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 stories include "The Wind From a Burning Woman" in which a woman holds the world hostage by controlling a giant asteroid; "Scattershot", in which the inhabitants of many universes meet in an undefined limbo space; and "Petra", a story of a world where chaos rules, stone moves and the mind controls reality.  Hailed by readers and critics alike, The Venging has been described as "an excellent collection" and Bear praised as "one of the freshest writers to break into the science fiction field in many a year".
American Science fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science fiction, American, Fiction, general
Greg Bear
Gregory Dale Bear (born August 20, 1951) is an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict (Forge of God books), artificial universes (The Way series), consciousness and cultural practices (Queen of Angels), and accelerated evolution (Blood Music, Darwin's Radio, and Darwin's Children). His most recent work is the 2021 novel The Unfinished Land. Greg Bear has written over 50 books in total. Greg Bear was also one of the five co-founders of the San Diego Comic-Con. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Bear)