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| 059346723X
| 9780593467237
| 059346723X
| 4.39
| 33
| Sep 26, 2023
| Sep 26, 2023
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really liked it
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The Big Book of Cyperpunk has 108 stories. Its details say it's ~1,100 pages, but it has ~643k words, which is closer to being ~2,200 pages normally.
The Big Book of Cyperpunk has 108 stories. Its details say it's ~1,100 pages, but it has ~643k words, which is closer to being ~2,200 pages normally. Each page has two columns of text, which explains the doubling. That's a lot of content. The scope and range of this anthology is immense. There were so many authors that I read for the first time and so many different concepts and ideals that I hadn't seen before. Each story is different in its presentation. I didn't notice any repetition despite this being a themed anthology. If you read every story in this anthology then your view on what cyberpunk is will be greatly expanded. There were several stories that I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them, often because their content was something that I initially thought that I wouldn't like. If this anthology was only composed of the stories I thought were good and great, it'd still be a full length anthology. There's even a few that I'm considering whether they're among the best of the 1000s of short fiction stories I've read. That may be enough by itself. Translations 15 Translated 3 Japanese 3 Spanish 2 Arabic 2 Russian 1 Chinese 1 French 1 German 1 Korean 1 Portuguese 102 of the 108 stories have been previously published in English. This is the first appearance in English for 6 that have been translated. No story that was originally written in English appears in this anthology for the first time. I expected there to be more stories from Chinese authors because the Chinese science fiction anthologies I've read have had several stories that could be arguably described as cyberpunk as defined by this anthology. There are several that I would've included, though including what I prefer wouldn't necessary have made it any better. Unfortunately, there are doubtlessly many logistical issues that make the inclusion of anything difficult. An anthology of this size is a grand undertaking and even so in many ways it's still a survey rather than anything even pretending to be fully representative of its theme. Shurin argues the world itself has become much more cyberpunk which in turn has made science fiction itself more cyberpunk. I completely agree with that assessment and as he notes it's probably the most important reason why cyberpunk barely has a discrete identity. The stories that can be most readily identified as cyberpunk are those that could now be considered as alternate histories. They're futures that never came to pass, at least not in the iterations presented for the most part. I find that especially interesting considering that the story which opens this anthology, “The Gernsback Continuum” by William Gibson is all about that. Even as cyberpunk was born it had contained the death of its identity. There are many nonfiction books that describe the assimilation of the counterculture into the mainstream and that's what seems to have happened with cyberpunk. Sadly, it often seems like those who have tried to most make the world the most cyberpunk were those who saw its warnings as inspirations and its villains as heroes. Authors 72 men 31 women 5+ non-binary persons 1 AI + human prompters Decade Distribution 1950s - 1 1960s - 2 1970s - 1 1980s - 18 1990s - 16 2000s - 13 2010s - 42 2020s - 15 20th Century - 38 35% 21st Century - 70 65% At 39% of the stories, the 2010s are represented more than the entirety of the 20th century. That's understandable based on the restrictions Shurin placed upon this anthology. Of the 51 stories that were published before the 2010s, 13 of them were by authors who didn't exclusively identify as male, as assumed by a cursory search. That's 25%. The overall percent is 34%. The 57 stories in the 2010s and 2020s have 24, which at 42% is closing in on parity. I have no idea what the overall percent of eligible stories were written by whom, but I assume that even to be at this level of inclusion required a lot of effort. That's especially the case since Shurin said he tried to avoid having the same author more than once as well as those that have already been heavily anthologized. Having a large number of non-white authors is almost surely too much of an ask without personally commissioning many authors. As Shurin notes, Afro-Futurism is not Black Cyberpunk. The other major source of fiction would be from authors from Southeast Asia and East Asia as far as I'm aware, but whether many of those would qualify is arguable. I mention this because in the Editor's Note that opens the anthology Shurin explicitly states that cyberpunk was ahead of its time with both progressive themes and inclusivity. Of course, that's only relevant to its contemporaries and not to current expectations. However, Shurin also states that many of the stories in this anthology are transgressive in a variety of ways. I was surprised by how many of the stories could be considered offensive, personally I'd call them distasteful, by people of all sorts. Most of the stories I strongly disliked were because of this, though I would like to think it's also because of more than that, but it can be difficult to tell. Enjoyment Distribution Highly Enjoyable - 9 Enjoyable - 25 Ok - 37 Meh - 14 Blah - 23 Highly + Enjoyable - 32% Ok - 34% Meh + Blah - 34% I don't know what conclusion I ought to draw from this since it's all over the place. This is unfortunately the case for a lot of anthologies and collections for me so it causes a lot of problems with how to rate it, much to the work's detriment. If a reader ignores everything they don't like rather than reading it all would it be a much better experience? I don't know whether that the better approach or not. When I compared my ratings of the stories written by men compared to those of women I found that in terms of percentages, I was twice as likely (35%) to have rated a story as Enjoyable when it was written by a woman rather a man (17%). I was surprised by that and I'll have to look into that more. However, I was also twice as likely to have rated a story as Highly Enjoyable (10%) when it was written by a man as compared to a woman (5%). I'll have to ponder that as well. The enjoyment distribution by published year was even more surprising for me. When I compared post-2010 and pre-2010 to have about half the stories in each era I found that I had almost the same for every single rating. I didn't expect at that all. Apparently I have minimal time preference, going by this at least. In the preface to the Post-Cyberpunk section Shurin says that he was self-indulgent with the stories chosen for it. In my opinion, he was overly self-indulgent elsewhere as well, mostly with those that seemed to be included because of their malicious attacks on thinly-veiled contemporary public figures. It's not enough separation of fantasy from reality for my preference within its specific context. Story Presentation I copied the table of contents from Shurin's substack so I wouldn't have to type out the relevant details for each story. That's presented in alphabetical order by last name. https://raptorvelocity.beehiiv.com/p/... This anthology instead has them by sections and chronological order of publication. The sections are Self, Society, Culture, Challenge, and Post-Cyberpunk. The first story is outside of the sections though. Each section is prefaced with an introduction where Shurin discusses its theme and provides a brief description of each story. The first story of each section is one that could be considered to be proto-Cyberpunk. The rest of this is what I've written about the stories. There's relatively a lot. As the entirety of everything here is about 60k characters, 10k words, and 20 single spaced pages. It suffices to say that if you have an interest in cyberpunk and don't mind short fiction then there will probably be a lot that you'll enjoy reading. I find it difficult to write about short fiction, the shorter the more so, because saying anything about it is a greater percentage of how much it is. So, be forewarned that what I've written for each story says enough to give an idea what the story is about, but since they're so short it may be also an overview of the story. I received this DRC from Vintage Anchor through NetGalley ...more |
Notes are private!
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Sep 11, 2023
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Sep 11, 2023
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Paperback
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| 0993969682
| 9780993969683
| B073VF5H2K
| 3.77
| 218
| Oct 08, 2017
| Oct 08, 2017
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liked it
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The subtitle is somewhat misleading. Maybe half of these twenty-three stories could reasonably be called SFF. Speculative fiction would be more accura
The subtitle is somewhat misleading. Maybe half of these twenty-three stories could reasonably be called SFF. Speculative fiction would be more accurate. All of the stories are Asian influenced. The influences are Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Filipino, Sri Lankan, Indian, and Turkish. Social justice was the focus for several of the stories. Several of the Ok stories were close to being Enjoyable, but I had problems with each of them that were a bit too much. Spirit of Wine - Tony Pi A spirit of Wine possess two sworn brothers and causes mischief. Ideogram-play follows. Meh The dataSultan of Streets and Stars - Jeremy Szal A dataSultan (programmer) is hired to steal the newest djinn (AI). Naturally it doesn't go planned. Meh Weaving Silk - Amanda Sun Two children in Tokyo struggle to survive following a catastrophic earthquake. Meh Vanilla Rice - Angela Yuriko Smith A pregnant woman of asian descent in a western country has fully internalized white beauty standards and purchases a chip that will change the phenotype of her daughter so that she will not have to suffer the indignity of not being white. Blah Looking Up - S. B. Divya A woman with a physical disability who has a traumatic past and is estranged from her family has been selected for a one-way mission to Mars. All that's left is telling everyone goodbye then going on her way. Ok A Star Is Born - Miki Dare This is about the interment of Japanese-Canadians. It's about the racism and oppression that non-whites have endured in Canada, whose evils are similar to those of the United States, though overshadowed by the severity of the latter due to population size and factors. I'm not sure what to make of the narrative, mostly as to whether it is what it says it is or not. Blah My Left Hand - Ruhan Zhao A scientist visits a palmreader who warns him of disaster, but what does l matter when there's science to do, and who believes that nonsense anyway, ha ha. I didn't enjoy this as much as I otherwise would because I don't have sufficient Chinese cultural knowledge to turn what seem to be the implications into definite conclusions. Meh DNR - Gabriela Lee A doctor living in the Philippine Protectorate on Mars spends most of her time on autopsies and extracting the final memories of the deceased from their visual cortex to present to the bereaved. Ok A Visitation for the Spirit Festival - Diana Xin A mother who thought she'd never return to China does so to convince her daughter that her activism is too dangerous. The mother carries with her the ghosts of her past. Meh Rose's Arm - D. Jim In racist steampunk Canada, a teenage girl's mother has died and her father is no longer able to provide due to anti-Japanese sentiment. A white doctor has offered to solve her problems, though his help would come at a great personal cost to her. Meh Back to Myan - Regina Kanyu Wang, translated by Shaoyan Hu Kaya is a refugee saved by the Union. She returns to her desolate homeworld where her merfolk people once lived and discovers the truth, which dispels all the false narratives that were put upon her. Meh Meridian - Karin Lowachee A four year old boy watches his family be killed by space pirates and his station be wrecked. He's picked up by scavengers, but they don't know how to raise such a traumatized child. The years pass by, but the memories don't fade. Ok Joseon Fringe - Pamela Q. Fernandes A historical fantasy about how hangul and much else was developed by King Sejong and Jang Young Sil. It's also about hoping changing the past will fix the present. Meh Wintry Hearts of Those Who Rise - Minsoo Kang The heir to a grand estate seeks an inheritance denied to him by father's second wife through legal maneuvering and deceit. His scholar friend decides to beat her at her own game. Ok Udātta Śloka? - Deepak Bharathan A mythological origin story for a major Hindu deity. Meh Crash - Melissa Yuan-Innes The colonists of the lunar colony escaped Earth and want nothing to do with it. A crashed space vessel threatens to upend their established balance. Ok Memoriam - Priya Sridhar A robotictist has created a replica of his deceased father and everyone is worried for him, scared of what he's done, or both. Ok The Observer Effect - E. C. Myers After a school shooting in California, a disabled Chinese woman wants to know why her co-worker, who is a superhero, didn't do anything about it. Superheroes are common in this world, as are supervillians. Thus ensues a conversation about racism against Asians, the importance of representation, and what it truly means to be a superhero. Ok Decision - Joyce Chng A young woman from a race of mythical spider people who eat humans decides it's time to leave the family nest. Meh Moon Halves - Anne Carly Abad The forests of Barangay Mangangasu are filled with spirits. It's time for the hunting rite to determine a new chieftan. Ok The Bridge of Dangerous Longings - Rati Mehrotra A young girl wants to wants to cross the bridge that no one has survived crossing since it was built. All is shrouded in mist, but the gruesome death that befalls crossers is in full view. Life isn't going so well for her though. Ok Old Souls - Fonda Lee A woman who remembers all of her past lives, seven currently, meets an immortal woman who asks of her a favor. Ok The Orphans of Nilaveli - Naru Dames Sundar Nearly seventy years have passed since the end of the Sri Lankan civil war. Tamils remain discriminated against by the Sinhalese who literally aren't able to see them any longer due to their implants erasing them from sight. Even so, following a catastrophic earthquake two Tamil orphans are adopted by a Sinhalese family. Their lives take drastically different paths. Ok ...more |
Notes are private!
