Missile Gap
A novella.
It's 1976 again. Abba are on the charts, the Cold War is in full swing – and the Earth is flat. It's been flat ever since the eve of the Cuban war of 1962; and the constellations overhead are all wrong.
Beyond the Boreal ocean, strange new continents loom above tropical seas, offering a new start to colonists like newly-weds Maddy and Bob, and the hope of further glory to explorers like ex-cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin: but nobody knows why they exist, and outside the circle of exploration the universe is inexplicably warped. Gregor, in Washington DC, knows but isn't talking. Colonel-General Gagarin, on a years-long mission to go where New Soviet Man has not gone before, is going to find out.
And on the edge of an ancient desert, beneath the aged stars of another galaxy, Maddy is about to come face-to-face with humanity's worst fear.
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Charles Stross
Charles Stross doesn’t just write science fiction—he reverse-engineers the future. Whether unraveling the complexities of AI, economics, or cosmic horror, his stories feel less like speculative fiction and more like eerily plausible roadmaps to tomorrow. A former software developer and technical writer, Stross brings a hacker’s mindset to storytelling, dissecting the machinery of reality and exposing the glitches beneath.
Born in Leeds, England, Stross grew up surrounded by the last vestiges of the Industrial Age, a landscape that would later inform his fascination with systems—both human and technological. Before becoming a full-time author, he dabbled in everything from pharmacy to computer science, experiences that lend his work an uncanny level of authenticity. His early exposure to computing and online culture made him one of the first sci-fi writers to deeply explore the implications of a hyper-connected world, long before the tech boom turned cyberpunk into a reality.
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