People used to talk. We don't much anymore. Not sure when it happened, but how is pretty obvious. Progress became a two-edged sword. People wanted more, better, faster. Stopped going on family road trips in fake wood-paneled station wagons and moved on to SUVs and muscle cars fueled by road rage warriors between monitored intersections.

Progress has become ubiquitous. The world is polarized. We worship our devices now, and can't imagine living without them. They own us. Watch us. Mankind as calculating machine, while machine minds already put many out of work, chasing green paper. What's next—mansions versus trailer parks?

"Paper burns at Fahrenheit 451," Ray Bradbury said. What if there is a universe—parallel to ours or not—in which newspapers have folded, ebooks and audiobooks have mushroomed like virtual bombs in cyberpunk video games, and tiny little "factoid" lies loom large on TV screens?

Welcome to a collection of previously published stories in all genres. Two have won awards. Several are hybrid stories, both story and screenplay. And there's a novella set in Dubai to finish off, with terrorism and astronomy as the themes. (I interviewed several scientists on Kitt Peak and Mt. Graham in Arizona for Sky & Telescope magazine.)