Reach For Infinity is a just-released anthology of hard science fiction edited by Jonathan Strahan, that includes my original short story** “Attitude.”

Reach is the third volume of the “Infinity Project,” following on the first two books, Engineering Infinity and Edge of Infinity. The subject is “that period when we’re trying to get off Earth and into space.”

I am honored to be part of a contributor list that includes Pat Cadigan, Aliette de Bodard, Greg Egan, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Ellen Klages, Karen Lord, Ken Macleod, Ian McDonald, Hannu Rajaniemi, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Karl Schroeder, and Peter Watts.

You can find Reach For Infinity in both print and ebook editions at all the usual book-selling locations and websites. If you get a chance to read “Attitude,” please let me know what you think.

** “Attitude” is 7,900 words. By the standards of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, that makes it 400 words too long to be a short story. Technically, it’s a novelette … if anyone happens to be keeping track.

Way back in January of this year, editor Jonathan Strahan invited me to submit a short story to an anthology he was developing, to be called Reach For Infinity. The anthology will be the third volume of the “Infinity Project,” following on the first two books Engineering Infinity and Edge of Infinity. The subject for the new book is “that period when we’re trying to get off Earth and into space.” Sounds simple, right? Well, it wasn’t simple for me.

I spent a lot of time brainstorming, developing and discarding ideas, either because they didn’t inspire me, or they seemed too involved to handle at short story length. It took me nine months to come up with an idea that intrigued me enough to build a story around it. I put together an outline first, and then set to writing. The result is a story called “Attitude.” After a brief misdirection to a spam folder, it reached Jonathan safely, and was soon accepted.

Look for “Attitude” in Reach For Infinity, due out from Solaris books in June 2014. Read more about the anthology here.