The venging

Greg Bear is one of the foremost voices in science fiction today, with many successful and award winning novels to his credit. However, this is his first published collection of short stories. It is a significant volume, containing many characters and situations that later evolved into their own novels. "Mandala" features technologically perfect cities that eject their sinful human occupants, a premise that can be found at the root of Bear's later novel, Strength of Stones. In "Hardfought", Bear brilliantlt handles the classic science fiction dilemma of human communication with aliens. Other…