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elusivity's review against another edition
3.0
Good for whiling away a leisurely 10 min here and there, but contains nothing that blows the mind, nor is even particularly memorable.. Bolded are ones I particularly enjoyed.
-----
Out of the sun - Arthur C Clark
Might be great, but I literally cannot recall it without having to reread it.
The Pevatron Rats - Stephen Baxter
A quick and absorbing read about time travel and its effect on rodent evolution.
Edge of the Map - Ian Creasy
In a world blanketed by nanocams, what space is left for the monstrous and strange? A journalist makes her last attempt of onsite reporting in the last Net-free corner of the world. Interesting premise, but ends with a sigh and a whimper.
Cascade Point - Timothy Zahn
Mm. Something about traveling through special kind of space, during which you could visibly see all the selves you could have been right now, had you made different choices.
A dance to strange music - Gregory Benford
This one I quite like. Earth scientists explore a planet where all life is energized by massive exchanges of information, and are daunted by the utterly alien qualities they found. Some interesting work-through of evolution here.. And a commentary on the beginning of our eventual complete immersion in virtual reality?
Palindromic - Peter Crowther
Friendly aliens who, albeit inadvertently, causes destruction as an accident causes them to live life in opposite direction to humans, who must decide on how to decide how to deal with them. The conveniently smart person was TOO smart. The gimmick was too obvious...
Castle in the sky - Robert Reed
Quite like this one. An indestructible mysterious discovery on the moon. What if we had viewing access to the 4th dimension? Conclusion, neither Gods nor aliens cared so much about humanity as humanity does itself.
The hole in the hole - Terry Bisson
A hole linking earth and the moon exists in an automobile junkyard. Kind of a shaggy dog story.
Hotrider - Keith Brooke
Generic. On some planet covered by lava, where cities float on lava, hotriders ride the lava on scooters. One hotrider faces the end of his career and acts out.
Mother grasshopper - Michael Swanwick
Really like this one. Almost a science fantasy, or a fable. Humanity lived on a planet the shape of a grasshopper, having conquered death. And yet. We are not meant to be deathless. The funny thing is, most other reviewers seem to hate this one. I can only say I'm more a fantasy reader, and the lyrical absurdity of this story is right up my alley.
Waves and smart magma - Paul Di Filippo
An adventure story with fantasylike beats. Humans having evolved beyond the physical plane, they left behind AI and genetically modified guardians to watch over Earth. A segment of this AI breaks off and becomes rogue, and a band of guardians go forth to destroy it.
The black hole passes - John Varley
Ugh. A man in a space station driven crazy by isolation, clinging to long distance (like, couple of lightdays away long distance) relationship with a strong woman. Then, a black hole sweeps through their area. Robinson Crusoe, in space. I kind of hated the whiney man, though.
The peacock king - Ted White & Larry McCombs
Hyperspace apparently feels like becoming schizophrenic. Two people with high ESP are trained via Buddhist philosophy and LSD to mentally prepare for the journey. A plotless story, full of shallow spirituality. What really bothered me is the depiction of zen Buddhism and how other subjects failed because they cannot deal with man's existential aloneness. Because that is precisely one ultimate point of zen, the understanding and acceptance of that aloneness. What a ridiculous cop-out to depict this couple as successfully navigated that truth bc they merged minds and know they are not actually alone. Truly, this could only have been written in the 70s.
Bridge - James Blish
Written in the 1950s, the vision of constructing a giant ship in the ice of Jupiter, of how space travel/living may be like, the equality between men and women space operators. Very advanced for its time, I think. The only sign of age is fear of the Soviets taking over the world, background of McCarthyism, and imminent decline of the West as a culture.
Anhedonia - Adam Roberts
I disagree vehemently with the premise of this story--the very scientific basis. It posits the universe as unbearably wondrous, enough to blow the overly-sensitive human mind. Remnant from days when we do not know enough about the brain. The brain cannot perceive what is beyond its capacity to conceive. Awareness of beauty is complex conglomeration of thought and emotion, and not a physical senses like hearing or sight. While we can see light so bright as to blind us, or encounter sound so loud as to deafen, we cannot be overawed by beauty beyond our cognitive abilities to encompass and appreciate. This scenario is, to me, viscerally incorrect, and I cannot suspend belief to appreciate the underlying idea.
