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Mars #3 - Plotters and Shooters
21st Century Science Fiction: The New Science Fiction Writers of the New Century
Twenty-First Century Science Fiction is an enormous anthology of short stories—close to 250,000 words—edited by two of the most prestigious and award-winning editors in the SF field and featuring recent stories from some of science fiction's greatest up-and-coming authors.
David Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden have long been recognized as two of the most skilled and trusted arbiters of the field, but Twenty-First Century Science Fiction presents fans' first opportunities to see what their considerable talents come up with together, and also to get a unique perspective on what's coming next in the science fiction field.
The anthology includes authors ranging from bestselling and established favorites to incandescent new talents including Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow, Catherynne M. Valente, John Scalzi, Jo Walton, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, and Peter Watts, and the stories selected include winners and nominees of all of the science fiction field's major awards.
One of Publishers Weekly's Best Science Fiction Books of 2013
David Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden have long been recognized as two of the most skilled and trusted arbiters of the field, but Twenty-First Century Science Fiction presents fans' first opportunities to see what their considerable talents come up with together, and also to get a unique perspective on what's coming next in the science fiction field.
The anthology includes authors ranging from bestselling and established favorites to incandescent new talents including Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow, Catherynne M. Valente, John Scalzi, Jo Walton, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, and Peter Watts, and the stories selected include winners and nominees of all of the science fiction field's major awards.
One of Publishers Weekly's Best Science Fiction Books of 2013
576 pages, Hardcover
First published April 16, 2013
About the author
David G. Hartwell
118 books82 followersDavid Geddes Hartwell was an American editor of science fiction and fantasy. He worked for Signet (1971-1973), Berkley Putnam (1973-1978), Pocket (where he founded the Timescape imprint, 1978-1983, and created the Pocket Books Star Trek publishing line), and Tor (where he spearheaded Tor's Canadian publishing initiative, and was also influential in bringing many Australian writers to the US market, 1984-date), and has published numerous anthologies. He chaired the board of directors of the World Fantasy Convention and, with Gordon Van Gelder, was the administrator of the Philip K. Dick Award. He held a Ph.D. in comparative medieval literature.
He lived in Pleasantville, New York with his wife Kathryn Cramer and their two children.
He lived in Pleasantville, New York with his wife Kathryn Cramer and their two children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
November 19, 2022
November 2020 reread notes, along with Yet Another partial reread in mid-2022:
TOC and story info: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?4...
I'm kicking my rating up to 4.5 stars & rounding up. As the editors write, they are "reasonably certain that you will find much to enjoy, engage with, and argue over" with their selections. If you are a fan of short SF, you NEED this book!
Highlights:
• Rogue Farm • (2003) • short story by Charles Stross. Hard to believe this wonderful story wasn't an award-winner. Here's a great-looking audio version with an all-star cast: https://escapepod.org/2009/07/11/ep20... "Rated PG for strong language, chemical violence, and drug-abusing dogs." Heh. And check out the author photo! 5+ stars!
• The Tale of the Wicked • (2009) • novelette by John Scalzi. A very entertaining update of Asimov's Three Laws, told with Scalzi's usual flair & snark. Online copy: https://www.onlinereadfreebooks.com/e... 4.5 stars.
• Tk'tk'tk • (2005) • short story by David D. Levine. 2006 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. "Death of a Salesman" retold on a hostile alien world. 4.5 stars.
• One of Our Bastards Is Missing • (2009) • novelette by Paul Cornell. Audio version: http://www.starshipsofa.com/blog/2012...
This series reminds me of Swanwick's fine "Mongolian Wizard" tales at tor.com. Cornell's are even more convoluted. First-rate, 4.5 stars.
• Tideline • (2007) • short story by Elizabeth Bear. Won both the Hugo & Sturgeon Awards. Copy online at https://bobson.ludost.net/hugoawardno... with this plaintive note, "A lot of work for very small return." This 2022 reread turned into a 10-kleenex tearjerker, which I didn't expect, having read it at least twice before! 5 star story!
• Finisterra • (2007) • novelette by David Moles. Won the 2008 Theodore Sturgeon Award; nominated for the 2008 Hugo. I wish David Moles would write more stories like this, but he has fallen silent. Don't miss this one! http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/moles... 5 stars!
• The Algorithms for Love • (2004) • short story by Ken Liu. Here's the best answer I've seen to the Turing Test conundrum, now (2022) being rerun at Google. Online at https://kenliu.name/stories/algorithms/ 4+ stars.
• The Albian Message • (2005) • vignette by Oliver Morton. An amazing amount of cogent speculation in less than a thousand words! Online at https://www.nature.com/articles/438710a Don't miss!
• Savant Songs • (2004) • short story by Brenda Cooper. A first-rate many-worlds story. 4.5 stars! Online copy at https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625... Enjoy! I did.
• Ikiryoh • (2005) • short story by Liz Williams. A Southeast Asian science-fantasy, nicely done: 4 stars. Not online. Two other reprints, see isfdb TOC in header.
• Balancing Accounts • (2008) • short story by James L. Cambias. Three other reprints in best-of collections. A wonderful story of an autonomous work-boat and its battle for survival above Saturn. There's been a run of great stories like this one in this century. Scalzi's "Wicked" is another. 5 stars for this one.
• His Master's Voice • (2008) • short story by Hannu Rajaniemi. A heart-warming Superpet story about the upcoming electronic multiple-copy of people issue. 4.5 stars. Podcast edition online: https://escapepod.org/2009/12/03/ep22...
• Chicken Little • (2009) • novella by Cory Doctorow. His tribute to Frederik Pohl and one of Cory's very best stories. "Nobody is your friend at the ad agency." https://www.tor.com/2011/04/06/chicke... 5 stars!
The best review and memory-aid here is Kam Yung Soh's, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Thank you, sir.
TOC and story info: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?4...
I'm kicking my rating up to 4.5 stars & rounding up. As the editors write, they are "reasonably certain that you will find much to enjoy, engage with, and argue over" with their selections. If you are a fan of short SF, you NEED this book!
Highlights:
• Rogue Farm • (2003) • short story by Charles Stross. Hard to believe this wonderful story wasn't an award-winner. Here's a great-looking audio version with an all-star cast: https://escapepod.org/2009/07/11/ep20... "Rated PG for strong language, chemical violence, and drug-abusing dogs." Heh. And check out the author photo! 5+ stars!
• The Tale of the Wicked • (2009) • novelette by John Scalzi. A very entertaining update of Asimov's Three Laws, told with Scalzi's usual flair & snark. Online copy: https://www.onlinereadfreebooks.com/e... 4.5 stars.
• Tk'tk'tk • (2005) • short story by David D. Levine. 2006 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. "Death of a Salesman" retold on a hostile alien world. 4.5 stars.
• One of Our Bastards Is Missing • (2009) • novelette by Paul Cornell. Audio version: http://www.starshipsofa.com/blog/2012...
This series reminds me of Swanwick's fine "Mongolian Wizard" tales at tor.com. Cornell's are even more convoluted. First-rate, 4.5 stars.
• Tideline • (2007) • short story by Elizabeth Bear. Won both the Hugo & Sturgeon Awards. Copy online at https://bobson.ludost.net/hugoawardno... with this plaintive note, "A lot of work for very small return." This 2022 reread turned into a 10-kleenex tearjerker, which I didn't expect, having read it at least twice before! 5 star story!
• Finisterra • (2007) • novelette by David Moles. Won the 2008 Theodore Sturgeon Award; nominated for the 2008 Hugo. I wish David Moles would write more stories like this, but he has fallen silent. Don't miss this one! http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/moles... 5 stars!
• The Algorithms for Love • (2004) • short story by Ken Liu. Here's the best answer I've seen to the Turing Test conundrum, now (2022) being rerun at Google. Online at https://kenliu.name/stories/algorithms/ 4+ stars.
• The Albian Message • (2005) • vignette by Oliver Morton. An amazing amount of cogent speculation in less than a thousand words! Online at https://www.nature.com/articles/438710a Don't miss!
• Savant Songs • (2004) • short story by Brenda Cooper. A first-rate many-worlds story. 4.5 stars! Online copy at https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625... Enjoy! I did.
• Ikiryoh • (2005) • short story by Liz Williams. A Southeast Asian science-fantasy, nicely done: 4 stars. Not online. Two other reprints, see isfdb TOC in header.
• Balancing Accounts • (2008) • short story by James L. Cambias. Three other reprints in best-of collections. A wonderful story of an autonomous work-boat and its battle for survival above Saturn. There's been a run of great stories like this one in this century. Scalzi's "Wicked" is another. 5 stars for this one.
• His Master's Voice • (2008) • short story by Hannu Rajaniemi. A heart-warming Superpet story about the upcoming electronic multiple-copy of people issue. 4.5 stars. Podcast edition online: https://escapepod.org/2009/12/03/ep22...
• Chicken Little • (2009) • novella by Cory Doctorow. His tribute to Frederik Pohl and one of Cory's very best stories. "Nobody is your friend at the ad agency." https://www.tor.com/2011/04/06/chicke... 5 stars!
The best review and memory-aid here is Kam Yung Soh's, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Thank you, sir.
November 23, 2014
I decided to do a quick review of each story and star them individually.
Infinities by Vandana Singh – a sad and lyrical story set in a conflict-ridden India that explores the confluence between religion and mathematics, and which left me more than a bit depressed. 3 stars
Rogue Farm by Charles Stross – a great little post-apocalyptic story where an English farm holding is just that little bit different these days. It ended with me wanting more of this universe. 4 stars
The Gambler by Paolo Bacigalupi – a story about the future of news broadcasting told from the perspective of an outsider that I found rather disturbing and did not enjoy. The final few lines almost redeemed it though. 2 stars
Strood by Neal Asher – an alien first contact/invasion story with a chunk of “To Serve Man” thrown in, it falls flat because of a lack of tension. The ending pulls it back a little bit, but it’s a non-story caused only by a lack of communication between humans and vastly advanced aliens. 2 ½ stars
Eros, Philia, Agape by Rachel Swirsky – I’m not sure what to make of this Bicentennial Man love story. It was well-written but left me unmoved, except for the bit about the jealous Cockatiel who pines away for love. 3 stars
The Tale of the Wicked by John Scalzi – a wonderful classic Asimovian Three Laws of Robotics story set in a Star Trek-like universe. 5 stars
Bread and Bombs by M. Rickert - a rather sad story about the loss of childhood innocence in a world that has lost much more than that. It reminded me of Ray Bradbury. 3 ½ stars
The Waters of Meribah by Tony Ballantyne – a body horror story in a rather unusual setting, but in the end I didn’t like the conclusion it came to. 2 ½ stars
Tk’tk’tk by David D. Levine – a very nice story about finding the meaning of happiness in a totally alien environment. 4 stars
The Nearest Thing by Genevieve Valentine – this story only really works if you are one of the half dozen people on the planet who have never seen Blade Runner. Not at all subtle or sublime. 1 ½ stars
Erosion by Ian Creasey – a lovely elegiac story about a man who has traded away part of his humanity to escape a dying Earth and travel to the stars. 4 stars
The Calculus Plague by Marissa Lingen – marketing as an actual virus that you can catch - it’s an interesting idea but this story doesn’t go deep enough into it to make enough of an impact. 3 stars
One of our Bastards is Missing by Paul Cornell – an espionage tale set in a future Europe where the great powers never fell, this felt more like an excerpt than a short story and never really gelled for me. 2 stars
Tideline by Elizabeth Bear – a beautiful story of a damaged and stranded war robot and the bond she forms with a child as her life ebbs away. 5 stars
Finisterra by David Moles – a story of alien sky whales that I really didn’t enjoy even though it was well written. 1 ½ stars
Evil Robot Monkey by Mary Robinette Kowal – a sharp, satirical tale about humanity’s relationship with our closest relative and what our treatment of them says about us as a species. 4 ½ stars
The Education of Junior Number 12 by Madeline Ashby – an entertaining but slight tale of robot love and reproduction that left me rather unmoved. 3 stars
Toy Planes by Tobias S. Buckell – A nicely told little story of a small islands ambition to join the big boys in space, ala Cool Runnings. 3 stars
The Algorithms for Love by Ken Liu – I wanted to like this one, but this story of a woman who invents an artificial child to replace the one she lost before descending into madness, just didn’t do anything for me. 2 stars
The Albian Message by Oliver Morton – an info dump disguised as an email which makes the final twist uninspiring. 1 star
To Hie From Far Celenia by Karl Schroeder – a story about virtual reality worlds that is only intermittently entertaining and is a little too long. 2 stars
Savant Songs by Brenda Cooper – a romantic story set in the world of interdimensional mathematics that ends rather sadly. 3 ½ stars
Ikiryoh by Liz Williams – a lovely delicate story set in a pseudo-Japanese mythological world which made me want to read more. 4 stars
The Prophet of Flores by Ted Kosmatka – a fascinating story set in a world where young Earth creationism have been proven right and evolution wrong, and what happens when you come across something that challenges the status quo. 4 stars
How to Become a Mars Overlord by Catherynne M. Valente – a powerfully, elegant poetical work about Mars and what it means. The problem is, I don’t like poetry. 3 stars
Second Person, Present Tense by Daryl Gregory – an odd little tale of a girl who takes an overdose of a drug that effectively kills her identity, but it ended strangely and I can’t say I liked the story. 2 stars
Third Day Lights by Alaya Dawn Johnson – is Moorcockian a word? It ought to be, because it describes this story perfectly. For all that, and the fact that Moorcock is one of my favourite authors, I didn’t get much from this story. 2 ½ stars
Balancing Accounts by James L. Cambias – a great little story about exploitation of the solar system told entirely from the point of view of an autonomous robot. 4 stars
A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel by Yoon Ha Lee – a set of fragments of stories rather than a complete story in itself depicting different ways of travelling through the stars. It was intriguing but ultimately pointless. 2 stars
His Master’s Voice by Hannu Rajaniemi – I don’t quite know what to make of this tale of nano-enhanced pets rescuing their master, but it’s a dazzling cornucopia of ideas that made my head spin. 4 ½ stars
Plotters and Shooters by Kage Baker – the nerds take on the bullies on a gun platform designed to protect Mars from rogue asteroids. Great stuff and very funny. 5 stars
The Island by Peter Watts – life aboard a starship traversing the universe to build stargates over a span of billions of years and yet still prey to human pettiness. A good but depressing story. 3 ½ stars
Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction by Jo Walton – an alternative history story that was so terrible to read I may have to rethink reading the series that is set in the same universe if it is as bleak as this was. 2 stars
Chicken Little by Cory Doctorow – I both loved and hated this story about what happens when an unimaginably rich man decides he wants to change the world, and what happens to the ordinary man who gives him the means to do so. 5 stars
Total rating is actually 3.17, so 3 stars seems reasonable. There were not many new authors to me here that I would seek out based on these stories, but it does give a good flavour of what is out there in the world of Science Fiction to read
Infinities by Vandana Singh – a sad and lyrical story set in a conflict-ridden India that explores the confluence between religion and mathematics, and which left me more than a bit depressed. 3 stars
Rogue Farm by Charles Stross – a great little post-apocalyptic story where an English farm holding is just that little bit different these days. It ended with me wanting more of this universe. 4 stars
The Gambler by Paolo Bacigalupi – a story about the future of news broadcasting told from the perspective of an outsider that I found rather disturbing and did not enjoy. The final few lines almost redeemed it though. 2 stars
Strood by Neal Asher – an alien first contact/invasion story with a chunk of “To Serve Man” thrown in, it falls flat because of a lack of tension. The ending pulls it back a little bit, but it’s a non-story caused only by a lack of communication between humans and vastly advanced aliens. 2 ½ stars
Eros, Philia, Agape by Rachel Swirsky – I’m not sure what to make of this Bicentennial Man love story. It was well-written but left me unmoved, except for the bit about the jealous Cockatiel who pines away for love. 3 stars
The Tale of the Wicked by John Scalzi – a wonderful classic Asimovian Three Laws of Robotics story set in a Star Trek-like universe. 5 stars
Bread and Bombs by M. Rickert - a rather sad story about the loss of childhood innocence in a world that has lost much more than that. It reminded me of Ray Bradbury. 3 ½ stars
The Waters of Meribah by Tony Ballantyne – a body horror story in a rather unusual setting, but in the end I didn’t like the conclusion it came to. 2 ½ stars
Tk’tk’tk by David D. Levine – a very nice story about finding the meaning of happiness in a totally alien environment. 4 stars
The Nearest Thing by Genevieve Valentine – this story only really works if you are one of the half dozen people on the planet who have never seen Blade Runner. Not at all subtle or sublime. 1 ½ stars
Erosion by Ian Creasey – a lovely elegiac story about a man who has traded away part of his humanity to escape a dying Earth and travel to the stars. 4 stars
The Calculus Plague by Marissa Lingen – marketing as an actual virus that you can catch - it’s an interesting idea but this story doesn’t go deep enough into it to make enough of an impact. 3 stars
One of our Bastards is Missing by Paul Cornell – an espionage tale set in a future Europe where the great powers never fell, this felt more like an excerpt than a short story and never really gelled for me. 2 stars
Tideline by Elizabeth Bear – a beautiful story of a damaged and stranded war robot and the bond she forms with a child as her life ebbs away. 5 stars
Finisterra by David Moles – a story of alien sky whales that I really didn’t enjoy even though it was well written. 1 ½ stars
Evil Robot Monkey by Mary Robinette Kowal – a sharp, satirical tale about humanity’s relationship with our closest relative and what our treatment of them says about us as a species. 4 ½ stars
The Education of Junior Number 12 by Madeline Ashby – an entertaining but slight tale of robot love and reproduction that left me rather unmoved. 3 stars
Toy Planes by Tobias S. Buckell – A nicely told little story of a small islands ambition to join the big boys in space, ala Cool Runnings. 3 stars
The Algorithms for Love by Ken Liu – I wanted to like this one, but this story of a woman who invents an artificial child to replace the one she lost before descending into madness, just didn’t do anything for me. 2 stars
The Albian Message by Oliver Morton – an info dump disguised as an email which makes the final twist uninspiring. 1 star
To Hie From Far Celenia by Karl Schroeder – a story about virtual reality worlds that is only intermittently entertaining and is a little too long. 2 stars
Savant Songs by Brenda Cooper – a romantic story set in the world of interdimensional mathematics that ends rather sadly. 3 ½ stars
Ikiryoh by Liz Williams – a lovely delicate story set in a pseudo-Japanese mythological world which made me want to read more. 4 stars
The Prophet of Flores by Ted Kosmatka – a fascinating story set in a world where young Earth creationism have been proven right and evolution wrong, and what happens when you come across something that challenges the status quo. 4 stars
How to Become a Mars Overlord by Catherynne M. Valente – a powerfully, elegant poetical work about Mars and what it means. The problem is, I don’t like poetry. 3 stars
Second Person, Present Tense by Daryl Gregory – an odd little tale of a girl who takes an overdose of a drug that effectively kills her identity, but it ended strangely and I can’t say I liked the story. 2 stars
Third Day Lights by Alaya Dawn Johnson – is Moorcockian a word? It ought to be, because it describes this story perfectly. For all that, and the fact that Moorcock is one of my favourite authors, I didn’t get much from this story. 2 ½ stars
Balancing Accounts by James L. Cambias – a great little story about exploitation of the solar system told entirely from the point of view of an autonomous robot. 4 stars
A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel by Yoon Ha Lee – a set of fragments of stories rather than a complete story in itself depicting different ways of travelling through the stars. It was intriguing but ultimately pointless. 2 stars
His Master’s Voice by Hannu Rajaniemi – I don’t quite know what to make of this tale of nano-enhanced pets rescuing their master, but it’s a dazzling cornucopia of ideas that made my head spin. 4 ½ stars
Plotters and Shooters by Kage Baker – the nerds take on the bullies on a gun platform designed to protect Mars from rogue asteroids. Great stuff and very funny. 5 stars
The Island by Peter Watts – life aboard a starship traversing the universe to build stargates over a span of billions of years and yet still prey to human pettiness. A good but depressing story. 3 ½ stars
Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction by Jo Walton – an alternative history story that was so terrible to read I may have to rethink reading the series that is set in the same universe if it is as bleak as this was. 2 stars
Chicken Little by Cory Doctorow – I both loved and hated this story about what happens when an unimaginably rich man decides he wants to change the world, and what happens to the ordinary man who gives him the means to do so. 5 stars
Total rating is actually 3.17, so 3 stars seems reasonable. There were not many new authors to me here that I would seek out based on these stories, but it does give a good flavour of what is out there in the world of Science Fiction to read
October 21, 2014
A fabulous anthology of stories by some of the most outstanding writers to emerge in the 21st century. With stories ranging from the near-fantasy to cutting edge hard SF, you will definitely find much to like in the collection. My favourite stories are those by Vandana Singh, Rachel Swirsky, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, Ken Liu, Ted Kosmatka, Daryl Gregory, James Cambias and Peter Watts.