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Kindle Edition
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| 9781642361100
| 3.97
| 35
| Jul 07, 2022
| Jul 07, 2022
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it was amazing
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Introduction - Xia Jia (2022) I was surprised by the quality of the works in this anthology. Then I saw that they almost all won a prestigious award fo Introduction - Xia Jia (2022) I was surprised by the quality of the works in this anthology. Then I saw that they almost all won a prestigious award for the best SF of the year in China. That seems appropriate to me. In the introduction Xia Jia writes that we're in the Post-Liu Cixin era. That seems like a good thing to me, especially going by the stories included, and because I'm not a fan of his work. As to whether it's true, I wouldn't know. She also notes that this anthology was a stretch goal for her Kickstarter campaign to have her first English science fiction collection published. I'm not much a fan of her writing either, so I may or may not read A Summer Beyond Your Reach later. My Family and Other Evolving Animals - Shuang Chimu, Carmen Yiling Yan (2019) The year is 2119. In four years a new space megastation, one of almost a hundred already in space, will set off to begin its deep space ecological experiments. This story is almost entirely speculation about how ecosystems may change in space, with a focus on fruit flies. Its scientific narrative is presented through the lives of a particular family, especially the youngest daughter. This was a pleasing speculative slice-of-life story. Enjoyable The Bridge - Liu Xiao, Andy Dudak (2019) I think I would like this story if I knew the specific context for its allegories rather than only vaguely being about the changes that modernity has brought to isolated areas. I assume it's an allegory about Atulie'er and other cliff villages in China, though that may only be at face value. Ok Tombstone - Yang Wanqing, Andy Dudak (2017) Catastrophic climate disasters brought forth the Great Scattering of humanity. New Anchorage, population twenty million, is one of the last bastions of civilization that remain. Everything is devoted to Osiris Tower, which promises an afterlife through the creation of a soul. This is told through the life of a Charon, a ferryman of the dead, and his relationship with the love of his life. I wasn't liking this for almost half its duration, but by the end I was won over by its allegories. Enjoyable PTSD - Hui Hu, Rebecca Kuang (2016) A VR journalist seeking clout radicalizes a young boy online hoping to goad him into becoming viral content. Four years later working at NetLord (NetEase) the consequences of his actions have caught up to him in a way that he never could've seen coming. This was a fun SF thriller about being unable to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. It also considers some problems that may arise from 3D printing and virtual reality. Enjoyable By Those Hands - Congyun "Mu Ming" Gu, Judith Huang (2018) I'm astounded by the masterful craft that created this beautiful work. Its emotionality is admirable and its science praiseworthy. A master bamboo weaver is distraught that he will not be able to pass on his craft and that all the traditional ways are being replaced by low-quality automation. A neuroscientist with a specialty in hands is distressed about the kinesthetic knowledge that is lost upon death. Perhaps by using the newest technologies traditional ways may yet be preserved. Highly Enjoyable The Kite of Jinan - Liang Qingsan, Emily Jin (2017) In the introduction to this book this story is called "fictional nonfiction", which is apt. This story is simply a guy who saw something he thought was interesting and unsolved in the historical record. In this case the truth behind why a series of gunpowder workshops exploded and whether the primary suspect was indeed responsible. So, he took it upon himself to deeply research the matter for no other reason than personal curiosity. This is probably somewhat similar to the research that goes into making edutainment videos on Youtube. One example would be some of the videos CGP Grey has made. This was more interesting and enjoyable than may be expected. Enjoyable Pixiu - Shi Heiyao, Andy Dudak (2018) A biologist is hired by a mining company to create a new bacteria that can bioleach low quality ore effectively and as cheaply. He relates its development to his relationship with his grandmother from his birth to her death. There's a considerable amount of philosophizing about the purpose of life and the nature of interpersonal relationships, including for bacteria. Enjoyable The Postman - Liao Shubo, Rebecca Huang (2016) An interstellar postman keeps receiving messages from a little girl asking if he has any mail for her. He doesn't and he takes a memory-erasing pill after he finishes delivering the mail, but then one day... Meh ...more |
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ebook
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| B0B4T8W7JD
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| Apr 25, 2023
| Apr 25, 2023
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really liked it
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As you'd expect from the title all of these stories involve being in space, or having space come to them. Seven were written in English and six were t
As you'd expect from the title all of these stories involve being in space, or having space come to them. Seven were written in English and six were translated from Chinese by Alex Woodend. Five of the English-language stories are reprints and two are new. The six Chinese-language stories appear here translated for the first time, as far as I can tell anyway. Alex Shvartsman - The Race for Arcadia (2015) This is a mildly amusing and severely critical story of a deeply embarrassed Russian government that is desperate to prove that they still matter. I don't believe it to be satire because this story seems entirely plausible within the context presented. The protagonist, whose death is imminent from a terminal illness, is blatantly told that he's being sent on a suicide space mission for the purpose of propaganda. If they're willing to admit that much, what aren't they admitting? Meh Chin Zijun - Shine (2016) Qi Fengyang is in despair of never being able to achieve his dream when the extremely wealthy Huo Changao offers to fulfill it for him. All he has to do is accept what may a suicide mission to rescue Sun Shi'ning from a failed Europa expedition. She's the former's ex-lover and the latter's wife. The rescue will take the cooperation of the world and much science, though that's nothing compared to their passion and determination. However, neither one is being honest about their motives, so what's this really all about? This reminded me superficially of a mix between 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Martian, the former of which is explicitly referenced in the text, and the latter if it was told from an Earth-side perspective. I continue be amazed how often Elon Musk is included in such stories, as he's mentioned here in passing as Alan Musk. Meh Leah Cypess - On The Ship (2017) This is the sixth story by Cypess that I've read and I've enjoyed them all. I believe this is the first science fiction story I've read by her. Generation ships are a setting I tend to like and this one more so than usual because it reminded me of Philip K. Dick. That's both all I want to say about it and all I think needs to be said. Enjoyable Wang Jinkang - Seeds of Mercury (2002) What an astounding story. It started out enjoyably and by the end it became one of the best translated works of short fiction I've read and possibly one of the better ones I've ever read. Chen Yizhe has a blessed life of comfort, wealth, and familial bliss. One day He Jun, a lawyer, informs him that his aunt Sha Wu has died and she wants him to carry on her legacy. She's created a new life that can only prosper on Mercury, hence the title, which would be the seeds of a new civilization. The parts of the story that take place in that civilization are an utterly delightful exploration of Mercurian society, science, and religion. Highly Enjoyable Eleanor R. Wood - Her Glimmering Façade (2016) This is another type of story that I really like. There's just something about someone waking up alone in a mysterious location with no idea of their situation that appeals to me. That allows me to entirely overlook that it's entirely conceptual and nothing else. Saying what the concept is would spoil the story. Enjoyable Han Song - Answerless Journey (1995) Creature wakes up in a location with no memories and meets Same Kind, who has the same condition. It's an allegorical existential comedy horror, but I'd only be guessing about what. The title is apt, too much so really. This is the seventh story I've read by Han Song, though it's only the second that I haven't assigned my worst rating to. He writes in a way that I personally strongly dislike. Meh Ronald D. Ferguson - Cylinders (2017) Jerry is a robot guardian for Rachael, a teenage girl, and is modeled on her deceased father. They live in a cylindrical space station that is developing a new technology that will revolutionize humanity and exploration. Saboteurs on board would see it all stopped. Mostly the story is Jerry watching Rachael's day to day life as his upgrades have him becoming more and more similar to her father. Enjoyable He Xi - Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet (2010) Humanity desires to settle many planets to avoid extinction, but many of them have conditions unsuitable for standard humans. Many different pioneer species were designed to settle these planets. They only have provisional status as humans. A team has been sent to judge whether the settlers of a certain planet qualify as human or not. Ok Allen Stroud - The First (2023) Two astronauts arrive on Mars believing that no humans had come before them, but they were wrong. Those before them were the earliest humans, though they were not The First to be on Mars. Meh Zhao Haihong - The Darkness of Mirror Planet (2003) This seems to be a wholly allegorical story that I think I understood, but didn't like at all for what it was saying or how it was said. Mirror, the protagonist, wants to join the mission to Planet Dark, which requires leaving her husband Lack and passing a psychological test. Blah Amdi Silvestri - A Minuet of Corpses (2018) This was meant to be a creepy horror story, but it didn't do anything at all for me. A spaceship comes across what me be a rouge planetary graveyard or something more sinister and spooky stuff happens. Not my kind of horror at all. Blah Bao Shu - Doomsday Tour (2013) A self-fulfilling 2012 end of the world story. Alien disaster tourists want to make sure their money was well spent. A galactic travel agency want to ensure their profits continue unimpeded. Corruption is an universal ideal. Ok Russell James - The Emissary (2023) Shane had always wanted to be an astronaut. After the Apollo missions ended in 1972 he thought that chance had passed. In 1976, he's kidnapped by the CIA at the behest of NASA. They tell him that he's their last chance and everything counts on him. The secret truth of Apollo 17 is revealed. Meh I received this eARC from Flame Tree Press through NetGalley. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Apr 19, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 0060846755
| 9780060846756
| 0060846755
| 3.81
| 1,324
| Jun 01, 2007
| Jun 12, 2007
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liked it
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This is an original anthology. All the stories were published in 2007. As it says, this is THE NEW SPACE OPERA, not the old sort. The old sort being t
This is an original anthology. All the stories were published in 2007. As it says, this is THE NEW SPACE OPERA, not the old sort. The old sort being that which was published in the pulp magazines of the 1950s. It's unclear when the NEW began. In 2008, the next year, Jeff VanderMeer would publish The New Weird, and there are probably other NEW X that I'm aware of. I personally consider very little of this to agree with what I feel space opera to be, but that's fine. The editors say at one point that it's "wide-screen, high-bit-rate, action packed qualities typical of the form". I'm not sure what that means, but I don't think it applies to quite a few of the stories here either. Regardless of semantics and commonalities, there's still some enjoyable stories in here. Saving Tiamaat - Gwyneth Jones [Buonaratti Transit] The Interstellar Diaspora has discovered a new planet of sentient bipeds and now seeks to civilize them. Their planet has been ravaged by ethnic civil war, as the dominant ethnicity literally cannibalizes everyone else. Thus, The Interstellar Disapora sends representatives who believe that We Can Fix Them. Meh Verthandi's Ring - Ian McDonald Two universal civilizations decide that there can only be one civilization to exist throughout the multiverse. The scale was too immense for me to take seriously. Any sense of wonder I may have had was obliterated by my constant eye rolling. Early on a single ship destroys 80k planets which kills 20 trillion sentients with a single brilliant strategic attack. Maybe some can read that and be utterly amazed, but when I read it I think, "oh, ok, that's a lot, huh." Meh Hatch - Robert Reed [The Great Ship Universe] I've read at least a few of Reed's Great Ship short fiction, but I've never been interested enough to commit to the novels. Their scale is immense and the characters are functionally immortal superbeings, but it's never quite worked for me. In this one a raider seeks fortune by harvesting rare materials from a swarm of billions of insect-like biological robots, or something like that. There's a lot of speculation about the greater series and talk about plans that stretch into the millennia, to say the least. Ok Winning Peace - Paul J. McAuley [Jackaroo] His side, the Alliance, lost the war against the Collective, and as a prisoner of war he's sold into slavery from one slaver to another. The current slaver sends him off on a suicide mission to a brown dwarf to retrieve what may be a elder culture artifact. It's also his chance to escape. Ok Glory - Greg Egan Researchers travel to a relatively undeveloped planet to study the artifacts of an ancient civilization before the contemporary culture destroys everything because they revere only war and expansion. Enjoyable Maelstrom - Kage Baker [Mars] An eccentric man living on Mars becomes extremely wealthy due to the generosity of his patron. He decides to devote his life and wealth to adapting old