The settings range from a lyrical, Zelazny-influenced far-future South East Asia, to black comedy sci-fi in the New Space Opera style. There are ghosts and miracles, magical science and scientific magic; characters from novels, investigations of sexual difference, speculations on a future in which physics and neuroscience move into convergence, interrogations of our fascination with the other. Gwyneth Jones's capacity to move and astonish the reader is undimmed, when distilled into the shorter form.