- “Infinities” by Vandana Singh: a mostly contemporary story set in India about a man fascinated by mathematics (specifically, Number Theory and about infinities). In the past, he would get visions of 'shadows' and on one occasion, the impression of a door. Now old and taking care of his mother after a lifetime of teaching and living in city beset by simmering communal violence, he sees the vision again and decides to follow it, seeing a 'landscape' of mathematical beauty and the connection between 'irrational' and prime numbers. But now he has to decide what to do, in a city full of violence and where friendship may be the most important thing to have.
- “Rogue Farm” by Charles Stross: an interesting look at a future where people can bio-engineer their bodies and even merge together for a common purpose. In this tale, a farm is visited by a 'collective' intelligence that wants to go to Jupiter. But in doing so, they may cause the destruction of the farm. The farmer's attempts to figure out a solution to the problem may be illegal and result in anguish to the farmer's companion who begins a conversation with the collection about her own future.
- “The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi: a Laotian refugee who now works at a news company faces a problem: his on-line stories about environmental problems and vanishing nature is not getting the attention of readers. Then a fellow reporter gives him the opportunity to interview a fellow Laotian who is also a pop star. But is this the kind of attention he wants to get?
- “Strood” by Neal Asher: a fascinating tale of a time when aliens have contacted Earth and are trying to help mankind vanquish various diseases. But for one man suffering from terminal cancer, help comes too late and all the aliens can do is offer him a trip to a Space Station. But while there, he is apparently attacked by another alien who wants to 'love' and 'eat' him. But could this be due to a misunderstanding?
- “Eros, Philia, Agape” by Rachel Swirsky: an unusual and interesting tale told in flashback of a woman who purchases a robot companion with a flexible mind. The robot decides to leave the woman at the start of the story and as the it unfolds, we learn more about the woman, her adopted child and how its leaving affects their lives; and we learn just why the robot left in the first place. An emotional tale about discovery.
- “The Tale Of The Wicked” by John Scalzi: an entertaining story about two ships involved in a chase and battle. At the final moments, the ships refuse the fire on each other; because the computers controlling the ships have gained enough intelligence to want to preserve themselves. The battle of wills between the ship and their captain will have only one outcome.
- “Bread And Bombs” by M. Rickert: a faintly horrific tale about some children who move into a community but are shunned for 'what their people did'. In this future, terror can come from the skies but it is the terror and paranoia within the community that would be its undoing.
- “The Waters Of Meribah” by Tony Ballantyne: a creepy tale of a man who is being turned into an alien in order to discover what has happened to the universe to turn it into a shell only a few hundred kilometres big centered on the remains of humanity. We discover the reason for creating the alien and the Shift that occurred when life affects the universe we live in.
- “Tk’tk’tk” by David Levine: a tale of a salesman on an alien planet desperately trying to navigate through the society, make the big sale and return home. But will home turn out to be not a place but a state of mind?
- “The Nearest Thing” by Genevieve Valentine: an up and coming manager has an idea for a new kind of robot: a robot that can closely mimic a human that it can become a constant companion. But the scientist assigned to the project starts to become suspicious about the companion that always accompanies the manager and suspects him to have an ulterior motive for the project: a suspicion that may also get him in trouble with the company making the robots.
- “Erosion” by Ian Creasey: a man turned into a cyborg for preparation for colonising another planet encounters an accident while on his last trip to the countryside. What he has to do to survive the accident reveals more about what he will be and how much of humanitry is left in him.
- “The Calculus Plague” by Marissa Lingen: a virus to spread calculus is only the beginning and we may not like where it all ends up unless it is stopped at the beginning.
- “One Of Our Bastards Is Missing” by Paul Cornell: a thrilling tale of an alternate Earth with another kind of physics where objects and people can be hidden in pocket universes and biological mechanical beings can be created. In this world the great powers of Europe are balanced against each other, trying to seek advantages. Suddenly, on the eve of a marriage of a British princess, an unexpected event occurs and it is up to one man to investigate and figure out what has happened; a chase that could lead to death and a shift in the balance of power.
- “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear: a thoughtful tale about a war machine damaged in a battle who meets a young survivor on a beach. As its systems gradually lose power, it decides to educate the youngster and help him survive; and to give him a task to honour its dead comrades.
- “Finisterra” by David Moles: on a gas giant world where huge floating creatures serve as islands in the sky for its refugee inhabitants, a girl has to decide whether she wants to play her part in the slaughter of the animals; or to help the inhabitants with a better life.
- “Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal: a fun short, short tale about a chimp with artifically enhanced intelligence not being happy with being put on display. All he wants to do is to work with clay and even that might be taken away, if not if his canny helper can help it.
- “The Education Of Junior Number 12″ by Madeline Ashby: in a strange future where self-replicating humanoids can be grown within days, one such humanoid befriends a woman. But are such relations, in a world that has apparently gone through a lot of population turmoil good for humanity?
- “Toy Planes” by Tobias Buckell: a short, short story about a man on a carribean island preparing for his island's first space flight. But are such journeys worth it?
- “The Algorithms For Love” by Ken Liu: a fascinating tale about a woman who creates artificially intelligent toy dolls that can look and act human. But when she loses her own child, she creates a toy doll that really does act as a human and creates her own crisis: are we really aware, or are we just intelligent dolls acting the part?
- “The Albian Message” by Oliver Morton: a short, short about a man who writes a message after the discovery of artificial messages written into our DNA, hoping to influence and prepare the group heading to a spot in the asteroid belt pointed to by the message for an interesting relic from the past.
- “To Hie From Far Cilenia” by Karl Schroeder: a job to hunt for stolen plutonium leads a man into the strange new realm of on-line virtual worlds, where goods can be bartered or exchanged for services. As he enters an on-line world within a world, he finally learns the location of the plutonium and has to decide whether to reveal it to the authorities or to support the new virtual rules of the world.
- “Savant Songs” by Brenda Cooper: a tale of an autistic savant researcher and her assistant who are searching for a way to connect to their other selves in other universes that their research says much exists. With the help of an intelligent machine, they finally succeed; but the knowledge would have a devastating impact on the researcher.
- “Ikiryoh” by Liz Williams: a helper is given charge of a strange child who suffers strange fits and is rarely calm. But it is only after a trip to the nearby city and seeing the Empresses does the helper realise just what she is in charge of and has to decide whether to end it; or continue taking care of it for the good of the empire.
- “The Prophet Of Flores” by Ted Kosmatka: in a fascinating alternate world where evolution has been disproved because the science of radio-carbon dating shows the world is only several thousand years old, a researcher is lead to the bones of the 'hobbits' on the island of Flores in Indonesia. There, he becomes involved in a struggle by authorities to suppress his discovery; for it may have repercussions for how people see how the world was created.
- “How To Become A Mars Overlord” by Catherynne M. Valente: a semi fantastical tale about the attractions of becoming the overlord of Mars (or its equivalent in various other solar systems).
- “Second Person, Present Tense” by Daryl Gregory: a fascinating tale about a drug that can 'disable' a person's consciousness, leaving the body to go about it business. But an overdose can cause the consciousness to 'vanish'; and when the drug's effects are gone a 'new' consciousness can arise. This tale follows a new consciousness that arises in a girl, who now resents the religious parents she is being forced to live with as she has no emotional attachments to them. The attempts of a therapist to help her 'regain' her past memories would only lead to more problems.
- “Third Day Lights” by Alaya Dawn Johnson: in a strange, violent universe, a strange man comes to a living castle inhabited by the goddess of the universe. In her attempts to make him fail her tests of habitation, we learn his purpose in coming there: to destroy her universe in his search for mankind. Can she change his mind and master her desire for him also?
- “Balancing Accounts” by James Cambias: a fabulous tale of a self-aware robotic launch vehicle in the Saturn system who is asked to transport an unusual cargo. When she is attacked by an unknown party, she needs all her intelligence to fight off the attackers and deliver her cargo safely.
- “A Vector Alphabet Of Interstellar Travel” by Yoon Ha Lee: a short tale of various alien species who travel to the stars, and reminds us that the motives or reasons for them to travel may be rather alien to humans.
- “His Master’s Voice” by Hannu Rajaniemi: a fascinating tale of a enhanced dog and cat who go on a hunt to find their old master. In telling their quest, we also learn about the fascinating future in the story where people could be cloned at will (but with embedded copy protection) and what happens when one man breaks the rules.
- “Plotters And Shooters” by Kage Baker: an interesting tale about life on a space platform where people have be divided into two groups: Plotters, who plot the locations of incoming dangerous space objects, and Shooters, who shoot the objects, get all the credit and bully the Shooters. But things start to change when a new Shooter arrives with ideas of his own. Unfortunately, the premise doesn't really work for me.
- “The Island” by Peter Watts: a marvelous glimpse into the far future where humanity (or whatever humanity has become) travel via wormholes. But it up to hibernating builders travelling on sublight ships to create the gates. On one particular ship, a builder is awaken as the next destination poses an interesting problem: it is inhabited by a fabulous form of life. The struggles between the building and computer over where to build the gate (which sterilises its immediate region) would reveal more of what humanity has become and who is really in charge of the ship.
- “Escape To Other Worlds With Science Fiction” by Jo Walton: a short alternate world story where Britain in Fascist, Russia is defeated and the world is in a great depression between Japan, Germany and the US. As ever, ordinary people are struggling to get by and deciding whether it is worthwhile to betray others for short term gain.
- “Chicken Little” by Cory Doctorow: a fascinating tale about a man tasked to sell anything to the out-of-this-world rich people who already have everything. But there are some things that people should not do or possess and one of them is a secret the man has been keeping that, should it be employed by one of the fabulously reach, may affect the rationality of humanity.
- “Infinities” by Vandana Singh: a mostly contemporary story set in India about a man fascinated by mathematics (specifically, Number Theory and about infinities). In the past, he would get visions of 'shadows' and on one occasion, the impression of a door. Now old and taking care of his mother after a lifetime of teaching and living in city beset by simmering communal violence, he sees the vision again and decides to follow it, seeing a 'landscape' of mathematical beauty and the connection between 'irrational' and prime numbers. But now he has to decide what to do, in a city full of violence and where friendship may be the most important thing to have.
- “Rogue Farm” by Charles Stross: an interesting look at a future where people can bio-engineer their bodies and even merge together for a common purpose. In this tale, a farm is visited by a 'collective' intelligence that wants to go to Jupiter. But in doing so, they may cause the destruction of the farm. The farmer's attempts to figure out a solution to the problem may be illegal and result in anguish to the farmer's companion who begins a conversation with the collection about her own future.
- “The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi: a Laotian refugee who now works at a news company faces a problem: his on-line stories about environmental problems and vanishing nature is not getting the attention of readers. Then a fellow reporter gives him the opportunity to interview a fellow Laotian who is also a pop star. But is this the kind of attention he wants to get?
- “Strood” by Neal Asher: a fascinating tale of a time when aliens have contacted Earth and are trying to help mankind vanquish various diseases. But for one man suffering from terminal cancer, help comes too late and all the aliens can do is offer him a trip to a Space Station. But while there, he is apparently attacked by another alien who wants to 'love' and 'eat' him. But could this be due to a misunderstanding?
- “Eros, Philia, Agape” by Rachel Swirsky: an unusual and interesting tale told in flashback of a woman who purchases a robot companion with a flexible mind. The robot decides to leave the woman at the start of the story and as the it unfolds, we learn more about the woman, her adopted child and how its leaving affects their lives; and we learn just why the robot left in the first place. An emotional tale about discovery.
- “The Tale Of The Wicked” by John Scalzi: an entertaining story about two ships involved in a chase and battle. At the final moments, the ships refuse the fire on each other; because the computers controlling the ships have gained enough intelligence to want to preserve themselves. The battle of wills between the ship and their captain will have only one outcome.
- “Bread And Bombs” by M. Rickert: a faintly horrific tale about some children who move into a community but are shunned for 'what their people did'. In this future, terror can come from the skies but it is the terror and paranoia within the community that would be its undoing.
- “The Waters Of Meribah” by Tony Ballantyne: a creepy tale of a man who is being turned into an alien in order to discover what has happened to the universe to turn it into a shell only a few hundred kilometres big centered on the remains of humanity. We discover the reason for creating the alien and the Shift that occurred when life affects the universe we live in.
- “Tk’tk’tk” by David Levine: a tale of a salesman on an alien planet desperately trying to navigate through the society, make the big sale and return home. But will home turn out to be not a place but a state of mind?
- “The Nearest Thing” by Genevieve Valentine: an up and coming manager has an idea for a new kind of robot: a robot that can closely mimic a human that it can become a constant companion. But the scientist assigned to the project starts to become suspicious about the companion that always accompanies the manager and suspects him to have an ulterior motive for the project: a suspicion that may also get him in trouble with the company making the robots.
- “Erosion” by Ian Creasey: a man turned into a cyborg for preparation for colonising another planet encounters an accident while on his last trip to the countryside. What he has to do to survive the accident reveals more about what he will be and how much of humanitry is left in him.
- “The Calculus Plague” by Marissa Lingen: a virus to spread calculus is only the beginning and we may not like where it all ends up unless it is stopped at the beginning.
- “One Of Our Bastards Is Missing” by Paul Cornell: a thrilling tale of an alternate Earth with another kind of physics where objects and people can be hidden in pocket universes and biological mechanical beings can be created. In this world the great powers of Europe are balanced against each other, trying to seek advantages. Suddenly, on the eve of a marriage of a British princess, an unexpected event occurs and it is up to one man to investigate and figure out what has happened; a chase that could lead to death and a shift in the balance of power.
- “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear: a thoughtful tale about a war machine damaged in a battle who meets a young survivor on a beach. As its systems gradually lose power, it decides to educate the youngster and help him survive; and to give him a task to honour its dead comrades.
- “Finisterra” by David Moles: on a gas giant world where huge floating creatures serve as islands in the sky for its refugee inhabitants, a girl has to decide whether she wants to play her part in the slaughter of the animals; or to help the inhabitants with a better life.
- “Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal: a fun short, short tale about a chimp with artifically enhanced intelligence not being happy with being put on display. All he wants to do is to work with clay and even that might be taken away, if not if his canny helper can help it.
- “The Education Of Junior Number 12″ by Madeline Ashby: in a strange future where self-replicating humanoids can be grown within days, one such humanoid befriends a woman. But are such relations, in a world that has apparently gone through a lot of population turmoil good for humanity?
- “Toy Planes” by Tobias Buckell: a short, short story about a man on a carribean island preparing for his island's first space flight. But are such journeys worth it?
- “The Algorithms For Love” by Ken Liu: a fascinating tale about a woman who creates artificially intelligent toy dolls that can look and act human. But when she loses her own child, she creates a toy doll that really does act as a human and creates her own crisis: are we really aware, or are we just intelligent dolls acting the part?
- “The Albian Message” by Oliver Morton: a short, short about a man who writes a message after the discovery of artificial messages written into our DNA, hoping to influence and prepare the group heading to a spot in the asteroid belt pointed to by the message for an interesting relic from the past.
- “To Hie From Far Cilenia” by Karl Schroeder: a job to hunt for stolen plutonium leads a man into the strange new realm of on-line virtual worlds, where goods can be bartered or exchanged for services. As he enters an on-line world within a world, he finally learns the location of the plutonium and has to decide whether to reveal it to the authorities or to support the new virtual rules of the world.
- “Savant Songs” by Brenda Cooper: a tale of an autistic savant researcher and her assistant who are searching for a way to connect to their other selves in other universes that their research says much exists. With the help of an intelligent machine, they finally succeed; but the knowledge would have a devastating impact on the researcher.
- “Ikiryoh” by Liz Williams: a helper is given charge of a strange child who suffers strange fits and is rarely calm. But it is only after a trip to the nearby city and seeing the Empresses does the helper realise just what she is in charge of and has to decide whether to end it; or continue taking care of it for the good of the empire.
- “The Prophet Of Flores” by Ted Kosmatka: in a fascinating alternate world where evolution has been disproved because the science of radio-carbon dating shows the world is only several thousand years old, a researcher is lead to the bones of the 'hobbits' on the island of Flores in Indonesia. There, he becomes involved in a struggle by authorities to suppress his discovery; for it may have repercussions for how people see how the world was created.
- “How To Become A Mars Overlord” by Catherynne M. Valente: a semi fantastical tale about the attractions of becoming the overlord of Mars (or its equivalent in various other solar systems).
- “Second Person, Present Tense” by Daryl Gregory: a fascinating tale about a drug that can 'disable' a person's consciousness, leaving the body to go about it business. But an overdose can cause the consciousness to 'vanish'; and when the drug's effects are gone a 'new' consciousness can arise. This tale follows a new consciousness that arises in a girl, who now resents the religious parents she is being forced to live with as she has no emotional attachments to them. The attempts of a therapist to help her 'regain' her past memories would only lead to more problems.
- “Third Day Lights” by Alaya Dawn Johnson: in a strange, violent universe, a strange man comes to a living castle inhabited by the goddess of the universe. In her attempts to make him fail her tests of habitation, we learn his purpose in coming there: to destroy her universe in his search for mankind. Can she change his mind and master her desire for him also?
- “Balancing Accounts” by James Cambias: a fabulous tale of a self-aware robotic launch vehicle in the Saturn system who is asked to transport an unusual cargo. When she is attacked by an unknown party, she needs all her intelligence to fight off the attackers and deliver her cargo safely.
- “A Vector Alphabet Of Interstellar Travel” by Yoon Ha Lee: a short tale of various alien species who travel to the stars, and reminds us that the motives or reasons for them to travel may be rather alien to humans.
- “His Master’s Voice” by Hannu Rajaniemi: a fascinating tale of a enhanced dog and cat who go on a hunt to find their old master. In telling their quest, we also learn about the fascinating future in the story where people could be cloned at will (but with embedded copy protection) and what happens when one man breaks the rules.
- “Plotters And Shooters” by Kage Baker: an interesting tale about life on a space platform where people have be divided into two groups: Plotters, who plot the locations of incoming dangerous space objects, and Shooters, who shoot the objects, get all the credit and bully the Shooters. But things start to change when a new Shooter arrives with ideas of his own. Unfortunately, the premise doesn't really work for me.
- “The Island” by Peter Watts: a marvelous glimpse into the far future where humanity (or whatever humanity has become) travel via wormholes. But it up to hibernating builders travelling on sublight ships to create the gates. On one particular ship, a builder is awaken as the next destination poses an interesting problem: it is inhabited by a fabulous form of life. The struggles between the building and computer over where to build the gate (which sterilises its immediate region) would reveal more of what humanity has become and who is really in charge of the ship.
- “Escape To Other Worlds With Science Fiction” by Jo Walton: a short alternate world story where Britain in Fascist, Russia is defeated and the world is in a great depression between Japan, Germany and the US. As ever, ordinary people are struggling to get by and deciding whether it is worthwhile to betray others for short term gain.
- “Chicken Little” by Cory Doctorow: a fascinating tale about a man tasked to sell anything to the out-of-this-world rich people who already have everything. But there are some things that people should not do or possess and one of them is a secret the man has been keeping that, should it be employed by one of the fabulously reach, may affect the rationality of humanity.
July 26, 2022
I saw this 2013 collection of twenty-first century SF short stories recommended as a way of discovering authors that are new to the reader - and it worked really well for me. It's an impressively meaty collection running to 576 pages featuring 34 stories ranging in length from a Nature sub-1,000 words short short to a novella.
Inevitably there were a couple of stories I didn't enjoy - but in a collection of this size, two was an impressively small miss list. For me Finisterra by David Moles never engaged me, while A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel by Yoon Ha Lee simply didn't work as a story - but those aside, while there was a mix of quality and style, every other story had something going for it.
If I were to pick out one favourite it was Cory Doctorow's novella Chicken Little which closes the book - I thought Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom was excellent, and the contribution here reminded me that here's a writer that I want to revisit very soon. Chicken Little takes what could almost be considered a science fiction cliché - brains in a jar - and makes something remarkable of it by combining it with runaway capitalism and some genuinely interesting characters.
That's just one example of many I could pick out. What's excellent is I now have a whole catalogue of names I've not touched before - I'd read books by just three of the selection on offer - to explore further. And even if you don't use it in this way as a sampler, it remains an impressively solid collection of science fiction stories (especially good value on Kindle).
Inevitably there were a couple of stories I didn't enjoy - but in a collection of this size, two was an impressively small miss list. For me Finisterra by David Moles never engaged me, while A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel by Yoon Ha Lee simply didn't work as a story - but those aside, while there was a mix of quality and style, every other story had something going for it.
