The major events in "The Borderland of Sol" take place in the outer reaches of the solar system. In the era of "The Borderland of Sol," a "major singularity," meaning black hole, has been discovered orbiting the sun, and the people of that time count twelve planets around the sun. "And not including Pluto?" asks Beowulf. "No, we think of Pluto as a loose moon of Neptune," replies Carlos. "It runs Neptune, Persephone, Caina, Antenora, Ptolemea, in order of distance from the sun. And the orbits aren't flat to the plane of the system. Persephone is tilted at a hundred and twenty degrees to the plane of the system, and retrograde." In these cold outer reaches, or borderland, of the solar system, spaceships have been mysteriously disappearing without a trace.

Beowulf and his compatriots journey to a large asteroid that is riddled with corridors left by miners, where...