McAuley's work was influenced by many writers, including Cordwainer Smith, Brian Aldiss, Roger Zelazny, Larry Niven, as well as Samuel Delaney and, perhaps, H.G. Wells. The legacy of each of them is easy to discern in what is offered to the reader’s attention in an elegant, nostalgic, yet crammed with ideas that would be enough for another writer to write a six-hundred-page novel. We will travel not only into the future, but also thousands of light years from our home, to gather a highly unusual family...