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In this collection of SF sort stories, themes covered include first encounters with aliens that don't go quite as most expect, ways AI or similar digital intelligence could naturally evolve and what intelligent life long before and long after humanity on our home planet could be. Other examples include: how would an interstellar civilisation with slow relativistic travel but near-instantaneous communication play out? In a post-apocalyptic world, what would we miss the most? How might we interact with an almost-similar parallel universe? If we made near-human androids, would we bee able If you generally like an interesting what-if conundrum, that's the starting point of good SF.

Philip Machanick is a retired South African Computer Science academic who has also lived in the US and Australia. He is an environmental and rights activist. At time of writing he is a councillor in the Makana municipality in South Africa representing a civic movement that fights corruption and government failure. He has won the Nova Short Story contest of Science Fiction and Fantasy South Africa (SFFSA) twice (previously Science Fiction South Africa (SFSA). In his best year, his entries placed first and third. His winning story of 2022 was translated into Italian and appeared in a collection published by the RiLL Riflessi di Luce Lunare club in 2023. This collection reprises his favourite entries, including (obviously) the winners. However, he does not give away which won, nor are they in the order of writing. He extended a few stories with material he had to cut for contest length constraints. Otherwise, they are much as entered.