 As I said when I mentioned this book in my last monthly roundup video, this was a real find. The book contains two short novels by Joan D. Vinge, one Fireship. It's about a criminal who appears to have multiple personalities. It turns out what he has is an experimental supercomputer that he can plug into his spinal cord and the resultant gestalt personality is superior to both of them alone. It's a good story and pretty interesting but it ends just as it's getting started. The real find here is the second novella called Mother and Child. This is such a complex story, it's hard to know how to describe it in just 30 seconds. It takes place in the far distant future when a distant earth colony has long lost contact with earth. In fact they call their own planet earth, they have collapsed into a divided medieval society. Half of them considered more primitive and more pastoral than the other and there are giant powerful aliens that have taken up the roles of gods. Joan Vinge has masterfully condensed a five book epic cycle into barely 150 pages here. I went into this having never read Joan D. Vinge before and I'm leaving with mad respect for her writing ability. You can support 30 Seconds Sci-Fi and my other projects by becoming a patron. There's a link in the description below. I highly recommend that you get a copy of this book and experience it for yourself. This is not difficult to find and not expensive. I do have to say though I have not figured out where the word fire ship comes from. I've never figured out what that word actually means.