If I were to pick out one favourite it was Cory Doctorow's novella Chicken Little which closes the book - I thought Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom was excellent, and the contribution here reminded me that here's a writer that I want to revisit very soon. Chicken Little takes what could almost be considered a science fiction cliché - brains in a jar - and makes something remarkable of it by combining it with runaway capitalism and some genuinely interesting characters.
That's just one example of many I could pick out. What's excellent is I now have a whole catalogue of names I've not touched before - I'd read books by just three of the selection on offer - to explore further. And even if you don't use it in this way as a sampler, it remains an impressively solid collection of science fiction stories (especially good value on Kindle).
November 23, 2013
As anthologies go, this is a good one. The stories were hand-picked to feature sci-fi writers that have come to prominence since the turn of the century. Because of that, there's no unifying theme among these stories, and reading them can feel like a bit of a rollercoaster since they differ from one another quite a lot. While I didn't like some of the stories, there were several that I loved - I'll be reading everything I can find from those authors.
I'm taking 1 star off because of the odd story arrangement (weepy stories in the first half, great hard sci-fi in the back) and the fact that the story synopses were a bit too revealing, ruining the element of surprise to the point where I started skipping them entirely. Here's a brief (and spoiler-free!) description of the stories in this collection:
"Infinities" by Vandana Singh
If Lifetime ever takes over the SciFi channel, the resulting TV shows would look a lot like this story. A tale of a mathematician's sad life, with a lot of math and not a lot of science fiction. A bit of a downer and an odd choice as the anthology's opening story.
"Rogue Farm" by Charles Stross
A hilarious short story about hillbillies of the future, their pot-smoking dogs and rogue space-faring collective farms.
"The Gambler" by Paolo Bacigalupi
Another growth&development story, this time about a Laotian refugee. Well written, but the sci-fi elements almost seem to be an after-thought.
"Strood" by Neal Asher
What would our lives be like if super-advanced aliens came a-knocking? Neal Asher's story sounds more plausible than most - and it has a great twist!
"Eros, Philia, Agape" by Rachel Swirsky
A moving story about a woman, her robot lover, their daughter and the dynamics of that relationship.
"The Tale of the Wicked" by John Scalzi
A witty story about the dangers of making your spaceship too smart. An oldie but a goodie that originally appeared in the "The New Space Opera 2" anthology in 2009.
“Bread And Bombs” by M. Rickert
A disturbing story from the point of view of a kid growing up in a world plagued by a war fought with futuristic technology and people with atavistic prejudices.
“The Waters Of Meribah” by Tony Ballantyne
A creepy, slow-paced but enthralling story about a convicted rapist sentenced to get his human body replaced with an alien one, one part at a time.
“Tk’tk’tk” by David Levine
The adventures of a software salesman on an alien planet. And you thought communication barriers between humans were bad!
“The Nearest Thing” by Genevieve Valentine
A rather tragic tale of a programmer who creates robots capable of imitating your loved ones. The tone and the main character reminded me of the protagonist of Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.
“Erosion” by Ian Creasey
A supposedly deep story about a 22nd-century Brit who goes through extensive body modification to colonize a new world, goes soul-searching on his last night on Earth and gets in a world of trouble. Personally, I had a hard time buying the emotional epiphany at the end - it felt as fake as Nathan Petrelli's sudden religious awakening in season 3 of Heroes.
“The Calculus Plague” by Marissa Lingen
A great concept that isn't fully developed. The story abruptly ends without any resolution.
“One Of Our Bastards Is Missing” by Paul Cornell
An interesting story set in a futuristic world where the 19th-century empires never collapsed. This is the second story in the series, which is probably why certain things aren't fully explained. Still a good story, though.
“Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear
A moving story about the friendship between a dying combat robot and a feral teenager.
“Finisterra” by David Moles
If you like science fiction stories that build entire worlds and populate them with strange alien creatures, you'll love this one. This story is a bit like Moby Dick, except it's set in space. On a Jupiter-like planet. Oh, and the whales are miles long and know how to fly.
“Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal
A great exercise in creative writing, this micro-short story tells more in less than 1,000 words than most writers can fit in 10,000.
“The Education Of Junior Number 12″" by Madeline Ashby
A tie-in to Ashby's novel "vN" but it works perfectly fine as a stand-alone story. What happens to all the benevolent, unquestioning, slave-like self-replicating humanoid robots when the end of the world they'd been designed for fails to materialize?
“Toy Planes” by Tobias Buckell
Another micro-short story - this one is about an island nation that wants to join the space race. Not a lot of hard sci-fi here, more like a tale of independence
“The Algorithms For Love” by Ken Liu
A sad tale of what can happen when a brilliant expert on artificial intelligence becomes disillusioned in the very concept of intelligence, as well as free will.
“The Albian Message” by Oliver Morton
Yet another micro-short story. If super-advanced aliens left us a present a few million years ago, what would be in it?
“To Hie From Far Cilenia” by Karl Schroeder
One of the stories from the 2010 "Metatropolis" anthology. It's the longest story in this anthology and describes a complex near-future world where a Russian expert on radiation containment working for Interpol explores a vast underground virtual economy and the ethics of hijacking people's minds for their own good.
“Savant Songs” by Brenda Cooper
A brilliant autistic physicist tries to breach the walls of multiverse with her loyal assistant by her side. Told from the assistant's point of view, this story is equal parts about science fiction and relationships.
“Ikiryoh” by Liz Williams
A genetically engineered nanny (for some reason, I kept imagining her as Jar Jar Binks) exiled after a palace revolt is told to watch over a mysterious little girl. The story's take on the yin-yang balance isn't new, but the world it's set in is pretty interesting.
“The Prophet Of Flores” by Ted Kosmatka
If you like stories about alternate history, you'll love this one. In this story's world, Darwin's theory of evolution is considered a lie, all science is based on creationism and the main character, a young anthropologist/archaeologist, doesn't do what you'd expect him to.
“How To Become A Mars Overlord” by Catherynne M. Valente
A fun story told as an instruction manual for all the wannabe-overlords. It describes the many ways in which humans (and exotic aliens) have taken over Mars - or their local alien equivalents.
“Second Person, Present Tense” by Daryl Gregory
Most science fiction stories concentrate on the fiction part. This one goes against the trend and explores the science aspect. An all-too-believable story about the nature of human identity, a drug that takes away your conscious decision-making process and what can happen when you overdose on it.
“Third Day Lights” by Alaya Dawn Johnson
***DO NOT READ the anthology's synopsis for this story - it spoils one of the biggest surprises!***
One of my favorite stories in the anthology, it features a strange pocket universe and a moody alien queen with her quirky friends, as well as a mysterious not-quite-human man who wishes to court the queen by passing her 3 challenges.
“Balancing Accounts” by James Cambias
An interesting story where every main character is a space-faring robot. The protagonist is an entrepreneurial robot that does odd jobs in order to make a 6% annual return for its owners/investors back on Earth. Things change when a human enters the picture...
“A Vector Alphabet Of Interstellar Travel” by Yoon Ha Lee
One of my favorite stories in the anthology: a series of creative descriptions of space-faring alien races and how their spaceships work. (Or don't work, in some cases.) Short, sweet and unusual.
“His Master’s Voice” by Hannu Rajaniemi
In an overcrowded world where immortality is cheap, it's up to a hyper-intelligent dog and a cat (armed with quantum claws and Russian missile launchers!) to save their imprisoned owner. A+ for creativity.
“Plotters And Shooters” by Kage Baker
"Lord of the Flies" meets "Ender's Game" in this story about nerds and jocks charged with protecting the human settlements on Mars from rogue asteroids.
“The Island” by Peter Watts
As hard sci-fi goes, this story is harder than a diamond: a cynical human crew on a slower-than-light starship controlled by a sociopathic AI spends millions of years traveling the universe, setting up new stargates and seeing entire civilizations, monsters and gods appear and die as they pass by. This story features their encounter with something that surprises even them.
“Escape To Other Worlds With Science Fiction” by Jo Walton
Yet another little present for all the lovers of alternate history out there. In this world, the Nazis won, the economic boom of the 1950s never happened and things look pretty bleak for the working class. (Though not as bleak as they do for minorities...) This story is set in Walton's alternate history trilogy, which has just earned the top spot on my "to read" list.
“Chicken Little” by Cory Doctorow
One of the longest (and most interesting, in my opinion) stories in this anthology. We all know how hard it is to buy a present for somebody who already has everything. What kind of a present (or better yet, pricey product) can you give to a functionally immortal quadrillionaire that's over 100 years old?
I'm taking 1 star off because of the odd story arrangement (weepy stories in the first half, great hard sci-fi in the back) and the fact that the story synopses were a bit too revealing, ruining the element of surprise to the point where I started skipping them entirely. Here's a brief (and spoiler-free!) description of the stories in this collection:
"Infinities" by Vandana Singh
If Lifetime ever takes over the SciFi channel, the resulting TV shows would look a lot like this story. A tale of a mathematician's sad life, with a lot of math and not a lot of science fiction. A bit of a downer and an odd choice as the anthology's opening story.
"Rogue Farm" by Charles Stross
A hilarious short story about hillbillies of the future, their pot-smoking dogs and rogue space-faring collective farms.
"The Gambler" by Paolo Bacigalupi
Another growth&development story, this time about a Laotian refugee. Well written, but the sci-fi elements almost seem to be an after-thought.
"Strood" by Neal Asher
What would our lives be like if super-advanced aliens came a-knocking? Neal Asher's story sounds more plausible than most - and it has a great twist!
"Eros, Philia, Agape" by Rachel Swirsky
A moving story about a woman, her robot lover, their daughter and the dynamics of that relationship.
"The Tale of the Wicked" by John Scalzi
A witty story about the dangers of making your spaceship too smart. An oldie but a goodie that originally appeared in the "The New Space Opera 2" anthology in 2009.
“Bread And Bombs” by M. Rickert
A disturbing story from the point of view of a kid growing up in a world plagued by a war fought with futuristic technology and people with atavistic prejudices.
“The Waters Of Meribah” by Tony Ballantyne
A creepy, slow-paced but enthralling story about a convicted rapist sentenced to get his human body replaced with an alien one, one part at a time.
“Tk’tk’tk” by David Levine
The adventures of a software salesman on an alien planet. And you thought communication barriers between humans were bad!
“The Nearest Thing” by Genevieve Valentine
A rather tragic tale of a programmer who creates robots capable of imitating your loved ones. The tone and the main character reminded me of the protagonist of Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.
“Erosion” by Ian Creasey
A supposedly deep story about a 22nd-century Brit who goes through extensive body modification to colonize a new world, goes soul-searching on his last night on Earth and gets in a world of trouble. Personally, I had a hard time buying the emotional epiphany at the end - it felt as fake as Nathan Petrelli's sudden religious awakening in season 3 of Heroes.
“The Calculus Plague” by Marissa Lingen
A great concept that isn't fully developed. The story abruptly ends without any resolution.
“One Of Our Bastards Is Missing” by Paul Cornell
An interesting story set in a futuristic world where the 19th-century empires never collapsed. This is the second story in the series, which is probably why certain things aren't fully explained. Still a good story, though.
“Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear
A moving story about the friendship between a dying combat robot and a feral teenager.
“Finisterra” by David Moles
If you like science fiction stories that build entire worlds and populate them with strange alien creatures, you'll love this one. This story is a bit like Moby Dick, except it's set in space. On a Jupiter-like planet. Oh, and the whales are miles long and know how to fly.
“Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal
A great exercise in creative writing, this micro-short story tells more in less than 1,000 words than most writers can fit in 10,000.
“The Education Of Junior Number 12″" by Madeline Ashby
A tie-in to Ashby's novel "vN" but it works perfectly fine as a stand-alone story. What happens to all the benevolent, unquestioning, slave-like self-replicating humanoid robots when the end of the world they'd been designed for fails to materialize?
“Toy Planes” by Tobias Buckell
Another micro-short story - this one is about an island nation that wants to join the space race. Not a lot of hard sci-fi here, more like a tale of independence
“The Algorithms For Love” by Ken Liu
A sad tale of what can happen when a brilliant expert on artificial intelligence becomes disillusioned in the very concept of intelligence, as well as free will.
“The Albian Message” by Oliver Morton
Yet another micro-short story. If super-advanced aliens left us a present a few million years ago, what would be in it?
“To Hie From Far Cilenia” by Karl Schroeder
One of the stories from the 2010 "Metatropolis" anthology. It's the longest story in this anthology and describes a complex near-future world where a Russian expert on radiation containment working for Interpol explores a vast underground virtual economy and the ethics of hijacking people's minds for their own good.
“Savant Songs” by Brenda Cooper
A brilliant autistic physicist tries to breach the walls of multiverse with her loyal assistant by her side. Told from the assistant's point of view, this story is equal parts about science fiction and relationships.
“Ikiryoh” by Liz Williams
A genetically engineered nanny (for some reason, I kept imagining her as Jar Jar Binks) exiled after a palace revolt is told to watch over a mysterious little girl. The story's take on the yin-yang balance isn't new, but the world it's set in is pretty interesting.
“The Prophet Of Flores” by Ted Kosmatka
If you like stories about alternate history, you'll love this one. In this story's world, Darwin's theory of evolution is considered a lie, all science is based on creationism and the main character, a young anthropologist/archaeologist, doesn't do what you'd expect him to.
“How To Become A Mars Overlord” by Catherynne M. Valente
A fun story told as an instruction manual for all the wannabe-overlords. It describes the many ways in which humans (and exotic aliens) have taken over Mars - or their local alien equivalents.
“Second Person, Present Tense” by Daryl Gregory
Most science fiction stories concentrate on the fiction part. This one goes against the trend and explores the science aspect. An all-too-believable story about the nature of human identity, a drug that takes away your conscious decision-making process and what can happen when you overdose on it.
“Third Day Lights” by Alaya Dawn Johnson
***DO NOT READ the anthology's synopsis for this story - it spoils one of the biggest surprises!***
One of my favorite stories in the anthology, it features a strange pocket universe and a moody alien queen with her quirky friends, as well as a mysterious not-quite-human man who wishes to court the queen by passing her 3 challenges.
“Balancing Accounts” by James Cambias
An interesting story where every main character is a space-faring robot. The protagonist is an entrepreneurial robot that does odd jobs in order to make a 6% annual return for its owners/investors back on Earth. Things change when a human enters the picture...
“A Vector Alphabet Of Interstellar Travel” by Yoon Ha Lee
One of my favorite stories in the anthology: a series of creative descriptions of space-faring alien races and how their spaceships work. (Or don't work, in some cases.) Short, sweet and unusual.
“His Master’s Voice” by Hannu Rajaniemi
In an overcrowded world where immortality is cheap, it's up to a hyper-intelligent dog and a cat (armed with quantum claws and Russian missile launchers!) to save their imprisoned owner. A+ for creativity.
“Plotters And Shooters” by Kage Baker
"Lord of the Flies" meets "Ender's Game" in this story about nerds and jocks charged with protecting the human settlements on Mars from rogue asteroids.
“The Island” by Peter Watts
As hard sci-fi goes, this story is harder than a diamond: a cynical human crew on a slower-than-light starship controlled by a sociopathic AI spends millions of years traveling the universe, setting up new stargates and seeing entire civilizations, monsters and gods appear and die as they pass by. This story features their encounter with something that surprises even them.
“Escape To Other Worlds With Science Fiction” by Jo Walton
Yet another little present for all the lovers of alternate history out there. In this world, the Nazis won, the economic boom of the 1950s never happened and things look pretty bleak for the working class. (Though not as bleak as they do for minorities...) This story is set in Walton's alternate history trilogy, which has just earned the top spot on my "to read" list.
“Chicken Little” by Cory Doctorow
One of the longest (and most interesting, in my opinion) stories in this anthology. We all know how hard it is to buy a present for somebody who already has everything. What kind of a present (or better yet, pricey product) can you give to a functionally immortal quadrillionaire that's over 100 years old?
September 7, 2016
Charlie Jane Anders recommended this, along with a number of other anthologies, on i09, and I can see why. It's packed full of excellent science fiction stories. I've been reading anthologies lately, partly to improve my own short story writing, and this is the best I've found so far.
With two exceptions, which I'll talk about in a moment, the 34 stories in this volume reminded me of how I first encountered SF while growing up: mind-expanding, excellently written, absorbing, thought-provoking, putting the "speculative" in "speculative fiction". They mostly take current science as a starting point and ask an intriguing "what if", at the same time telling an engaging human story - even if the main characters often aren't, by our current definitions, human. We have androids, AIs, an enhanced ape, posthumans and aliens here, and they're delightful.
Although I wouldn't call most of the stories optimistic, they're not the SF equivalent of grimdark fantasy either. SF can all too easily go down the dystopian and alienated route to nihilism, which isn't a kind of story I enjoy. Even when things go terribly wrong - and they do - these stories retain, if not hope exactly, at least a commitment to the idea that life is somehow meaningful, that connection to other beings exists and is worthwhile.
SF has become deeper and wider since the old days, and there's now a strong "literary" wing, represented by magazines like Lightspeed and Clarkesworld. For my taste, those magazines often go too far towards lit-fic, at the cost of story, character and meaning (and speculativeness, frequently). The stories in this collection seem to be mainly up at the other end of the spectrum. The editors don't tell us where most of them were originally published, which I feel is an unfortunate omission that makes it harder for readers to find other, similar stories, but I would bet that a lot of them came to us first via Asimov's, F&SF, Analog and TOR.com.
The other editorial decision that I found odd is the inclusion of explanations of what the stories are about at the start of them, along with an introduction to the author. I would have preferred to find out what they were about for myself.
Although the approach to story is, in most cases, the more classical one in which characters with agency face conflict and there's some sort of resolution at the end, these are not, by any means, throwback stories which could have been written 50 years ago (a type of story which Asimov's, for one, tends to publish). For one thing, contemporary science is often key to the story problem. Contemporary issues, too, are visible in many of the stories, though few of them deal with issues of race, sexuality or gender identity, something which is more common on the Lightspeed/Clarkesworld end of the SF spectrum. We do get terrorism, advertising, privacy, increasing integration of human life with technology, and other such themes.
I mentioned that there were two stories that didn't work so well for me. The first was John Scalzi's "The Tale of the Wicked". I read Scalzi's blog sometimes, and I generally agree with what he says, though sometimes how he says it could do with some extra thought. I'm no fan of his fiction, though, and this story epitomises why. Although some of his characters have women's names, and some of them have non-Western names, they are the opposite of "diverse": they're indistinguishable. Every character of Scalzi's, in anything I've read of his (one novel, one novella, and this short story), sounds completely identical, sounds, in fact, exactly like Scalzi does on his blog. Since he never describes anyone even with a single word, they might as well look identical as well. Far from having cultural differences, they don't even have individual differences; they're not just cardboard cutouts, they're multiple copies of the same cardboard cutout. Their environment is equally undescribed and generic. And this story, along with most of his others, employs a trope that was old and tired before Scalzi was born: interstellar war against the aliens.
It's also the only story in the volume in which I noticed more than one copy editing error. Some of the other stories have errors that are worse (one has "breaking" instead of "braking", while the errors here are more sloppy typos and the occasional tense issue), but this one story contains more than half of the errors I noticed in the whole volume, despite making up about 4% of the page count.
The other story that didn't work for me is "How to Become a Mars Overlord" by Catherynne M. Valente. It's possible to write a short piece that doesn't have an actual story and make it work; Yoon Ha Lee does it in this volume, in "A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel". But "Mars Overlord" doesn't pull it off. It has references to multiple stories, which sound interesting, but they're not told, just alluded to, and the whole thing is so weighted down with self-consciously evocative language that I ended up skipping to the end, or, more accurately, to the point at which it stopped. No other piece in this volume even tempted me to skim, but this one I wish I'd skipped altogether.
If we ignore those two, there are 32 excellent stories in this collection, more than the average number for an anthology, and certainly far better than the average story. It made me enthusiastic about SF again, and confident that the field is in vigorous health and excellent hands.
I got it from my local library, because the Kindle edition is $14.44 on Amazon. That's an absurd price for an ebook, but this collection is almost worth it.
With two exceptions, which I'll talk about in a moment, the 34 stories in this volume reminded me of how I first encountered SF while growing up: mind-expanding, excellently written, absorbing, thought-provoking, putting the "speculative" in "speculative fiction". They mostly take current science as a starting point and ask an intriguing "what if", at the same time telling an engaging human story - even if the main characters often aren't, by our current definitions, human. We have androids, AIs, an enhanced ape, posthumans and aliens here, and they're delightful.
