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Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction Hardcover – December 2, 2014

by Ben Bova (Author, Editor), Eric Choi (Author, Editor)

4.0 70 ratings

Editors' pick Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

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Seventeen hard science fiction tales by today's top authors

Hard science fiction is the literature of change, rigorously examining the impact―both beneficial and dangerous―of science and technology on humanity, the future, and the cosmos. As science advances, expanding our knowledge of the universe, astounding new frontiers in storytelling open up as well.

In Carbide Tipped Pens, over a dozen of today's most creative imaginations explore these frontiers, carrying on the grand tradition of such legendary masters as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and John W. Campbell, while bringing hard science fiction into the 21st century by extrapolating from the latest scientific developments and discoveries. Ranging from ancient China to the outer reaches of the solar system, this outstanding collection of original stories, written by an international roster of authors, finds wonder, terror, and gripping human drama in topics as diverse as space exploration, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, climate change, alternate history, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, interplanetary war, and even the future of baseball.

From tattoos that treat allergies to hazardous missions to Mars and beyond, from the end of the world to the farthest limits of human invention, Carbide Tipped Pens turns startling new ideas into state-of-the art science fiction.

Includes stories by Ben Bova, Gregory Benford, Robert Reed, Aliette de Bodard, Jack McDevitt, Howard Hendrix, Daniel H. Wilson, and many others!

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Bova proves himself equal to the task of showing how adversity can temper character in unforeseen ways.” ―The New York Times on Ben Bova

“Bova gets better and better, combining plausible science with increasingly complex fiction.” ―Daily News (Los Angeles) on Ben Bova

“[Bova's] excellence at combining hard science with believable characters and an attention-grabbing plot makes him one of the genre's most accessible and entertaining storytellers.” ―Library Journal on Ben Bova

About the Author

BEN BOVA is a six-time winner of the Hugo Award, a former editor of Analog, and former editorial director of Omni. Bova is the author of more than a hundred works of science fact and fiction, most recently, Transhuman, New Earth, and New Frontiers He lives in Florida.

ERIC CHOI is an aerospace engineer as well as an award-winning author and editor. He has worked on a number of space missions including the Phoenix Mars Lander and the Canadarm2 on the International Space Station. Choi also co-edited the anthology The Dragon and the Stars with Derwin Mak.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books; First Edition (December 2, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0765334305
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765334305
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 1 x 7 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,581,211 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #809 in Science Fiction Short Stories
- #3,724 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Books)
- #5,446 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.0 70 ratings