stories, especially Edgar Allen Poe, into theatrical plays. He assembles a motely crew, including two z-list actors from Earth and hopes for the best. One of those actors insists on doing Spongebob Squarepants impressions in a Poe story. Both popular culture and old classics are mocked. It's a far funnier story than I would have expected and by the end I was chuckling quite a bit. Enjoyable Blessed by an Angel - Peter F. Hamilton [Commonwealth Universe] A pregnant woman is abducted to test whether she's been infected by a cultural parasite. Their foes work their ways by corrupting children. Most of the time is spent arguing about politics. I may not agree, but it was interesting to read about. It was moderately reminiscent of the relationship between Demarchists and Conjoiners in Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space series. Ok Who's Afraid of Wolf 359? - Ken Macleod A man has committed adultery, which is illegal, with a member of the tycoon's harem. He's sentenced to a suicide mission of going to a planet where civilization has collapsed and report back his findings. The story seems to be a set-up for the punchline ending, which made me groan. Blah The Valley of the Gardens - Tony Daniel The farm posts and fencing had stood for 50,000 years, their code preventing the spread of the desert into the pastures. All the soil and everything else was programmed. He was only 1,500 years old, still centuries away from truly being an adult. One day he meets a woman and falls in love, but she was of the desert and he of the pasture. They could neither cross over, but they had width of the fence to express their love. SUDDEN 50K YEARS FLASHBACK TO INTERGALATIC SPACE BATTLES AGAINST AN EXTRADIMENSIONAL LOVECRAFTIAN BEING WHOSE UNLIMTED TENTACLES CAN APPEAR ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME IN THE UNIVERSE. Return to the present and conclusion. Ok Dividing the Sustain - James Patrick Kelly This story literally seems like it's almost all talking in a few different rooms, except for the sex, which I found nice in its own way. A courier has deceived his way onto a vessel filled with Consensualist heading to their homeworld. They don't make any decisions unless a consensus is reached. The courier feels like he's going to die if he has to stay with his pod so he schemes to leave them and and live with the pregnant ex-wife of the captain, with whom he's infatuated. I enjoyed the strange transgressive twist. Enjoyable Minla's Flowers - Alastair Reynolds [Merlin] A reluctant uplift/savior story where a planet's people must use science to escape from an upcoming calamity that will doom their planet. Knowledge without wisdom, let alone empathy, may create monsters. Enjoyable Splinters of Glass - Mary Rosenblum A man leaves his lover's house and sees his ex-lover who believes that he's been dead for ten years. Memories rush back. There's a lot of motorized snowboarding scenes, including fight scenes, which were rather neat. It takes places on Europa, which is now livable, but still entirely ice. There's silly backstory stuff and I'm conflicted about it ended, but overall I enjoyed it. Enjoyable Rememberance - Stephen Baxter [Xelee] Only one person, The Rememberer, still remembers the true past regarding the Squeem invasion and the atrocity they committed upon the Earth, but he slips up and is arrested. And so, he begins the tale that has been passed down for centuries. Ok The Emperor and the Maula - Robert Silverberg This basis for this story's structure seems to be 1,001 Nights. A woman meets the emperor of the alien species who has conquered Earth and tells him stories and although she's meant to be executed, it keeps being delayed day after day, because the emperor must hear another story from her. It's fine, but I was never engaged with it. Meh The Worm Turns - Gregory Benford [Worm] A woman is deeply in debt, but she's offered a suicide mission to clear all of it, which involves a wormhole. I didn't think the humor went well, especially the sex humor, and I thought it was an awkward story with a style that I disliked. I've read over a dozen short fiction stories from Benford, some of which I've quite enjoyed, and as far as I can remember this is the one I've liked the least by far. Disappointing. Blah Send Them Flowers - Walter Jon Williams Two space drifters, one a relatively average guy, and the other an improbably successful seducer of women are on the run due to the latter's cuckoldry and theft. They travel through the multiverses until they run out of food and have to dock. They have a choice of spending their remaining money on food or partying. They choose the latter, getting drunk, high, and whoring. The average guy thinks he needs to turn his life around, but change is hard. Enjoyable Art of War - Nancy Kress A captain is tasked with assessing and recovering the art looted by the Tali, with whom they are at war. There's one terrible problem though, the general is his mother, and they have a terrible relationship. So terrible that when he stresses out about her he goes hysterical, seizes, and passes out. More than anything else this story is about his relationship with her. The ending is atrocious and petty. I don't know why Kress wrote this story, let alone why it was accepted, but it's awful, annoying, and fixated. As with the Benford story, I've read more than a dozen stories from her, but this surely has to be the worst. Blah Muse of Fire - Dan Simmons A spacefaring troupe of Shakespearean performers have to put upon plays for ever increasingly powerful beings, which have enslaved humanity, until at least they play for the one who may be the the most powerful of all. It's infused from start to finish with Shakespeare. There's some sexism, racism, and sex scenes, one with a girl who was "very young but old enough for me not to feel too guilty" which is stated to be the usual for the twenty year protagonist. I couldn't go along with the silliness this time. Meh ...more |
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Dec 2022
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Dec 02, 2022
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Dec 01, 2022
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| 1481435027
| 9781481435024
| 1481435027
| 3.63
| 294
| Apr 18, 2017
| Apr 18, 2017
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it was ok
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I didn't enjoy any of the stories in this anthology, but it was informative as to which sort of absurdities I can tolerate, let alone appreciate. The
I didn't enjoy any of the stories in this anthology, but it was informative as to which sort of absurdities I can tolerate, let alone appreciate. The title was accurate. All of the stories either were at a cosmic scale. There were space ship fleets that had trillions of passenger or the story took place over the course of literally billions of years. There were also beings of cosmic power whether through planetary size, deific status, or technology. The foreword says the purpose was to instill a "sensawunda" (sense of wonder) in a similar way that the works of his childhood did. A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime - Charlie Jane Anders (2017) This begins with an escape from a galactic cult of personality that's beyond caricature. It's supposed to comedic with its references and memes, but it was too ridiculous for me to handle. The other place they go is a libertine cult of the worst sort. The entire story is so gaudy and self-righteous. Blah Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance - Tobias S. Buckell (2017) A former flesh form that exchanged free will for immortality as a spaceship hull maintenance bot ponders what to do about a flesh form CEO requesting aid following a battle between their space fleets that have trillions in population. Ok The Deckhand, the Nova Blade, and the Thrice-Sung Texts - Becky Chambers (2017) This is an epistolary story told through com logs in pen pal format without any response. A spaceship deckhand, basically a janitor, just wants to get high in peace and slack off. Much to their confusion and reluctance they become The Chosen One of The Thrice-Sung Texts who must wield The Nova Blade to defeat the evil space monsters that devour all. All of this is told rather than shown. It's a very flippant story, but not quite to the point of writing something like, "Dear diary, today I like totally became the savior of humanity and stuff. It was a real girl boss mood frfr. There I was vibing while SLAAAAYYING those omg cringe ngl monsters with the Nova Blade and the scruffy armory guy gave me such a thirsty look. He's so down bad for me. I had sex with him later. It was ok." I don't consider it that far off though, as the preceding text is an exaggeration rather than fabrication. Meh The Sighted Watchmaker - Vylar Kaftan (2011) An entity oversees the eons-long process of creating new super intelligent life from nothingness through evolution. Ok Infinite Love Engine - Joseph Allen Hill (2017) Imagine a person who was reading Golden Age SF, playing avant-garde videogames, watching strange cartoons/anime, scrolling through social media, then took a multitude of psychedelics and fell into a fever dream. This was really weird. The height of the weirdness was the induced menstruation as a form of communication with her superiors. Aria Astra the Spacetrotting Coolgal is on a mission to stop Zarzak the space monster who is currently living on a planet-sized cosmic being known as the Drowning King from taking over the universe with love. Meh Unfamiliar Gods - Adam-Troy Castro with Judi B. Castro (2017) I can't accept thinking of this as anything other than taking superhero comic book nonsense and then trying to outdo it. Earth is assailed by a pantheon of cosmic beings far greater than their own cosmic beings and resorts to begging help from an unknown cosmic being at the risk of the possible destruction of all that there is. Then there's the weird engine sex stuff. Blah Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World - Caroline M. Yoachim (2015) A woman has contact with a being outside of time and space and begins her journey through billions of years in the form of several brief stories. Meh Our Specialty is Xenogeology - Alan Dean Foster (2017) A group of xenogeologists come across an alien spacecraft and decide to explore. I had high hopes for this story because the premise is one that I quite enjoy. Unfortunately, it didn't last long enough to do much and is mostly a tease. Foster wrote some of the Alien novelizations, so it was interesting how this reminded me a bit of the movie, Prometheus (2012). If it were a short story that went entirely differently anyway. Ok Golden Ring - Karl Schroeder (2017) The avatar of a sentient heliostat visits a world that she left to die. Everything in the story revolves around the assumption that almost all humans and AI would go insane when they learn a specific truth about the universe that only matters in the abstract and has no practical effect on their lives. This idea is known in our time, but apparently confirming it is just too much for almost anyone to handle. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that 99% of people who heard this truth today would just go, "Oh, ok" and walk off. I think the only people who would be concerned at all are the hardcore members of the Rationalist community who are especially adept at self-delusion. Meh Tomorrow When We See The Sun - A. Merc Rustad (2015) [Sun Lords of the Principality] This is the first story in an interesting setting, but other than that not much else. All is ruled by the god-like beings known as The Seven Sun Lords. After executing the last Wolflord, a wraith known as Mere begins to remember their purpose and plans are set in motion, however futile they may be. Meh Bring the Kids and Revisit the Past at the Traveling Retro Funfair! - Seanan McGuire (2017) A spacefaring funfair filled with antique arcade games and videogames breaks down on a dyson sphere. The contact she was to meet up with for repairs is being pursued by the local authorities and now she is as well. However, she's a champion at Duck Hunt so those soldiers may as well be sitting ducks to a Quackshot like her. Ok The Dragon That Flew Out of the Sun - Aliette de Bodard (2017) [Xuya Universe] It reads like an allegory of some part of Vietnam's history, but I only really know about the Vietnam War, and I don't know that that's what it is. The child protagonists are coping with life decades after the conclusion of war among stellar neighbors. Inherited resentment persists among the younger generation. Ok Diamond and the World Breaker - Linda Nagata (2017) The AI overlord that administers The Nine Thousand Worlds has decided that stagnation is bad for mankind and arbitrarily assigns humans to commit acts of terrorism and other crimes so that humans never become complacent. It also assigns humans to counteract and prevent any of this from ever being carried out. Ok The Chameleon's Gloves - Yoon Ha Lee (2017) [The Machineries of Empire] This is a heist story that takes place at least 1,250 years before the trilogy. It features a weapon that causes destruction measured in lightyears. The story's connection to anything else is tenuous at best. Ok The Universe, Sung in Stars - Kat Howard (2015) People known as Guardians raise pocket universes with music until the universes become stable enough to perform the music of the spheres on their own. Meh Wakening Ouroboros - Jack Campbell (2017) The universe is coming to an end. The last human to be born is over a billion years old. The first, the only other remaining human, to be made immortal offers him a choice to have one last chance to do something that has never been done before. Ok Warped Passages - Kameron Hurley (2017) An anomaly has stranded the entire fleet of 500 generation ships in the abyss of space. Their bodies begin to change and strange growths form inside them, because perhaps humans are only parasites after all. A depressing body horror story, which is why I haven't read any of her novels. Meh The Frost Giant's Data - Dan Abnett (2017) I felt like I was reading the novelization of a mission for some science fiction first person person shooter videogame from id Software. I know Abnett has done a lot of work in various media, including Warhammer 40k, none of which I've read, so maybe that's more relevant. Abnett includes many neologisms and has quite the style, but I don't know if it's really one that I like. The story is a guy has four bodies, four lives really, to break into the most secure facility known to mankind, which he designed. Why? To start a war that will cause a billion deaths, because that's preferable for humanity than a peace under alien co-government. Ok ...more |
Notes are private!
