Summary: Publisher Summary 1 This collection highlights Kristine Kathryn Rusch's recent award-nominated and award-winning (and collected in various Year's Best anthologies) short fiction. "Recovering Apollo 8," a Sidewise Award winner for Best Alternate History, a Hugo Award finalist, and winner of the Asimov's Reader's Choice Award, examines a very near-future where Apollo 8 would float forever in the darkness of space. An eight-year-old at the time of the loss, a wealthy pioneer of the space age devotes his life to recovering the capsule and the three lost astronauts. A companion short story also shows inspiration from Apollo 8 in "The Taste of Miracles." In "The Strangeness of the Day," winner of France's Fantasy Award: Le Prix Imaginales 2003, a shy, successful lawyer is hired by a near immortal to battle a witch to save his love. Dying to the sound of banjo music---that's how it's done with Death's helper in "Substitutions." An alternate history of the death of J. Edgar Hoover, and dark secrets about the man, are revealed in "G-Men." A large pile of bones is discovered at a renovation of a resort, which do not seem to be human or animal; what secret lies hidden at "The End of the World"? If you could peek into the past at any day, why would it be "June Sixteenth at Anna's"? Suicide bombings are taken to a new, horrifying level, with the bombers chosen at birth in "Craters." The collection ends with the inspiration for Rusch's novel, Diving into the Wreck, the international award-winning novella of the same name. "Whethwer [Rusch] writes high fantasy, horror, SF., or contemporary fantasy, I've always been fascinated by her ability to tell a story with that enviable gift of invisible prose. She's one of those very few writers whose style takes me right into the story the words and pages disappear as the characters and their story swallows me whole. Rusch has style."---Charles de Lint.   Publisher Summary 2 Unique perspectives on technology, space, and aliens, and how they might affect humanity are explored in this compelling collection of short science fiction. In the title story, a near-future is examined in which an eight-year-old at the time of the loss of the Apollo 8 grows into a wealthy pioneer that devotes his life to recovering the capsule and its crew. In ?The Strangeness of the Day鈥?a shy, successful lawyer is hired by a near immortal to battle a witch to save his love, while suicide bombings are taken to a new, horrifying level, with the bombers chosen at birth in ?Craters.鈥?A large pile of bones that聽do not seem to be human or animal is discovered at a renovation of a resort in ?The End of the World,鈥?while an alternate history of the death and dark secrets of J. Edgar Hoover are imagined in ?G-Men.鈥?Rounding off this fascinating compilation is a novella in which salvaging a 5,000-year-old spaceship is neither easy nor without dangers. This stunning compendium brings some of the most prestigious work from a prolific and visionary author into a single, essential volume.