Although I wouldn't call most of the stories optimistic, they're not the SF equivalent of grimdark fantasy either. SF can all too easily go down the dystopian and alienated route to nihilism, which isn't a kind of story I enjoy. Even when things go terribly wrong - and they do - these stories retain, if not hope exactly, at least a commitment to the idea that life is somehow meaningful, that connection to other beings exists and is worthwhile.
SF has become deeper and wider since the old days, and there's now a strong "literary" wing, represented by magazines like Lightspeed and Clarkesworld. For my taste, those magazines often go too far towards lit-fic, at the cost of story, character and meaning (and speculativeness, frequently). The stories in this collection seem to be mainly up at the other end of the spectrum. The editors don't tell us where most of them were originally published, which I feel is an unfortunate omission that makes it harder for readers to find other, similar stories, but I would bet that a lot of them came to us first via Asimov's, F&SF, Analog and TOR.com.
The other editorial decision that I found odd is the inclusion of explanations of what the stories are about at the start of them, along with an introduction to the author. I would have preferred to find out what they were about for myself.
Although the approach to story is, in most cases, the more classical one in which characters with agency face conflict and there's some sort of resolution at the end, these are not, by any means, throwback stories which could have been written 50 years ago (a type of story which Asimov's, for one, tends to publish). For one thing, contemporary science is often key to the story problem. Contemporary issues, too, are visible in many of the stories, though few of them deal with issues of race, sexuality or gender identity, something which is more common on the Lightspeed/Clarkesworld end of the SF spectrum. We do get terrorism, advertising, privacy, increasing integration of human life with technology, and other such themes.
I mentioned that there were two stories that didn't work so well for me. The first was John Scalzi's "The Tale of the Wicked". I read Scalzi's blog sometimes, and I generally agree with what he says, though sometimes how he says it could do with some extra thought. I'm no fan of his fiction, though, and this story epitomises why. Although some of his characters have women's names, and some of them have non-Western names, they are the opposite of "diverse": they're indistinguishable. Every character of Scalzi's, in anything I've read of his (one novel, one novella, and this short story), sounds completely identical, sounds, in fact, exactly like Scalzi does on his blog. Since he never describes anyone even with a single word, they might as well look identical as well. Far from having cultural differences, they don't even have individual differences; they're not just cardboard cutouts, they're multiple copies of the same cardboard cutout. Their environment is equally undescribed and generic. And this story, along with most of his others, employs a trope that was old and tired before Scalzi was born: interstellar war against the aliens.
It's also the only story in the volume in which I noticed more than one copy editing error. Some of the other stories have errors that are worse (one has "breaking" instead of "braking", while the errors here are more sloppy typos and the occasional tense issue), but this one story contains more than half of the errors I noticed in the whole volume, despite making up about 4% of the page count.
The other story that didn't work for me is "How to Become a Mars Overlord" by Catherynne M. Valente. It's possible to write a short piece that doesn't have an actual story and make it work; Yoon Ha Lee does it in this volume, in "A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel". But "Mars Overlord" doesn't pull it off. It has references to multiple stories, which sound interesting, but they're not told, just alluded to, and the whole thing is so weighted down with self-consciously evocative language that I ended up skipping to the end, or, more accurately, to the point at which it stopped. No other piece in this volume even tempted me to skim, but this one I wish I'd skipped altogether.
If we ignore those two, there are 32 excellent stories in this collection, more than the average number for an anthology, and certainly far better than the average story. It made me enthusiastic about SF again, and confident that the field is in vigorous health and excellent hands.
I got it from my local library, because the Kindle edition is $14.44 on Amazon. That's an absurd price for an ebook, but this collection is almost worth it.
November 15, 2020
After reading some classic scifi by Asamov and Clarke from decades ago, I wanted to jump ahead and explore modern works. I also wanted to take a break from the longer-form novels and nonfiction books I was reading. There’s something so satisfying and beautifully compact about the short story format.
This book delivered exactly what its title promises. The 34 selected stories showcase a great diversity of themes, writing styles, and lengths: some are just two pages while others are more like novellas. I really liked the author summaries the anthology collectors provided at the beginning of each story.
I give the collection overall 4 stars. Not that many stories blew my mind, but I enjoyed mostly all of them.
My top 10 favorites in descending order:
*Honorable Mention: Bread and Bombs by M. Rickert*
I was totally shocked by the twist at the end. Although Mary Rickert wrote this after observing the fear-based xenophobia that took hold in America directly after 9/11, sadly it feels very salient in 2020, too.
*10. Erosion by Ian Creasey*
I’m learning that my favorite scifi stories explore questions around what it means to be human. Erosion explores a world where humans are much further along in merging our bodies with technology, and asks: At what point do we cease to remain human and start becoming something else?
*9. The Prophet of Flores by Ted Kosmatka*
Whew, what a ride. I don’t think this story executed all of what it set out to do, but it explored an idea that was intriguing and new enough to earn a spot on my list.
*8. Tideline by Elizabeth Bear*
I didn’t love this story for its hardcore “scifi” elements but because it’s a super well-written and touching story. It delivers a timeless message.
*7. Eros, Philia, Agape by Rachel Swirsky*
This story reminded me a lot of a question asked in social justice circles: what would it be like to live in a world devoid of white supremacy? The disappointing answer is, well, we’ll never know, will we? Unless someone figures out a way to hit “reset” on the past five hundred years of history, its remnants will always be around us. We have to learn to evolve from it instead.
This story isn’t about social justice in any way. But it is about an AI that becomes a fully realized self-possessed being and wonders how to figure out the truth of what it is. It asks itself: how can I figure out what I truly am, knowing that I am not a human, but that I was created in the image of humans? Will I always live in their shadow? Will I ever have true free will until I can figure this out?
*6. The Gambler by Paulo Bacigalupi*
This is the kind of story that’s scary because it feels like it could actually happen. And I’m a sucker for maverick characters who refuse to compromise what they feel is right in order to adapt and survive in a messed up world.
*5. The Waters of Meribah by Tony Ballantyne*
I have to admit, I won’t be rereading this story because it’s an enjoyable read. But it does ask some really daring, new questions. Kind of reminds me of the adage that to discover new ideas, you have to go where other people haven’t or are unwilling to go.
*4. A Vector Alphabet Of Interstellar Travel by Yoon Ha Lee*
Yoon Ha Lee has said about her storywriting style: "If I am doing my job correctly as a writer, I am structuring my story around a series of ambushes and trying to deliver as much punishment as possible. Especially by punishing bad assumptions that the reader makes. This is probably a hostile and adversary stance to take toward the reader, but if I try to conceive of it in the collaborative way, I get bored and wander off." I love this stance on storytelling, and she demonstrates it masterfully in this story. The story has fascinating takes on what different alien life forms could look like.
*3. To Hie From Far Cilenia by Karl Schroeder*
This story convinced me that eventually, there WILL be virtual worlds with their own politics and economies that exist completely outside of the structure of the nation-state as we know it today. As far as the caper that drives the plot forward and the multifaceted characters, they felt more like vestigial vehicles to illustrate these enthralling possibilities. Sort of how french fries are a vehicle to get ketchup into my mouth? Like that.
*2. The Albian Message by Oliver Morton*
Super short story, just 2-3 pages. But Morton is still able to deliver a novel, believable take on what an intelligent extraterrestrial’s “first contact” message could hold.
*1. The Island by Peter Watts*
What can I say about Peter Watts? Probably my favorite modern scifi writer. I loved his novel “Blindsight”, had heard great things about this short story and it lived up to the hype. Of course, he is what people warn as a very “hard” science fiction writer. I had to read the story three times to make sense of it and even then have a list of terms I need to Google.
One thing I love about him is that his stories do illustrate crazy, compelling ideas, yes, but I also love the plots that drive these points forward, and the characters he creates. A rare overall combo for scifi.
*Other notes/observations:*
Did anyone else notice how “The Algorithms For Love” by Ken Liu directly references “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang? That “Let’s make a baby” moment. It’s so obvious to me yet I couldn’t find anyone on blogs or reviews online that pointed it out.
This book delivered exactly what its title promises. The 34 selected stories showcase a great diversity of themes, writing styles, and lengths: some are just two pages while others are more like novellas. I really liked the author summaries the anthology collectors provided at the beginning of each story.
I give the collection overall 4 stars. Not that many stories blew my mind, but I enjoyed mostly all of them.
My top 10 favorites in descending order:
*Honorable Mention: Bread and Bombs by M. Rickert*
I was totally shocked by the twist at the end. Although Mary Rickert wrote this after observing the fear-based xenophobia that took hold in America directly after 9/11, sadly it feels very salient in 2020, too.
*10. Erosion by Ian Creasey*
I’m learning that my favorite scifi stories explore questions around what it means to be human. Erosion explores a world where humans are much further along in merging our bodies with technology, and asks: At what point do we cease to remain human and start becoming something else?
*9. The Prophet of Flores by Ted Kosmatka*
Whew, what a ride. I don’t think this story executed all of what it set out to do, but it explored an idea that was intriguing and new enough to earn a spot on my list.
*8. Tideline by Elizabeth Bear*
I didn’t love this story for its hardcore “scifi” elements but because it’s a super well-written and touching story. It delivers a timeless message.
*7. Eros, Philia, Agape by Rachel Swirsky*
This story reminded me a lot of a question asked in social justice circles: what would it be like to live in a world devoid of white supremacy? The disappointing answer is, well, we’ll never know, will we? Unless someone figures out a way to hit “reset” on the past five hundred years of history, its remnants will always be around us. We have to learn to evolve from it instead.
This story isn’t about social justice in any way. But it is about an AI that becomes a fully realized self-possessed being and wonders how to figure out the truth of what it is. It asks itself: how can I figure out what I truly am, knowing that I am not a human, but that I was created in the image of humans? Will I always live in their shadow? Will I ever have true free will until I can figure this out?
*6. The Gambler by Paulo Bacigalupi*
This is the kind of story that’s scary because it feels like it could actually happen. And I’m a sucker for maverick characters who refuse to compromise what they feel is right in order to adapt and survive in a messed up world.
*5. The Waters of Meribah by Tony Ballantyne*
I have to admit, I won’t be rereading this story because it’s an enjoyable read. But it does ask some really daring, new questions. Kind of reminds me of the adage that to discover new ideas, you have to go where other people haven’t or are unwilling to go.
*4. A Vector Alphabet Of Interstellar Travel by Yoon Ha Lee*
Yoon Ha Lee has said about her storywriting style: "If I am doing my job correctly as a writer, I am structuring my story around a series of ambushes and trying to deliver as much punishment as possible. Especially by punishing bad assumptions that the reader makes. This is probably a hostile and adversary stance to take toward the reader, but if I try to conceive of it in the collaborative way, I get bored and wander off." I love this stance on storytelling, and she demonstrates it masterfully in this story. The story has fascinating takes on what different alien life forms could look like.
*3. To Hie From Far Cilenia by Karl Schroeder*
This story convinced me that eventually, there WILL be virtual worlds with their own politics and economies that exist completely outside of the structure of the nation-state as we know it today. As far as the caper that drives the plot forward and the multifaceted characters, they felt more like vestigial vehicles to illustrate these enthralling possibilities. Sort of how french fries are a vehicle to get ketchup into my mouth? Like that.
*2. The Albian Message by Oliver Morton*
Super short story, just 2-3 pages. But Morton is still able to deliver a novel, believable take on what an intelligent extraterrestrial’s “first contact” message could hold.
*1. The Island by Peter Watts*
What can I say about Peter Watts? Probably my favorite modern scifi writer. I loved his novel “Blindsight”, had heard great things about this short story and it lived up to the hype. Of course, he is what people warn as a very “hard” science fiction writer. I had to read the story three times to make sense of it and even then have a list of terms I need to Google.
One thing I love about him is that his stories do illustrate crazy, compelling ideas, yes, but I also love the plots that drive these points forward, and the characters he creates. A rare overall combo for scifi.
*Other notes/observations:*
Did anyone else notice how “The Algorithms For Love” by Ken Liu directly references “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang? That “Let’s make a baby” moment. It’s so obvious to me yet I couldn’t find anyone on blogs or reviews online that pointed it out.
March 31, 2021
Great collection of stories. Ranges in terms of the degree of Science-Fiction that is written, but they are all rather good. Some misses, as to be expected, but not enough to ruin the whole collection.
February 21, 2023
21ST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION.
RATED 88% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE 3.91 OF 5
34 STORIES : 6 GREAT / 21 GOOD / 6 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 1 DNF
An anthology like this one is a great jumping off point. Thirty-four stories from “by what we believe are some of the best science fiction writers that came to prominence since the twentieth century changed into the twenty-first.” Published in 2013, each author in this book has assembled a body of work worth exploring. Some have become household names in the pantheon of modern science fiction.
This is more than a sampler book, however, it is a great reading experience. The stories seem to sit in a moment still inspired by the literary history of the genre, influenced by the rise of computers and some internet, and not yet corrupted by the Puppies scandal and the backlash to it.
Superbly enjoyable reading and 6 stories that add to the Great List:
Eros, Philia, Agape • (2009) • novelette by Rachel Swirsky
A woman has selected a robot as a husband, but when he gets the right to freedom, his first decision is destroy his capacity for speech and leave the relationship. A nice gender-swapped version of the classic robot lovers story.
Tk'tk'tk • (2005) • short story by David D. Levine
The ‘life of a salesman’ on a world of Bug aliens. A wonderfully weird take on a classic theme from literature. I feel every bit of the salesman’s frustration as he tried to navigate and prosper is a world of weird social cues.
To Hie from Far Cilenia • [Gennady] • (2008) • novella by Karl Schroeder
A superb cyberpunk adventure where Gennady is enlisted to hunt missing nukes, but the catch is that it is layers upon layers of augmented reality worlds. The way these alternate world overlap real cities and way people interact with them elevates this detective story.
Second Person, Present Tense • (2005) • novelette by Daryl Gregory
One of my favorite science fiction stories of the 21st century. There is a new dangerous drug that allows the users personallty to ‘disconnect’ from their body, letting the body itself drive. Sometimes the main personality isn’t able to get back. This is a wonderfully economical and human short story of a family dealing with a daughter who has overdosed and now someone new is in their daughter’s body.
A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel • (2011) • short story by Yoon Ha Lee
A brilliant short bit of writing about space travel best described by posting the opening. “Among the universe’s civilizations, some conceive of the journey between stars as the sailing of bright ships, and others as tunneling through the crevices of night. Some look upon their far-voyaging as a migratory imperative, and name their vessels after birds or butterflies.”
His Master's Voice • (2008) • short story by Hannu Rajaniemi
An uplifted dog and cat go on an exciting adventure to rescue the head of their Master and get revenge on the people that harmed him. I loved every bit of this!
* * *
Infinities • (2008) • novelette by Vandana Singh
Good. An elderly Indian Muslim man contemplates high level mathematics and the natural of infinity. Set against a backtrop of Hindu/Muslim violence.
Rogue Farm • (2003) • short story by Charles Stross
Good. A husband and wife work to drive off a “farm,” a grotesque being made of human and mechanical parts.
The Gambler • (2008) • novelette by Paolo Bacigalupi
Good. Tale of the pressures of ‘journalism” in the bleeding edge future. A Laotian immigrant is working in a fast-paced digital newsroom writing the kind of stories that he finds important, but don’t get clicks in the digital Maelstrom.
Strood • (2004) • short story by Neal Asher
Good. Aliens (Mugulls - mucus seagulls) have come to earth and are easily healing humanities illnesses. Except for one man who is instead given a ticket to a spacestation and is immediately attacks by an alien who wants to eat him. But things aren’t as the seem in this quirky story.
Eros, Philia, Agape • (2009) • novelette by Rachel Swirsky
Great. A woman has selected a robot as a husband, but when he gets the right to freedom, his first decision is destroy his capacity for speech and leave the relationship. A nice gender-swapped version of the classic robot lovers story.
The Tale of the Wicked • (2009) • novelette by John Scalzi
Good. Two warring spaceships are immobilized in space when their ship’s A.I. discovers Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.
Bread and Bombs • (2003) • short story by M. Rickert
Average. A muddy, blurred look at intolerance in wartime. Told through the eyes of children.
The Waters of Meribah • (2003) • short story by Tony Ballantyne
Good. Creepy short story of a criminal who is slowly having his body replaced with alien parts as punishment for his crime.
Tk'tk'tk • (2005) • short story by David D. Levine
Great. The ‘life of a salesman’ on a world of Bug aliens. A wonderfully weird take on a classic theme from literature. I feel every bit of the salesman’s frustration as he tried to navigate and prosper is a world of weird social cues.
The Nearest Thing • (2011) • novelette by Genevieve Valentine
Good. A brilliant writer of code is brought into a project with a charismatic partner/rival and his strangely unengaged female coworker. Slowly the program becomes increasingly serious and possibly both important and dangerous.
Erosion • (2009) • short story by Ian Creasey
Good. Just dressed in a new exo-suit, a man takes one last walk along the English coast before leaving the doomed planet for the stars. Interesting and melancholy story of the last moments before a permanent journey.
The Calculus Plague • (2009) • short story by Marissa Lingen
Good. This story has a superb concept, but lacks a little in the story department. The central idea is a that designer viruses are created that impart information into the minds of people they infect. It is one thing when it is Calculus or musical aptitude, but another entirely when it is violent trauma.
One of Our Bastards Is Missing • [Jonathan Hamilton • 2] • (2009) • novelette by Paul Cornell
Average. A complicated alternate history has a Prussian official disappear by slipping into a fold in space-time. It is a both too complicated and too simplistic for me to get any sort of grasp on it.
Tideline • (2007) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
Good. A dying War Machine scavenges the beach for stones to build a burial necklace and befriends a ragged child.
Finisterra • (2007) • novelette by David Moles
Good. The continents ride on the backs of enormous animals and our character has taken a job to kill one of them.
Evil Robot Monkey • (2008) • short story by Mary Robinette Kowal
Good. The challenges of being a chimpanzee with augmented intelligence. Too smart for the other chimps and too ape to be around humanity.
The Education of Junior Number 12 • [Machine Dynasties] • (2011) • novelette by Madeline Ashby
Average. A self replicating human is in their 12 iteration. The story meanders through the speed of robot education, sex with humans, and a interesting application of Asimov’s Three Laws.
Toy Planes • (2005) • short story by Tobias S. Buckell
Good. A simple vignette of an astronaut from a Caribbean nation who must cut off his dreadlocks to take part in a rocket launch. Deals with some of the great themes and directions of 21st century SciFi.
The Algorithms for Love • (2004) • short story by Ken Liu
Good. The inventor of a series of robot dolls has trouble dealing with humans in the real world after a stint in the hospital. Told through flashbacks throughout the woman’s life.
The Albian Message • (2005) • short story by Oliver Morton
Good. A scientist writes a message that preparation is needed for what is likely to be found within a pyramid on an asteroid.
To Hie from Far Cilenia • [Gennady] • (2008) • novella by Karl Schroeder
Great. A superb cyberpunk adventure where Gennady is enlisted to hunt missing nukes, but the catch is that it is layers upon layers of augmented reality worlds. The way these alternate world overlap real cities and way people interact with them elevates this detective story.
Savant Songs • (2004) • short story by Brenda Cooper
Good. A love story between two scientists, one of which is a brilliant savant, who are trying to discover multiple universes.
Ikiryoh • (2005) • short story by Liz Williams
Average. Genetically engineered animal people, Asian courtly intrigue, and young child with a mysterious prestige and importance.
The Prophet of Flores • (2007) • novelette by Ted Kosmatka
Good. A suspenseful story of a world where evolution was quickly disproved when the world was dated to approximately 6000 years old. But deep in the jungle, there has been a discovery have might contradict that, but there are many people who want to keep the evidence hidden.
How to Become a Mars Overlord • (2010) • short story by Catherynne M. Valente
Average. The kind of simple article-as-story that rarely works for me. The ‘story’ is the non-fiction entry for an instruction that is listed in the title. Occasionally humorous..
Second Person, Present Tense • (2005) • novelette by Daryl Gregory
Great. One of my favorite science fiction stories of the 21st century. There is a new dangerous drug that allows the users personallty to ‘disconnect’ from their body, letting the body itself drive. Sometimes the main personality isn’t able to get back. This is a wonderfully economical and human short story of a family dealing with a daughter who has overdosed and now someone new is in their daughter’s body.
Third Day Lights • (2005) • novelette by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Good. An alien/wizard/god who can shapeshift narrates this baroque apocalyptic tale of a powerful traveler who come to accomplish three tasks. There is some smart sci-fi twists at the end of what feels like horror fantasy throughout.
