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nenya_kanadka's review against another edition
4.0
I spent most of the short stories in this anthology wishing for entire novels with the settings & characters in the stories. It's an anthology so the stories did vary in quality and some weren't to my taste, but for the most part this was EXACTLY what I want out of science fiction: neat characters in cool or challenging situations with fascinating tech/aliens/spaceships/biology/etc, having adventures--and featuring women front and centre as the people doing all these things, not just the ones waiting at home for their men or only showing up for the sex scenes.
This was lots of fun and I would definitely recommend it. Plus a lot of the authors (Martha Wells, to pick just one) do indeed have novels out.
This was lots of fun and I would definitely recommend it. Plus a lot of the authors (Martha Wells, to pick just one) do indeed have novels out.
matosapa's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
moonlit_shelves's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
carolynf's review against another edition
4.0
The individual stories were all very good. I just have a hard time getting into anthologies.
kaa's review against another edition
4.0
All in all, a very enjoyable anthology. As with the other Athena Andreadis-edited anthology I've read, this had a lot of excellent, woman-centered stories. Again, some of my favorites were by authors I already know and love - "The Waiting Stars", by Aliette de Bodard is possibly the best story in the entire book, although Vandana Singh's "Sailing the Antarsa" was also incredible. Unfortunately the last two stories were some of my least favorite, so it didn't end on a great note, but overall I thought it was a very good assortment of stories.
taylesium's review against another edition
4.0
I originally bought this anthology just for Martha Wells's story from the world of the Raksura. Although I enjoyed that story, it was not perhaps the most interesting one of hers that I've read. However, I found that reading all of the stories more than made the purchase of the book worthwhile.
This book is a collection of hardcore science fiction short stories, focusing on feminine and/or minority view points. Quite an amazing range of subgenres and styles are covered, ranging from cyberpunk treasure hunting stories, to lyrical mythology-style stories, to a story involving NASA that verges on being entirely realistic. Basically, this anthology holds a little something for every taste, with opportunities for readers to expand their interests (and personal lists of authors they find engaging). Especially heartening, for me, was finding a total lack of common cliches and a guarantee of new ideas in every story. In my opinion, this was speculative fiction at its best.
However, I found that I couldn't read many stories in a single sitting. Each story had its own potent emotional weight that made it difficult to read all at once (in particular, I found the stories about worlds being destroyed or indigenous species being overwhelmed difficult). Based on my experience, I recommend reading the anthology slowly over time, returning to read a new story whenever the mood takes you. The stories are rewarding and stick with you, but they each have their own challenges.
This book is a collection of hardcore science fiction short stories, focusing on feminine and/or minority view points. Quite an amazing range of subgenres and styles are covered, ranging from cyberpunk treasure hunting stories, to lyrical mythology-style stories, to a story involving NASA that verges on being entirely realistic. Basically, this anthology holds a little something for every taste, with opportunities for readers to expand their interests (and personal lists of authors they find engaging). Especially heartening, for me, was finding a total lack of common cliches and a guarantee of new ideas in every story. In my opinion, this was speculative fiction at its best.
However, I found that I couldn't read many stories in a single sitting. Each story had its own potent emotional weight that made it difficult to read all at once (in particular, I found the stories about worlds being destroyed or indigenous species being overwhelmed difficult). Based on my experience, I recommend reading the anthology slowly over time, returning to read a new story whenever the mood takes you. The stories are rewarding and stick with you, but they each have their own challenges.
suzig's review against another edition
3.0
A strong collection of feminist sci fi. A few stand outs, but also a few that fell flat for me. I encourage you to also read the second anthology in the series, which I happened to read first, that I thought was even stronger.
lsneal's review
4.0
A really excellent collection of short science fiction featuring female main characters. It reminded me of why I fell in love with science fiction in the first place.
morgandhu's review
4.0
The Other Half of the Sky is one of several recent projects aimed at encouraging sff writing that includes women as diverse characters with all the range of characterisations, goals, abilities, occupations and agency that male characters have - in short, that write women as full humans. The title is taken from a Chinese saying (famously quoted by Mao Zedong) that women hold up half the sky - in sff, we have seen much of the half of the sky that men hold up, but relatively little of that held up by women. This anthology shows us some of the other half.
As editor Athena Andreadis observes in her Introduction,
"Science fiction wishes to be the genre of imaginative extrapolation. So it has come to pass that SF writers have conjured all kinds of planetary systems, ecologies, lifeforms and societies; FTL, stable wormholes, time travel, teleporters, ansibles; clones, uploading, downloading, genetic tinkering, nanotechnology; virtual reality, remote sensing, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition.
Yet the same universe-spanning visionaries seem to have difficulty envisioning women (or other “non-defaults,” for that matter) as full humans—that is, not defined by their helpmate/mother role but as rounded people fully engaged in their vocations and wider network of relationships and, furthermore, people who can be heroes, not merely heroines."
This anthology has women who can be heroes - and women who can be all sorts of other things, too. There truly is not a weak story in this anthology, and the range of stories is such that everyone will find something that hits their fancy.
For me, the memorable stories were:
Finders, Melissa Scott - in a future where salvage from the wreckage of ancient starfarers is the highest currency, a woman with a terminal disability leads a team seeking the rarest of treasures.
Bad Day on Boscobel, Alexander Jablokov - on a hollow asteroid habitat, a beleaguered social worker uncovers a thread to her home, with help of her rebellious daughter and a female agent from Mars.
Mission of Greed, Sue Lange - a survey ship finds sentient life on a planet rich in uranium, but will the greed of some of the crew lead to its destruction?
The Waiting Stars, Aliette De Bodard - can the consciousness of a being that ranged the stars as a Mindship be happy when returned to a body of flesh?
The Shape of Thought, Ken Liu - humans seeking a new planet to settle on are welcomed by a people with such a different way of thinking that only the most flexible of humans can approach an understanding of them.
Cathedral - one woman will sacrifice anything to make sure that humans don't lose their last chance to travel among the planets.