Tiger burning - Alastair Reynolds
This one is weird, in a good way. I would like to read more stories based in this world, which has discovered endless dimensions and can travel through them via ever-degrading replication. An investigator travels to the farthest world (by this point, a limited personality-slice of the original human and not technically considered alive) to investigate the death of 1/2 of a husband-wife scientist team. The wife is researching a gigantic relic from long-vanished alien culture. This relic can calculate into the far future to stop a thing from happening at inception, and prevent that thing from ever happening throughout all instances of time and space.
Width of the world - Ian Watson
Space inexplicably widens, a 20 min journey home suddenly requires 50 min, and people begin disappearing. Like bees who swarm away to form another hive when the hive population reaches a certain point, the world shifts into some other, unseen dimension, taking with it about 10% of the population. Including the protagonist's wife. My critique is, how human- and earth-centric. Why should the entire world (universe?) split into 2 just because a tiny backwater planet on the ass-end of the Milk Way becomes a bit full of people?
Our Lady of the sauropods - Robert Silverberg
A scientist "ship"-wrecked on a space island with re-engineered dinosaurs in re-created natural climate. She goes native within 30 days and becomes connected to this primitive community. Apparently raw dinosaur meat is perfectly edible for humans and would not cause any diseases or even indigestion. Meh.
Into the Miranda rift - G. David Nordley
Miranda, a Uranus satellite, is riddled with holes. An expedition is trapped in these collapsing cave system as the holes begin to shrink in the midst of quakes. It shrinks some more, and they are alternatively trapped inside a cave like babies in a birth canal, or emerging suddenly into mega-caves with sharp drops that could kill even in a low-grav fall. A claustrophobic adventure story. Gripping, scientifically sound, with good psychology too. A highlight of this collection.
The rest is speculation - Eric Brown
Another science-fantasy. A man regenerated 2 billion years after the human species have died, along with 2 creatures from 2 later races, led by a "crab" through the dried sea bed with the sun so near it took up most of the sky. Written in mythic tones a la any-sufficiently-advanced-science-is-akin-to-magic; pseudo-religious; in fact, very similar to the Dying Earth, and literally concerns the death of Earth itself, universe tore open to reveal ....
Vacuum states - Geoffrey A. Landis
A gimmick choose-the-ending-of-the-universe story.
-----
Out of the sun - Arthur C Clark
Might be great, but I literally cannot recall it without having to reread it.
The Pevatron Rats - Stephen Baxter
A quick and absorbing read about time travel and its effect on rodent evolution.
Edge of the Map - Ian Creasy
In a world blanketed by nanocams, what space is left for the monstrous and strange? A journalist makes her last attempt of onsite reporting in the last Net-free corner of the world. Interesting premise, but ends with a sigh and a whimper.
Cascade Point - Timothy Zahn
Mm. Something about traveling through special kind of space, during which you could visibly see all the selves you could have been right now, had you made different choices.
A dance to strange music - Gregory Benford
This one I quite like. Earth scientists explore a planet where all life is energized by massive exchanges of information, and are daunted by the utterly alien qualities they found. Some interesting work-through of evolution here.. And a commentary on the beginning of our eventual complete immersion in virtual reality?
Palindromic - Peter Crowther
Friendly aliens who, albeit inadvertently, causes destruction as an accident causes them to live life in opposite direction to humans, who must decide on how to decide how to deal with them. The conveniently smart person was TOO smart. The gimmick was too obvious...
Castle in the sky - Robert Reed
Quite like this one. An indestructible mysterious discovery on the moon. What if we had viewing access to the 4th dimension? Conclusion, neither Gods nor aliens cared so much about humanity as humanity does itself.
The hole in the hole - Terry Bisson
A hole linking earth and the moon exists in an automobile junkyard. Kind of a shaggy dog story.