Balancing Accounts ��� (2008) • short story by James L. Cambias
Good. A really fun bit of space opera where almost every character is a robot. A small and poor transport vessel gets conned into taking some ‘hot’ cargo on board and it feels like everyone is now trying to stop him.
A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel • (2011) • short story by Yoon Ha Lee
Great. A brilliant short bit of writing about space travel best described by posting the opening. “Among the universe’s civilizations, some conceive of the journey between stars as the sailing of bright ships, and others as tunneling through the crevices of night. Some look upon their far-voyaging as a migratory imperative, and name their vessels after birds or butterflies.”
His Master's Voice • (2008) • short story by Hannu Rajaniemi
Great. An uplifted dog and cat go on an exciting adventure to rescue the head of their Master and get revenge on the people that harmed him. I loved every bit of this!
Plotters and Shooters • [Mars (Kage Baker)] • (2007) • novelette by Kage Baker
DNF. So stilted and boring with comparisons between two tier of military people (I think) that I bounced off hard and early.
The Island • [Sunflower Cycle] • (2009) • novelette by Peter Watts
Good. They built the paths by which others travel throughout space, but what happens when a giant life form is in the way.
Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction • [Small Change] • (2009) • short story by Jo Walton
Average. Snippets from an alternate history where the UK sides with Germany and the New Deal failed to end the Great Depression. Sorely underdeveloped. What is here is interesting, but there isn’t much here. The title is nonsense.
Chicken Little • (2009) • novella by Cory Doctorow
Good. A man’s journey to try to sell something to a uber-rich brain-in-a-jar. The challenges are internal corporate politics and that fact that coming up with something truly new to sell is nearly impossible.
RATED 88% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE 3.91 OF 5
34 STORIES : 6 GREAT / 21 GOOD / 6 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 1 DNF
An anthology like this one is a great jumping off point. Thirty-four stories from “by what we believe are some of the best science fiction writers that came to prominence since the twentieth century changed into the twenty-first.” Published in 2013, each author in this book has assembled a body of work worth exploring. Some have become household names in the pantheon of modern science fiction.
This is more than a sampler book, however, it is a great reading experience. The stories seem to sit in a moment still inspired by the literary history of the genre, influenced by the rise of computers and some internet, and not yet corrupted by the Puppies scandal and the backlash to it.
Superbly enjoyable reading and 6 stories that add to the Great List:
Eros, Philia, Agape • (2009) • novelette by Rachel Swirsky
A woman has selected a robot as a husband, but when he gets the right to freedom, his first decision is destroy his capacity for speech and leave the relationship. A nice gender-swapped version of the classic robot lovers story.
Tk'tk'tk • (2005) • short story by David D. Levine
The ‘life of a salesman’ on a world of Bug aliens. A wonderfully weird take on a classic theme from literature. I feel every bit of the salesman’s frustration as he tried to navigate and prosper is a world of weird social cues.
To Hie from Far Cilenia • [Gennady] • (2008) • novella by Karl Schroeder
A superb cyberpunk adventure where Gennady is enlisted to hunt missing nukes, but the catch is that it is layers upon layers of augmented reality worlds. The way these alternate world overlap real cities and way people interact with them elevates this detective story.
Second Person, Present Tense • (2005) • novelette by Daryl Gregory
One of my favorite science fiction stories of the 21st century. There is a new dangerous drug that allows the users personallty to ‘disconnect’ from their body, letting the body itself drive. Sometimes the main personality isn’t able to get back. This is a wonderfully economical and human short story of a family dealing with a daughter who has overdosed and now someone new is in their daughter’s body.
A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel • (2011) • short story by Yoon Ha Lee
A brilliant short bit of writing about space travel best described by posting the opening. “Among the universe’s civilizations, some conceive of the journey between stars as the sailing of bright ships, and others as tunneling through the crevices of night. Some look upon their far-voyaging as a migratory imperative, and name their vessels after birds or butterflies.”
His Master's Voice • (2008) • short story by Hannu Rajaniemi
An uplifted dog and cat go on an exciting adventure to rescue the head of their Master and get revenge on the people that harmed him. I loved every bit of this!
* * *
Infinities • (2008) • novelette by Vandana Singh
Good. An elderly Indian Muslim man contemplates high level mathematics and the natural of infinity. Set against a backtrop of Hindu/Muslim violence.
Rogue Farm • (2003) • short story by Charles Stross
Good. A husband and wife work to drive off a “farm,” a grotesque being made of human and mechanical parts.
The Gambler • (2008) • novelette by Paolo Bacigalupi
Good. Tale of the pressures of ‘journalism” in the bleeding edge future. A Laotian immigrant is working in a fast-paced digital newsroom writing the kind of stories that he finds important, but don’t get clicks in the digital Maelstrom.
Strood • (2004) • short story by Neal Asher
Good. Aliens (Mugulls - mucus seagulls) have come to earth and are easily healing humanities illnesses. Except for one man who is instead given a ticket to a spacestation and is immediately attacks by an alien who wants to eat him. But things aren’t as the seem in this quirky story.
Eros, Philia, Agape • (2009) • novelette by Rachel Swirsky
Great. A woman has selected a robot as a husband, but when he gets the right to freedom, his first decision is destroy his capacity for speech and leave the relationship. A nice gender-swapped version of the classic robot lovers story.
The Tale of the Wicked • (2009) • novelette by John Scalzi
Good. Two warring spaceships are immobilized in space when their ship’s A.I. discovers Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.
Bread and Bombs • (2003) • short story by M. Rickert
Average. A muddy, blurred look at intolerance in wartime. Told through the eyes of children.
The Waters of Meribah • (2003) • short story by Tony Ballantyne
Good. Creepy short story of a criminal who is slowly having his body replaced with alien parts as punishment for his crime.
Tk'tk'tk • (2005) • short story by David D. Levine
Great. The ‘life of a salesman’ on a world of Bug aliens. A wonderfully weird take on a classic theme from literature. I feel every bit of the salesman’s frustration as he tried to navigate and prosper is a world of weird social cues.
The Nearest Thing • (2011) • novelette by Genevieve Valentine
Good. A brilliant writer of code is brought into a project with a charismatic partner/rival and his strangely unengaged female coworker. Slowly the program becomes increasingly serious and possibly both important and dangerous.
Erosion • (2009) • short story by Ian Creasey
Good. Just dressed in a new exo-suit, a man takes one last walk along the English coast before leaving the doomed planet for the stars. Interesting and melancholy story of the last moments before a permanent journey.
The Calculus Plague • (2009) • short story by Marissa Lingen
Good. This story has a superb concept, but lacks a little in the story department. The central idea is a that designer viruses are created that impart information into the minds of people they infect. It is one thing when it is Calculus or musical aptitude, but another entirely when it is violent trauma.
One of Our Bastards Is Missing • [Jonathan Hamilton • 2] • (2009) • novelette by Paul Cornell
Average. A complicated alternate history has a Prussian official disappear by slipping into a fold in space-time. It is a both too complicated and too simplistic for me to get any sort of grasp on it.
Tideline • (2007) • short story by Elizabeth Bear
Good. A dying War Machine scavenges the beach for stones to build a burial necklace and befriends a ragged child.
Finisterra • (2007) • novelette by David Moles
Good. The continents ride on the backs of enormous animals and our character has taken a job to kill one of them.
Evil Robot Monkey • (2008) • short story by Mary Robinette Kowal
Good. The challenges of being a chimpanzee with augmented intelligence. Too smart for the other chimps and too ape to be around humanity.
The Education of Junior Number 12 • [Machine Dynasties] • (2011) • novelette by Madeline Ashby
Average. A self replicating human is in their 12 iteration. The story meanders through the speed of robot education, sex with humans, and a interesting application of Asimov’s Three Laws.
Toy Planes • (2005) • short story by Tobias S. Buckell
Good. A simple vignette of an astronaut from a Caribbean nation who must cut off his dreadlocks to take part in a rocket launch. Deals with some of the great themes and directions of 21st century SciFi.
The Algorithms for Love • (2004) • short story by Ken Liu
Good. The inventor of a series of robot dolls has trouble dealing with humans in the real world after a stint in the hospital. Told through flashbacks throughout the woman’s life.
The Albian Message • (2005) • short story by Oliver Morton
Good. A scientist writes a message that preparation is needed for what is likely to be found within a pyramid on an asteroid.
To Hie from Far Cilenia • [Gennady] • (2008) • novella by Karl Schroeder
Great. A superb cyberpunk adventure where Gennady is enlisted to hunt missing nukes, but the catch is that it is layers upon layers of augmented reality worlds. The way these alternate world overlap real cities and way people interact with them elevates this detective story.
Savant Songs • (2004) • short story by Brenda Cooper
Good. A love story between two scientists, one of which is a brilliant savant, who are trying to discover multiple universes.
Ikiryoh • (2005) • short story by Liz Williams
Average. Genetically engineered animal people, Asian courtly intrigue, and young child with a mysterious prestige and importance.
The Prophet of Flores • (2007) • novelette by Ted Kosmatka
Good. A suspenseful story of a world where evolution was quickly disproved when the world was dated to approximately 6000 years old. But deep in the jungle, there has been a discovery have might contradict that, but there are many people who want to keep the evidence hidden.
How to Become a Mars Overlord • (2010) • short story by Catherynne M. Valente
Average. The kind of simple article-as-story that rarely works for me. The ‘story’ is the non-fiction entry for an instruction that is listed in the title. Occasionally humorous..
Second Person, Present Tense • (2005) • novelette by Daryl Gregory
Great. One of my favorite science fiction stories of the 21st century. There is a new dangerous drug that allows the users personallty to ‘disconnect’ from their body, letting the body itself drive. Sometimes the main personality isn’t able to get back. This is a wonderfully economical and human short story of a family dealing with a daughter who has overdosed and now someone new is in their daughter’s body.
Third Day Lights • (2005) • novelette by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Good. An alien/wizard/god who can shapeshift narrates this baroque apocalyptic tale of a powerful traveler who come to accomplish three tasks. There is some smart sci-fi twists at the end of what feels like horror fantasy throughout.
Balancing Accounts ��� (2008) • short story by James L. Cambias
Good. A really fun bit of space opera where almost every character is a robot. A small and poor transport vessel gets conned into taking some ‘hot’ cargo on board and it feels like everyone is now trying to stop him.
A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel • (2011) • short story by Yoon Ha Lee
Great. A brilliant short bit of writing about space travel best described by posting the opening. “Among the universe’s civilizations, some conceive of the journey between stars as the sailing of bright ships, and others as tunneling through the crevices of night. Some look upon their far-voyaging as a migratory imperative, and name their vessels after birds or butterflies.”
His Master's Voice • (2008) • short story by Hannu Rajaniemi
Great. An uplifted dog and cat go on an exciting adventure to rescue the head of their Master and get revenge on the people that harmed him. I loved every bit of this!
Plotters and Shooters • [Mars (Kage Baker)] • (2007) • novelette by Kage Baker
DNF. So stilted and boring with comparisons between two tier of military people (I think) that I bounced off hard and early.
The Island • [Sunflower Cycle] • (2009) • novelette by Peter Watts
Good. They built the paths by which others travel throughout space, but what happens when a giant life form is in the way.
Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction • [Small Change] • (2009) • short story by Jo Walton
Average. Snippets from an alternate history where the UK sides with Germany and the New Deal failed to end the Great Depression. Sorely underdeveloped. What is here is interesting, but there isn’t much here. The title is nonsense.
Chicken Little • (2009) • novella by Cory Doctorow
Good. A man’s journey to try to sell something to a uber-rich brain-in-a-jar. The challenges are internal corporate politics and that fact that coming up with something truly new to sell is nearly impossible.
May 22, 2021
The short stories in this anthology are not quite universally terrible but so many of them are that I would suggest you don't waste your time with it.
June 22, 2020
This is a collection of Science Fiction short stories from the 21st century. The brief preface explains that many of the writers were writing and publishing before the millennium but have come to prominence since. The editors have a broad church view of Science Fiction, which lends itself to great variety in the contents but the usual suspects are here: androids and robots, aliens and AIs. I’ll start with the Earthbound stuff and move outwards into the galaxy and the far future.
The first story, ‘Infinities’, is by Vandana Singh, a physics teacher who, as an Indian living in Boston has some claim to being a stranger in a strange land. Abdul Karim is a little old mathematics teacher with a great love for his subject and a particular interest in infinity. He is a Muslim and his best friend, Gangadhar, is a Hindu in a city often driven by strife between these faiths. Abdul’s life story is described in a telling manner, not shown. This is contrary to all the best advice on writing modern commercial fiction but I like it. Usually, you have to read old stories by the likes of Somerset Maugham to get this straightforward, sedate type of narrative. The tale is interspersed with quotations from poets, philosophers and mathematicians and turns fantastic quite near the end, which is also where the real world, beastly as usual, intrudes on Abdul’s quiet life. Imbued as it is with composed contemplation of God and the infinite, I found this story perfect reading on a quiet Sunday morning. It’s also a nice change from western, materialist, technology orientated Science Fiction and a useful reminder that there are civilisations older than ours to the east.
Back home, country life will be very different later this century if ‘Rogue Farm’ is anything to go by. The establishment in the title is a tank-sized organism which contains six people and wants to go to Jupiter. Blast off will burn a hundred hectares around, including Joe’s farm so he is determined to stop it. The population shrinkage and consequent housing surplus in future Britain would be great but the rest of this vision from Charles Stross does not appeal to me, not even the talking dog who likes to smoke a joint with his master. I like the countryside the way it is, thanks. It’s a good story, though.
In ‘Bread And Bombs’, Mary Rickert starts off with a small-town setting and evokes a bucolic air with long, slow sentences that talk of picnics and crab-apple trees and the little local schoolhouse. Slowly, a darker history is revealed. The first person narration is by an adult remembering stuff that happened when she was a kid, like Scout in ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ and the setting is similar. A well-wrought yarn that should make us appreciate our lives today.
Paolo Bacigalupi writes stories set in the near future. ‘The Gambler’ was first published in 2008 and is almost true already. Ong was born in Laos. He fled when it became a dictatorship and now works on a news outlet in Los Angeles where he writes serious stories about political corruption, government incompetence and global warming. His colleague, Marty Mackley, writes about Double DP, a Russian mafia cowboy rapper who has had an affair with a fourteen-year-old. Live news feeds follow Double as he tries to flee to Mexico. The story goes viral instantly, advertising revenue floods in, the company’s stock goes up and Mackley’s star continues to rise. Ong’s is falling. His content pulls in hardly any readers and he will soon be sacked. He has two hopes: a celebrity from his own country or Henry David Thoreau and the flowers of Walden pond. This is even more depressing than ‘Rogue Farm’ because it seems truer as celebrity pap ‘content’ buries real news every day. Again, it’s a great story but stop the world, please, I want to get off.
Staying with marketing, ‘The Calculus Plague’ has people on a university campus being infected with false memories. The connection with advertising is not obvious at first but is soon made. Author Marissa Lingen was one of my favourite contributors to ‘On Spec’ with her Carter Hall yarns and this short story doesn’t disappoint either.
Gennady Malianov, a private investigator, gets looking for some stolen plutonium in ‘To Hie From Far Cilenia’ by Karl Shroeder. Set in a near future, where virtual reality games and worlds are more developed and developing, it has a good plot that keeps revealing more about the setting as it goes on. Gennady is a sympathetic character and despite the fact that this sort of thing is alien to me – I don’t even Game – it was enjoyable and interesting.
Would you like to get in touch with the versions of you that exist in parallel universes? Such is the ambition of Professor Elsa Hill, a genius physicist and she is ably assisted in the work by Adam Giles – who narrates the story – and a very smart computer. Artificial intelligences may also have twins in the other worlds. ‘Savant Songs’ by Brenda Cooper is a moving, almost frightening exploration of a common SF theme.
In ‘Chicken Little’ by Cory Doctorow, the super-rich are becoming immortal, their failing bodies wired into complex machines, some as big as small towns, that keep them alive. They are quadrillionaires and some are sovereign states. They control the world. Ate is a company that exists to please them or, rather, to attempt to invent some new way to please them as they can have anything they want. Our hero is Leon, a smart man working for Ate and trying to come up with something new for their clients. The story takes unexpected turns and ends up having a pleasing philosophical bent concerning what humans really want and what’s really good for them.
‘Eros, Philia, Agape’ is by Rachel Swirsky. Robots are an old standby of the genre and I think humans may have fallen in love with them before. That’s what the author’s story title is about but, as the couple have an adopted child, it’s more complicated. A fine example to show that ‘adult themes’ doesn’t just mean gratuitous sex and violence but an exploration of the multi-faceted relationships that might result between us and our advanced technologies.
In similar territory is ‘The Nearest Thing’, Genevieve Valentine’s tale about the development of nearly humanoid androids. Inevitably, the experienced SF fan is reminded of ‘Blade Runner’ but it’s a good story on its own merits.
I was mildly put off ‘The Algorithms For Love’ by the title but, as it’s by Ken Liu, decided to give it a go because he’s written some very good short Science Fiction over the last few years. This may be the best of them but it’s downright scary. The protagonist designs humanoid dolls that are very life-like but her work has driven her mad. By the time you get the ideas behind this yarn, near the end, you may decide that it doesn’t bear thinking about too much or you might join her in the asylum.
In Ian Creasey’s ‘Erosion’, Winston is about to set off on a new adventure, just as his Jamaican grandfather did when he came to England. Augmented by technology he and others are to board a starship and colonise a rugged new planet. On his last day on an Earth, imperilled by global warming, he walks along the coastal path near Scarborough. There’s some good writing on the scenery but his actions seem a bit irrational at times. We would probably send more stable people to new planets.
Aliens have featured in science fiction ever since H.G. Wells’ Martians attacked us on Horsell Common. They were not all nasty. Neil Asher’s aliens in ‘Strood’ treat us like a third world country, setting up clinics to treat us for conditions beyond our resources. There are many different species, all of them far in advance of man. Our hero has cancer and his story nicely illustrates the setting, which is really the star. The beginning might have ‘one’s discombobulation requiring pellucidity’ but that’s just a sign of how well it’s written.
I have always disliked them but it is surely awful to actually be a salesman with the soul-destroying fawning and mendacity and the quiet desperation. In the excellent ‘Tk,Tk,Tk’, David E. Levine shows how bad it is to be a salesman on a planet full of alien insects with a strange culture and terrible food. To butter up clients, Walker has to quaff drinks ‘indistinguishable from warm piss’ and then things get worse. This story won the Hugo in 2006. SF fans love a good alien.
Really good ones can be so odd they seem outside the genre. When a strong, handsome man rides a talking deer to a confrontation with a shape-changing demon of the scorched desert who has a two-dimensional child you are led to believe it’s a fantasy. Not so. ‘Third Day Lights’ by Alaya Dawn Johnson is Science Fiction set in a far distant future where anything is possible, somewhat like Michael Moorcock’s ‘Dancers At The End of Time’ stories. The classical fantasy aspect is kept when the hero has to face three challenges but the sensual story is narrated by the demon, not the man. There’s lots of invention and a good array of unusual characters in this far out flight of fancy.
John Scalzi is trending in the last few years so I was glad to get to read something by him at last. ‘The Tale Of The Wicked’ is about a space battle between two enemy ships that goes awry. To describe the plot is to spoil it but suffice to say it was clever, amusing and thought-provoking. I shall keep an eye out for more Scalzi.
Nerdy ‘plotters’ calculate the trajectories of asteroids that may strike an inhabited planet Mars and the ‘shooters‘, a rough crowd, blast them out of the sky. These incompatible groups share an orbiting gunship and the life of a nerd involves flackeying to the jocks, rather as junior boys used to serve seniors in our English public schools. Then a newbie arrives with a different take on things. ‘Plotters And Shooters’ by Kage Baker is a strong story that would translate well to television in some anthology program.
Far in the future, a human lady and her son crew a ship supervising the building of artificial wormholes for interstellar travel. They are bossed by an AI she calls the Chimp. Earth is long gone and the species that come through the gates have evolved far beyond her but the work continues. Then they encounter a red dwarf star that seems to be signalling them. ‘The Island’ by Peter Watts is hard going at first but presently makes sense, enough that it won the Hugo for best novelette in 2010.
The also-rans here would-be stars in many another collection and only the limitations of a review prevent me from raving about them at length. ‘Ikirhyoh’ by Liz Williams is an original take on genetic specialisation in a future oriental civilisation. ‘The Prophet Of Flores’ by Ted Kosmatka’ is an archaeological dig story set in a world where Darwin was wrong.
‘How To Become A Mars Overlord’ by Catherynne M. Valente didn’t suit my tastes but a lot of lexical dexterity went into this exuberant piece.
Not dissimilar is ‘A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel‘ by Yoon Ha Lee. It also breaks the bounds of traditional storytelling but the plain, almost academic language works better.
