This brilliant collection of short fiction showcases renowned author Vonda N. McIntyre's sparkling lyricism, captivating vision, and advocacy of the different.
The titular story is one of alienation and discrimination, as a woman transformed into an "ugly" lifeform-a clumsy "digger"-seeks to escape her servitude to humans, but is denied sanctuary by the beautiful and graceful "flyers." Also included is the acclaimed story "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand," which became the first section of McIntyre's Hugo and Nebula Award—winning novel, Dreamsnake. In it, a woman, who harnesses the power of snakes' venom to heal saves the life of a nomad boy in the desert, but the price she pays may be too much to bear. In "Aztecs," later expanded into the novel Superluminal, a woman undergoes biological modifications in order to pilot ships, during faster-than-light travel.