Hotrider - Keith Brooke
Generic. On some planet covered by lava, where cities float on lava, hotriders ride the lava on scooters. One hotrider faces the end of his career and acts out.
Mother grasshopper - Michael Swanwick
Really like this one. Almost a science fantasy, or a fable. Humanity lived on a planet the shape of a grasshopper, having conquered death. And yet. We are not meant to be deathless. The funny thing is, most other reviewers seem to hate this one. I can only say I'm more a fantasy reader, and the lyrical absurdity of this story is right up my alley.
Waves and smart magma - Paul Di Filippo
An adventure story with fantasylike beats. Humans having evolved beyond the physical plane, they left behind AI and genetically modified guardians to watch over Earth. A segment of this AI breaks off and becomes rogue, and a band of guardians go forth to destroy it.
The black hole passes - John Varley
Ugh. A man in a space station driven crazy by isolation, clinging to long distance (like, couple of lightdays away long distance) relationship with a strong woman. Then, a black hole sweeps through their area. Robinson Crusoe, in space. I kind of hated the whiney man, though.
The peacock king - Ted White & Larry McCombs
Hyperspace apparently feels like becoming schizophrenic. Two people with high ESP are trained via Buddhist philosophy and LSD to mentally prepare for the journey. A plotless story, full of shallow spirituality. What really bothered me is the depiction of zen Buddhism and how other subjects failed because they cannot deal with man's existential aloneness. Because that is precisely one ultimate point of zen, the understanding and acceptance of that aloneness. What a ridiculous cop-out to depict this couple as successfully navigated that truth bc they merged minds and know they are not actually alone. Truly, this could only have been written in the 70s.
Bridge - James Blish
Written in the 1950s, the vision of constructing a giant ship in the ice of Jupiter, of how space travel/living may be like, the equality between men and women space operators. Very advanced for its time, I think. The only sign of age is fear of the Soviets taking over the world, background of McCarthyism, and imminent decline of the West as a culture.
Anhedonia - Adam Roberts
I disagree vehemently with the premise of this story--the very scientific basis. It posits the universe as unbearably wondrous, enough to blow the overly-sensitive human mind. Remnant from days when we do not know enough about the brain. The brain cannot perceive what is beyond its capacity to conceive. Awareness of beauty is complex conglomeration of thought and emotion, and not a physical senses like hearing or sight. While we can see light so bright as to blind us, or encounter sound so loud as to deafen, we cannot be overawed by beauty beyond our cognitive abilities to encompass and appreciate. This scenario is, to me, viscerally incorrect, and I cannot suspend belief to appreciate the underlying idea.
Tiger burning - Alastair Reynolds
This one is weird, in a good way. I would like to read more stories based in this world, which has discovered endless dimensions and can travel through them via ever-degrading replication. An investigator travels to the farthest world (by this point, a limited personality-slice of the original human and not technically considered alive) to investigate the death of 1/2 of a husband-wife scientist team. The wife is researching a gigantic relic from long-vanished alien culture. This relic can calculate into the far future to stop a thing from happening at inception, and prevent that thing from ever happening throughout all instances of time and space.
Spoiler
The investigator surmised that the dimensional worlds are not endless, but circular, and the relic's calculations had spanned throughout that circle, approaching its own dimension from the opposite direction. There, it intuited the rise of its OWN CULTURE. Not understanding the true nature of the universes, it eliminated themselves at their own inception, believing it was eliminating some alien rival civilization. The wife killed the husband bc this relic is her single defining achievement, and she didn't want anyone to know how reviving this machinery would eventually endanger their own civilization.Width of the world - Ian Watson
Space inexplicably widens, a 20 min journey home suddenly requires 50 min, and people begin disappearing. Like bees who swarm away to form another hive when the hive population reaches a certain point, the world shifts into some other, unseen dimension, taking with it about 10% of the population. Including the protagonist's wife. My critique is, how human- and earth-centric. Why should the entire world (universe?) split into 2 just because a tiny backwater planet on the ass-end of the Milk Way becomes a bit full of people?