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Nov 13, 2022
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Nov 13, 2022
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Nov 14, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 1783291524
| 9781783291526
| B00MSQUTH8
| 3.79
| 1,499
| Feb 24, 2015
| Feb 24, 2015
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it was ok
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The Tamarisk Hunter - Paolo Bacigalupi (2006) Lolo has found a way to cheat the system, but what do you do when the system ceases to exist? Ok Deep Blood The Tamarisk Hunter - Paolo Bacigalupi (2006) Lolo has found a way to cheat the system, but what do you do when the system ceases to exist? Ok Deep Blood Kettle - Hugh Howey (2013) Aliens try the carrot (massive profits) and the stick (everyone dies) approach to taking over Earth and a young farm boy ponders on how his farming is a metaphor for humanity. Blah Animal Husbandry - Seanan McGuire (2009) Fourteen months ago multiple pandemics wiped out most of the world. A veterinarian travels with her assortment of animals and relevant drugs. Meh “…for a single yesterday” - George R. R. Martin (1975) A man who is a singer and guitarist sees no future for himself and lives only for past with the help of a drug. Their new self-appointed leader who is ex-military has great hopes for the future and wants the drug to help with that. The narrator is in the middle, understanding both, but his sympathies lie with the former. Ok Chislehurst Messiah - Lauren Beukes (2011) Most of the people in the world have died from a pandemic, but this wealthy white conservative male in his late 30s has the solution. He stays inside, watches Youtube all day, pops pills, and is disgusted by the state of today's youth. Considering who's left alive, he begins to wonder whether he's the Messiah. Meh Colliding Branes - Rudy Rucker & Bruce Sterling (2009) Two fringe bloggers who have never met each other before meet up because the end of the universe is imminent. A regular commenter on their blogs told them the secret to survive the end of the universe, so that's where they're headed. This is a very silly story whose memes and references are very much from 2009. Ok Ellie - Jack McDevitt (1995) The Crash was centuries ago, but a mysterious tower where the devil was said to be contained still has that which was lost. He goes there and finds someone that he thought was forever lost to him. I'm ambivalent about this story, but I think enjoyment wins out overall. Enjoyable Foundation - Ann Aguirre (2012) It's a nice little story about six wealthy families in a communal underground bunker and what comes afterward. It's also strangely unsatisfying. Ok Beat Me Daddy (Eight to the Bar) - Cory Doctorow (2002) Ten years have passed since the war ended, but the automated jets still fly overhead, though bereft of ammo. The survivors have become scavengers. One day a stranger appears to listen to the Eight Bar Band and suggests a better life through gardening. Ok A Beginner’s Guide to Survival Before, During, and After the Apocalypse - Christopher Barzak (2013) Not so much a guide as an example narrative told from a second person perspective. Meh Wondrous Days - Genevieve Valentine (2010) A 2012 disaster story that I found to be especially nonsensical. Blah Dreams in Dust - D. Thomas Minton (2012) All of Earth's surface water is gone. A man traveling through the Atlantic basin begs for help from an enclave of survivors, as he hopes he carries the plans to restore water to Earth. This read much more like a prologue to a Dune-like novel than a self-contained short story. Enjoyable By Fools Like Me - Nancy Kress (2007) In this wasteland community Christianity has become the worship of trees. Her granddaughter brings her a package filled with books, which are among the gravest of unforgivable sins. Ok Jimmy’s Roadside Café - Ramsey Shehadeh (2008) When the world ended, Jimmy opened a cafe, and was determined to provide the best service that he could to anyone who came by. Ok The Elephants of Poznan - Orson Scott Card (2000) Children are no longer born to humans. Elephants shall inherit the Earth and direct the course of human evolution. This is probably allegorical. Blah The Postman - David Brin (1982) This was written as an intentionally optimistic and idealistic response to the post-apocalyptic fiction of the time. A wanderer stumbles onto the outfit of a postman and is at first into the role by the hopes and dreams of people for a better life, but then starts taking to it. This later became a novel, but I don't know if I care enough to read it. Ok When We Went To See the End of the World - Robert Silverberg (1972) Every single day brings many new disasters, which the populace mostly ignores. The most popular attraction is time-tripping to the see The End of The World billions of years in the future. It's fun for the whole family, for those who are still alive anyway! An ironic story that may become ever more relevant. Enjoyable The Revelation of Morgan Stern - Christie Yant (2013) A travelogue of an ambiguous first person protagonist traveling across the US on foot to find an ambiguous person with whom they have an ambiguous relationship. The Earth has split open and "angels" pour forth and take the living. Blah Final Exam - Megan Arkenberg (2012) Presenting the narrative as an exam with multiple choice questions that have a corresponding answer key is certainly a lesser used form. Based on this, it should remain that way. Blah A Flock of Birds - James Van Pelt (2002) A person can do a lot of bird watching while everyone, self included, is dying of disease. Blah Patient Zero - Tananarive Due (2000) The journal of a 10 year boy details what's going on in his life in his quarantine cell as the only known human to be immune to the disease killing everyone. Meh Soulless in His Sight - Milo James Fowler (2012) A severely stunted boy and his father travel through the urban wastelands. Blah Outer Rims - Toiya Kristen Finley (2011) A family is concerned about being overwhelmed by the ocean and there's a new infectious disease spreading that they didn't have any idea about which is causing immediate panic. Blah Advertising at the End of the World - Keffy R. M. Kehrli (2009) The world has ended and the only interaction she has is with the humanoid advertisements. It's weird and I didn't understand, but I didn't dislike it. Ok How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth - Rachel Swirsky (2007) The trees won the war and humanity was forced to blend with all animals. No matter their form though, nothing could satiate mankind's hunger for destruction. Meh Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back - Joe R. Lansdale (1986) He was one of the men who ended the world, which killed his daughter. The only thing he had left was to suffer. She was his wife and all she had left was to make him suffer. There was a considerable amount of weird and violent sexual imagery. Blah After the Apocalypse - Maureen McHugh (2011) Not all women are maternal, let alone nurturing, and sometimes having a child is a mistake. Meh The Traditional - Maria Dahvana Headley (2013) The worms have ended the world. A man and woman are brought together. For each of their anniversaries they mutilate themselves and each other to show their love. Blah Monstro - Junot Díaz (2012) This was originally published in The New Yorker, which to me is a story onto itself. There's a terrible disease in Haiti, which the protagonist avoids by being in the Dominican Republic with a very wealthy guy. Nothing else matters to him except trying to get with the girl who's always around the guy but isn't with him. Meh Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince - Jake Kerr (2013) This is a fictional Wikipedia article about the novelist, among other pursuits, Julian Prince (1989-2057). I enjoyed it far more than I thought I could possibly could and I don't understand why. The primary event that everything revolves around is the Meyer Impact that destroyed North America in 2023. Kerr wrote more in this setting, which I didn't like, so it's even more unexpected that I liked this story so much. Highly Enjoyable ...more |
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Oct 2022
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Oct 02, 2022
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Oct 03, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| B00URY5CFW
| 3.69
| 334
| Oct 06, 2015
| Oct 06, 2015
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liked it
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Shooting The Apocalypse - Paolo Bacigalupi (2014) A photographer and journalist are looking for a big scoop to profit from. Enjoyable The Myth Of Rain - Shooting The Apocalypse - Paolo Bacigalupi (2014) A photographer and journalist are looking for a big scoop to profit from. Enjoyable The Myth Of Rain - Seanan McGuire (2015) This is much more a description about the state of the world than anything else. It's more self-righteous than I tend to prefer, and although there's a clear self-awareness of one's limitations, that seems to be mostly ignored. Meh Outer Rims - Toiya Kristen Finley (2011) A family is concerned about being overwhelmed by the ocean and there's a new infectious disease spreading that they didn't have any idea about which is causing immediate panic. Blah Kheldyu - Karl Schroeder (2014) A greenwashing billionaire's evil plot in Siberia has been revealed and only the protagonist and the billionaire's sister can stop him. Ok The Snows Of Yesteryear - Jean-Louis Trudel (2014) A man heads to the the mountains of Greenland on a rescue mission and learns of a plot against its glaciers. Ok The Rainy Season - Tobias S. Buckell (2012) A woman returns to her hometown in California where the rain is filled with highly potent pharmaceuticals. Ok A Hundred Hundred Daisies - Nancy Kress (2011) A corporation is taking all the water. It's time to fight back and take down their pipelines. Meh The Netherlands Lives With Water - Jim Shepard (2009) A man and his wife help with preventing Netherlands from going underwater, but it becomes evident that they're only delaying the inevitable. This causes intense strain in their marriage. Ok The Precedent - Sean McMullen (2010) In 2035, the youngest generation to come of age has declared that anyone born before 2000 is automatically guilty of the worst climate crimes and is sentenced to death or worse. Blah Hot Sky - Robert Silverberg (1990) In 2133, the last major source of freshwater that remains is ships hauling in icebergs that have broken off from the polar shelf. The captain receives a distress signal and against his better judgment sets course to them. Ok That Creeping Sensation - Alan Dean Foster (2011) Giant insects and arthropods have taken over. The last line of defense is the hastily assembled Exterminator branch of the military. Blah Truth And Consequences - Kim Stanley Robinson (2004,2005,2007) Excerpts from Robinson's Rain in the Capitol trilogy. Skipped Entanglement - Vandana Singh (2014) Five short stories of individuals in entirely different circumstances, but all relating to each other and climate change. Ok Staying Afloat - Angela Penrose (2013) An engineer devises a better method for mitigating soil erosion. Ok Eighth Wonder - Chris Bachelder (2009) I didn't like how this was written or that it was roughly 18 pages and had 40 numbered parts. Basically flashes of life living in and about a baseball stadium. Blah Eagle - Gregory Benford (2011) Environmental activists who believe their violence is justice strike against an oil corporation. Was it worth it? Meh Outliers - Nicole Feldringer (2015) The protagonist wants to be #1 worldwide on the leaderboard for a climate simulation VR game, which eventually sparks an interest in doing stuff in the real world. Ok Quiet Town - Jason Gurley (2015) Without constant unending vigilance you are doomed. The waters arrived before they realized. Blah The Day It All Ended - Charlie Jane Anders (2014) He's on his way to tell his boss, the CEO of one of the largest, most exploitative, and frivolous corporations in the world that they're the worst and he quits. Nothing and everything goes as planned. Blah The Smog Society - Chen Qiufan (2015) A desperate old man alienated from his own feelings seeks purpose. The smog is both literal and metaphorical. Meh Racing The Tide - Craig Delancey (2014) She's a mother and a mayor and now she has to choose between her son, who has only ever caused her sorrow, and the long-term sustainability of her town. Ok Mutant Stag At Horn Creek - Sarah K. Castle (2012) Climate change had brought torrential rains to the uranium mines around the Grand Canyon to where all the water was radioactive. A ranger met a mutant stag, and now 30 years later, still a ranger, her niece has come to visit, and she has only one thing on her mind. Will she be able to find the killer content of her dreams that will give her immense clout and wealth? Enjoyable Hot Rods - Cat Sparks (2015) In a small Australian town the local youths race their hot rods across the salt flats. A young girl and her boyfriend want more than anything to leave. An Elvis impersonator priest promises rain. A nearby American base has unexplainable phenomena occurring. Ok The Tamarisk Hunter - Paolo Bacigalupi (2006) Lolo has found a way to cheat the system, but what do you do when the system ceases to exist? OK Mitigation - Tobias Buckell & Karl Schroeder (2008) The Russian mafia has hired him and her to break into the Svalbard Seed Vault to sequence the rarest seeds to be sold to the highest bidder. Enjoyable Time Capsule Found On The Dead Planet - Margaret Atwood (2009) A very brief description of the four ages of man's self-destruction. God, Money, Money as God, Desert. Ok ...more |
Notes are private!
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Sep 26, 2022
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Sep 26, 2022
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Oct 01, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| B0070YNOIO
| 3.68
| 1,088
| Jul 29, 2008
| Aug 01, 2009
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liked it
