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Echoes of the Future

by A.B. Gayle (Goodreads Author), Jude Mason (Goodreads Author), Kate Cotoner, Aleksandr Voinov (Goodreads Author) (Editor)

4.05 of 5 stars 4.05 · rating details · 20 ratings · 7 reviews

Man fusing with machine. The dawn of cyborgs. Strange alien customs. The lonely echoes in the corridor of a space station suspended in the vacuum of space, while, on earth, human cultures change and adapt to new threats and challenges.
"Echoes of the Future" is an anthology of four m/m science fiction stories, brought to you by rising stars and old hands A. B. Gayle, Kate...more Man fusing with machine. The dawn of cyborgs. Strange alien customs. The lonely echoes in the corridor of a space station suspended in the vacuum of space, while, on earth, human cultures change and adapt to new threats and challenges.
"Echoes of the Future" is an anthology of four m/m science fiction stories, brought to you by rising stars and old hands A. B. Gayle, Kate Cotoner, Jude Mason and Aleksandr Voinov, who have teamed up to share their visions of a future that is darker, gritier and sexier than you thought.
Special Content Alert: M/M
Burn by Aleksandr Voinov Flight Lieutenant Chris Waters is the pilot of a cutting-edge unmanned SAD fighter drone that is used for secret government missions. Chris is cutting-edge technology himself: his neural network is upgraded with cyber-technology and software that makes him the interface of his combat drone.
Then, something goes wrong as he connects to his drone. Haunted by strange, disorientating impressions, a so-called 'ghost', he hooks up on leave with fellow pilot Cyril for a night. But Cyril is not the man Chris thought he is, and Chris soon finds out what the 'ghost' in his body really is, as well as the truth about his missions.
Conduit by Kate Cotoner Ismail and his ex-husband Toki are divided by class and circumstance. Toki is a cybernetic upgrade human and part of the city elite, while Ismail is a baseline human and a cop. Their brief marriage failed when Toki walked out, but now he's back, asking for Ismail's help against Hanuman, a malicious cyber-intelligence who plans to poison the water supply of all baseline humans in the city. Now Ismail and Toki must find the underground reservoir targeted by Hanuman before time runs out for them both.
Rescue Me by Jude Mason Assigned to guard Leetchi Ambassador Dar and his family, Lieutenant Thomas Patch finds himself inexplicably drawn to Jad, the diplomat's son. The tall, slender Leetchi turns out to be as gay as Patch and steals his heart. When Jad is kidnapped, Patch goes undercover to find and rescue him. The rescue takes him to the underbelly of the space port city and a whore house where slaves are bought and sold at will. Finding Jad proves easier than he'd hoped, but the rescue takes an insane twist when their escape attempt is thwarted by the one person they knew was on their side.
Will Jad's enslavement tear the lovers apart? Will Patch be torn from the love of his life? Find out, in Rescue Me.
Reversal by A. B. Gayle Sebastian is bored. He has another five years of lone duty supervising his family's robots on their space station. The last thing he wants to do is the housework. For Christmas, his mother sends him a Domestic Darling cyborg. True to form, she purchases a factory second and sends one that doesn't quite fit the bill. Instead of being a pert blond with big tits and a cute ass like in the advertisement, this one is six foot tall and built like a Greek god, a very virile Greek God. In an attempt to improve its functioning, Sebastian uses some of his brilliant programming skills. The resulting changes ensure Sebastian will never be bored again.(less)

ebook, 1st Edition, 116 pages

Published March 8th 2010 by Noble Romance Publishing LLC

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Mar 16, 2010 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

BURN by Aleksandr Voinov/ REVERSAL by A B Gayle

BURN: This story is fun with cutting edge technology. It opens with a interview of the lead character, Chris, that immediately plugs you into his head. Which as it turns out is the whole point of this ride. It has intrique, hot sex & a mysterious man that rocks Chris's world. I enjoyed the excitement & high tech world that was created here. As usual, Mr. Voinov leaves me wanting more, but it doesn't take away from the BURN. 4 stars - Enjoy

RE...more

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Mar 19, 2010 Erotic Horizon added it

Intro

I was send this book a few days ago to review on the blog, I wont lie and say it would have been something I would have rushed out to buy, because I wouldn’t have.

I am not sure what made me decide to read it ahead of a whole pile of other books that I have in the queue, but I did and I was so impressed by it that I immediately send off a few emails to all the authors asking them if they wouldn’t mind answering a few questions for me.

Let me be clear right from the outset, if you are looking...more

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Mar 16, 2010 Rhianon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: m-m, science-fiction, soldier-military

A very lovely collection of quality futuristic m/m stories, running the gamut.

Each story in this anthology is worth reading, but by far my favorite was A.B. Gayle's contribution, the final story. I loved the way she made me frown, cant my head at the screen, and laugh, over and over again. For a short piece, it was extremely well crafted.

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Mar 26, 2010 Jenre rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: futuristic, sci-fi, romance, m-m

I like stories set in the future. I often find the way that authors of spec fiction write about how technological advances will affect our humanity in the future both depressing and uplifting, and I was interested to see how these four stories would fit into that mould. In the end I found these stories to be four unique tales with each story having a very different tone, from the very serious warnings of how man's narcissistic nature affects basic humanity, to the more light-hearted tone of a 's...more I like stories set in the future. I often find the way that authors of spec fiction write about how technological advances will affect our humanity in the future both depressing and uplifting, and I was interested to see how these four stories would fit into that mould. In the end I found these stories to be four unique tales with each story having a very different tone, from the very serious warnings of how man's narcissistic nature affects basic humanity, to the more light-hearted tone of a 'straight to gay' story with a twist.

