Just Over the Horizon

by Greg Bear

The New York Times Book Review hails this collection of thirteen dazzling stories and a rare screenplay by Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Greg Bear as a “solid introduction to the oeuvre of a classic writer.”
 
Greg Bear—author of Queen of Angels , Eon , and Hull Zero Three , among many other hugely popular novels—has an ability to transform challenging scientific concepts into gripping fiction that has won him numerous awards and an avid following. He has written novels about interstellar war, human evolution, intelligent bacteria, international terrorism, and the exploration of deep space—but he doesn’t stop there. This brilliant collection of Bear’s stories, each newly revised by the author, proves he is a master of the short form as well. Just Over the Horizon offers thirteen mind-bending explorations of the near future . . . or just beyond the border of conventional reality. The volume
 
·      “Blood Music,” a Hugo and Nebula award–winning classic and the basis for the novel of the same name—and the first science-fictional exploration of nanotechnology;
·      “Sisters,” in which high school students find maturity and family by confronting a tragic genetic destiny;
·      “Tangents,” winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, about a persecuted scientist who seeks refuge in a better world;
·      “Dead Run,” a tale of union truck drivers ferrying souls through Death Valley into Hell, adapted for an episode of the television series  The Twilight Zone ;
·      “Sleepside Story,” which Bear calls one of his favorite pieces, an urban fantasy tale that takes a music student by Night Metro to the Sleepside mansion of a magical woman of the night, inverting “Beauty and the Beast” in a very modern mirror;
·      “Genius,” the screenplay written for the television series  Outer Limits , but never produced.
 
Just Over the Horizon  combines Bear’s intense concern with the human condition with a deep understanding of science, resulting in a collection long to be remembered.
 
  

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Collections, Fantasy, Ebooks, Anthologies

370 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 26, 2016

About the author

Greg Bear was an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work covered themes of galactic conflict (Forge of God books), parallel universes (The Way series), consciousness and cultural practices (Queen of Angels), and accelerated evolution (Blood Music, Darwin’s Radio, and Darwin’s Children). His last work was the 2021 novel The Unfinished Land. Greg Bear wrote over 50 books in total.

(For a more complete biography, see Wikipedia.)

Reviews

[ash | songsforafuturepoet]

There comes a point where you have gotten so deep into the genre that you think you have read or at least heard of 90% of the sci-fi authors out there. At least, it feels that way. Greg Bear came as a pleasant surprise because he rarely appears on my feed and to be quite honest I have forgotten that he exists. In fact, I picked this up by accident at the library (the physical one, mind you, and I haven't been there in ages) while looking for Bradbury. Surely this author deserves a little bit more recognition than that.

I must have picked the book that no Bear fan will recommend to new readers of Bear, because it was lackluster. The stories had no head or tail to them, and a good number of them are not science fiction. I completely skipped over one that looked like a retelling of a fairytale. And after 40% of the book rest I briefly skimmed through.

There was one story that was intriguing enough but I have forgotten the name. I also can't remember what it was about because it was so forgettable. Yikes.

I think I'll give his full-length novels a try next time.

[John Devlin]

(2.5)
Blood music, Tangents and the Turing story are first rate…otherwise this is more interesting in seeing how a writer was developing his craft than rip roaring great stories…

[Ralph Blackburn]

Just Over The Horizon, The Complete Science Fiction of Greg Bear, Volume One- Most of these stories are from early in Bear's career, in the 70's and 80's, but that doesn't mean there aren't any gems! In fact some are award winners and others worthy efforts. I read a lot of these in Analog magazine and also Omni when that great magazine was a science fiction powerhouse back in the 80's. "Tangents" won both the Nebula and Hugo awards and is a playfully wonderful look at fourth dimensional explorations while "Blood Music" also won both awards and introduces us to the concept of smart cells in DNA and all that could mean. "Sisters" investigates gene manipulation at birth in an effort to create a perfect human society with all the benefits and none of the detractors of natural birth, but with horrific consequences. All the stories are very high quality and as something special, a screenplay Bear wrote for the resurrected Twilight Zone TV show in the 90"s is included. This is volume one so I guess, naturally, more volumes to follow, and that is something to look forward to!

[Marianne]

While I always enjoy Greg Bear's way of putting a sentence or a paragraph together, most of the stories in this volume are not his best work. Many of them also feel dated, due not to active sexism or racism or homophobia or anything like that, nothing vicious to my ear at least, but just in their comfort with the status quo at the time they were written. When someone writes from that insider pov of a straight white guy, even being progressive for his time kinda wears out quickly. Like really my dude? You still thought THAT was a reasonable thing to express??? Also while the unaired Outer Limits screenplay is not in fact anti-autistic in the way I thought it was halfway through, the language and tropes used in service of the story - which as a whole is pretty clearly arguing for more respect for the personhood of autistic folks - still squidged me. A lot of the women in these stories squidged me. All in all, I'm glad I read it but hoping that the later volumes resonate with me more.

[Kieran McAndrew]

Greg Bear is a very thoughtful and thought provoking writer and these short stories are fine examples of his work.

[bookslayer★]

It is a little dated but the amount of bangers among these short stories is impressive

[Andrew Post]

I'd say he's more the natural heir to Ray Bradbury than Arthur C. Clarke...but now my interest has been piqued enough to read more of his works. A solid introduction to Bear's fiction. "Sleepside Story" is worth the price of admission.

