Bleak, clear-eyed and unblinking, Paolo Bacigalupi forces us to look our future directly in the face. At the end of the story that gives this collection its name, the protagonist, a Quixotic factotum who finds himself in charge of the titular mechanical Rocinante (and possibly civilization itself), says “I chose a book at random and started reading.”

Those us back here in the coalmines of the 21st century would do well to do the same. This is the book to start with.