Nine hundred grandmothers / R.A. Lafferty -- When I was Miss Dow / Sonya Dorman Hess -- Comes now the power / Roger Zelazny -- Day million / Frederik Pohl -- Winter flies / Fritz Leiber -- High Weir / Samuel R. Delany -- Kyrie / Poul Anderson -- For the sake of Grace / Suzette Haden Elgin -- As simple as that / Zenna Henderson -- Good news from the Vatican / Robert Silverberg -- Gather blue roses / Pamela Sargent -- Women men don't see / James Tiptree, Jr.-- -- Feather tigers / Gene Wolfe -- Mountains of sunset, the mountains of dawn / Vonda N. McIntyre -- Private war of Private Jacob / Joe Haldeman -- Warlord of Saturn's moons / Eleanor Arnason -- Making it all the way into the future on Gaxton Falls of the red planet / Barry N. Malzberg -- New Atlantis / Ursula K. LeGuin -- Few things I know about Whileaway / Joanna Russ -- Strange wine / Harlan Ellison -- Lollipop and the tar baby / John Varley -- Night-rise / Katherine MacLean -- Frozen journey / Philip K. Dick -- Precession / Edward Bryant -- Elbow room / Marion Zimmer Bradley -- Tauf Aleph / Phyllis Gotlieb -- Exposures / Gregory Benford -- Gernsback continuum / William Gibson -- Start of the end of the world / Carol Emshwiller -- SchrÃœdinger's plague / Greg Bear -- "--the world, as we know 't" / Howard Waldrop -- Byrds / Michael G. Coney -- Speech sounds / Octavia Butler -- Distant signals / Andrew Weiner -- Lucky strike / Kim Stanley Robinson -- Life of anybody / Robert Sheckley -- Interlocking pieces / Molly Gloss -- War at home / Lewis Shiner -- Lake was full of artificial things / Karen Joy Fowler -- Snow / John Crowley -- After the days of dead-eye 'Dee / Pat Cadigan -- Bob Dylan Tambourine Software & Satori Support Services Consortium, Ltd. / Michael Bishop -- His vegetable wife / Pat Murphy -- Brains of rats / Michael Blumlein -- Out of all them bright stars / Nancy Kress -- Rat / James Patrick Kelly -- America / Orson Scott Card -- Schwarzschild radius / Connie Willis -- Stable strategies for middle management / Eileen Gunn -- Kirinyaga / Mike Resnick -- Midwinter's tale / Michael Swanwick -- (Learning about) machine sex / Candas Jane Dorsey -- We see things differently / Bruce Sterling -- Half-life / Paul Preuss -- Homelanding / Margaret Atwood -- And the angels sing / Kate Wilhelm -- Aunt Parnetta's electric blisters / Diane Glancy -- Midnight news / Lisa Goldstein -- Invaders / John Kessel.