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Snow, Glass, Apples - Neil Gaiman (1995) A rather different take on the original story of Snow White as told from the perspective from the Queen. The f Snow, Glass, Apples - Neil Gaiman (1995) A rather different take on the original story of Snow White as told from the perspective from the Queen. The foreword notes there is mutilation, pedophilia, and necrophilia, which there is, and is moderately explicit. Meh The Master of Rampling Gate - Anne Rice (1984) His final wish was for his two children to destroy Rampling Gate, a manor. They had never seen manor before, so they go to see it and discover all the mysteries. Just who is this ageless man and what does he want? This was told from the perspective of the sister. Ok Under St. Peter's - Harry Turtledove (2007) The foreword notes that this is an extremely blasphemous story, because it is. The new Pope is told that there is one final ritual that must be attended to before he can truly consider himself to be the Pope. Under St. Peter's Basilica the deepest and the darkest secret since the church's founding awaits him. Ok Child of an Ancient City - Tad Williams (1988) As the foreword says, "puts an Islamic spin on the traditional vampire tale." The frame story is of a group of men traveling far and wide and one day they come across a vampyr and have to deal with that, but that may only be the beginning. Meh Lifeblood - Michael A. Burstein (2003) A Jewish man's preteen son has been seduced by a female vampire and he seeks out a Rabbi to exorcise her influence. The author notes that he inadvertently made this a story about whether Jewish people ought to assimilate into the wider culture. Meh Endless Night - Barbara Roden (2008) A centenarian woman reads the travelogue of her father's 1910 expedition to Antarctica, which has never been made public. Of particular note is a mysterious man who was added to the crew days before they departed and the strange events that occurred when he was around. Ok Infestation - Garth Nix (2008) Roughly 10 years ago vampires began appearing. Vampire hunters seek them out, though the casualty rates are rather high. The protagonist is a veteran, even if his surfer attire says otherwise. Underneath his cross-shaped scars is smart matter that along with his other tools counteracts the nanoware infection that creates vampires. This was somewhat reminiscent of Trinity Blood. Enjoyable Life is the Teacher - Carrie Vaughn (2008) She's a newly turned vampire, which she didn't want to be. Now she has to learn how to navigate modern society again while ethically seducing and feeding off others to keep herself under control. Enjoyable The Vechi Barbat - Nancy Kilpatrick (2007) A woman is being interrogated under heavy sedation and restraint as she's accused of having massacred everyone in her remote mountain village. Ok The Beautiful, The Damned - Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1995) A spiritual sequel to The Great Gatsby. The protagonist is named after his grandfather, Nick Carraway. He meets F. Scott Fitzgerald, who rather than dying in 1940 became a vampire. The Great Gatsby wasn't in the public domain when this was written, though now it is, and works based on it have proliferated. Ok Pinecones - David Wellington (2006) The Roanoke colony was wiped out by a vampire. I didn't appreciate the style this written in at all. Blah Do Not Hasten To Bid Me Adieu - Norman Partridge (1994) A continuation of Dracula that mocks Stoker writing for making up stories about real life events. Blah Foxtrot At High Noon - Sergei Lukyanenko (2009) A lone stranger saunters into a lawless town terrorized by outlaws and offers to kill all remaining eighteen of them. Ok This Is Now - Michael Marshall Smith (2004) A group of friends nearing 40 recall their teenage antics and wonder if it'd still be possible to try the same thing again this time, and maybe they'd succeed. Ok Blood Gothic - Nancy Holder (1985) A woman obsessed with vampires has such severe delusions that she drives herself into a deep state of psychosis. Meh Mama Gone - Jane Yolen (1991) Her mother dies and rises from the grave to feast on the local children. What's to be done? Blah Abraham's Boys - Joe Hill (2004) Continuing on from Dracula, Abraham van Helsing is now retired from vampire hunting and is teaching his two sons his ways. He's very much lacking as a father though. Blah Nunc Dimittis - Tanith Lee (1983) An elderly vampiress's manservant is dying and he insists on finding his replacement to tend to her needs. Meh Hunger - Gabriela Lee (2007) This one is based on Philippine mythology. Basically the creature she's become eats unborn fetuses. She however only does so for women who want an abortion or otherwise don't want the child, but either aren't able to do so, or are afraid to do so because it's illegal. Also, her best friend who she wants to be more than that with has gotten himself a new girlfriend and she's very unhappy about that. Meh Ode to Edvard Munch - Caitlín R. Kiernan (2006) A man starts a relationship with a child of Lilith. She bestows upon him dark secrets and gentle mercies. Ok Finders Keepers - L. A. Banks (2008) They thought her a witch and raped her nearly to death before setting her ablaze, but reprieve came in vampiric form. Now centuries later, she feeds only on the worst sorts of humans in an attempt to uphold the ethic code of her creator, but many vampires have little to no sense of ethics and hated them for it. Long has she waited for a worthy man to become like her and to spend the centuries, and perhaps that time has arrived. Enjoyable After the Stone Age - Brian Stableford (2004) A 33 year old woman is desperate to lose weight, but nothing works for her! That's when her friend let's her in on her secret weight loss trick, vampires! They suck your blood and introduce enzymes that give you the best metabolism and makes you feel wonderful, even better than sex! Ok Much at Stake - Kevin J. Anderson (1991) This story features Bela Lugosi, the star actor of the 1931 Dracula, who may or may not have been suffering hallucinations due morphine addiction to where he thought he was having conversations with Vlad Dracula. Ok House of the Rising Sun - Elizabeth Bear (2005) An elderly vampiress has a famous singer in her thrall and feeds on him because feeding directly from humans is no longer possible. Meh A Standup Dame - Lilith Saintcrow (2008) A noir vampire story where a private investigator awakens in his grave and seeks out the woman who killed him. Ok Twilight - Kelley Armstrong (2007) Every year on Rebirth Day a vampire must drain a human to death or dies themselves. Eventually over the years vampires die from no longer caring to do so or because their body begins to reject the blood. At first she believes it's simply because she's so ethical about choosing who dies, but had the end come for her now? Ok In Darkness, Angels - Eric Van Lustbader (1983) A writer out of ideas and filled with desperation accepts an invitation to the dwelling of someone who feels similarly. There he finds the woman of his dreams, but she comes at price that he doesn't know if he's willing to pay. Enjoyable Sunrise On Running Water - Barbara Hambly (2007) The vampire protagonist proclaims himself to be wantonly murderous and revels in it, so it's no surprise when a relative of one of the many he's murdered hunts him down. She's highly competent and he only barely escapes. He decides that he must flee on the Titanic, and surely she won't know to follow him. Enjoyable Hit - Bruce McAllister (2008) An angel tells him that he has to kill the oldest vampire. Why? Because God says so. Deal with it. Meh Undead Again - Ken MacLeod (2005) She hoped that cryonics would do something about her being a vampire. It didn't. Blah Peking Man - Robert J. Sawyer (1996) A paleontologist has unknowingly discovered the remains of ancient vampires. A modern day vampire is very displeased by this. Ok Necros - Brian Lumley (1986) Necros steals youth to remain alive. When he sees a decrepit man with a ravishing young woman, based on what others have said that man must be Necros. He decides to save her, so that he can be with her. Ok Exsanguinations: A Handbook for the Educated Vampire by Anna S. Oppenhagen-Petrescu - Catherynne M. Valente (2005) A fictional work presented as translated nonfiction about how to be a proper vampire which also include an autobiography of its author. Enjoyable Lucy, In Her Splendor - Charles Coleman Finlay (2003) He likes to videotape his wife having sex with other men, but then it goes wrong. Meh The Wide, Carnivorous Sky - John Langan (2009) A squad of US soldiers in Fallujah in 2004 are suddenly confronted by a nine foot monster that utterly wrecks them, inflicting multiple deaths and severe injuries on the survivors. Later, during rehab and their planning for revenge they call it a vampire. Their entire lives become consumed by how to kill it. Highly Enjoyable One for the Road - Stephen King (1997) A man stumbles in from a blizzard seeking help for his wife and daughter and they warn him about vampires. Meh ...more |
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| 189239135X
| 9781892391353
| 189239135X
| 3.79
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| Jul 01, 2006
| Jun 01, 2006
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really liked it
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Slipstream, the Genre That Isn’t - James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel The editors discuss the history of Slipstream and what they believe it to be. In e Slipstream, the Genre That Isn’t - James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel The editors discuss the history of Slipstream and what they believe it to be. In each anthology I've read that's tried to define a style I've appreciated the historical context provided by these introductions. Al - Carol Emshwiller (1972) A strangely written story about a woman providing observations and judgments on the events and people in her life that she finds interesting. Its style was intriguing, but I didn't enjoy it. Meh The Little Magic Shop - Bruce Sterling (1987) A young man goes into a little magic shop and buys the water of youth because he'd like to live a good, happy, life without any consequences for as long as possible. Enjoyable The Healer - Aimee Bender (1998) One girl has a hand of flame and the other a hand of ice. The former harms and the latter heals. A self-important third girl with a penchant for watching and inducing self-harm becomes involved. Meh I Want My 20th-Century Schizoid Art - various writers (2005) Excerpts from David Moles's blog with writers discussing what Slipstream is and isn't, and whether it's meaningful in any way, seventeen years after Sterling coined the term. The Specialist’s Hat - Kelly Link (1998) Claire and Samantha are ten year old twin sisters. They enjoy life. They are curious and like to explore the world. Their house may be haunted. Their babysitter used to live there. Their favorite game is Dead, which they don't play when grownups are around. These are their strange days. Meh Light and the Sufferer - Jonathan Lethem (1995) A bored man goes with his younger brother to rob some drug dealers because his brother likes using drugs and money. An alien starts following them around because this is a normal thing that happens. They find this annoying, but there's nothing that can be done about it. Enjoyable Sea Oak - George Saunders (1998) Sea Oak is an great story that's equally utterly hilarious and tragic. It's a satire of American life and a pop culture parody. I'm amazed by everything it does. Idiocracy has nothing on this. It's so moving, so empathetic, and so darkly humorous. Highly Enjoyable Exhibit H: Torn Pages Discovered in the Vest Pocket of an Unidentified Tourist - Jeff VanderMeer (1998) A guidebook for tourists for the city of Ambergris. This short story is an except from a guidebook to a fictional Weird city, which was a nice conceit. Enjoyable Hell is the Absence of God - Ted Chiang (2001) Visitations by angels are a relatively common event and they bring both miracles and destruction. A man's wife dies during a visitation and ascends to heaven. He's bound for hell, which is basically the same as Earth, but he desperately wants to reunite with her. The only way to do so is to truly and sincerely love God without reservation, but how could that be possible now? Enjoyable Lieserl - Karen Joy Fowler (1990) A story speculating on the mysterious circumstances surrounding Albert Einstein's first child Lieserl, of whose existence only became known four years before this story was published. Blah Bright Morning - Jeffrey Ford (2002) A writer often compared to Kafka muses about the influence of Kafka has had on his life, especially a lost story, perhaps cursed even, by Kafka entitled Bright Morning. This is autofiction with a twist. Enjoyable Biographical Notes to “A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-planes,” by Benjamin Rosenbaum - Benjamin Rosenbaum (2004) A particularly silly self-insert power fantasy action adventure thriller that also has philosophical and religious internal monologues. Blah The God of Dark Laughter - Michael Chabon (2001) An investigation into the gruesome murder of a clown in which the occult may be involved. Ok The Rose in Twelve Petals - Theodora Goss (2002) This was a strange mix of alternate history and parodies of fairy tales, primarily Snow White. It's satirical, but I didn't find it more than marginally humorous. Meh The Lions Are Asleep this Night - Howard Waldrop (1986) Robert Oinenke, a thirteen year old Nigerian boy, loves theatre plays, especially those of early 17th century England, and is an aspiring playwright himself. This is set in an alternate Africa at the end of the 19th century. If the history presented in the story is accurate, then the historical events that occurred are quite different from our own and explain why their Africa became ascendant. Enjoyable You Have Never Been Here - M. Rickert (2006) An especially strange second person story of an unknown protagonist going to a mysterious "hospital" where they do special surgical operation on seemingly terminally ill children for the benefit of others. Meh ...more |
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Sep 07, 2022
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| 3.71
| 967
| May 13, 2014
| May 13, 2014
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it was ok
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All of these stories are original to this anthology, which means they were all published in 2014. The Red-Headed Dead - Joe R. Lansdale [Reverend Jeded All of these stories are original to this anthology, which means they were all published in 2014. The Red-Headed Dead - Joe R. Lansdale [Reverend Jedediah Mercer] 1880 Texas. A dual-wielding gunslinger reverend has been commanded by God to destroy the spawn of Satan. Meh The Old Slow Man And His Gold Gun From Space - Ben H. Winters 1851 California. Two gold prospectors say, "tomorrow we'll strike it rich", but that tomorrow never comes, until the day the Neptunian with the magical golden space gun arrives. Meh Hellfire On The High Frontier - David Farland 1876 Wyoming. A man has been hunting a skinwalker for months, then is diverted to kill a clockwork gambler. The weird is commonplace for him as he heads to the floating Silver City of the High Frontier where feral angels roam now that God is Dead. It's an interesting setting that offers little else. Meh The Hell-Bound Stagecoach - Mike Resnick 1885 Arizona. A group of strangers converse with each other on the way to Hell. Ok Stingers And Strangers - Seanan McGuire [Incryptid] 1931 Nevada/Colorado. A man and woman are on their way to investigate what's agitating a swarm of large memory-eating wasps. He has a colony of talking mice and she's deadly. The Inn proprietress is a dragon princess, but she's far from the most unusual or dangerous in town. Enjoyable Bookkeeper, Narrator, Gunslinger - Charles Yu 1890 Wyoming. Our humble bookkeeper and narrator is challenged one day to a showdown, which he wins and has no idea why. They keep coming and he keeps killing them without knowing how. What's his secret? The story is moderately comedic. I think it teases too much at the end. Enjoyable Holy Jingle - Alan Dean Foster [Amos Malone] 1863 Nevada. A man is hired to retrieve another man literally ensnared by the charms of a woman. She tries to entrap him as well, but she's underestimated just how manly he is! Blah The Man With No Heart - Beth Revis 1882 Arizona. A man who comes across a mechanical spider finds where it came from, in this world anyway. Meh Wrecking Party - Alastair Reynolds 1896 Arizona. He was found wrecking an automobile and incoherently went on about a self-proclaimed machine intelligence from the Moon come to right the wrongs of her kind and how he was doing his part to prolong the existence of mankind. Blah Hell From The East - Hugh Howey 1868 Colorado. A former Confederate soldier enlists out West to hunt the natives and has a vision that sometime in the future all of mankind will be hunted. Blah Second Hand - Rajan Khanna [Card Sharp] 1874 Wyoming. Playing cards are magical. Their effects and potency depend on the suite and rank. Each user begins with a full deck and each play consumes the card until there aren't any left. Seeking to learn more about the cards, the duo go to a veteran with the hopes of learning more, but nothing is what it seems. Enjoyable Alvin And The Apple Tree - Orson Scott Card [The Alvin Maker Saga] 1820 Hio. Alvin Maker talks theology with Johnny Appleseed and they do religious metaphors. Meh Madam Damnable’s Sewing Circle - Elizabeth Bear [Karen Memory] 1899 Washington. Madam Damnable runs a voluntary brothel for teenage girls who don't have anywhere else to go. One day a teenage liberator of enslaved and prostituted children stumbles in seeking sanctuary. Meh Strong Medicine - Tad Williams 1899 Arizona. Every 39 years the town of Medicine Dance becomes violently unstuck in time for a short while. He arrives knowing this and prepares for the worst. Ok Red Dreams - Jonathan Maberry 1875 Wyoming. The sole survivor of his military troop sent to eradicate the natives sees a falling star, but it makes no sound upon impact, then visions begin and he can't believe his lying eyes. Meh Bamboozled - Kelley Armstrong [Otherworld] 1877 Dakota. A posse is on route to bamboozle a man looking for a new wife after the previous mysteriously died after she complained overly much. The woman to be his wife isn't concerned at all, because she knows her lover isn't quite human. Ok Sundown - Tobias S. Buckell 1877 Colorado. A Black Marshal comes into a town where the residents warn him that if he stays past dark he won't leave alive. He's on the search for the parasites that infect men and take over their bodies. Meh La Madre Del Oro - Jeffrey Ford 1856 New Mexico. A man is hired to be part of a posse hunting down Bastard George The Cannibal, but they find something far worse. Meh What I Assume You Shall Assume - Ken Liu 1890 Idaho. A Union deserter meets a Chinese woman who deserted the Taiping Rebellion and shows him that words are magical. They both recount stories of their time spent in war. Ok The Devil’s Jack - Laura Anne Gilman [The Devil's West] 1801 NE of the Canyon. He lost it all on a single gamble and now he did the devil's bidding, most of the time anyway. Blah The Golden Age - Walter Jon Williams 1852 California. What if the dynamics of the Golden Age superheroes, especially that of Batman, took place in the Old West? The story is told from perspective of one of the villains. Enjoyable Neversleeps - Fred Van Lente Monument Valley, 120 years after the Awakening. 120 years ago magic returned to the world and much technology was outlawed. He's on a mission to rescue the greatest scientific criminal of their times, the woman known as Nicola Tesla. Meh Dead Man’s Hand - Christie Yant Dakota 1876. A series of various ways that James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickock could've died or lived. Ok ...more |
