The Reinvented Heart

Book excerpt: What happens when emotions like love and friendship span vast distances -- in space, in time, and in the heart? Science fiction often focuses on future technology and science without considering the ways social structures will change as tech changes -- or not. What will relationships look like in a complicated future of clones, uploaded intelligences, artificial brains, or body augmentation? What stories emerge when we acknowledge possibilities of new genders and ways of thinking about them? The Reinvented Heart presents stories that complicate sex and gender by showing how shifting technology may affect social attitudes and practices, stories that include relationships with communities and social groups, stories that reinvent traditional romance tropes and recast them for the 21st century, and above all, stories that experiment, astonish, and entertain.