In an amused tone, Kaplan offers gentle science fiction that is sympathetic to the human condition. The first chapter, “Escapade,” features Gomer and Muriel Ackerman, a retro couple in the mid-21st Century who are searching for old-fashioned values such as privacy in a twentieth-century settlement but do not get what they bargained for. In “A Dementia Returnee,” their friend Virginia becomes one of the first people cured of dementia but who runs into an unexpected detour to complete health. Later in the book, Gomer’s wife dies and he seeks consolation from a custom-designed robot that satisfies in some ways and does not in others. In the last chapter, Muriel’s grandniece Beatriz discovers extraterrestrials in another solar system who must be stingy with words in order to survive. If you too are a curiosity seeker, you will find yourself with kindred spirits within this collection of interrelated stories.