[Debbie Notkin]

Greg Bear died in November 2022. I always admired the books and stories of his that I read and it seemed like the time to try some more. Bewildered by the plethora of good choices of novels I hadn't read, I settled on this short-story collection, the first of three volumes of his complete stories.

Two things surprised me about this book: first, the range. Bear was best known as a "hard science fiction" writer, which he certainly was, but this book has soft science, fantasy, even some horror. Second, the intense compassionate humanity of his work, which seems connected to his fascination with biology.

In the introduction to "Blood Music," one of his most famous award-winning stories, which became a novel, he talks a little about the question of biotech versus inorganic tech, and which branch will be the bigger game-changer. His conclusion ("I like squishy") is surprisingly emblematic of his writing, even in the hard science stories.

Some highlights: "Sisters" is an absolutely knockout story which tackles both high-school cruelty and genetic engineering, and flips everything 180 degrees both astonishingly and fairly, an extremely difficult writing feat. "Tangents," of course, won several awards, and features both a young Asian with remarkable math intuition (and not much interest in math) and a gay man, and intersects their stories to strong effect. "Sleepside Story" is a classic fantasy, except that it's about poor people and the things they have to do for rich people, if they want to save themselves ... or each other.

And many more. I don't know if I will ever find the time to get to the other two volumes in this series, but I hope I do--and pick some novels as well.

[Jennifer]

I used to read a lot of Greg Bear's science fiction novels back in the 1990s and early 2000s, but haven't really kept up with him. This is volume 1 of a collection of his short fiction, and like any short fiction collection, varies in quality. It starts out really great, but is dragged down by the back half of the book which consists of just two things - a terrible novella (a quasi-retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a gender reversal and a sort of enchanted prostitute, really cringey), and a screenplay for an episode of an anthology tv series which was never made, which was not a bad story but not the most enjoyable format to read. I'm going to average it out and give the collection a 3 which is being somewhat generous since that novella was so bad it almost drags this collection down to a 2 since it also completely stalled my reading of this book. I definitely would return to reading Greg Bear's novels, but will probably pass on reading volumes 2 and 3 of his short fiction.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Karen]

Stephen chose this one to read - I'd never head of Greg Bear and wouldn't necessarily have picked this book of short stories to read on my own.
Stephen read the stories to me out of order, starting with "Sleepside Story" - an inside-out retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I found this particular story so dull, annoying, drawn out and pointless that I didn't want to hear any of the rest of the book. Luckily for me, Stephen kept reading.

While I didn't enjoy every story (that's the risk you run with anthologies, right?), I liked more than I disliked. Most of the tales were amazing and hit just the right note. Thoughtful, beautiful, well structured. I'm not sure this book made me a fan of Greg Bear, or made me want to discover his other work, but Just Over The Horizon was a pleasant way to fall asleep each night.

[Doug Clark]

I was a huge Greg Bear fan in the 1970s though 90s. I hadn't read anything by him recently, so finding the first volume of his collected stories as a joy. I was motivated to seek these out since he passed away last November. Most, if not all, of the stories I had read years ago. However, it was wonderful to reread them and to also read his comments about them.

[Doug]

As with any story collection, you are going to get a mixed bag of stories that you like or don't like. In this volume, the stories "Blood Music" and "Dead Run" were especially appealing. "Dead Run" was a surprising story for me to like, since I have a general bias against fantasy stories.

[Jon Pennycook]

This seems to be a showcase collection, showing the author's wide genre coverage. Unfortunately I found most of the stories boring and skipped a lot. I usually like anything by Greg Bear, so this was a surprise.

[Ross Tomita]

Best Stories:

Blood Music
Sisters
Schrödinger's Plague
The White Horse Child

[Bob Rasey]

Unreadable

[Paul,]

The book didn't deserve three stars. But the story Sisters was very, very good. Good enough that it brought the whole book out of mediocrity.

[Charl]

Bear's one of my favorite authors, and these stories only support that. I didn't skip any of them, and that's rare in any collection for me.

[KevinS]

Pretty good stories, a little more touchy-feely than I really look for in SF. Well done explorations of the human condition.

[Jonathan Harbour]

I was disappointed in this first of the three-volume series of Greg Bear's short fiction. Two stories (novelettes) took up half the book and neither was very good; one was an unused TV episode and the other was some kind of bizarre twist on a fairy tale that didn't work for me at all. In fact, there was not a single science fiction story in this book. That should be clear to anyone considering this book: this is not sci-fi.

I don't even know why I'm giving it 2 stars. None of the stories were memorable or interesting. I like Greg Bear but his work sure is inconsistent in quality.

[Casey Taylor]

Never heard of Greg Bear before picking up this book but I'm pleasantly surprised by what I found. As this is part of a collection of his complete short fiction, it includes some good stories and a few duds. Sci-fi fans will enjoy it

[Sharon]

Never read any Greg Bear before now; I'm not sure why that is. As always with short story collections, some are better than others. Dead Run, The White Horse Child and Sleepside Story stood out for me.

Will look forward to volume 2.

[Brenda Schneider]

Great science fiction stories. Very ehnjoyable. I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

[Laurie's Story]

Review to follow...

[John R. Goyer]

A very enjoyable collection of short stories - and unlike most such collections, I liked all but one.

[Katie Janson]

Every story was a page turner, great collection of short science fiction, and I appreciated the authors comments at the beginning of each.

[Bick]

While I enjoyed many of the ideas in his short fiction, I think I like Bear's longer fiction better. There's some interesting stuff here.

[Claus Wøbbe]

Lots of great stories.