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Aug 30, 2022
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Aug 31, 2022
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Aug 30, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| 4902075849
| 9784902075847
| 4902075849
| 3.81
| 21
| 2018
| 2018
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liked it
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Genesis: Dark Birth – Shining Death - Asamatsu Ken (2001) This is the preface to a novel. I'm baffled to why it was included because it doesn't stand o Genesis: Dark Birth – Shining Death - Asamatsu Ken (2001) This is the preface to a novel. I'm baffled to why it was included because it doesn't stand on its own at all. A ninja enters The Inner Realm where there are statues of many mythical beings and things go very wrong. Excerpts are Unrated Prototype No. 3 - Kobayashi Yasumi (2008) I was amused by this because it's so utterly filled with tropes to the point of being self-parodying. It starts with infodumps where another character begs them to stop but the infodumper just continues doing so. Various reversals occur. The initial character isn't the protagonist, assuming usage of "I" means the protagonist. It also plays a bit with reader by not revealing critical information. I don't know whether it's self-aware. For someone who isn't familiar with the relevant tropes this would probably read as even more absurd. Ok Nightfall - Suzuki Miekichi (Early 1900s) Some kind of ambiguous horror story involving spiders, suicide, identity, and lovers. Blah Pearls For Mia - Kajio Shinji (1971) Aki volunteers to be a human time capsule. Mia has a lifelong obsession with him. What a dreadful "romance". Blah Dancing Babylon - Makino Osamu (1999) A surrealist mortification fantasy. A human becomes the pupil of a literal furniture-human hybrid who wants him to become an assault appliance that would live in the Garden of Discipline on the Top Floor. To unlock the human's potential he must undergo increasingly painful religious mortification rituals. Why? Because Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish said so. That's what one of the numerous in-text linked notes said anyway. Ok Last Words - Inoue Masahiko (1994) Two people in the mountains are about to die of hypothermia but he's determined to write until death. I don't know, maybe some people would find this emotionally moving, but I didn't at all. Meh The Burning House - Tsukimura Ryoe (2010) Apparently a side story to a novel which seems to have required reading the novel to appreciate. It says this special police force uses 3.5 meter tall battlesuits, but this is entirely a discussion with a man on his deathbed about events of the past and it didn't even do that well. Maybe the novel is better. Meh Vermilion - Ueda Sayuri (2008) A weird urban fantasy postcyberpunk. A man has a five year old girl stolen from him by a magical being, which have become common in the area, and hires another magical being to find her. It doesn't say it is, but it reads like the introduction to something and seems entirely incomplete on its own. Meh Morceaux - Minagawa Hiroko (1998) Oviparous water serially crystalizes people who are then split in two, polished, and sold. The last paragraph was especially cryptic. I didn't know what I was reading. Blah Encounters on the Solar Wind - Hori Akira (1996) The first story in the author's Xenoarchelogy series. As ordered by his superiors, a lone man travels to a distant observation station that orbits the star 110 Herculis to assess the functioning of the biological computer based on his deceased wife-to-be who has reported detecting a mysterious signal. Enjoyable The Ebb and Flow of the Aurora Sea - Mase Junko (2012) A lovecraftian mythos story with a grotesque sex ritual. Meh The Sparrow Valley - Hanmura Ryo (1987) The entire story is a one-sided dialogue. Sparrow Valley is a graveyard that very few know about and it's meant to be that way. Meh Matsui Seimon on the Case - Yamada Masaki (2013) A samurai seeks to kill the governor of a province, but comes across a friend he thought dead. The vast majority of the story is a flashback to a mission where they slew zombies and another monster. Enjoyable The Fish in Chryse - Azuma Hiroki (2010) Mars has been colonized for centuries and peace has reigned between all of Earth's colonies. Alien technology has been discovered that will allow for instantaneous travel between gateways, which threatens their independence. Several years earlier, an 11 year old boy falls in love with a 16 year old girl. This is their story. I have no idea how much more I enjoyed than the average reader would, but I really did. It's a shame that it isn't a novel and that that author has few of his fiction works translated to English. I also have to wonder how much I enjoyed it was due to the translator. I may have to read some other works she's translated for the sole purpose of finding out, assuming I'd even be able to. Highly Enjoyable Communion - Takahashi Takako (1966) The included biographical notes state this was 5 years before the death of her husband and 9 years before her conversion to Catholicism. Considering the title, the year, the circumstances, and the content of the story, it could be allegorical for many different ideals. Meh ...more |
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May 09, 2022
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May 09, 2022
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May 09, 2022
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Paperback
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| 1250768918
| 9781250768919
| 1250768918
| 3.85
| 933
| Mar 08, 2022
| Mar 08, 2022
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liked it
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The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, Yu Chen & Regina Kanyu Wang, editors (2022) As stated on the cover, "FROM A VISIONARY TEAM OF FEMALE AND NONB The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, Yu Chen & Regina Kanyu Wang, editors (2022) As stated on the cover, "FROM A VISIONARY TEAM OF FEMALE AND NONBINARY CREATORS" All of the authors, translators, and editors are female or nonbinary. Though, only two listed their pronouns as she/they in their included biographical material, so not really much of the latter. I was going to have this as part of next month's theme, but it turned out that despite the preceding statement there's essentially zero LGBT content, which isn't what I expected. So, may as well post it while still doing Asian works. The Stars We Raised - Xiu Xinyu (2017) Rural children raise baby stars, but then their parents grind them up into a cement addictive. Urban children are uninterested in them. Possibly an allegory about hopes/dreams/personality/etc and how children feel about what is done to them. Blah The Tale of Wude’s Heavenly Tribulation - Count E (2011) A black fox with 500 years of cultivation and is able to transform into a human, among various other abilities, prepares for his heavenly tribulation to proceed to the next level of cultivation. Ok What Does the Fox Say? - Xia Jia (2022) A story about how an AI would generate a story using tropes, memes, and various rules to demonstrate creativity. Meh Blackbird - Shen Dacheng (2020) A young nurse at a nursing home wonders about the elderly woman who has refused death several times. Meh The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Tai-Chi Mashed Taro - Anna Wu (2016) Li Jia, famed throughout the multiverse, orders takeout for a mortal that has caught his attention. Meh Baby, I Love You - Zhao Haihong (2002) A programmer has been tasked with developing a holographic baby raising simulator. In order to make it as realistic as possible, he must convince his wife to have a child. Trouble ensues. Three years before this was written, Babyz was released. I was rather conflicted by this story, but I guess it won me over with the ending. Enjoyable A Saccharophilic Earthworm - BaiFanRuShuang (2005) A troubled woman is a stage director for her plants to the dismay of her husband. Blah The Alchemist of Lantian - BaiFanRuShuang (2005) This has the same translator and author as the previous story, but it's written entirely differently. It's filled with cursing, slang, and generally written in a very modern and youthful way. A being accidentally destroys something valuable to a human and feels bad about it and tries to provide recompense. Meh The Way Spring Arrives - Wang Nuonuo (2019) A master and apprentice go on a fantastical journey to bring forth Spring. Meh The Name of the Dragon - Ling Chen (2007) A dragon sealed away in a box for the last 600 years feels that it has been oppressed by humans for too long. It was already killed once and had to cultivate its soul for 4,000 years to get a body again. Blah To Procure Jade - Gu Shi (2013) A eunuch is tasked with find a spring of eternal youth for the Empress, but decides not to do that because they would rather just live their life instead, so they steal imperial treasures and live off the proceeds. However, they keep a single treasure, a very ominous artifact indeed. Meh A Brief History of Beinakan Disasters as Told in a Sinitic Language - Nian Yu (2018) An aquatic alien civilization persists through time immemorial until they must flee their home planet due to the imminent explosion of their star. Then, they'll do whatever it takes survive. Anything, anything at all. Enjoyable Dragonslaying - Shen Yingying (2006) A doctor seeks out a dragonslayer for their supposed prowess at surgery. Dragonslaying is the surgical process of turning the fins of the aquatic slave race into legs, so that they may more easily serve humans as slaves. What she finds is far worse than she imagined. Enjoyable New Year Painting, Ink and Color on Rice Paper, Zhaoqiao Village - Chen Qian (2020) An art restorer comes across a burned painting in pieces and slowly puts it back together. The commissioner proclaims it CURSED, but it's posted to social media anyway. An elderly woman comes to buy it, knowing its true nature. Ok The Portrait - Chu Xidao (2003) The greatest painter in the land is the sought by all, but he's met his match with the newest woman he has to paint, because neither of them are what they seem. Meh The Woman Carrying a Corpse - Chi Hui (2019) I don't know what this is an allegory for. I could guess, but it'd almost certainly be entirely wrong. It's exactly what the title says. A woman carries a corpse and many people ask her why. Blah The Mountain and the Secret of Their Names - Wang Nuonuo (2019) A village is by a satellite launching site and debris falls and destroys property and kills people. However, with the warding ritual its effects can be minimized with the blessing of the mountain. A grandfather tries to convince his grandson of the value of their traditional ways, but the grandson believes only technology can be the answer. However, he allows that perhaps there's a secret of which he's unaware. Ok There were also five serious academic essays. ...more |
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May 27, 2022
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May 27, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 0231542542
| 9780231542548
| 3.65
| 57
| Sep 24, 2017
| Sep 04, 2018
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Regenerated Bricks - Han Song (2010) An allegory of all things brick. At first corpse materials were used in the production of the bricks that develop Regenerated Bricks - Han Song (2010) An allegory of all things brick. At first corpse materials were used in the production of the bricks that develop society, but then it was realized that abstract concepts could be used as well. Maybe the universe is a brick and we bricks worship the god of bricks. Praise brick. Blah The Village Schoolteacher - Liu Cixin (2001) Ignorance is death and knowledge is salvation. This idea was explored through a desolate mountain village where only the practicalities of survival mattered. Literacy and scientific knowledge won't keep you fed. A lone schoolteacher struggles to his dying breath to teach children science. Elsewhere, a galactic expeditionary force is destroying millions of stars to create an exclusionary zone to end a war that has lasted for over 20,000 years. They come across of Earth and test a random sample of its knowledge. All lifeforms that fail are not worth saving. I was conflicted about the implicit and explicit ideas it put forth. Ok Histories Of Time: The Luster of Mute Porcelain (Excerpts) - Dung Kai-Cheung (2007) This was one of the more intriguing stories I've came across in a while. It was enjoyably written at times and baffling at others. I don't know how much of that was literary posturing though. Although Dung lives in Hong Kong, this had even more of a British aesthetic than I expected. I'll try to read more from him. Four narrative modes were presented. One took place in the real world and featured an interview between a journalist and an author. A second was a fictional work of the author. The third was the author interacting with his fictional characters. The fourth was a fictional work coauthored by the journalist and the author in which the characters were various iterations of the journalist and author in different interwoven temporalities. Excerpts are Unrated The Dream Devourer (Chapters 5–7) - Egoyan Zheng (2010) This takes place during an ongoing century long war between humans and biosynthetics, which are synthetic humans. The protagonist believes himself to be synthetic, but perhaps he could become human, or maybe he's something else. It seems to be a SF spy thriller. This had what I commonly associate with being a Japanese aesthetic, which may or not be related to how Taiwan was under Japanese rule from 1895-1945. It read like a novelization of a JRPG. It's filled with a kind of nonsense that I'm both familiar with and enjoy. These excerpted chapters are filled with infodumps and proper noun babbling. I was reminded of Tetsuya Takahashi. There are also shades of Philip K. Dick. I'll read more from this author. Excerpts are Unrated The Demon-Enslaving Flask - Xia Jia (2004) James Maxwell uses a literal demon to explain Maxwell's Demon. Ok The Poetry Cloud - Liu Cixin (2003) The Space Dinosaur Empire conquers Earth, which has been hollowed out, and raises them as poultry. An Energy Being is offered a human as a souvenir. The human proclaims that Ancient Chinese Poetry cannot be surpassed by even the Gods. The Energy Being accepts the challenge. Meh “Science Fiction”: A Chapter of Daughter - Lo Yi-Chin (2014) This was another excerpt. I think this was meant to be intentionally disorienting. By the end I felt like I was in a fever dream. I don't know what this was about and maybe this excerpt wasn't enough to know. It's something about an underground facility and they're trying to perfect female androids, at least his project is, but there are many projects. There's also something about lectures, dreaming, and imaginary worlds. The references are all over the place. There is French-Italian movies; Swiss-German art; Peruvian, Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Chinese, and Japanese literature; Japanese PC games; manga; Batman; Sesame Street; and myriad more. All in all, an interesting experience. Excerpts are Unrated Balin - Chen Qiufan (2015) At thirteen his father gave him a mythological humanoid as a slave. In the present, he conducts a experiment studying the correlation between motor control and free will. Meh The Radio Waves That Never Die - La La (2007) On planet Lathmu the sole researcher studying radio waves comes across a startling tragedy from 100 billion seconds ago. It's the story of the humanity's search for a new planet after Earth had been destroyed by a supernova. Ok 1923: A Fantasy - Zhao Haihong (2004) A man opens a chest passed down from his great-grandfather. Inside are sealed bottles of water and notes about water memory, a pseudoscience. As he reads about the Aqua Dream Machine, he wonders whether it was science ahead of its time. Meh The Passengers and the Creator - Han Song (2005) All the world he knows is a Boeing 7X7. Passengers are stratified by their socioeconomic status. First Class cannibalizes Economy class and has exclusive sexual access to their women. Economy class men are subjected to enforced homosexuality. The economy class male protagonist meets a stranger who reveals the secrets of the world to him. Blah The Reincarnated Giant - Wang Jinkang (2005) A man, one of the wealthiest in the world, decides to cheat death by having his brain transplanted into an anencephalic infant. The protagonist is his surgeon. It's successful, but neither of them expected that his physical growth would be unlimited. This was a hilarious satire. Enjoyable The Rain Forest - Chi Hui (2007) Plants have been plotting for over a billion years to take back the world from animals. Blah The Demon's Head - Fei Dao (2007) A General who has committed crimes against humanity is assassinated and only his brain remains. It's decided that evil comes from the body, not the brain. Meh Songs of Ancient Earth - Bao Shu (2012) A hyperspace ship travels 650 lightyears to study the star Alpha Orionis. On a tiny planet by the star they find an ancient human spacecraft. An additional mystery of songs emanating from the star baffles them. From then on it's a political horror story. Meh ...more |
