Romance on Four Worlds

The Moon. Phobos. The Kuiper Belt. A giant globe-circling habitat on Mercury. Joseph Louis Baske roams the Solar System in the same way the great 18th century adventurer, Giacomo Casanova, roamed across Europe—and gets in trouble for the same reason. Romance is the glory of his days. It never lasts, but every episode is an adventure. "I have loved architects, engineers, musicians, politicians, geologists, surgeons, athletes, economists, and women who approached activities like diving and mountaineering with the same passion I have lavished on the central concern of my life," Joe writes. "From all of them I have learned something. The shortest route to someone's affections is to listen."Analog reviewer Don Sakers summed up Tom Purdom's first collection Lovers and Fighters, Starships and Dragons as "a perfect blend of really cool ideas and believable, sympathetic characters." Purdom's Casanova Quartet applies the same formula to a happy, freewheeling vision of the future awaiting mankind."…delightful… a surprising amount of depth and sympathy… These deeply human post-human romances exemplify a new and exciting way of combining romance and SF, and they are a pleasure from beginning to end." —Publishers Weekly starred review"This whole moderately transhuman milieu of the initial adventure… Illustrates Purdom's ability and desire to write the best postmodern SF that he can.… it's not any off-the-shelf inhabited Solar System scenario, but a clever fleshing out of trends visible in our present day.… Purdom succeeds in fashioning some farcical yet genuinely speculative and authentic romps along themes that are noticeably and regrettably absent from so much SF." —Paul Di Filippo, Locus"One can't help but fall for the charm of Joseph Louis Baske.… I got increasingly excited by Baske's adventures as I went through, and I particularly enjoyed a subtle mellowing-out of the writing in the later stories, a humor from Purdom that made Baske even more likable. Overall, the collection is a fun read with some depth, excellent world-building, and some interesting character building that makes the reader wonder what character even is. These are a strong bunch of stories that are even better together—definitely worth a look." —Colleen Chen, Tangent Online"…a delightful little book chronicling the travels of a future Casanova.… These are classic picaresque tales, modern comedies of manners in which Baske gets himself into and out of trouble in the most amusing ways. That the characters are engaging and believable goes without saying—Purdom writes great people—but the four societies depicted are also a lot of fun." —Don Sakers, Analog Science Fiction and Fact