An ancient creature is searching for a meal, and then a monster finds him.
"Naming the !eech" is a prequel to "Night of Time."
"Wishes-of-Gold and 2Makemes were myths, nothing more, and the same was true of Mirror Prophets and the Society of Cold Dark Matter. But the Bakers were something else. Myths didn't build elegant, lovely, seemingly perfect machines. Found at every end of the galaxy, the Bakers' inventions were approximately seven billion years old but usually intant. Many remained able to fuel and repair themselves, and they continued accomplishing work that was easily understood, or they did nothing that was reasonable at all. Plainly, the civilization that built these marvels had a high regard for durability. Yet no relic wore an owner's name. Even their mechanical minds were helpless to describe the hands that assembled them. Likewise, no home world had ever been discovered, nothing left but guesses to explain their collapse and subsequent extinction."
Robert Reed has been writing and selling science fiction for 35 years. He won a Hugo in 2007 for his novella, "A Billion Eves." But he's best known for his Great Ship saga.
Genre: Science Fiction
"Naming the !eech" is a prequel to "Night of Time."
"Wishes-of-Gold and 2Makemes were myths, nothing more, and the same was true of Mirror Prophets and the Society of Cold Dark Matter. But the Bakers were something else. Myths didn't build elegant, lovely, seemingly perfect machines. Found at every end of the galaxy, the Bakers' inventions were approximately seven billion years old but usually intant. Many remained able to fuel and repair themselves, and they continued accomplishing work that was easily understood, or they did nothing that was reasonable at all. Plainly, the civilization that built these marvels had a high regard for durability. Yet no relic wore an owner's name. Even their mechanical minds were helpless to describe the hands that assembled them. Likewise, no home world had ever been discovered, nothing left but guesses to explain their collapse and subsequent extinction."
Robert Reed has been writing and selling science fiction for 35 years. He won a Hugo in 2007 for his novella, "A Billion Eves." But he's best known for his Great Ship saga.
Genre: Science Fiction
Used availability for Robert Reed's Naming the !eech