title: The Space Machine: A Scientific Romance
author:  Christopher Priest 
description: The year is 1893, and the workaday life of a young commercial traveller is enlivened by his lady friend when she takes him to the laboratory of Sir William Reynolds, who is building a Time Machine. It is but a small step into futurity, the beginning of a series of adventures that culminate in a violent confrontation with the most ruthless intellect in the Universe.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **Dark Eden** by Chris Beckett
  
  
  Chris Beckett tells us that although "Dark Eden," is a stand-alone story, it
  is also "a prequel to a story called 'The Circle of Stones' that was published
  in Interzone way back in 1992. In case anyone is interested, I have put the
  story on my website www.btinternet.com/~chris.bb." Chris's well-received first
  novel The Holy Machine was published by Wildside Press. His second novel,
  Marcher, is nearing completion. It incorporates a lot of material from his
  various "shifter" stories, including "Tammy Pendant"
  
  
  (March 2004) and "We Could Be Sisters" (October/ November 2004). Chris lives
  in Cambridge, England, with his family. After eighteen years of working life
  as a social worker, he is now a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University.
  
  
  * * * *
  
  
  _Tommy:_
  
  
  Space is a dangerous place but for me it always felt like a haven. Especially
  this time. In the final days before our mission every newspaper and TV station
  on the planet had been carryin