Conversation Pieces

Vol. 25 — The Buonarotti Quartet

by Gwyneth Jones

"The Tomb Wife," one of the four stories collected here,
was a finalist for the 2008 Nebula Award.

The man who'd given his handle as Drummer raised heavy eyes and spoke, sonorous as a prophet, from out of a full black beard. "We will be ordered to the transit chamber as we were ordered to this room; or drugged and carried by robots in our sleep. We will lie down in the Buonarotti capsules, and a code-self, the complex pattern of each human body and soul, will be split into two like a cell dividing. The copies will be sent flying around the torus, at half-light speed. You will collide with yourself and cease utterly to exist at these co-ordinates of space-time. The body and soul in the capsule will be annihilated, and know GOD no longer."    
   —from "The Voyage Out"

In Gwyneth Jones's White Queen Trilogy, the reclusive female genius called Peenemunde Buonarotti invented the instantaneous transit device of the same name. In the four stories of The Buonarotti Quartet, Gwyneth Jones shows us humans traveling via the device to alien worlds and situations. Some are diplomats, some are extreme travelers, some are prisoners. All are in for a rough, wild ride.

Reviews

"I highly recommend this book to any lover of 'hard SF' and you don't even have to think about feminism to read the stories. But there can be subtext if you look for it." (read the whole review)
    —Tangent Online, September 2, 2009

ISBN: 978-1-933500-29-4 (13 digit)
Publication Date: 4/1/2009
(paperback) 134 pages