Our Lady of the sauropods - Robert Silverberg
A scientist "ship"-wrecked on a space island with re-engineered dinosaurs in re-created natural climate. She goes native within 30 days and becomes connected to this primitive community. Apparently raw dinosaur meat is perfectly edible for humans and would not cause any diseases or even indigestion. Meh.
Into the Miranda rift - G. David Nordley
Miranda, a Uranus satellite, is riddled with holes. An expedition is trapped in these collapsing cave system as the holes begin to shrink in the midst of quakes. It shrinks some more, and they are alternatively trapped inside a cave like babies in a birth canal, or emerging suddenly into mega-caves with sharp drops that could kill even in a low-grav fall. A claustrophobic adventure story. Gripping, scientifically sound, with good psychology too. A highlight of this collection.
The rest is speculation - Eric Brown
Another science-fantasy. A man regenerated 2 billion years after the human species have died, along with 2 creatures from 2 later races, led by a "crab" through the dried sea bed with the sun so near it took up most of the sky. Written in mythic tones a la any-sufficiently-advanced-science-is-akin-to-magic; pseudo-religious; in fact, very similar to the Dying Earth, and literally concerns the death of Earth itself, universe tore open to reveal ....
Spoiler
other dimensions/Heaven, seeds for new universes. Un... ha. But I dig it.Vacuum states - Geoffrey A. Landis
A gimmick choose-the-ending-of-the-universe story.
thistlechaser's review against another edition
5.0
The worst part of this book? The title. How often does anything in media blow your mind? How often does a book? What are the chances that all of the 21 stories in this book would blow your mind?
The "mammoth" part of the title I cannot protest. Oh my god, this book was long.
While these stories may not have been mind blowing (not a single one of them), they were almost without exception very good. Maybe 4 of the 21 didn't work for me, which is a really, really good ratio. Many of them were downright great.
So many authors I hadn't previously read (but should have!). Arthur C. Clarke, Timothy Zahn, and Robert Silverberg were some of the biggest names. Only a couple stories were newly written for this book, the rest went back as old as 1958.
All of the stories were hard scifi -- all were about science and discoveries and such, which I completely enjoyed. After the 50% point I was chomping at the bit to move on to a different book, but since there were so many different stories I kept reading until the very end. And I'm glad I did, since they were all so good.
The "mammoth" part of the title I cannot protest. Oh my god, this book was long.
While these stories may not have been mind blowing (not a single one of them), they were almost without exception very good. Maybe 4 of the 21 didn't work for me, which is a really, really good ratio. Many of them were downright great.
So many authors I hadn't previously read (but should have!). Arthur C. Clarke, Timothy Zahn, and Robert Silverberg were some of the biggest names. Only a couple stories were newly written for this book, the rest went back as old as 1958.
All of the stories were hard scifi -- all were about science and discoveries and such, which I completely enjoyed. After the 50% point I was chomping at the bit to move on to a different book, but since there were so many different stories I kept reading until the very end. And I'm glad I did, since they were all so good.
thestarman's review
VERDICT: 2.51 stars. Some slightly mind-stretching stories; nothing mind-blowing. Mostly 2-3 stars. Worst = 1 star, best= 4.1.
elusivity's review
3.0
Good for whiling away a leisurely 10 min here and there, but contains nothing that blows the mind, nor is even particularly memorable.. Bolded are ones I particularly enjoyed.
-----
Out of the sun - Arthur C Clark
Might be great, but I literally cannot recall it without having to reread it.
The Pevatron Rats - Stephen Baxter
A quick and absorbing read about time travel and its effect on rodent evolution.
Edge of the Map - Ian Creasy
In a world blanketed by nanocams, what space is left for the monstrous and strange? A journalist makes her last attempt of onsite reporting in the last Net-free corner of the world. Interesting premise, but ends with a sigh and a whimper.
Cascade Point - Timothy Zahn
Mm. Something about traveling through special kind of space, during which you could visibly see all the selves you could have been right now, had you made different choices.
