The painting, Trantorian Dream, depicts a small male figure standing amongst rubble, framed by enormous rusting ruins and gazing at a glowing spiral galaxy. It is an image that seems to depict, clearly and simply, much of the sense of wonder that we look to science fiction to provide.When, back in early 2006, I approached the Science Fiction Book Club with the idea for a new book of original science fiction novellas I had that image in mind: I wanted to come up with a loose idea that would give writers enough space to create something unique, but also give them a clear idea of the kind of story I had in mind, and the kind of book I wanted to do.I looked at many of the classic science fiction books and stories that I had loved, and settled on the idea of a book of stories featuring what science fiction critic Roz Kaveney dubbed ‘big dumb objects’. A big dumb object is essentially an extremely large, extremely powerful structure, most likely of extraterrestrial or unknown origin. These megastructures-dyson spheres, alderson disks, matrioshka brains-and other stranger and more unusual objects drive the stories in Larry Niven’s Ringworld, Greg Bear’s Eon, and Frederik Pohl’s Gateway.