‘Escape to Other Worlds With Science Fiction’ by Jo Walton is a frightening look at an alternative history in which Britain didn’t oppose Nazi Germany but it’s set in America. It’s frightening because our much loved USA often seems to be on the brink of going this route.
The main thing that struck me about 21st-century writing is how literary it is compared to the Golden Age stuff. SF was mainly rooted in pulp fiction but slowly it has evolved out of that and is now comfortably grown-up. Reading these stories is like reading a Science Fiction story by Graham Greene or Somerset Maugham. The authors take their time to set the mood and there is no need for melodrama. Character is as important as plot and background. There was a bit of a crisis about this a few decades ago and writers as diverse as Kingsley Amis and Isaac Asimov wondered if Science Fiction could be recognised as literature and still preserve the all-important sense of wonder. I should add that for most of us preserving the sense of wonder was far more important than being recognised by high falutin’ critics. Anyway, the crisis is past and ‘21st Century Science Fiction’ proves beyond doubt that our flexible genre can do both, in spades. This is probably the best and most intelligent anthology of Science Fiction stories I have ever read and I’ve read a few.
Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
The first story, ‘Infinities’, is by Vandana Singh, a physics teacher who, as an Indian living in Boston has some claim to being a stranger in a strange land. Abdul Karim is a little old mathematics teacher with a great love for his subject and a particular interest in infinity. He is a Muslim and his best friend, Gangadhar, is a Hindu in a city often driven by strife between these faiths. Abdul’s life story is described in a telling manner, not shown. This is contrary to all the best advice on writing modern commercial fiction but I like it. Usually, you have to read old stories by the likes of Somerset Maugham to get this straightforward, sedate type of narrative. The tale is interspersed with quotations from poets, philosophers and mathematicians and turns fantastic quite near the end, which is also where the real world, beastly as usual, intrudes on Abdul’s quiet life. Imbued as it is with composed contemplation of God and the infinite, I found this story perfect reading on a quiet Sunday morning. It’s also a nice change from western, materialist, technology orientated Science Fiction and a useful reminder that there are civilisations older than ours to the east.
Back home, country life will be very different later this century if ‘Rogue Farm’ is anything to go by. The establishment in the title is a tank-sized organism which contains six people and wants to go to Jupiter. Blast off will burn a hundred hectares around, including Joe’s farm so he is determined to stop it. The population shrinkage and consequent housing surplus in future Britain would be great but the rest of this vision from Charles Stross does not appeal to me, not even the talking dog who likes to smoke a joint with his master. I like the countryside the way it is, thanks. It’s a good story, though.
In ‘Bread And Bombs’, Mary Rickert starts off with a small-town setting and evokes a bucolic air with long, slow sentences that talk of picnics and crab-apple trees and the little local schoolhouse. Slowly, a darker history is revealed. The first person narration is by an adult remembering stuff that happened when she was a kid, like Scout in ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ and the setting is similar. A well-wrought yarn that should make us appreciate our lives today.
Paolo Bacigalupi writes stories set in the near future. ‘The Gambler’ was first published in 2008 and is almost true already. Ong was born in Laos. He fled when it became a dictatorship and now works on a news outlet in Los Angeles where he writes serious stories about political corruption, government incompetence and global warming. His colleague, Marty Mackley, writes about Double DP, a Russian mafia cowboy rapper who has had an affair with a fourteen-year-old. Live news feeds follow Double as he tries to flee to Mexico. The story goes viral instantly, advertising revenue floods in, the company’s stock goes up and Mackley’s star continues to rise. Ong’s is falling. His content pulls in hardly any readers and he will soon be sacked. He has two hopes: a celebrity from his own country or Henry David Thoreau and the flowers of Walden pond. This is even more depressing than ‘Rogue Farm’ because it seems truer as celebrity pap ‘content’ buries real news every day. Again, it’s a great story but stop the world, please, I want to get off.
Staying with marketing, ‘The Calculus Plague’ has people on a university campus being infected with false memories. The connection with advertising is not obvious at first but is soon made. Author Marissa Lingen was one of my favourite contributors to ‘On Spec’ with her Carter Hall yarns and this short story doesn’t disappoint either.
Gennady Malianov, a private investigator, gets looking for some stolen plutonium in ‘To Hie From Far Cilenia’ by Karl Shroeder. Set in a near future, where virtual reality games and worlds are more developed and developing, it has a good plot that keeps revealing more about the setting as it goes on. Gennady is a sympathetic character and despite the fact that this sort of thing is alien to me – I don’t even Game – it was enjoyable and interesting.
Would you like to get in touch with the versions of you that exist in parallel universes? Such is the ambition of Professor Elsa Hill, a genius physicist and she is ably assisted in the work by Adam Giles – who narrates the story – and a very smart computer. Artificial intelligences may also have twins in the other worlds. ‘Savant Songs’ by Brenda Cooper is a moving, almost frightening exploration of a common SF theme.
In ‘Chicken Little’ by Cory Doctorow, the super-rich are becoming immortal, their failing bodies wired into complex machines, some as big as small towns, that keep them alive. They are quadrillionaires and some are sovereign states. They control the world. Ate is a company that exists to please them or, rather, to attempt to invent some new way to please them as they can have anything they want. Our hero is Leon, a smart man working for Ate and trying to come up with something new for their clients. The story takes unexpected turns and ends up having a pleasing philosophical bent concerning what humans really want and what’s really good for them.
‘Eros, Philia, Agape’ is by Rachel Swirsky. Robots are an old standby of the genre and I think humans may have fallen in love with them before. That’s what the author’s story title is about but, as the couple have an adopted child, it’s more complicated. A fine example to show that ‘adult themes’ doesn’t just mean gratuitous sex and violence but an exploration of the multi-faceted relationships that might result between us and our advanced technologies.
In similar territory is ‘The Nearest Thing’, Genevieve Valentine’s tale about the development of nearly humanoid androids. Inevitably, the experienced SF fan is reminded of ‘Blade Runner’ but it’s a good story on its own merits.
I was mildly put off ‘The Algorithms For Love’ by the title but, as it’s by Ken Liu, decided to give it a go because he’s written some very good short Science Fiction over the last few years. This may be the best of them but it’s downright scary. The protagonist designs humanoid dolls that are very life-like but her work has driven her mad. By the time you get the ideas behind this yarn, near the end, you may decide that it doesn’t bear thinking about too much or you might join her in the asylum.
In Ian Creasey’s ‘Erosion’, Winston is about to set off on a new adventure, just as his Jamaican grandfather did when he came to England. Augmented by technology he and others are to board a starship and colonise a rugged new planet. On his last day on an Earth, imperilled by global warming, he walks along the coastal path near Scarborough. There’s some good writing on the scenery but his actions seem a bit irrational at times. We would probably send more stable people to new planets.
Aliens have featured in science fiction ever since H.G. Wells’ Martians attacked us on Horsell Common. They were not all nasty. Neil Asher’s aliens in ‘Strood’ treat us like a third world country, setting up clinics to treat us for conditions beyond our resources. There are many different species, all of them far in advance of man. Our hero has cancer and his story nicely illustrates the setting, which is really the star. The beginning might have ‘one’s discombobulation requiring pellucidity’ but that’s just a sign of how well it’s written.
I have always disliked them but it is surely awful to actually be a salesman with the soul-destroying fawning and mendacity and the quiet desperation. In the excellent ‘Tk,Tk,Tk’, David E. Levine shows how bad it is to be a salesman on a planet full of alien insects with a strange culture and terrible food. To butter up clients, Walker has to quaff drinks ‘indistinguishable from warm piss’ and then things get worse. This story won the Hugo in 2006. SF fans love a good alien.
Really good ones can be so odd they seem outside the genre. When a strong, handsome man rides a talking deer to a confrontation with a shape-changing demon of the scorched desert who has a two-dimensional child you are led to believe it’s a fantasy. Not so. ‘Third Day Lights’ by Alaya Dawn Johnson is Science Fiction set in a far distant future where anything is possible, somewhat like Michael Moorcock’s ‘Dancers At The End of Time’ stories. The classical fantasy aspect is kept when the hero has to face three challenges but the sensual story is narrated by the demon, not the man. There’s lots of invention and a good array of unusual characters in this far out flight of fancy.
John Scalzi is trending in the last few years so I was glad to get to read something by him at last. ‘The Tale Of The Wicked’ is about a space battle between two enemy ships that goes awry. To describe the plot is to spoil it but suffice to say it was clever, amusing and thought-provoking. I shall keep an eye out for more Scalzi.
Nerdy ‘plotters’ calculate the trajectories of asteroids that may strike an inhabited planet Mars and the ‘shooters‘, a rough crowd, blast them out of the sky. These incompatible groups share an orbiting gunship and the life of a nerd involves flackeying to the jocks, rather as junior boys used to serve seniors in our English public schools. Then a newbie arrives with a different take on things. ‘Plotters And Shooters’ by Kage Baker is a strong story that would translate well to television in some anthology program.
Far in the future, a human lady and her son crew a ship supervising the building of artificial wormholes for interstellar travel. They are bossed by an AI she calls the Chimp. Earth is long gone and the species that come through the gates have evolved far beyond her but the work continues. Then they encounter a red dwarf star that seems to be signalling them. ‘The Island’ by Peter Watts is hard going at first but presently makes sense, enough that it won the Hugo for best novelette in 2010.
The also-rans here would-be stars in many another collection and only the limitations of a review prevent me from raving about them at length. ‘Ikirhyoh’ by Liz Williams is an original take on genetic specialisation in a future oriental civilisation. ‘The Prophet Of Flores’ by Ted Kosmatka’ is an archaeological dig story set in a world where Darwin was wrong.
‘How To Become A Mars Overlord’ by Catherynne M. Valente didn’t suit my tastes but a lot of lexical dexterity went into this exuberant piece.
Not dissimilar is ‘A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel‘ by Yoon Ha Lee. It also breaks the bounds of traditional storytelling but the plain, almost academic language works better.
‘Escape to Other Worlds With Science Fiction’ by Jo Walton is a frightening look at an alternative history in which Britain didn’t oppose Nazi Germany but it’s set in America. It’s frightening because our much loved USA often seems to be on the brink of going this route.
The main thing that struck me about 21st-century writing is how literary it is compared to the Golden Age stuff. SF was mainly rooted in pulp fiction but slowly it has evolved out of that and is now comfortably grown-up. Reading these stories is like reading a Science Fiction story by Graham Greene or Somerset Maugham. The authors take their time to set the mood and there is no need for melodrama. Character is as important as plot and background. There was a bit of a crisis about this a few decades ago and writers as diverse as Kingsley Amis and Isaac Asimov wondered if Science Fiction could be recognised as literature and still preserve the all-important sense of wonder. I should add that for most of us preserving the sense of wonder was far more important than being recognised by high falutin’ critics. Anyway, the crisis is past and ‘21st Century Science Fiction’ proves beyond doubt that our flexible genre can do both, in spades. This is probably the best and most intelligent anthology of Science Fiction stories I have ever read and I’ve read a few.
Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
May 22, 2014
Both David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden are powerhouse editors on their own respective turfs. When you bring the two together... the result is something very much like reaching critical mass, if I'm allowed to use an atomic-era cliché in our nanotech age. 21st Century Science Fiction is an impressively pyrotechnic compilation of speculative fiction which is both relatively new—written in our still only teenaged century—and explosively good. The website io9 already considers it one of the anthologies that "every writer should read", but I wouldn't consider this an anthology solely for writers. The stories here are a lot of fun to read, regardless of whether you harbor any desire to write more like them. Artificial intelligences (both robotic and more incorporeal), multiple universes, devastating apocalypses and eons-spanning civilizations... these are modern SF stories, ones that combine big ideas with stylistic expertise and well-developed characters, virtually guaranteed to engage your sense of wonder.
Of course, you'll have read some of these elsewhere. The first two stories, in fact—"Infinities," by Vandana Singh and Charles Stross' "Rogue Farm"—were already quite familiar to me from other appearances, as were David D. Levine's Nivenesque "Tk'Tk'Tk" and David Moles' "Finisterra" later in the volume. But most of these tales were new to me, even in cases where I knew some of the authors' other work.
One particular standout for me was Karl Schroeder's "To Hie from Far Cilenia," like a mashup of Charles Stross, Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson with its intriguing depiction of software-assisted distributed nationalities—virtual countries, defined by affinity group.
Just about every story was good for me in its own way, actually, and I'm not going to just list the entire table of contents, but I will call out a few others. "Tideline," by Elizabeth Bear, reminded me of one of Keith Laumer's Bolo stories—but with more of a heart. For perspectives on human-android relationships, Rachel Swirsky's "Eros, Philia, Agape" contrasted well with Madeline Ashby's "The Education of Junior Number 12." You could also put John Scalzi's "The Tale of the Wicked" into fruitful conversation with James L. Cambias' "Balancing Accounts."
Several different explorations of neurological determinism also appeared—"The Calculus Plague" by Marissa Lingen; "The Algorithms of Love" by Ken Liu; "Second Person, Present Tense" by Daryl Gregory. I won't hide the fact that I consider such reductionist views of consciousness to be... unconvincing (though "look who's telling me that," as Emo Philips would say)—but all of these are very powerful stories as well.
If I were still within my own personal Golden Age—that is, just discovering SF—I would most likely have thought this book was perfectly amazing. It's not Hartwell and Nielsen Hayden's fault that I'm not 13 anymore, but as it was, I did find a few nits to pick. The arrangement of the stories did not seem to have any particular flow (although that would have been very hard, granted, given their diversity), and sometimes I thought their introductions were a little too... directive—never spoiling plot details, of course, but sometimes giving away the tone, telling you what to expect from the story rather than letting you experience it on your own.
So no, I didn't think 21st Century Science Fiction was perfect... but I do think it got extremely close.
Of course, you'll have read some of these elsewhere. The first two stories, in fact—"Infinities," by Vandana Singh and Charles Stross' "Rogue Farm"—were already quite familiar to me from other appearances, as were David D. Levine's Nivenesque "Tk'Tk'Tk" and David Moles' "Finisterra" later in the volume. But most of these tales were new to me, even in cases where I knew some of the authors' other work.
One particular standout for me was Karl Schroeder's "To Hie from Far Cilenia," like a mashup of Charles Stross, Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson with its intriguing depiction of software-assisted distributed nationalities—virtual countries, defined by affinity group.
Just about every story was good for me in its own way, actually, and I'm not going to just list the entire table of contents, but I will call out a few others. "Tideline," by Elizabeth Bear, reminded me of one of Keith Laumer's Bolo stories—but with more of a heart. For perspectives on human-android relationships, Rachel Swirsky's "Eros, Philia, Agape" contrasted well with Madeline Ashby's "The Education of Junior Number 12." You could also put John Scalzi's "The Tale of the Wicked" into fruitful conversation with James L. Cambias' "Balancing Accounts."
Several different explorations of neurological determinism also appeared—"The Calculus Plague" by Marissa Lingen; "The Algorithms of Love" by Ken Liu; "Second Person, Present Tense" by Daryl Gregory. I won't hide the fact that I consider such reductionist views of consciousness to be... unconvincing (though "look who's telling me that," as Emo Philips would say)—but all of these are very powerful stories as well.
If I were still within my own personal Golden Age—that is, just discovering SF—I would most likely have thought this book was perfectly amazing. It's not Hartwell and Nielsen Hayden's fault that I'm not 13 anymore, but as it was, I did find a few nits to pick. The arrangement of the stories did not seem to have any particular flow (although that would have been very hard, granted, given their diversity), and sometimes I thought their introductions were a little too... directive—never spoiling plot details, of course, but sometimes giving away the tone, telling you what to expect from the story rather than letting you experience it on your own.
So no, I didn't think 21st Century Science Fiction was perfect... but I do think it got extremely close.
June 23, 2019
Сборник с множеством рассказов стабильно хорошего качества и с короткими, но ёмкими и полезными предисловиями к каждому из них.
"Бесконечности" Ванданы Сингх - восточная притча о математике, увидевшем изнанку мира. Очень живо описанный индийский колорит, стычки между индусами и мусульманами, и увлекательно описанный путь к о��арению.
"Бродячая ферма" Чарльза Стросса - сельская жизнь будущего, в котором многие улетели с Земли, а оставшимся пришлось заново учиться выживать плодами своих рук. Любопытно, но довольно простой сюжет и подача, из-за чего напомнило Шекли.
"Игрок" Паоло Бачигалупи - рассказ в духе скорее Филипа Дика, чем Хайнлайна. Журналист в мире недалёкого будущего в меру сил борется с проблемами окружающего мира и проигрывает, но главное ведь игра? Трезвый взгляд на Соединённые Штаты, их взаимодействие с медиа и их отношение к проблемам современности.
"Струд" Нила Эшера - рассказ, по завязке напоминающий Шекли, но с неожиданной концовкой. Интересный взгляд на взаимоотношения с расой, разница в развитии которой с человечеством сравнима с разницей между человеком и медузой. Как человеку сказать медузе, чтобы та его не жалила, когда он переносит её с песка обратно в море?
"Эрос, Филия, Агапе" Рэйчел Свирски - история о первых разумных роботах и проблемах, которые возникают от их первых взаимодействий с человеком. Проблема раскрывается с разных сторон, довольно интересный рассказ. По стилю явно, что написан женщиной, к чему я, читавший в основном американскую фантастику шестидесятых-восьмидесятых, совсем не привык.
"История "Злого"" Джона Скальзи - Скальзи во всей своей красе, проблема самоопределения искусственного интеллекта космического корабля в его фирменном сатирическом стиле.
"Хлеб и бомбы" Мэри Рикерт - интересный гибрид между Филипом Диком, Стивеном Кингом и Куртом Вонегутом. Рассказ устами ребёнка о мире войны, в котором самые безобидные вещи могут оказаться оружием противника, и все подвержены тотальной паранойе.
"Воды Меривы" Тони Баллантайна - рассказ-хоррор, оставляющий множество вопросов. Мир будущего после неизвестных изменений, где тело преступника против его воли перестраивают в тело чужака для экспериментов. "Тк'тк'тк" Девида Д. Левина - история о коммивояжере, пытающемся продать инопланетной расе программное обеспечение. Весьма детально описано положение человека, у которого не каждый день есть деньги на еду и на ночлег, добротный рассказ.
"Наиболее близкое" Женевы Валентайн - рассказ с очень необычным языком рассказчика о зарождении искусственного интеллекта в андроиде. Рассказчик - "кодер" в корпорации, следящей за каждым шагом сотрудника с целью обеспечения его максимальной эффективности, корпорации, которая при первых признаках проблемы предложит вам врача, психотерапевта или обед в фешенебельном ресторане с прекрасной девушкой-хостес. Он явно отличается от нормы в аутическом спектре, и это в основном передано через язык повествования: всё происходящее описывается под каким-то необычным углом, и можно понять, что происходит фактически, но меня не покидало ощущение странности способа описания взаимодействия повествователя с любыми окружающими людьми. Напоминает людей с сильными возможностями по изменению окружающего мира из книг Филиппа Дика, например мальчика из "Нарушенного времени Марса".
Если в двух словах, одна из основных идей Дика - объективный мир таков, каким ты ощущаешь его субъективно. Если у кого-то субъективное видение сильнее твоего, его или её мир становится и твоей объективной реальностью, меняется и твоё восприятие, и за ним реальная подоплёка мира. Здесь нет этой идеи между героями, однако очень хорошо передана такая субъективная реальность, настолько хорошо, что ты сам начинаешь видеть мир рассказа под другим углом.
"Эрозия" Иена Кризи - нащупывание границ человеческого в человеке, который согласился на изменения тела для того, чтобы быть более приспособленным к условиям новой планеты после переселения. В том числе и на физическом уровне - рассказ непросто читать, и он оставляет какое-то тяжёлое послевкусие.
"Вычислительная эпидемия" Мариссы Линген - "социально правильный" рассказ о изобретении вирусной передачи знаний\воспоминаний. Автор очень недвусмысленно высказывает свою позицию на волнующие её проблемы, ощущение такое, как будто прочитал агитку какой-нибудь политической организации. Как и в случае с Женевой Валентайн, в тексте явно чувствуется женский почерк.
"Не хватает одного из наших ублюдков" Пола Корнелла - детектив\экшн от автора, ранее награждённого за сценарии к "Доктору Кто". По динамике также похоже на серию сериала, с растущим напряжением, спадающим на ноль за секунду до финальной сцены мира, покоя и намёка на новые приключения в следующей серии. НФ здесь лишь фон, с таким же успехом всё происходящее могло было бы произойти в историческом романе.
"Линия прилива" Элизабет Бир - история о растущем существе и о умирающем существе, о памяти и смысле. Так же, как и предыдущая книга, мало связано с фантастикой, добротный рассказ на вечные темы.
