This is a collection of fairly early short stories by Stross mostly united by the theme of the future passing them by. The vision that they were describing has already been overtaken, such as in Ship of Fools, which is about the Y2K bug.
Other stories stand up better, such as the one set in the Eschaton universe and his Lovecraft-inspired stories, particularly the whimsical A Boy and his God. Overall, this is a thought-provoking and enjoyable collection of stories, full of Big SF ideas and a good introduction to Stross’ work.