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About the authors

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Nancy Fulda
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Nancy Fulda is a Phobos Award winner, a Jim Baen Memorial Award recipient, and a past Hugo and Nebula nominee. During her graduate work at Brigham Young University she studied artificial intelligence, machine learning, and quantum computing. In the years since, she has grappled with the far more complex process of raising three small children. All of these experiences sometimes infiltrate her writing.
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Praise from Reviewers:
"As engrossing and brief and clever as a Twilight Zone episode, Fulda's story hooks your attention from the first sentence and stays with you long past the startling, yet fitting, end." -- Tangent Online
"The Breath of Heaven -- essentially a retelling of the HAL 9000 story, but with a very different outcome -- with its intricate examination of directives was a quite plausible updating of the classic three laws of robotics, and in some ways outshone both Asimov and Clarke in the way the story unfolded." -- Pearson Moore, Sift Book Reviews
"Movement is an award-caliber story, and clearly a major breakthrough in the career of Nancy Fulda." -- Aaron Hughes, Fantastic Reviews Blog
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Dirk Strasser
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Dirk Strasser was born in Offenbach, Germany, but has lived most his life in Australia. He has been a teacher of Mathematics and German, a textbook writer, educational software developer, a Senior Publisher at Harcourt Education and Publishing Manager Pearson Education. Dirk has written over 30 books. He has won multiple Australian Publisher Association Awards, a Ditmar for Best Professional Achievement, and has been short-listed for the Aurealis and Ditmar Awards a number of times. His short story, 'The Doppelgänger Effect', appeared in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology, Dreaming Down Under. His acclaimed fantasy series, The Books of Ascension (Zenith, Equinox and Eclipse), was published by Pan Macmillan in Australia and by Heyne Verlag in Germany. His fiction has been translated into a number of languages. He founded the Aurealis Awards and has co-published Aurealis - Australian Fantasy and Science Fiction - for over 20 years.
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Leah Petersen
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Leah Petersen lives in North Carolina manipulating numbers by day and the universe by night. She prides herself on being able to hold a book with her feet so she can knit while reading. She's still working on knitting while writing.
The complete Physics of Falling series is now available: Fighting Gravity (#1), Cascade Effect (#2), Impact Velocity (#3).
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Eric Choi
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Eric Choi is a writer, editor, and aerospace engineer in Toronto, Canada. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering Science and a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, both from the University of Toronto, and an MBA from York University. He was the first recipient of the Isaac Asimov Award (now the Dell Magazines Award) for his novelette "Dedication", and he has twice won the Prix Aurora Award – Canada's national prize for excellence in science fiction and fantasy – for his short story "Crimson Sky" and for the Chinese-themed speculative fiction anthology The Dragon and the Stars (DAW) co-edited with Derwin Mak. His work has appeared in more than thirty publications in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Hungary, and Japan. In 2009, he was one of the Top 40 finalists (out of 5,351 applicants) in the Canadian Space Agency’s astronaut recruitment campaign. Please visit his website www.aerospacewriter.ca or follow him on Twitter @AerospaceWriter.
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Gabrielle Harbowy
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Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
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Customer reviews

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Altaira_Jade

Loved every story in this collection

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2017

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Loved every story in this collection. Had 2 favorites, the ancient Chinese people computer and the Mars Rover (I cried a bit). Great read. I kept it on my phone and accessed when I had spotty WiFi. I actually turned to this book over other distractions on many occasions. Well worth your time.

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Dr. Coyote

Not Perfect, but Highly Recommended

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2015

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The good parts? Well, it's hard science fiction and it's new, and most of the stories were pretty creative. That's enough for me right there. Most of them were built around a limited set of "what if we developed _____ technology?" type questions. Or at least close enough to that central premise, along with the logical ramifications and how they play out with people. Here's a smattering of some of the stories:
How will we adapt to a time when body upgrades and rejuvenation have made it difficult to positively ID individuals?
An early Chinese mathematician devises a digital computer – based on soldiers moving in tight formations. How do the politicians (well, warlords) react?
Is brain hacking to change your ingrained desires really that good of an idea? (here, have some and see)
Romeo & Juliet, re-set on a rough-and-tumble Europa mining colony. You know how this one ends, but it's still just as satisfying getting there.
A semi-autonomious robotic probe on Titan gets a little too close to human for its handlers. Another tragedy.
What if we could cure Alzheimer's? What would happen if we cured someone who's memories were already 95%+ gone? How could we bring such a patient back from the brink of oblivion?
The bad parts? Some of the tales were clunky. I swear there's one that dusts off the bad 1950's movie line "It's a crazy plan, but it just might work," along with all the stilted dialogue that usually comes in that catbox. Some of the "hard" parts were still a little too soft. A few left the grit of inscrutable 80's cyberpunk in my eyeballs. Finally, the very first story was kind of tough to take, and it put me off the collection for a bit. It's a good story, but having sort of walked a similar mile in the guy's shoes a few years back, it cut a little close.

In the end it all comes together, and the good vastly outweighs the not-so-good. As with The Martian, it is such a relief to see new and forward-thinking sci-fi coming along.

5 people found this helpful

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Mr Night

Most are pretty good, but it's a friend's of the author club book

Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2021

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Some of these are great, but many are just average. And despite the claims of it being centered on high concept sci-fi, many seem to be just members of that old time author's friends club we see so pervasively in Analog and Asimov's magazine, and so got their stories in by nepotism.

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goldie57

Eclectic and interesting stories

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2021

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A fine addition to the hard science fiction genre.

Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2015