"Финистерра" Дэвида Моулза - слабый на мой взгляд рассказ вокруг интересных идей, где в будущем все говорят на испанском и арабском, и живут в некоем новом средневековье с вечным равновесием сил и положения человека в обществе. Чужая тайная любовь (ни к чему не приведшая), большой злодей (без плана на будущее, нерациональный и исчезающий в никуда при глупых обстоятельствах), и Миссия главной героини, инженера и сильной женщины. У рассказа много начинающихся нигде и ведущих в никуда дорожек, которые не добавляют глубины, а только добавляют вопросов к слабому сюжету.
"Злобный робот-шимпанзе" Мэри Робинетт Коваль - краткий рассказ о том, что сложно быть другим, когда о тебе судят по внешности.
"Обучение младшего № 12" Мэдлин Эшби - рассказ о роботе и его двенадцатом сыне, об их странных отношениях с людьми и по-обыкновенному странных людях. Очень ладный рассказ, всё на своём месте.
"Игрушечные самолетики" Тобиаса С. Бакелла - большая мечта маленького острова, интересный рассказ в духе киберпанка, космическая программа из купленных у разорившейся компании материалов и бесплатных программ.
"Алгоритмы любви" Кен Лю - рассуждения на тему «зомби» в терминологии философии, а не Голливуда (книги «Рациональность: от искусственного интеллекта до зомби» Юдковского и «Эхопраския» Уотса как раз про это): что, если у нас нет настоящего сознания, а мы просто живём согласно алгоритму? Программист будущего создаёт всё более совершенных кукол, и в какой-то момент начинает сомневаться, что отличается от современного компьютера с подходящей речевой программой.
"Послание Альбиан" Оливера Мортона - очень короткий рассказ на интересную тему: какое послание могли бы оставить инопланетяне человеку? Какой ценностью может обладать знание, записанное миллионы лет назад?
"Бежать из далекой Силении" Карла Шрёдера - экстраполяция, развитие тех идей, что сейчас витают в воздухе: дополненная реальность, которая включает вас в общемировую игру. Если бы у современных разработчиков было бы подходящее железо, они уже сделали бы что-то подобное - я был очень удивлён, что рассказ написан в 2009, а не 2019, так сильно ощущение того, что он написан по мотивам какого-нибудь Fortnite. В рассказе много маленьких нестыковок сюжета и мира, однако основная идея очень мощна.
"Песни гениев" Бренда Купера - рассказ о девушке-учёном и любящем её лаборанте, о мультимирах и их практическом воплощении, о работе и озарениях. Оригинальная идея, и написано довольно интересным языком, напоминающем рассказ Женевы Валентайн, что позволяет невольно вжиться в шкуру рассказчика на время чтения.
"Икирио" Лиз Уильямс - фентезийный рассказ о воспитании. Довольно простой сюжет, но красивый сеттинг.
"Пророк с острова Флорес" Тэда Косматка - самый интересный рассказ с начала книги, на мой взгляд. Сюжет повествует о мальчике, впоследствии учёном, изучающем генетику в мире, где научно доказан шеститысячилетний возраст земли, а значит, существование творца, архитектора, Бога. Очень сильная идея и прекрасное воплощение.
"Как стать повелителем Марса" Кэтрин М. Валенте - поэтичная инструкция для потенциальных правителей. Вымышленная история десятка планет - довольно необычно, но оставляет ощущение незавершённости.
"Второе лицо, настоящее время" Дэрила Грегори - вновь "зомби", о которых я узнал у Юдковского - здесь рассказанная от первого лица. Довольно подробное объяснение концепции, даже жалко, что я оказался с ней уже знаком.
"Огни третьего дня" Алайя Дона Джонсона - фентези, написанное женщиной: к рефлексирующей демонессе приходит мускулинный красавец и соблазняет её своей глубоко затаённой болью в глазах и аристократическими манерами.
"Векторный алфавит межзвездных путешествий" Джеймса Камбиаса - свежий взгляд на историю о разумных роботах. Одни роботы этого мира зарабатыва��т прибыль владельцам с планет, другие работают на Компанию с той же целью. Фактор новизны в этом мире - редкое появление человека, любой из которых обладает возможностью приказать роботу сделать то, что он пожелает.
"Сведение баланса" Юн Ха Ли - короткий и странный рассказ о разных космических цивилизациях. Во время прочтения возникает ощущение, что автор хотела бы запутать читателя, но попутно запуталась сама и решила не исправлять ситуацию.
"Голос хозяина" Ханну Райаниеми - великий и ужасный играет мускулами своей вселенной в формате рассказа. Кошка и собака преображаются, чтобы спасти хозяина - как и в большой форме, не самый сложный сюжет используется для того, чтобы показать читателю мир будущего и попутно поднять ворох вопросов, что и делала фантастика с момента своего появления.
"Наводчики и снайперы" Кейджа Бейкера - довольно пошлый рассказ в духе фильмов-боевиков с простенькой моралью, написанный американцем. Я совершенно не думал, что по тексту можно определить место жизни (и, в данном случае, смерти) автора, однако это так - такого количества клише и низкопробного сленга ни от какой другой нации и не ожидал. Мир без логики, сплошное действие среди грязи, пота и испорченного воздуха.
"Остров" Питера Уоттса - очень сильный рассказ во вселенной Эхопраскии и Ложной Слепоты. Люди прокладывают дорогу к звёздам, создают чревоточины для порталов, и в какой-то момент обнаруживают грандиозное по размерам живое существо в том месте, где должна будет пройти трасса. Как обычно у Уоттса, про существо непонятно, разумно ли оно, и любые попытки сравнения с известной нам органической жизнью дают странные результаты.
"Бегство в другие миры с помощью научной фантастики" Джо Уолтона - обрывки историй о мире, напоминающем мир "человека в высоком замке" Филиппа Дика. Мне не удалось прочесть никакой законченной мысли в этом рассказе кроме той, что Америке при победе нацистов во второй мировой пришлось бы несладко - думаю, этот рассказ отсылает к более крупной форме автора и читателям други его книг будет более понятен.
"Паникер" Кори Доктороу - довольно любопытный рассказ, поднимающий вопрос свободы воли с многих разных ракурсов. Глубокие персонажи, интересная вселенная, фантастическая профессия главного героя (продажа чего угодно законсервированным для вечной жизни богачам, которых обслуживают целые городки), неожиданное развитие сюжета - Фантастика с большой буквы, один из лучших рассказов сборника.
"Бесконечности" Ванданы Сингх - восточная притча о математике, увидевшем изнанку мира. Очень живо описанный индийский колорит, стычки между индусами и мусульманами, и увлекательно описанный путь к о��арению.
"Бродячая ферма" Чарльза Стросса - сельская жизнь будущего, в котором многие улетели с Земли, а оставшимся пришлось заново учиться выживать плодами своих рук. Любопытно, но довольно простой сюжет и подача, из-за чего напомнило Шекли.
"Игрок" Паоло Бачигалупи - рассказ в духе скорее Филипа Дика, чем Хайнлайна. Журналист в мире недалёкого будущего в меру сил борется с проблемами окружающего мира и проигрывает, но главное ведь игра? Трезвый взгляд на Соединённые Штаты, их взаимодействие с медиа и их отношение к проблемам современности.
"Струд" Нила Эшера - рассказ, по завязке напоминающий Шекли, но с неожиданной концовкой. Интересный взгляд на взаимоотношения с расой, разница в развитии которой с человечеством сравнима с разницей между человеком и медузой. Как человеку сказать медузе, чтобы та его не жалила, когда он переносит её с песка обратно в море?
"Эрос, Филия, Агапе" Рэйчел Свирски - история о первых разумных роботах и проблемах, которые возникают от их первых взаимодействий с человеком. Проблема раскрывается с разных сторон, довольно интересный рассказ. По стилю явно, что написан женщиной, к чему я, читавший в основном американскую фантастику шестидесятых-восьмидесятых, совсем не привык.
"История "Злого"" Джона Скальзи - Скальзи во всей своей красе, проблема самоопределения искусственного интеллекта космического корабля в его фирменном сатирическом стиле.
"Хлеб и бомбы" Мэри Рикерт - интересный гибрид между Филипом Диком, Стивеном Кингом и Куртом Вонегутом. Рассказ устами ребёнка о мире войны, в котором самые безобидные вещи могут оказаться оружием противника, и все подвержены тотальной паранойе.
"Воды Меривы" Тони Баллантайна - рассказ-хоррор, оставляющий множество вопросов. Мир будущего после неизвестных изменений, где тело преступника против его воли перестраивают в тело чужака для экспериментов. "Тк'тк'тк" Девида Д. Левина - история о коммивояжере, пытающемся продать инопланетной расе программное обеспечение. Весьма детально описано положение человека, у которого не каждый день есть деньги на еду и на ночлег, добротный рассказ.
"Наиболее близкое" Женевы Валентайн - рассказ с очень необычным языком рассказчика о зарождении искусственного интеллекта в андроиде. Рассказчик - "кодер" в корпорации, следящей за каждым шагом сотрудника с целью обеспечения его максимальной эффективности, корпорации, которая при первых признаках проблемы предложит вам врача, психотерапевта или обед в фешенебельном ресторане с прекрасной девушкой-хостес. Он явно отличается от нормы в аутическом спектре, и это в основном передано через язык повествования: всё происходящее описывается под каким-то необычным углом, и можно понять, что происходит фактически, но меня не покидало ощущение странности способа описания взаимодействия повествователя с любыми окружающими людьми. Напоминает людей с сильными возможностями по изменению окружающего мира из книг Филиппа Дика, например мальчика из "Нарушенного времени Марса".
Если в двух словах, одна из основных идей Дика - объективный мир таков, каким ты ощущаешь его субъективно. Если у кого-то субъективное видение сильнее твоего, его или её мир становится и твоей объективной реальностью, меняется и твоё восприятие, и за ним реальная подоплёка мира. Здесь нет этой идеи между героями, однако очень хорошо передана такая субъективная реальность, настолько хорошо, что ты сам начинаешь видеть мир рассказа под другим углом.
"Эрозия" Иена Кризи - нащупывание границ человеческого в человеке, который согласился на изменения тела для того, чтобы быть более приспособленным к условиям новой планеты после переселения. В том числе и на физическом уровне - рассказ непросто читать, и он оставляет какое-то тяжёлое послевкусие.
"Вычислительная эпидемия" Мариссы Линген - "социально правильный" рассказ о изобретении вирусной передачи знаний\воспоминаний. Автор очень недвусмысленно высказывает свою позицию на волнующие её проблемы, ощущение такое, как будто прочитал агитку какой-нибудь политической организации. Как и в случае с Женевой Валентайн, в тексте явно чувствуется женский почерк.
"Не хватает одного из наших ублюдков" Пола Корнелла - детектив\экшн от автора, ранее награждённого за сценарии к "Доктору Кто". По динамике также похоже на серию сериала, с растущим напряжением, спадающим на ноль за секунду до финальной сцены мира, покоя и намёка на новые приключения в следующей серии. НФ здесь лишь фон, с таким же успехом всё происходящее могло было бы произойти в историческом романе.
"Линия прилива" Элизабет Бир - история о растущем существе и о умирающем существе, о памяти и смысле. Так же, как и предыдущая книга, мало связано с фантастикой, добротный рассказ на вечные темы.
"Финистерра" Дэвида Моулза - слабый на мой взгляд рассказ вокруг интересных идей, где в будущем все говорят на испанском и арабском, и живут в некоем новом средневековье с вечным равновесием сил и положения человека в обществе. Чужая тайная любовь (ни к чему не приведшая), большой злодей (без плана на будущее, нерациональный и исчезающий в никуда при глупых обстоятельствах), и Миссия главной героини, инженера и сильной женщины. У рассказа много начинающихся нигде и ведущих в никуда дорожек, которые не добавляют глубины, а только добавляют вопросов к слабому сюжету.
"Злобный робот-шимпанзе" Мэри Робинетт Коваль - краткий рассказ о том, что сложно быть другим, когда о тебе судят по внешности.
"Обучение младшего № 12" Мэдлин Эшби - рассказ о роботе и его двенадцатом сыне, об их странных отношениях с людьми и по-обыкновенному странных людях. Очень ладный рассказ, всё на своём месте.
"Игрушечные самолетики" Тобиаса С. Бакелла - большая мечта маленького острова, интересный рассказ в духе киберпанка, космическая программа из купленных у разорившейся компании материалов и бесплатных программ.
"Алгоритмы любви" Кен Лю - рассуждения на тему «зомби» в терминологии философии, а не Голливуда (книги «Рациональность: от искусственного интеллекта до зомби» Юдковского и «Эхопраския» Уотса как раз про это): что, если у нас нет настоящего сознания, а мы просто живём согласно алгоритму? Программист будущего создаёт всё более совершенных кукол, и в какой-то момент начинает сомневаться, что отличается от современного компьютера с подходящей речевой программой.
"Послание Альбиан" Оливера Мортона - очень короткий рассказ на интересную тему: какое послание могли бы оставить инопланетяне человеку? Какой ценностью может обладать знание, записанное миллионы лет назад?
"Бежать из далекой Силении" Карла Шрёдера - экстраполяция, развитие тех идей, что сейчас витают в воздухе: дополненная реальность, которая включает вас в общемировую игру. Если бы у современных разработчиков было бы подходящее железо, они уже сделали бы что-то подобное - я был очень удивлён, что рассказ написан в 2009, а не 2019, так сильно ощущение того, что он написан по мотивам какого-нибудь Fortnite. В рассказе много маленьких нестыковок сюжета и мира, однако основная идея очень мощна.
"Песни гениев" Бренда Купера - рассказ о девушке-учёном и любящем её лаборанте, о мультимирах и их практическом воплощении, о работе и озарениях. Оригинальная идея, и написано довольно интересным языком, напоминающем рассказ Женевы Валентайн, что позволяет невольно вжиться в шкуру рассказчика на время чтения.
"Икирио" Лиз Уильямс - фентезийный рассказ о воспитании. Довольно простой сюжет, но красивый сеттинг.
"Пророк с острова Флорес" Тэда Косматка - самый интересный рассказ с начала книги, на мой взгляд. Сюжет повествует о мальчике, впоследствии учёном, изучающем генетику в мире, где научно доказан шеститысячилетний возраст земли, а значит, существование творца, архитектора, Бога. Очень сильная идея и прекрасное воплощение.
"Как стать повелителем Марса" Кэтрин М. Валенте - поэтичная инструкция для потенциальных правителей. Вымышленная история десятка планет - довольно необычно, но оставляет ощущение незавершённости.
"Второе лицо, настоящее время" Дэрила Грегори - вновь "зомби", о которых я узнал у Юдковского - здесь рассказанная от первого лица. Довольно подробное объяснение концепции, даже жалко, что я оказался с ней уже знаком.
"Огни третьего дня" Алайя Дона Джонсона - фентези, написанное женщиной: к рефлексирующей демонессе приходит мускулинный красавец и соблазняет её своей глубоко затаённой болью в глазах и аристократическими манерами.
"Векторный алфавит межзвездных путешествий" Джеймса Камбиаса - свежий взгляд на историю о разумных роботах. Одни роботы этого мира зарабатыва��т прибыль владельцам с планет, другие работают на Компанию с той же целью. Фактор новизны в этом мире - редкое появление человека, любой из которых обладает возможностью приказать роботу сделать то, что он пожелает.
"Сведение баланса" Юн Ха Ли - короткий и странный рассказ о разных космических цивилизациях. Во время прочтения возникает ощущение, что автор хотела бы запутать читателя, но попутно запуталась сама и решила не исправлять ситуацию.
"Голос хозяина" Ханну Райаниеми - великий и ужасный играет мускулами своей вселенной в формате рассказа. Кошка и собака преображаются, чтобы спасти хозяина - как и в большой форме, не самый сложный сюжет используется для того, чтобы показать читателю мир будущего и попутно поднять ворох вопросов, что и делала фантастика с момента своего появления.
"Наводчики и снайперы" Кейджа Бейкера - довольно пошлый рассказ в духе фильмов-боевиков с простенькой моралью, написанный американцем. Я совершенно не думал, что по тексту можно определить место жизни (и, в данном случае, смерти) автора, однако это так - такого количества клише и низкопробного сленга ни от какой другой нации и не ожидал. Мир без логики, сплошное действие среди грязи, пота и испорченного воздуха.
"Остров" Питера Уоттса - очень сильный рассказ во вселенной Эхопраскии и Ложной Слепоты. Люди прокладывают дорогу к звёздам, создают чревоточины для порталов, и в какой-то момент обнаруживают грандиозное по размерам живое существо в том месте, где должна будет пройти трасса. Как обычно у Уоттса, про существо непонятно, разумно ли оно, и любые попытки сравнения с известной нам органической жизнью дают странные результаты.
"Бегство в другие миры с помощью научной фантастики" Джо Уолтона - обрывки историй о мире, напоминающем мир "человека в высоком замке" Филиппа Дика. Мне не удалось прочесть никакой законченной мысли в этом рассказе кроме той, что Америке при победе нацистов во второй мировой пришлось бы несладко - думаю, этот рассказ отсылает к более крупной форме автора и читателям други его книг будет более понятен.
"Паникер" Кори Доктороу - довольно любопытный рассказ, поднимающий вопрос свободы воли с многих разных ракурсов. Глубокие персонажи, интересная вселенная, фантастическая профессия главного героя (продажа чего угодно законсервированным для вечной жизни богачам, которых обслуживают целые городки), неожиданное развитие сюжета - Фантастика с большой буквы, один из лучших рассказов сборника.
May 7, 2017
Отличный сборник современной фантастики. Выписал себе несколько авторов. Приятный баланс научных идей и художественного интереса.
January 27, 2014
This was quite modern in its own way, which naturally is the idea. I particularly enjoyed:
Neal Asher's Strood, ,
Rachel Swirsky's Eros, Philia, Agape,
Tony Ballantyne's tk'tk'tk,
Ian Creasey's Erosion,
Ted Kosmatka's The Prophet of Flores,
James Cambias balancing accounts,
Peter Watts The Island,
And Cory Doctorow's Chicken Little.
Omited from the above because I enjoyed it most of all is Ken Liu's Algorithms for Love, which haunted me for the whole night I red it, and is undeniably my favourite of the collection. I also have a whole coven of new authors to look at now, of course!
Neal Asher's Strood, ,
Rachel Swirsky's Eros, Philia, Agape,
Tony Ballantyne's tk'tk'tk,
Ian Creasey's Erosion,
Ted Kosmatka's The Prophet of Flores,
James Cambias balancing accounts,
Peter Watts The Island,
And Cory Doctorow's Chicken Little.
Omited from the above because I enjoyed it most of all is Ken Liu's Algorithms for Love, which haunted me for the whole night I red it, and is undeniably my favourite of the collection. I also have a whole coven of new authors to look at now, of course!
January 25, 2015
This is a great collection. I loved most of the stories, and the few I didn't were still well-written, just not to my taste. It's paced very well too, and has a perfect ending with a story by Cory Doctorow. I will look for more by these editors, and look up some of the authors who were new to me.
May 23, 2020
"Second Person, Present Tense," by Daryl Gregory (2005): 9.5
- Accomplishes something that even the well-written “literary” sf doesn’t often: both a deftly observed, and acutely written character story as well as a conceptually adventurous, scientifically rigorous, and wholly original sf story. Regarding latter two, hard to think of an equivalent story that translates the nuances and uncertainties of neural science (both the hard and soft [what is consciousness?] of it) so fluidly to the sf form (maybe Blumlein, but with, obviously, different thematic concerns). In so doing, it reimagines an otherwise long-established (some might say tired) sub genre: clones. The Big Questions of all those works (thinking Wilhelm and Wolfe, namely)—who are these people? How do they relate to their other, older “selves”? How do we relate to them? Are they even “people” anyway?—are recast (and actually made more difficult!), largely through simply reposing them in novel forms (human sense-making makes even more difficult these divisions when the “new” person occupies the “same” body as before). All this, and I haven’t yet touched on the sensitively handled, non-sf, human familial concerns at issue here, as seen in the many signs given for why exactly THIS girl in THIS family might find solace in chemical oblivion (discipline, strictness, the very he-knows-the-Midwest overbearing, I’ll-pray-for-you Christianity on display here). More impressively, Gregory never slams these signs in our face, but allows us to understand their cumulative impact on the girl, while still allowing recognition of the parents love for their daughter. Really strong.
