Jack Deighton

A team investigating virtual body suits takes things too far...

SHIFT is a new form of instant interstellar travel, in which molecules are broken down in one location and then reassembled at another. An ex-dock yard worker mourns the last spaceship built, the Last Empress, because of this development. Perhaps because the future described here (inevitably) lacks realism, the story does not get the emotional depth it seeks.

Things are seen from the perspective of a young girl in a small habitat on Mars whose only human contact is her father. From the wall screen she sees a female-only society. Once she reaches maturity she has a dream of something medical happening to her and then her father disappears. Understated and moving.