These stories by Marc Stiegler are about hope: hope that technology is not the destroyer of the human race, but will lead to a future we can hardly imagine. The transformation of humanity through nanotechnology has begun, and Marc Stiegler’s tales, most of which appeared in Analog Science Fiction Magazine, take us to a dangerous, wonder-filled future that may await us, ready or not. For Stiegler, technology is the “gentle seducer” that eases us from mere denizens of planet Earth to Masters of the Universe.