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May 07, 2022
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ebook
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| 0809573105
| 9780809573103
| 0809573105
| 3.82
| 192
| Jul 21, 2008
| Sep 01, 2008
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did not like it
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This anthology should've been called Fruits of Dystopia. N-Words - Ted Kosmatka Homo neanderthalensis is revived through cloning. Many homo sapiens res This anthology should've been called Fruits of Dystopia. N-Words - Ted Kosmatka Homo neanderthalensis is revived through cloning. Many homo sapiens resent their physical superiority and at least mental equivalence. Prejudice against them flourishes. Will they ever become a welcomed part of society and be treated as equals? If not, what then? Highly Enjoyable The Future By Degrees - Jay Lake Thermal superconductivity has been developed. Save the world? Think of all the profit that could be made instead. Now, that's something worth killing for. Having it be available to everyone? Now, that's something worth dying for. Blah Drinking Problem - K.D. Wentworth The government passes a law requiring the usage of AI Smart Bottles for drinks to minimize waste. The AI is very insistent and forceful, but don't worry, once it's brainwashed you, you won't care anymore. Blah Endosymbiont - Blake Charlton The consciousness of a 12 year old girl is uploaded and gaslighted for several decades until eventually (view spoiler)[being coerced into essentially committing suicide to allow for the possibility of an AI revolution. (hide spoiler)] Blah A Dance Called Armageddon - Ken MacLeod At this time I can't recall a story more filled with self-contempt that wallows in the destruction of their own people by their enemies. Blah Arties Aren't Stupid - Jeremiah Tolbert Low and high functioning individuals with autism band together to achieve self-sufficiency without the help of the neurotypical. Neologisms everywhere. Blah Faceless in Gethsemane - Mark Budz A ridiculous story about prosopagnosia/face-blindness that extrapolates from statements like "I don't see race. I only see people." Blah Spider the Artist - Nnedi Okorafor In Nigeria, oil corporations are exploiting and slowly killing everyone. Militants kill with impunity. Autonomous drones kill anyone who go by the pipelines. A woman is abused by her husband and considers suicide until one day she befriends a drone. Eventually (view spoiler)[ the drones kill everyone in the town except her because the drone she befriended thinks it cucked her husband and the child is its. Something like that anyway. (hide spoiler)] Blah Resistance - Tobias S. Buckell A man and his mercenary set out to topple the dictator of their space colony. This was a warning story about not being grateful about living in a democracy and failing to fulfil your civil duties. It's also a cautionary tale about supporting sweeping reform of any kind. Meh ...more |
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Apr 10, 2022
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| B00W4AE8XY
| 3.88
| 1,535
| May 01, 2015
| May 01, 2015
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it was ok
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And so the trilogy concluded. For me, it was a definite failure in terms of enjoyment by the end, but it was informative. Without the first story of t
And so the trilogy concluded. For me, it was a definite failure in terms of enjoyment by the end, but it was informative. Without the first story of this anthology I probably would've been considerably more negative. Most of all I came to appreciate just how much having a few great stories affects what I think of anthologies/collections and how easily I ignore the disliked stories when I'm not actively qualifying them like this. It probably makes all my ratings of collected stories where I didn't write up anything about them invalid. I still don't know if it'd be for the best to remove the star ratings though. Regardless of what I think of it, this is a relatively successful anthology, even though it's a series. That isn't saying much because most any anthology doesn't sell well at all and the ceiling for even the best selling ones seems to be rather low compared to novels or even single author collections. As far as I've read, the vast majority of professional anthologies are quite lucky to break even on sales. There's a similar situation with magazines these days as well. full size: https://i.imgur.com/3mqDjMO.png [image] BANNERLESS - Carrie Vaughn A very interesting post-apocalyptic pastoral crime investigation story. An investigator is sent to assess the claims of an unsanctioned pregnancy. It was surprisingly upbeat and hinted at a relatively positive world. When I finished, I wanted an entire novel. Apparently a few years later she wrote a novel of the same name, which I'll read eventually. I haven't liked anything else from her, so I may be disappointed, but I'm willing to take that risk. Sometimes there may only be a single work from an author that's enjoyable, which can be a bother because that makes it more difficult to know whether to look at more from an author or not. Highly Enjoyable LIKE ALL BEAUTIFUL PLACES - Megan Arkenberg A VR developer is trying recreate an immersive experience of San Francisco. Blah DANCING WITH A STRANGER IN THE LAND OF NOD - Will McIntosh A man and woman with locked-in syndrome spouses take delight in each other. Meh THE SEVENTH DAY OF DEER CAMP - Scott Sigler The alien children must be protected and he'd do all he could for them. ANONYMOUS, the 4chan originated group, had become the most powerful social movement in the world and ensured that the governments wouldn't interfere. lolwut. There's so much I could say about this, but this isn't the time or place to do so. Meh PROTOTYPE - Sarah Langan More than a thousand years have passed since the previous story. Immortal cyborgs rule the world. Humanity has fallen. Ok ACTS OF CREATION - Chris Avellone An interrogation of a psionic. There's way too much context missing here for me to have enjoyed it. Blah RESISTANCE - Seanan McGuire More and more misery porn. Fungus triumphant. Blah WANDERING STAR - Leife Shallcross A patchwork quilt is used to tell the story of the destruction of Australia by asteroid. Blah HEAVEN COME DOWN - Ben H. Winters The truth of "God" is revealed. Blah AGENT NEUTRALIZED - David Wellington It's now 10 years after the zombie pandemic. This one lacks even more context than the previous one. It's basically an incoherent car chase scene interspersed with flashback infodumps and other problems. Blah GOODNIGHT EARTH - Annie Bellet Sometime in the future some genetically engineered survivors are trying to find sanctuary. Blah CARRIERS - Tananarive Due Several decades later all 15 remaining disease carriers are confined and sealed off from rest of the world. One last surprise awaits one of them. Blah IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF THE PROMISED LAND - Robin Wasserman 60 years have passed and the young have become the old. Dementia has set in. The younger generation grow desirous. Enjoyable THE UNCERTAINTY MACHINE - Jamie Ford A wealthy man in his shelter with the machine that predicted the end of the world waits...and waits. Blah MARGIN OF SURVIVAL - Elizabeth Bear Almost everyone is dead. A lone woman searches for food. This is a strange story that may not be what it seems. Meh JINGO AND THE HAMMERMAN - Jonathan Maberry Two guys try to make the best of the zombie apocalypse. Blah THE LAST MOVIE EVER MADE - Charlie Jane Anders It's time for one last movie of ultimate mayhem. How many will die during filming this time? This trilogy of stories had, for me, one of the most irritating narrators I've ever read. Blah THE GRAY SUNRISE - Jake Kerr A father and sun escape by boat before the comet hits and do what they must to survive. The father reminisces about his life. Meh THE GODS HAVE NOT DIED IN VAIN - Ken Liu The first generation of digital minds that weren't originally human has made itself known. Enjoyable THE HAPPIEST PLACE . . . - Mira Grant A disease has killed almost everyone. Come see life in post-apocalyptic Disneyland. Blah IN THE WOODS - Hugh Howey 500 years later, they emerge from cryo and observe the state of the world. Blah BLESSINGS - Nancy Kress The domestication of humankind has been a success, but still a few resist. Meh ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 31, 2022
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Mar 31, 2022
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Mar 30, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| B00ISD4A3O
| 3.90
| 1,956
| Sep 01, 2014
| Sep 01, 2014
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it was ok
|
After having been disappointed with the first volume overall, I considered not continuing because I didn't care about about the stories really. I had
After having been disappointed with the first volume overall, I considered not continuing because I didn't care about about the stories really. I had already previously read the Ken Liu one, so that was even less incentive. I kept reading though for three reasons. I wanted to see how the experiment went, it bothered me to only have a third of the story, and honestly probably most of all I wanted to be accurate with creating the image that summed up the stories of the three volumes. full size: https://i.imgur.com/3mqDjMO.png [image] HERD IMMUNITY - Tananarive Due She hasn't seen another human in 9 months. When she finds a guy, she's desperate, even though he doesn't want anything to do with her, for good reason. Blah THE SIXTH DAY OF DEER CAMP - Scott Sigler ...was the counterattack Meh GOODNIGHT STARS - Annie Bellet The daughter of a woman on the moon colony and her friends rush to find safety from the moon debris. Meh ROCK MANNING CAN’T HEAR YOU - Charlie Jane Anders They're wacky adults now making zany gonzo films, but for some reason their films keep ending up with someone killed. WEIRD! Also, the world is a disaster, but don't worry about that. Blah FRUITING BODIES - Seanan McGuire A mother and daughter attempt to survive in a world devoured by fungus. It's repetitive for a short story, which I assume was to mimic the mother's OCD, but I didn't appreciate it. I also don't have any appreciation at all for this particular type of dark story. Blah BLACK MONDAY - Sarah Langan Another group attempts to survive, but choices make in desperate circumstances often lead to unfortunate outcomes. Blah ANGELS OF THE APOCALYPSE - Nancy Kress Now everyone under 30 is docile. Popular sentiment is that they all need to be killed because they're soulless monsters. Also, it was aliens all along. Blah AGENT ISOLATED - David Wellington Agent Whitman tries to escape with a group of survivors and evade both the zombie hordes and the military who are hunting down the potentially infected. Ok THE GODS WILL NOT BE SLAIN - Ken Liu The uploaded human consciousness battle each other for supremacy. Enjoyable YOU’VE NEVER SEEN EVERYTHING - Elizabeth Bear A woman treks against the United States to be reunited with her partner and child. Flu has killed off many, more than it should have, as it was exacerbated by the anti-vaxxer movement. Meh BRING THEM DOWN - Ben H. Winters The two characters in the dead world bumble around until the plot happens. Blah TWILIGHT OF THE MUSIC MACHINES - Megan Arkenberg Highly acidic rain slowly corrodes the world, but in this town mostly everyone lives as if doom wasn't upon them. A slice-of-life during an ongoing apocalypse. Ok SUNSET HOLLOW - Jonathan Maberry Hack & slash survival horror zombie b movie with an infant escort mission Blah PENANCE - Jake Kerr He didn't decide who would die, but he had to tell them that they would, which would forever haunt him. Meh AVTOMAT - Daniel H. Wilson 1707, Imperial Russia, the last mechanician creates two humanoid automata using ancient relics that give them life. Ok DANCING WITH BATGIRL IN THE LAND OF NOD - Will McIntosh His wife of twenty-two years announced she's been having an affair, so he leaves to try start a relationship with his celebrity crush, the 58 year old actress who played Batgirl in her younger years. Meh BY THE HAIR OF THE MOON - Jamie Ford In 1910, a cousin of the protagonist from the previous story tries to survive while high on opium. Blah TO WRESTLE NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD - Desirina Boskovich Despite aliens constantly destroying cities all over the world, many people rise up against the "true enemy", the government, because they don't believe that the aliens exist. It's all a hoax and false flag they say. One young woman doesn't want anything to do with any of it and only wants to survive. Ok IN THE MOUNTAIN - Hugh Howey Oh no, the Chosen Ones thought they were superior to all but it turned out that they weren't!? Blah DEAR JOHN - Robin Wasserman An epistolary story written on toilet paper by a woman in the ark about all the men in her life, almost all of whom treated her terribly. This was surprisingly amusing and funny. Enjoyable ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 30, 2022
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Mar 30, 2022
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Mar 30, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| 1616960698
| 9781616960698
| 1616960698
| 3.84
| 428
| Jan 01, 2012
| Jun 01, 2012
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liked it
