title: The Silver Threads of Time: A SilverShadows Book
author:  Helen Jane Chihal 
description: Helen Jane Chihal is a retired gynecologist who specialized in hormonal disorders in women. One of her main clinical interests was menopause and she is certified as a menopause clinician by the North American Menopause Society. As an avid reader all her life, Helen was disappointed in how few adventure or fantasy books had older women as heroes. The positive effect of comic book superheroes on her children as they grew up impressed her, but where were the positive, mythic images for the menopausal woman? Almost two decades ago, she began writing for her own amusement adventure stories featuring the women of SilverShadows, who discover their alternate identities after the withdrawal of estrogen at menopause. Although Dr. Chihal has written medical books on menopause, PMS, and a book for the public on women's health with Nancy Brinker, The Silver Threads of Time is her first full-length work of fiction. She lives with her husband David in Dallas, Texas and has three grown children.
zlib_text: *Solidarity* by Walter John Williams
  
  
  A Novella
  
  
  "Solidarity" features Sula/Gredel, the protagonist first introduced in
  "Margaux" (_Asimov's_, May 2003), and takes place in the same future as the
  author's novels _The Praxis_, _The Sundering_, and the forthcoming
  _Conventions of War_ (Harper Torch). Familiarity with any of the previous
  works is not necessary for enjoyment of this riveting story.
  
  
  \-------Sula dressed in fine Riverside low style for her meeting with Casimir.
  A bright tight-waisted jacket with fractal patterns, overhung by the wide,
  floppy collar of her blouse. Pants belled out around platform shoes. Cheap
  colorful plastic or ceramic jewelry. A tall velvet hat, crushed just so, with
  one side of the brim held up by a gold pin with an artificial diamond the size
  of a walnut.
  
  
  "I don't like this," Macnamara said.
  
  
  Sula peered at herself in the mirror, flipped her fingers through her dyed
  black hair.
  
  
  "I wish there were other choices," she said, "but there aren't."
  
  
  "M