Flavors of My Genius [pb] by Robert Reed [OUT OF PRINT]

• Publication Date: November 2006
• Cover art by Edward Miller
• Introduction by James Patrick Kelly

Damian Veers enjoys a rich, comfortable existence. His body wants for nothing, while his soul is possessed by an infinite, enduring genius. Using nothing but his own restless mind, Damian spends his long days visiting a multitude of distant worlds, seducing dream-women of every sort; when he wishes, he leaps casually back and forth through his own rich memories, replaying little portions of a gigantic existence that may never end.

This is the fate of every intelligent species. Minds grow to a point where thought is more real than reality, and the simplest daydreams are more compelling than any starship.

Humanity has never been so happy.

Then a strange woman appears: Dot James, physical and plainspoken, suddenly moves into the house next door to Damian's. To all appearances, she is immune to the addictive kinds of genius that every other person embraces. Damian is astonished and intrigued. He studies his new neighbor as she goes about her simple life, and he remembers back to the fateful moment when the stars first spoke to the helpless Earth.

Over the next weeks and months, Damian builds up his courage. He converses with Dot, and he dreams about her, and with his relentless imagination, he tries to explain both her presence here and her mysterious origins. And all the while, he thinks back to his youth and the wife that he loved then and still loves today.

Somehow, Dot and Damian's pasts are linked, and it's only a matter of time until his intellect figures out this amazing puzzle...

But if the mind has no limits, how can you trust what your mind tells you?

If imagination is more real than the universe, then what is real?

And more importantly, what is right?