In this collection of short stories, novelist Stross moves the U.S.-U.S.S.R. conflict onto a massive disk in another galaxy in 'Missile Gap,' offers a spam-filter solution to the Fermi paradox in 'MAXOS,' suggests clever bargains with the devil in a newly frozen Scotland in 'Snowball's Chance,' and sets the stage for appearances by Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould in 'The Colder War.'