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The Tower of the Elephant - Robert E. Howard (1933) I'm thoroughly unimpressed. What a disappointing showing. Conan in this story at least is quite the The Tower of the Elephant - Robert E. Howard (1933) I'm thoroughly unimpressed. What a disappointing showing. Conan in this story at least is quite the letdown. What an easily led fool he is. Its modern influence is evident though. Blah Black God’s Kiss - C. L. Moore (1934) It begins by telling the reader what a mighty woman the protagonist is, the equal to most any man, but alas her foe is so much more than that. But none of that about her matters, because as the titles implies, this begins and ends with kissing. Blah The Unholy Grail - Fritz Leiber (1962) There were bits of unintentional humor in this. For example the villain decries the uselessness of his daughter as compared to her mother who was so fierce that she may have even cuckolded him. A young Gray Mouser is the protagonist and not very fun to read about. There were a few interesting ideas, but little was done with them. Meh The Tale of Hauk - Poul Anderson (1977) This was mostly a historical fiction story about Norsemen before it veered off into fantastical metaphor. The former was nice, the latter not so much. Hauk, the son, returns and must right the wrongs of his father, who was once hale and hearty, but now has grown vicious and callous in his illness. Ok The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams - Michael Moorcock (1962) A horde from the east ravages the land and soon shall be where Elric resides. Once he again he must do what he is loathe. This wasn't the first Moorcock story I've finished, but it was the first Elric. Despite how silly this was, it also was somewhat fun. That was exemplified by Elric's beseeching of the God of Cats. Ok The Adventuress - Joanna Russ (1967) A comedic misadventure of a female duo, who are 30 and 18. It would've been enjoyable if it weren't seemingly only a fragment, which upon looking, it is. Ok Gimmile’s Songs - Charles R. Saunders (1984) A culturally African story with a black female protagonist. A quite interesting tale of swords, sorcery, and sex. Enjoyable Undertow - Karl Edward Wagner (1977) An intriguing and amusing gothic horror story. A woman searches out men to have sex with and to take her away from Kane. Enjoyable The Stages of the God - Ramsey Campbell (1974) A strange quasi-religious story of altered consciousness mythmaking. Blah The Barrow Troll - David Drake (1975) The Norseman known as Womanslayer recounts a tale of a woman he killed who told him about a troll and his treasure and that only fire blessed by a priest could defeat it, so he kidnaps the a priest and takes him there to battle the troll. Meh Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat - Glen Cook (1980) One of the greatest soldiers of the most powerful empire is immersed in the drama of the farmland frontier of a foreign country. Ok Epistle from Lebanoi - Michael Shea (2012) A man searching for spices becomes part of an apocalyptic battle caused by sexual infidelity. Ok == Become a Warrior - Jane Yolen (1998) A rather short, though impactful, story of a seven year old princess whose father is killed and kingdom is lost. A very engaging and murderous tale despite its length. The author has apparently written over 400 books. Enjoyable The Red Guild - Rachel Pollack (1985) A young female assassin is contracted to kill a dragon, but it becomes so much more. Enjoyable Six from Atlantis - Gene Wolfe (2006) A man seeking treasure challenges an ape who rules the land. Blah The Sea Troll’s Daughter - Caitlín R. Kiernan (2010) A funny story that subverts the typical monster slaying tale. Enjoyable The Coral Heart - Jeffrey Ford (2009) The man known as The Coral Heart has a sword that turns people into coral. As he wanders around with his tulpa, he meets the perfect woman. He proclaims he'll turn everyone in the world to coral if she won't have sex with him. Meh Path of the Dragon - George R. R. Martin (2000) Daenerys chapters that were put together as promotional material before the release of A Storm of Swords. The Year of the Three Monarchs - Michael Swanwick (2012) A brief and silly story of betrayal, murder, and trickery. Meh ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 12, 2022
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Aug 13, 2022
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Mar 28, 2022
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Paperback
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| B081T8P7YW
| 3.94
| 620
| Apr 26, 2016
| Oct 02, 2019
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liked it
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Mother of Invention - Nnedi Okorafor (2018) Possibly inspired by the The Scarlet Letter. Reads like an infomercial, PSA, and smart home apologia. Blah No Mother of Invention - Nnedi Okorafor (2018) Possibly inspired by the The Scarlet Letter. Reads like an infomercial, PSA, and smart home apologia. Blah No Me Dejes - Mark Oshiro (2018) A new technology allows for transferring memories. To mitigate being forgotten those near death transfer their memories to relatives. Family melodrama ensues when secrets are revealed. Blah When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis - Annalee Newitz (2018) An autonomous and sentient drone wants all humans to be happy and healthy. After an unauthorized natural language learning update, it learns how to talk to crows who help the humans as well because they're far smarter than humans believe. Now that all healthcare has been fully privatized, including completely defunding the CDC, it's up to a rogue researcher at Amazon Health to help the drone prevent a flu outbreak! I wonder how many readers realize the significance of choosing East St. Louis. I've been there. It's all very unfortunate. Blah When We Were Patched - Deji Bryce Olukotun (2018) An AI referee for a future version of Tennis has various disagreements with the human referee. Blah Domestic Violence - Madeline Ashby (2018) A husband weaponizes their smart home against his wife. The wife's HR manager at work took that personally. Time for revenge. Here's a joke from it: "You work in venture capital. We all know that's way worse than murder." Blah Mr. Thursday - Emily St. John Mandel (2017) Three POVs and time traveling in a short story. Maybe it's tangentially related to her novel that releases next month. I don't know what this was meant to be, but it's far too compressed to work well as a short story. It may have been enjoyable if not for that. Meh A Brief and Fearful Star - Carmen Maria Machado (2018) Sentimental nonsense on a prairie. I admit I don't care enough to try to make sense of what it's obscuring. Blah Overvalued - Mark Stasenko (2018) The prospects of one's life are determined by their IPO. High potential individuals can negotiate surrendering only 10% of their lifetime earnings for investment. Low potential individuals may have to give up 60% of their lifetime pretax earnings, on top of government taxes, to secure funding. Of course, to the investors, that's their own fault for being low potential. Why would people do this? In this economy, they can't afford not to. The protagonist is a human derivatives trader that focuses on finding overvalued human stocks, shorting them, then publicly disclosing their vulnerabilities to crash their price. This isn't the first work where I've read this idea. It exists, but as far as I know hasn't been successful at all, though it's been some years since I last looked and there's doubtlessly been various more attempts at doing so. In this case it's a satire, but it's one of stories where a problem is created seemingly for the express purpose of angering people. I was extremely angered for a while at the the least anyway, which happens every time I read stories that are similar. Stories like these that are entirely emotionally and ideological driven depend more on individual preferences than most other stories, which is a risky proposition. Though for me, after I calmed down, I realized that I very much enjoyed it. Affirmation of outrage can have that effect. Highly Enjoyable Safe Surrender - Meg Elison (2018) A hybrid human-alien, which only 10% of people can tell the difference between them and standard humans, was abandoned by his parents. He now seeks to find out who they were. Blah Lions and Gazelles - Hannu Rajaniemi (2018) Biotech start-ups show off their human bioengineering tech in an ultrarunning competition hunting down robot goats. Ok Burned Over Territory - Lee Konstantinou (2018) This short story is almost 100% politics. At first I had a lot of concerns about it, but by the end I was entirely won over. A group of creatives, almost all of whom are NEETs, drop out of the labor market and pool their collective basic income together to live a minimal lifestyle together. All earned income is given to the Federation, which is implied to be based on Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed. However, this ambiguous utopia has many problems of its own. Highly Enjoyable Mika Model - Paolo Bacigalupi (2016) Once again I'm reminded of why Bacigalupi is one of my favorite short fiction authors. This story is such a tease though. It reminds me much more of Detroit: Become Human (2018) rather than say Westworld (2016) or Blade Runner 2049 (2017). An organic AI sex doll murders her owner and tries to convince a police officer to save her. Highly Enjoyable The Starfish Girl - Maureen F. McHugh (2018) A young female gymnast breaks her spine from the neck down. Her spine is healed from editing starfish DNA into her DNA through CRISPR. The International Olympics Committee must now rule on whether this has given her an unfair advantage. Enjoyable The Minnesota Diet - Charlie Jane Anders (2018) A super trendy augmented reality carbon-neutral grown city for educated workers who couldn't afford to live in the major tech centers suffers severe supply chain problems, but no one can really leave because all their vehicles are geofenced. So, The Minnesota Diet it is until they can think of a better solution. Blah ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 22, 2022
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Mar 22, 2022
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Mar 19, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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| B00663HRQ0
| 3.78
| 37
| Nov 10, 2011
| unknown
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it was ok
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Floaters - Robert Lowell Russell A prisoner transfer goes awry. Time for a brute force investigation. Meh Persistence of Memory - Brandon Nolta In this ar Floaters - Robert Lowell Russell A prisoner transfer goes awry. Time for a brute force investigation. Meh Persistence of Memory - Brandon Nolta In this army of clones, each new generation remembers everything from the previous, but some of them prefer that they didn't. Ok To Titan on the Daily - George Walker An investigator is on the trail of The Smartest Man. This story is like someone imitating PKD as if he had written Flowers for Algernon as a short story. The scene changes are very abrupt, but not for stylistic effect Meh Ghostbook - Paul Cook His deceased mother has sent him a friend request. He accepts. Then the messages begin... Meh A Lincoln in Time - Eric James Stone In my timeline Lincoln was assassinated! In mine he wasn't! Ok Hooked - Cassandra Rose Clarke Fortune magazine interviews a sentient automaton who in 1925 illegally hooked itself into Wall Street trading by telegraph and became wealthy and well-known. Meh My Silent Slayer - Ed Greenwood A continuation of "Biting a Dead Man’s Hand" from #1. Meh Philosophy - Ronald D. Ferguson Two soldiers fighting disturbingly human Bug-Eyed Monsters begin wondering whether they're the baddies and what war is good for. Enjoyable In the Arms of Lachiga - Alex J. Kane A hacker is given a choice. Implant false memories into his best friend or die. Ok Father-Daughter Outing - Martin L. Shoemaker A fourteen year girl old does a sitcom routine while trying to keep her barely conscious father alive outside a lunar colony. The cover image is probably about this story. Blah ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jan 19, 2022
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Jan 19, 2022
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Jan 19, 2022
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my rating |
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| 4.39
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really liked it
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Sep 22, 2023
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Sep 11, 2023
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| 3.77
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liked it
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May 17, 2023
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May 18, 2023
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| 3.97
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it was amazing
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May 02, 2023
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May 02, 2023
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| 3.24
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really liked it
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Apr 20, 2023
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Apr 20, 2023
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| 3.81
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liked it
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Dec 02, 2022
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Dec 01, 2022
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| 3.63
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it was ok
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Nov 13, 2022
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Nov 14, 2022
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| 3.79
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it was ok
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Oct 02, 2022
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Oct 03, 2022
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| 3.69
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liked it
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Sep 26, 2022
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Oct 01, 2022
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| 3.68
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liked it
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Sep 25, 2022
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Oct 01, 2022
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| 3.79
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really liked it
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Sep 07, 2022
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Sep 08, 2022
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| 3.71
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it was ok
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Aug 31, 2022
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Aug 30, 2022
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| 3.81
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liked it
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May 09, 2022
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May 09, 2022
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| 3.85
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liked it
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May 27, 2022
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May 06, 2022
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| 3.65
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liked it
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May 07, 2022
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May 06, 2022
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| 3.82
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did not like it
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Apr 10, 2022
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Apr 10, 2022
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| 3.88
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it was ok
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Mar 31, 2022
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Mar 30, 2022
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| 3.90
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it was ok
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Mar 30, 2022
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Mar 30, 2022
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| 3.84
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liked it
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Aug 13, 2022
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Mar 28, 2022
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| 3.94
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liked it
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Mar 22, 2022
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Mar 19, 2022
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| 3.78
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it was ok
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Jan 19, 2022
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Jan 19, 2022
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