"Wirless" by Charles Stross (Ace, 2007)

From the author of the Hugo-nominated Saturn’s Children comes a collection of short stories featuring a number of novellas and one previously unpublished work.  Wireless kicks off with the strongest in the collection in “Missile Gap”: its 1962 and the Cold War is in full sway with the Cuban Missile Crisis, and then something catastrophic happens.  Somehow all the continents and oceans of Planet Earth are transported across the universe to the Large Magellanic Cloud where everything is situated on a giant flat disc that is greater than the landmass of a million Earths.  The inhabitants of this new Earth now find themselves trapped there, the gravity too great to pass beyond the disc.  And then there are the new continents beyond the known landmasses to be investigated.  Meanwhile the Cold War is still going on.  One of the best science fiction stories I’ve ever read, leading into some very interesting works including mobile farms that are a pest and a cyber adventure co written with Cory Doctorow.  Wireless is a great collection for those who know Stross well and are looking for more original material, or for those looking to discover this author for the first time.

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Originally written on August 13th, 2009 ©Alex C. Telander.

Originally published in the Sacramento Book Review.

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