Sex and Violence in Zero-G

I love the short stories of Allen Steele and the stories in this collection were where I was first exposed to him. Steele writes hard SF in a voice that reminds me of Tom Clancy, Bob Seger songs, and Heinlein.

I think the other reviewer summarizes the essential points quite well. Simply buy the book. There is no filler material here, all the stories are absolutely amazing and thought-provoking. In fact if you enjoy this collection of short stories you should also get the other two collections: "Rude Astronauts" and "All American Alien Boy".

This is a thoughtful, spectacular collection of short stories and novelettes. Having never read Allen Steele before and not knowing what to expect, I am now waiting on pins and needles for his next collection or full-length novel or novellete. These are stories which are driven by technologies of the near or foreseeable future. Fission drives, fusion drives, trips to the outer planets of the solar system measured in terms of months and fractions of years, human colonization of familiar planets and moons, and commerce and an economy exacted over a range of A.U.'s instead of continents. No warp drives or adventures on strange, unknown planets around distant suns, or fantastic aliens threatening physical or sociological upheaval. The stories in this book, written over a period of time and placed in chronological order by the author, give depth and meaning to characters who, over the course of the 21st century, are the true explorers, adventurers, and inhabitants of humankind's expansion into the solar system. All of the stories show a total range of the emotions which would accompany the human condition into a new frontier, and make the reader feel what it might be like to be one of the pioneers of "near-space" in the next century. Some of them, notably The Weight, The War Memorial, The Death of Captain Future, and Zwarte Piet's Tale, will dazzle the reader with not only an exacting detail of near-future technologies but also with descriptions which describe to the reader the beauty, grandeur, and at the same time, danger of a newly conquered solar system. Also, in these same stories, the detail of the human condition, those traditions, mores, and values which were brought from an incubator planet (Earth) to an exciting yet dangerous new frontier, are succinctly described.My favorites have been Asimov, Andersen, Bova, Niven and Pournelle, Crichton, Aldiss, Benford, and Haldeman. I most certainly have to add the name of Allen Steele to this list.