The sixteen stories in this collection run the gamut from cyber adventure and a ghostly haunting to chemically modified romance and a time travel mission to save the world. The Hugo Award winner, '10 (to the 16th) to 1', tells the story of a boy in the 1960s who gets caught up in a spirited adventure that becomes a desperate attempt to prevent a nuclear holocaust. In 'The Cruellest Month', a grieving mother is haunted both by the past and a ghost. 'The Prisoner of Chillon' presents a radioactive Lake Geneva overrun with cyberpunks seeking fame and fortune through software piracy. By turns humorous and harrowing, this collection highlights the short fiction of a lauded author at his best.