The distressing thing about Kandis Elliot’s new story is “how much of it isn’t fiction. The Virtual Harvesters and their capabilities, for example. El Cappa and Manantlán. The rats of Birge Hall (to a point). Nonetheless, one of the traditional roles of SF is to act as a bellwether, to suggest where things are going, and how things might be if left to evolve in situ.” Ms. Elliot continues to write SF and mystery stories, and to draw pictures for such; she recently won a Science Fiction Age Readers’ Choice Award for Best Novelette