We have adorned the lowest heaven with an ornament, the planets… A string of murders on Venus. Saturn’s impossible forest. Voyager I’s message to the stars◦– returned in kind. Edible sunlight. The Lowest Heaven collects seventeen astonishing, never-before-published stories from award-winning authors and provocative new literary voices, each inspired by a body in the solar system, and features extraordinary images drawn from the archives of the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Contributors include Sophia McDougall, Alastair Reynolds, Archie Black, Maria Dahvana Headley, Adam Roberts, Simon Morden, E. J. Swift, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Mark Charan Newton, Kaaron...

Оказывается, Римская империя не рухнула, — она благополучно существует, захватив большую часть мира. Римские граждане вполне цивилизованы: ездят на машинах, пользуются дальновизорами. Но по-прежнему в Риме есть рабы, которых за непокорность распинают на механических крестах, а тем, кто хочет изменить этот порядок, трудно остаться в живых.

The fact that someone had decided I would be safer on Mars, where you could still only SORT OF breathe the air and SORT OF not get sunburned to death, was a sign that the war with the aliens was not going fantastically well. I’d been worried I was about to be told that my mother’s spacefighter had been shot down, so when I found out that I was being evacuated to Mars, I was pretty calm. And despite everything that happened to me and my friends afterwards, I’d do it all again. because until you’ve been shot at, pursued by terrifying aliens, taught maths by a laser-shooting robot goldfish and tried to save the galaxy, I don’t think you can say that you’ve really lived. If the same...

[b]Savage City[/b]: Imagine a world in which Rome never fell. Now the Empire stretches across the Atlantic, slaves are constructing a giant bridge over the Persian Gulf, and magnetic railways span the globe. But tensions within and without are about to change the face of the earth. Marcus Novius is caught in a massive explosion at the Coliseum which kills his uncle the emperor ... making Marcus, his heir, the new leader of the Roman Empire. Marcus, the healer Sulien and Una, his sister - and Marcus' own love - have been together through thick and thin, fighting for freedom, fighting for their lives, fighting for justice, and Marcus' ascension to Roman throne was supposed to be the start...

[b]Rome Burning[/b]: The present day but a very different one to the world we know... The Roman Empire stretches across the Atlantic and far into Asia, yet it is an unstable time. Strange fires burn out of control; the Emperor falls suddenly ill, and a massacre in the shadow of the Great Wall of Terranova brings the world to the brink of a global war. At this critical time, three years after a conspiracy against his life forced him into hiding, the young heir to the throne Marcus Novius must take command of the greatest power on Earth. But his ambitious cousin Drusus - spurred on by a riddling Sybilline prophecy - threatens this last chance to avoid a world conflict, and Una, a former...

[b]Romanitas[/b]: Imagine the Roman Empire is still flourishing today... In 2756 AC (2003 AD in Christian terms), magnetic railways span Roman territory from Persia to Terranova, and mechanised crucifixes are ranked along the banks of the Thames. As volume one of ROMANITAS opens, Marcus Novius Faustus Leo, heir apparent to the Imperial throne, is mourning the death of his parents following a tragic accident. However, as information about the last days of his father's life becomes known to him, Marcus realises that his father's death was no accident and that his own life is in danger. Meanwhile, an escaped slave girl called Una, who possesses the power to look inside others' minds,...