The Perseids and Other Stories

In his first story collection, Robert Charles Wilson, one of the most distinguished SF authors of his generation, weaves a tapestry of tales set in and around the city of Toronto - a haunted, numinous Toronto of past, present and future, buzzing with strangeness. In " The Fields of Abraham", one of three stories written especially for this collection, an impoverished immigrant boy is trained in strange disciplines by a bookseller who is more than he seems. In " The Perseids", winner of Canada's national SF award, love and amateur astronomy weave in and out of a terrifying tale of forced human evolution. In " The Observers", an awkward young Canadian girl who sees extra-human presences has an extraordinary encounter in 1950s California with Edwin Hubble. In " Plato's Mirror", a professional New Age charlatan has a genuine and terrible encounter with the extraordinary. And in the Hugo-nominated " Divide by Infinity", an aging Toronto book-lover finds himself becoming, literally, increasingly unlikely. Throughout are showcased Wilson's suppleness and storytelling strength: bravura ideas, scientific rigor and living, breathing human beings facing choices that matter in a universe stranger than we can imagine.