The anthology kicks off with Burn by Aleksandr Voinov. This is a military set story of Chris, a pilot, who has had his body adapted to be able to fly a plane remotely from inside a tank. After an error where Chris puts on the wrong flight suit, leading to a malfunction, Chris is shipped off on medical leave. On the flight home he meets Cyril, the man whose suit he accidentally wore and they form an attraction. The strength in this story is in the technical details of how the pilots fly their remote planes. There's also a cost to this as the more removed the military is from the actual target the less they seem to view the enemy as actual human beings which was a sobering thought. There's lots of AV's usual grittiness to the sex scenes which may not appeal to all but I felt fitted in with Chris' character. The way that the modifications of Chris' body are incorporated into his relationship with Cyril was cleverly done, making it more about the person of Chris as well as Chris as a pilot. If I have any criticisms of the story it was the way that the ending seemed rather sudden, especially Chris' final decision. However this was only a little niggle in what was an imaginative story.

The second story, Conduit by Kate Cotoner, was the longest and my favourite story in the anthology. Set in Edinburgh of the future where humans with enough wealth and power can be 'upgraded' to become beautiful and immortal, it tells of fully human police detective Ismail who is called to the city museum. When he gets there he is greeted by his ex-husband who tells him that there is a lunatic AI portable personality, capable of implanting himself into any human with a interface socket, that wants to kill all the 'baseline' humans by poisoning the water. What I liked most about this story was that many of the, frankly quite scary, ideas were very plausible. Mankind has perfected itself so much that it sneers at those too poor or who don't wish to strive towards that perfection. Therefore the baseline humans with no upgrades are treated like animals, forced to live in the poorer areas of the city, whilst the rich, beautiful and perfect upgrades live in opulence. Politics is run by the rich and anyone who falls short of their ideal in any way is cast out of that society. It was chillingly believable. I also liked the relationship between Ismail and his ex husband Toki. Their initial antagonism was underlined by hurt feelings and I enjoyed watching their love for each other blossom as they worked together to catch the mad-man. Mostly though I just enjoyed the breadth and scale of the piece, which managed to incorporate politics, human relations and sociological ideas into what was also quite a taut thriller. Marvellous.

The third story of the anthology, Rescue Me by Jude Mason, was, I felt, the weakest of the four. It begins well with a tense opening. Patch is deep undercover as a slave who is bought by the owner of a brothel. His mission is to find the son of a wealthy governor to the Leetchi people, who also happens to be his lover. His investigation has led him to this brothel where he intends to find Jad and rescue him. The parts which worked well in the story were in the descriptions of the Leetchi people, the sweet relationship between Jad and Patch and the harshness of the conditions in the brothel. The part that didn't work as well for me was the way that the story ended, it was a bit of a let down after the carefully built tension in the rest of the story. This doesn't mean it was a badly written story, it wasn't, but in terms of rank order this one was my least favourite in the anthology.

The tone shifts rather in the final story, Reversal by AB Gayle. Instead of the heavy themes and sociological ideas, this story is a light-hearted look at what happens when a computer genius is isolated on a off-world manufacturing plant and is sent a male domestic cyborg to help with the cleaning. Sebastian lives a lonely existence and so when the package arrives from his mother, he can't help tinkering about with the cyborg's programming, especially when it looks to have quite a lot of anomalous coding. Sebastian also finds himself strangely attracted to the Cyborg's rippling muscles and good looks and begins to wonder whether he's just very lonely or whether he may not be as straight as he thought he was. This story was just a hoot from start to finish. Sebastian is a very sympathetic character. His acceptance of his isolated lifestyle was quite sad at first, but I enjoyed watching him changing the programming on the cyborg and fighting his growing lust and affection for the robot. I was at times both touched and amused as Sebastian thinks through the moral implications of lusting and even having sex with a robot and I cheered on every change he made to the cyborg's programming. After the serious themes of the previous stories in the anthology, this was the perfect way to end the anthology which left me with a smile on my face.

As with all anthologies Echoes of the Future was a real mix of themes and ideas which meant that there was probably something for everyone within its pages. I greatly enjoyed reading it and would recommend the anthology to all those who like m/m speculative romance.(less)

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Jul 11, 2010 A.B. Gayle added it · (Review from the author)

Shelves: books-i-wrote, first-person-pov

OK. Maybe I shouldn't rate a book with my own story in with five stars. But hey, if the author can't rate it that high why would anyone bother to read it????
LOL. Grins. Blushes and ducks for cover.
To me the other stories warrant this book being given a great rating. Thanks to Alex Voinov for inviting me to come on board. "Reversal" will always hold a special place in my heart as it was the first story I had published.

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Dec 28, 2010 Kez rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-books, ebooks, genre-paranormal-romance, genre-science-fiction, theme-gay-males, theme-cyberpunk

Some very excellent reads in this collection

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Aug 06, 2011 Rinray rated it 3 of 5 stars

5 stars for Reversal by A. B. Gayle

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About A.B. Gayle

Unlike many authors, I haven't been writing stories all my life. I've been too busy living life.
My travels took me from the fjords of Norway to the southern tip of New Zealand. In between, I've worked in so many different towns I've lost count. I've shoveled cow shit, mustered sheep, been polite to customers, traded insults with politicians and need to be forgiven on occasions when I get confused...more

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