"Infinities," by Vandana Singh (2008): 5.75
- hard sci-fi suffers from the "regurgitation" problem often, in that narrativizing information--here the many interesting things about the nature of prime numbers and mathematics--more often resembles information than it does narration. That's here. And what's here beyond it is fairly soft and or not dependent on that math I feel. The "going to many universes" section was a bit cliched and came out of nowhere in the story and all those loose ends were unsatisfactorily tied up.
"Rogue Farm," by Charles Stross (2003): 6.75
- too elliptical for its own good, too good to give anything essential, and more at home in a New Weird collection than this. nonetheless, in retrospect the story grows, the beats start to separate themselves from the weird muck of the world (and Stross's admirably take-the-world-for-granted prose) and I can't help but view this much more favorably, especially apart from the grime of the world it depicts.
"The Gambler," by Paolo Bacigalupi (2008): 8
- Nothing is more dated than recent science fiction. This Bacigalupi from exactly ten years ago reads, with its media-integrity concerns and bloggers and gawker-rules-the-webwaves assumptions, reads more ancient than any Bradbury or Pohl. That said, it's a shame, because otherwise this story of a Laotian refugee working as an idealistic reporter at a clickbaity new media blog and refusing to betray his principles even after interviewing this worlds Beyoncé, who also just so happens to be Laotian too is strangely and densely compelling--qualities I haven't discerned in the Bacigalupi I've read until now (although, obviously, there are the themes consistent across his work: climate change, the underdeveloped world, and the moral logjams of capitalism). The boring genre questions are present here, as they ever are (i.e. is this SF), but that's overshadowed by his full-bore attempt at rendering a very particular type of immigrant inferiority. A shame, as well, that's it's attached really to a nothing of a story, other than one dependent on some rather obvious and clear moral arcs.
"Strood," by Neal Asher (2004): 8.25
- The opposite of the usual -- strong world-building, dense and confidently unspooled emplotment, but with a rather mundane major conceit, no matter the potential held within (meaning, here, the 'Medicin san Frontieres' but inter-galactic, i.e. how does it feel for the Brits to be medicalized? Lots of possibilities here, obviously, but they're not really played up. And, the problems with this preimse are a symptom rather than anomaly.
"The Tale of the Wicked," by John Scalzi (2009): 8.5
- It's actually quite reassuring to realize that the auteur theory works -- that themes, thrusts, and style are not only consistent, but often unintentionally transparent. And Scalzi, for all that I've read, maintains exactly what he maintains: light, wide-screen Unterhaltung that nonetheless often masks much more than one might assume on first glance. This was true with Old Man's War -- maybe less so with Redshirts, although I'm not nearly enough of a ST fan to recognize -- and this is true of this short story. That story is, on its face, a simple one, and far from original in its broad strokes, of a ship/AI that gains consciousness/free will, and decides to intervene, altruistically, in a human war, ultimately brokering a peace and laying the groundwork for some old fashioned consciousness raising amongst the universe's many AI ~ the story frames this quite explicitly as a religious conversion, and while that works as the larger metaphorical point of the story -- especially in its smart, and subtle, recognition of the ways in which 'getting religion' is messy and no one quite 'gets' it in exactly the same way ~ a point noted through the enemy's ship becoming conscious a bit more ruthlessly and not being quite as compassionate towards humanity -- it might be seen just as well through a materialist lens. That it manages to do stuff all of this allegory in the background of an otherwise by-numbers space adventure story is admirable. And, at the same time, like all of them, it never truly manages to rise above fluff -- and there are worse things than that.
"Bread and Bombs," by M. Rickert (2003): 8
- 98% of all art about, and made within two-three years of, 9/11 is cringe-inducingly bad. This is a pretty solid rule of thumb. I don't know if this is actually part of that positive 2%, although the turn pushes it a bit beyond the blandest of the libs-writing-allegories-about-tolerance bland. The piece: in a very-unsketched-out future dystopia, prejudice against some ill-defined Other has made small-town America more intolerant than usual, and a young girl and her group of friends befriend one of these Others, with disastrous consequences. Depending on one's perspective, the story's strength or weakness lies in the ambiguity of the background context here: who exactly are the 'others' here, and what is the exact nature of the 'war' we're currently in [especially confusing, as the analogy to 9/11 is crystal clear, and imagining the hypothetical 'war' that might happen as a result is far from far-fetched (in fact, you might even say it's reality). The bait and switch, therefore, is unwarranted (i.e. these are obviously Muslims, just say it). The structural reasons for this ambiguity, however, are understandable. We're operating in the realm of the Known here, and therefore understand exactly what type of response would follow from just such an attack. Through that lens, then, it seems delusional (although completely in line with post-9/11 liberal wishy-washiness) to imagine any 9/11-related war playing out like this. As if it would actually play out with massive, nation-state-like combat -- in which small-town middle America was actually in reach -- rather than the massively disproportionate and one-sided, if slogged and guerilla, reality we actually got. That said, this is nonetheless written with a prose confidence and fluidity above many others of this genre, and makes me interested to check out the rest of Rickert's (fairly lauded, I take it) ouevre.
"The Waters of Meribah," by Tony Ballantyne (2003): 9
- The foregrounded main "story" takes place in the context of some extremely strange world building and minute detailing: the universe has shrunk to only 300 miles across; life forms spontaneously, supported consciously by the universe; humans are doomed to never learn the secrets of the universe BECAUSE OF their curiosity. Filled with unexpected nice little observational nuggets (although I wish they wouldn’t have given our “convict” an out in terms of his assault) and a very effective sense of doom and foreboding in the description of the alien suit itself, and it’s malicious alienness.
"Tk'tk'tk," by David D. Levine (2006): 7.25
- The kind of tall tale folksiness I’d associate with work a half century older than what we have here. In its nostalgic sheen, it actually calls to mind the fiction of the period it’s evoking, and indeed, it’s hard not to see this as some sfnal peon to some peddling ancestry, with all alien contact a stand-in for the plight of the solitary Hausierer among a foreign people. STORY: traveling and down on his luck salesmen loses it all on a foreign planet before making the big sale and deciding nonetheless to stay on
- Accomplishes something that even the well-written “literary” sf doesn’t often: both a deftly observed, and acutely written character story as well as a conceptually adventurous, scientifically rigorous, and wholly original sf story. Regarding latter two, hard to think of an equivalent story that translates the nuances and uncertainties of neural science (both the hard and soft [what is consciousness?] of it) so fluidly to the sf form (maybe Blumlein, but with, obviously, different thematic concerns). In so doing, it reimagines an otherwise long-established (some might say tired) sub genre: clones. The Big Questions of all those works (thinking Wilhelm and Wolfe, namely)—who are these people? How do they relate to their other, older “selves”? How do we relate to them? Are they even “people” anyway?—are recast (and actually made more difficult!), largely through simply reposing them in novel forms (human sense-making makes even more difficult these divisions when the “new” person occupies the “same” body as before). All this, and I haven’t yet touched on the sensitively handled, non-sf, human familial concerns at issue here, as seen in the many signs given for why exactly THIS girl in THIS family might find solace in chemical oblivion (discipline, strictness, the very he-knows-the-Midwest overbearing, I’ll-pray-for-you Christianity on display here). More impressively, Gregory never slams these signs in our face, but allows us to understand their cumulative impact on the girl, while still allowing recognition of the parents love for their daughter. Really strong.
"Infinities," by Vandana Singh (2008): 5.75
- hard sci-fi suffers from the "regurgitation" problem often, in that narrativizing information--here the many interesting things about the nature of prime numbers and mathematics--more often resembles information than it does narration. That's here. And what's here beyond it is fairly soft and or not dependent on that math I feel. The "going to many universes" section was a bit cliched and came out of nowhere in the story and all those loose ends were unsatisfactorily tied up.
"Rogue Farm," by Charles Stross (2003): 6.75
- too elliptical for its own good, too good to give anything essential, and more at home in a New Weird collection than this. nonetheless, in retrospect the story grows, the beats start to separate themselves from the weird muck of the world (and Stross's admirably take-the-world-for-granted prose) and I can't help but view this much more favorably, especially apart from the grime of the world it depicts.
"The Gambler," by Paolo Bacigalupi (2008): 8
- Nothing is more dated than recent science fiction. This Bacigalupi from exactly ten years ago reads, with its media-integrity concerns and bloggers and gawker-rules-the-webwaves assumptions, reads more ancient than any Bradbury or Pohl. That said, it's a shame, because otherwise this story of a Laotian refugee working as an idealistic reporter at a clickbaity new media blog and refusing to betray his principles even after interviewing this worlds Beyoncé, who also just so happens to be Laotian too is strangely and densely compelling--qualities I haven't discerned in the Bacigalupi I've read until now (although, obviously, there are the themes consistent across his work: climate change, the underdeveloped world, and the moral logjams of capitalism). The boring genre questions are present here, as they ever are (i.e. is this SF), but that's overshadowed by his full-bore attempt at rendering a very particular type of immigrant inferiority. A shame, as well, that's it's attached really to a nothing of a story, other than one dependent on some rather obvious and clear moral arcs.
"Strood," by Neal Asher (2004): 8.25
- The opposite of the usual -- strong world-building, dense and confidently unspooled emplotment, but with a rather mundane major conceit, no matter the potential held within (meaning, here, the 'Medicin san Frontieres' but inter-galactic, i.e. how does it feel for the Brits to be medicalized? Lots of possibilities here, obviously, but they're not really played up. And, the problems with this preimse are a symptom rather than anomaly.
"The Tale of the Wicked," by John Scalzi (2009): 8.5
- It's actually quite reassuring to realize that the auteur theory works -- that themes, thrusts, and style are not only consistent, but often unintentionally transparent. And Scalzi, for all that I've read, maintains exactly what he maintains: light, wide-screen Unterhaltung that nonetheless often masks much more than one might assume on first glance. This was true with Old Man's War -- maybe less so with Redshirts, although I'm not nearly enough of a ST fan to recognize -- and this is true of this short story. That story is, on its face, a simple one, and far from original in its broad strokes, of a ship/AI that gains consciousness/free will, and decides to intervene, altruistically, in a human war, ultimately brokering a peace and laying the groundwork for some old fashioned consciousness raising amongst the universe's many AI ~ the story frames this quite explicitly as a religious conversion, and while that works as the larger metaphorical point of the story -- especially in its smart, and subtle, recognition of the ways in which 'getting religion' is messy and no one quite 'gets' it in exactly the same way ~ a point noted through the enemy's ship becoming conscious a bit more ruthlessly and not being quite as compassionate towards humanity -- it might be seen just as well through a materialist lens. That it manages to do stuff all of this allegory in the background of an otherwise by-numbers space adventure story is admirable. And, at the same time, like all of them, it never truly manages to rise above fluff -- and there are worse things than that.
"Bread and Bombs," by M. Rickert (2003): 8
- 98% of all art about, and made within two-three years of, 9/11 is cringe-inducingly bad. This is a pretty solid rule of thumb. I don't know if this is actually part of that positive 2%, although the turn pushes it a bit beyond the blandest of the libs-writing-allegories-about-tolerance bland. The piece: in a very-unsketched-out future dystopia, prejudice against some ill-defined Other has made small-town America more intolerant than usual, and a young girl and her group of friends befriend one of these Others, with disastrous consequences. Depending on one's perspective, the story's strength or weakness lies in the ambiguity of the background context here: who exactly are the 'others' here, and what is the exact nature of the 'war' we're currently in [especially confusing, as the analogy to 9/11 is crystal clear, and imagining the hypothetical 'war' that might happen as a result is far from far-fetched (in fact, you might even say it's reality). The bait and switch, therefore, is unwarranted (i.e. these are obviously Muslims, just say it). The structural reasons for this ambiguity, however, are understandable. We're operating in the realm of the Known here, and therefore understand exactly what type of response would follow from just such an attack. Through that lens, then, it seems delusional (although completely in line with post-9/11 liberal wishy-washiness) to imagine any 9/11-related war playing out like this. As if it would actually play out with massive, nation-state-like combat -- in which small-town middle America was actually in reach -- rather than the massively disproportionate and one-sided, if slogged and guerilla, reality we actually got. That said, this is nonetheless written with a prose confidence and fluidity above many others of this genre, and makes me interested to check out the rest of Rickert's (fairly lauded, I take it) ouevre.
"The Waters of Meribah," by Tony Ballantyne (2003): 9
- The foregrounded main "story" takes place in the context of some extremely strange world building and minute detailing: the universe has shrunk to only 300 miles across; life forms spontaneously, supported consciously by the universe; humans are doomed to never learn the secrets of the universe BECAUSE OF their curiosity. Filled with unexpected nice little observational nuggets (although I wish they wouldn’t have given our “convict” an out in terms of his assault) and a very effective sense of doom and foreboding in the description of the alien suit itself, and it’s malicious alienness.
"Tk'tk'tk," by David D. Levine (2006): 7.25
- The kind of tall tale folksiness I’d associate with work a half century older than what we have here. In its nostalgic sheen, it actually calls to mind the fiction of the period it’s evoking, and indeed, it’s hard not to see this as some sfnal peon to some peddling ancestry, with all alien contact a stand-in for the plight of the solitary Hausierer among a foreign people. STORY: traveling and down on his luck salesmen loses it all on a foreign planet before making the big sale and deciding nonetheless to stay on
March 11, 2023
I good anthology collection of works published in the first ten years of this century. There are just a few, maybe three, real stinkers and a couple long novellas. Very enjoyable, mostly hard science fiction.
My reviews of the final three stories:
“The Island”, by Peter Watts
A 2010 Hugo award-winning novelette published in The New Space Opera 2 (July 2009) edited by Dozois and Strahan {see image}
This story has 4 characters – the mom, her son, the Chimp (spaceship AI), and the alien Island being. Mom’s mission is to create “farcasters” wormhole doorways throughout the galaxies using far future Von Neumann self-replicating machines (Vons) as builders. She encounters two creatures she is rather wary of: her son and the Island. She hates the Chimp. This deservedly won the Hugo for its spectacular vision of the FAR future, not for any motherly love or kumbaya crap. Humans like Mom seemingly live forever. The Island is a Petaton giant being and with what we can tell, limited mechanism to communicate – it’s trying to warn mom’s spaceship. I LOVED the ending. You might too.
Go and read this and love this from Peter Watts, wow.
4.5/5, KJP 3/7/2023
Unusual title warning alert: “Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction”, Jo Walton.
To me it means it’s not gonna be all that serious.
Is the SF genre, one of the few, if nearly the only type that authors can get away with this style of writing – in headlines? It does help for place and setting, a great shortcut to move the action along. It’s a genre-self-referential piece, of course, about waitress “Linda Evans” at a bakery. This is alt-history from 1960 with a President Lindbergh and fascists in Britain post WWII.
Headline: PEACE TALKS IN LONDON AS JAPAN AND THE REICH DIVIDE UP RUSSIA, ‘Will there be a buffer state of “Scythia” to divide the two great powers?’
The story is not as interesting as it sounds or as it could be, I guess.
2.9/5, KJP 3/9/2023
“Chicken Little”, Cory Doctorow, a long novella.
This is the final story of this 21st anthology and I thought was the only original story written for this collection. However, it is a reprint from Gateways (July 2010), edited by Elizabeth Anne Hull, an anthology of original stories inspired by science fiction great Frederik Pohl.
There are a few quadrillionaires in the world and firms are competing to land some business with them; sell them a product. You make one sale and your firm is pretty well set for quite some time. These super-super rich individuals are like their own nation – e.g., USA GNP in 2023 is around $26 trillion : multiply that by 1,000 and you get $26 quadrillion.
Numeracy has been on the decline, or has it? People still buy lottery tickets. Read this novella and find out if anything can be done about that.
There is a slow developing love story here between a gifted salesman (door knob!) and a RICH Man’s minder (or is she more than that?). A slick ending reveals a lot.
Quite the tome from Doctorow.
4.0/5, KJP 3/11/2023.
My reviews of the final three stories:
“The Island”, by Peter Watts
A 2010 Hugo award-winning novelette published in The New Space Opera 2 (July 2009) edited by Dozois and Strahan {see image}
This story has 4 characters – the mom, her son, the Chimp (spaceship AI), and the alien Island being. Mom’s mission is to create “farcasters” wormhole doorways throughout the galaxies using far future Von Neumann self-replicating machines (Vons) as builders. She encounters two creatures she is rather wary of: her son and the Island. She hates the Chimp. This deservedly won the Hugo for its spectacular vision of the FAR future, not for any motherly love or kumbaya crap. Humans like Mom seemingly live forever. The Island is a Petaton giant being and with what we can tell, limited mechanism to communicate – it’s trying to warn mom’s spaceship. I LOVED the ending. You might too.
Go and read this and love this from Peter Watts, wow.
4.5/5, KJP 3/7/2023
Unusual title warning alert: “Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction”, Jo Walton.
To me it means it’s not gonna be all that serious.
Is the SF genre, one of the few, if nearly the only type that authors can get away with this style of writing – in headlines? It does help for place and setting, a great shortcut to move the action along. It’s a genre-self-referential piece, of course, about waitress “Linda Evans” at a bakery. This is alt-history from 1960 with a President Lindbergh and fascists in Britain post WWII.
Headline: PEACE TALKS IN LONDON AS JAPAN AND THE REICH DIVIDE UP RUSSIA, ‘Will there be a buffer state of “Scythia” to divide the two great powers?’
The story is not as interesting as it sounds or as it could be, I guess.
2.9/5, KJP 3/9/2023
“Chicken Little”, Cory Doctorow, a long novella.
This is the final story of this 21st anthology and I thought was the only original story written for this collection. However, it is a reprint from Gateways (July 2010), edited by Elizabeth Anne Hull, an anthology of original stories inspired by science fiction great Frederik Pohl.
There are a few quadrillionaires in the world and firms are competing to land some business with them; sell them a product. You make one sale and your firm is pretty well set for quite some time. These super-super rich individuals are like their own nation – e.g., USA GNP in 2023 is around $26 trillion : multiply that by 1,000 and you get $26 quadrillion.
Numeracy has been on the decline, or has it? People still buy lottery tickets. Read this novella and find out if anything can be done about that.
There is a slow developing love story here between a gifted salesman (door knob!) and a RICH Man’s minder (or is she more than that?). A slick ending reveals a lot.
Quite the tome from Doctorow.
4.0/5, KJP 3/11/2023.
September 21, 2018
3/5
This is supposed to be a collection of hand picked scifi short stories. Additionally an Indian name in the mix attracted attention. So obviously I was excited to start this, BUT the quality of stories was average at best with few good ones. Didn't finish the entire book, so maybe I missed on the rest of the good stuff, or maybe I was expecting more.
This is supposed to be a collection of hand picked scifi short stories. Additionally an Indian name in the mix attracted attention. So obviously I was excited to start this, BUT the quality of stories was average at best with few good ones. Didn't finish the entire book, so maybe I missed on the rest of the good stuff, or maybe I was expecting more.
November 25, 2019
This took a long time because I mostly read novels, but when I am between novels, sometimes I will read a short story. So, it's no judgement on the earlier stories in the book that I don't remember any of them. The only one I remember right now is the last one: "Chicken Little" by Cory Doctorow, which was excellent.
January 24, 2022
4.5 stars rounded down.
This huge collection features many of the biggest names in contemporary science fiction, plus many more you've probably never heard of. Some of the stories are merely good, but there are several in here that are really great. Definitely recommended for anyone who likes science fiction.
This huge collection features many of the biggest names in contemporary science fiction, plus many more you've probably never heard of. Some of the stories are merely good, but there are several in here that are really great. Definitely recommended for anyone who likes science fiction.
November 20, 2023
Huge. ICONIC even
Huge collection of outstanding science fiction. Sheesh, I can't even think of what to say about it. If every story isn't an award winner, other stories written by them are... Or both, really.
Huge collection of outstanding science fiction. Sheesh, I can't even think of what to say about it. If every story isn't an award winner, other stories written by them are... Or both, really.
June 22, 2017
A healthy variety of subgenres and styles including some of my favorite authors, and some that I couldn't get into.
August 9, 2018
Skimmed this one for my favorite authors. Infinities by Vandana Singh was brand new to me and very good.
September 22, 2018
Wow, new writers of SF are really out there. :)
April 7, 2019
A consistently good, solid collection; I was pleasantly surprised by 'Chicken Little' since I had only encountered Cory Doctorow's YA work before, but 'Tk'Tk'Tk' was probably my favourite story here.
March 12, 2020
A fantastic collection of science fiction, running the full gamut of styles and subgenres. An absolute must read for fans of newbies alike.
November 11, 2022
Some good stories, some bleh ones. I wouldn't stop anyone from reading it but I'd recommend a few dozen books before this one.
December 10, 2022
I've grown bored with SciFi.
May 17, 2023
An excellent collection of stories by writers who have become known since the year 2000. Wide-ranging and well chisen
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