Mary Rosenblum (www.theflyingparty.com/maryrosenblum/) lives in Oregon on two-and-a-half acres that supply all her fruit, all her vegetables, and the wood she uses to heat her house. She published SF stories throughout the early 1990s (her first story was in Asimov’s in 1990), and three SF novels (her first, The Drylands, 1993, won the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel in 1994) but moved into the mystery genre (four novels and several stories as Mary Freeman) in the latter half of the decade, and only recently returned to SF. Nevertheless, she has managed to publish more than fifty SF stories to date. The best of her early work is collected in Synthesis and Other Virtual Realities, from Arkham House. She’s also the Web Editor for Long Ridge Writers Group, as well as an instructor for their by-mail and online students. Her recent SF novel is Horizons (2006).
“The Egg Man” was published in Asimov’s. This is a biotech and global warming story set in a future in which Mexico is in better shape than the U.S. A Mexican man, Zipakna, returns with supplies to a region of the U.S. southwest that has become a no-man’s-land to look for his missing ex-wife, a genetic engineer of crops.