Manhattan In Reverse

I've been reading this on and off for a while. It's a collection of short stories which means you can do that without losing track. I'd read a story and then not start the next one for a couple of weeks or more. I don't really know why it just kinda happened that way. It was no fault of the book each story was great but it's been an odd first few months of the year. I enjoyed this book a lot but there is one thing I will say, this is not the place to start if you wanted to sample Hamilton's work. The majority of the stories take place in his existing universes and use many familiar characters. The stories are short but they are not self contained. So really this is a bonus for fans not for new readers. New readers should read The Reality Dysfunction or Judas Unchained to start with, or perhaps Misspent Youth if you want a shorter one. The first story "Watching Trees Grow" is set in an alternate universe where the Romans worked on life extension projects and the empire never fell. However that's just a setting for a multi-generational murder investigation, but it's a very interesting one. "If At First..." is probably my favourite, at least of the non-Commonwealth stories. Fancy time travel stories will likely always rate highly with me. Thinking back now I don't remember a lot of what "The Forever Kitten" was about. That's the problem with reviewing so long afterwards. I'm just going to say I think this one was the shortest. "Footvote" was a very good political discussion and probably comes in as my second favorite. The only issue is that the technology described makes it feel like it should be part of the Commonwealth universe but it doesn't fit in to that time line. "Blessed By An Angel" is probably the weakest story here. It explains some of the events and origins of one of the main characters from his other books but I'm not convinced it was something that actually needed explaining. Finally "The Demon Trap" and "Manhattan In Reverse" which both feature Detective Paula Myo. Basically they're two additional cases for her work on. "The Demon Trap" is tied for my favourite spot with "If At First..." thanks to its unexpected clever ending.