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nwhyte's review
http://nhw.livejournal.com/1121128.html[return][return]As always, a generally good selection, with a lot of the stories revolving around virtual identities and gaming. I had read two of the 25 before, as they were Hugo nominees; of the rest, the ones that will stay with me are the first, "Baby Doll" by Johanna Sinisalo, a terrifying tale of future sexuality; in the middle, "End Game" by Nancy Kress, which retreads some of the ground from her "Beggars in Spain" but takes it in a new direction; and the final story, James Van Pelt's "How Music Begins", a tale of alien abduction, romance and a high school band. All good stuff; I still have the Dozois collection to look forward to.[return]
sjstuart's review
4.0
I thought this collection of stories from 2007 was fairly impressive. I didn't find any new all-time favorites, but most of the stories were enjoyable enough to keep me wanting more, and there were only a few clunkers. The only one that I really didn't care for was "As You Know, Bob", a gimmicky story with no plot that rewrites the same few paragraphs in parodies of multiple different styles, and takes some jabs at magazine editors in the process. Several of the stories were short and gimmicky, in fact. This seems to be a bit of a trend in recent years, especially with the rise of the short-short story: it must be tempting to rely on gimmicks if you can't build characters or plot tension within 1000 words.
One interesting feature of this anthology was the relatively high number of stories translated from other languages: Danish, Finnish, and French. Those stories were also among the strongest in the collection, which makes me think I should be searching out more translated European sci fi (or brush up on my Finnish).
Another notable trend was the relatively high number of stories involving digitized personalities, or characters living in outright simulations. I won't mention which ones, as the simulated nature of the world is sometimes a plot feature, but there were at least half a dozen with fully simulated people or environments.
Many different story types and styles are represented, although (thankfully) there is not a single alternate history tale. As usual, there are a few that rely heavily on supernatural phenomena despite the claim to be "clearly [sci fi] and nothing else", and one ("Always") that is just plain fiction with no science at all. These are all good stories, though, and I won't begrudge their inclusion.
The best thing about the anthology is that it contains a lot of stories: nearly two dozen. A scattering of short shorts is responsible in part for the large number of stories, but it's great to have such a large selection to choose from.
One interesting feature of this anthology was the relatively high number of stories translated from other languages: Danish, Finnish, and French. Those stories were also among the strongest in the collection, which makes me think I should be searching out more translated European sci fi (or brush up on my Finnish).
Another notable trend was the relatively high number of stories involving digitized personalities, or characters living in outright simulations. I won't mention which ones, as the simulated nature of the world is sometimes a plot feature, but there were at least half a dozen with fully simulated people or environments.
Many different story types and styles are represented, although (thankfully) there is not a single alternate history tale. As usual, there are a few that rely heavily on supernatural phenomena despite the claim to be "clearly [sci fi] and nothing else", and one ("Always") that is just plain fiction with no science at all. These are all good stories, though, and I won't begrudge their inclusion.
The best thing about the anthology is that it contains a lot of stories: nearly two dozen. A scattering of short shorts is responsible in part for the large number of stories, but it's great to have such a large selection to choose from.
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