July 6 - "Utriusque Cosmi"

“Utriusque Cosmi”
by Robert Charles Wilson
The New Space Opera 2 (2009)

* * * * * (Excellent) Science Fiction

In the planet’s final moments, Carlotta decides to shed her earthly body to become one with the Fleet, an interconnected intelligence spread across the universe. In her travels as part of the Fleet, Carlotta is given to opportunity to visit her past and remembers the night before the world ended.

The problem with (some) science fiction is that ambitious ideas can often become incomprehensible. That is not the case here, even though there are moments in the story that left me scratching my head in confusion. Wilson does a tremendous job balancing the world he created with the world we understand. I particularly enjoyed the time travel aspect to the story, cutting flashes of the past into the tale of how Carlotta arrived to the point in the future she narrates from. There were the occasional missteps in the prose – a clunky sentence or two – but overall, this was a fascinating introduction to a new collection of stories by some of “the most beloved names in science fiction.”