A dance to strange music - Gregory Benford
This one I quite like. Earth scientists explore a planet where all life is energized by massive exchanges of information, and are daunted by the utterly alien qualities they found. Some interesting work-through of evolution here.. And a commentary on the beginning of our eventual complete immersion in virtual reality?
Palindromic - Peter Crowther
Friendly aliens who, albeit inadvertently, causes destruction as an accident causes them to live life in opposite direction to humans, who must decide on how to decide how to deal with them. The conveniently smart person was TOO smart. The gimmick was too obvious...
Castle in the sky - Robert Reed
Quite like this one. An indestructible mysterious discovery on the moon. What if we had viewing access to the 4th dimension? Conclusion, neither Gods nor aliens cared so much about humanity as humanity does itself.
The hole in the hole - Terry Bisson
A hole linking earth and the moon exists in an automobile junkyard. Kind of a shaggy dog story.
Hotrider - Keith Brooke
Generic. On some planet covered by lava, where cities float on lava, hotriders ride the lava on scooters. One hotrider faces the end of his career and acts out.
Mother grasshopper - Michael Swanwick
Really like this one. Almost a science fantasy, or a fable. Humanity lived on a planet the shape of a grasshopper, having conquered death. And yet. We are not meant to be deathless. The funny thing is, most other reviewers seem to hate this one. I can only say I'm more a fantasy reader, and the lyrical absurdity of this story is right up my alley.
Waves and smart magma - Paul Di Filippo
An adventure story with fantasylike beats. Humans having evolved beyond the physical plane, they left behind AI and genetically modified guardians to watch over Earth. A segment of this AI breaks off and becomes rogue, and a band of guardians go forth to destroy it.
The black hole passes - John Varley
Ugh. A man in a space station driven crazy by isolation, clinging to long distance (like, couple of lightdays away long distance) relationship with a strong woman. Then, a black hole sweeps through their area. Robinson Crusoe, in space. I kind of hated the whiney man, though.
The peacock king - Ted White & Larry McCombs
Hyperspace apparently feels like becoming schizophrenic. Two people with high ESP are trained via Buddhist philosophy and LSD to mentally prepare for the journey. A plotless story, full of shallow spirituality. What really bothered me is the depiction of zen Buddhism and how other subjects failed because they cannot deal with man's existential aloneness. Because that is precisely one ultimate point of zen, the understanding and acceptance of that aloneness. What a ridiculous cop-out to depict this couple as successfully navigated that truth bc they merged minds and know they are not actually alone. Truly, this could only have been written in the 70s.
Bridge - James Blish
Written in the 1950s, the vision of constructing a giant ship in the ice of Jupiter, of how space travel/living may be like, the equality between men and women space operators. Very advanced for its time, I think. The only sign of age is fear of the Soviets taking over the world, background of McCarthyism, and imminent decline of the West as a culture.
Anhedonia - Adam Roberts
I disagree vehemently with the premise of this story--the very scientific basis. It posits the universe as unbearably wondrous, enough to blow the overly-sensitive human mind. Remnant from days when we do not know enough about the brain. The brain cannot perceive what is beyond its capacity to conceive. Awareness of beauty is complex conglomeration of thought and emotion, and not a physical senses like hearing or sight. While we can see light so bright as to blind us, or encounter sound so loud as to deafen, we cannot be overawed by beauty beyond our cognitive abilities to encompass and appreciate. This scenario is, to me, viscerally incorrect, and I cannot suspend belief to appreciate the underlying idea.
Tiger burning - Alastair Reynolds
This one is weird, in a good way. I would like to read more stories based in this world, which has discovered endless dimensions and can travel through them via ever-degrading replication. An investigator travels to the farthest world (by this point, a limited personality-slice of the original human and not technically considered alive) to investigate the death of 1/2 of a husband-wife scientist team. The wife is researching a gigantic relic from long-vanished alien culture. This relic can calculate into the far future to stop a thing from happening at inception, and prevent that thing from ever happening throughout all instances of time and space.
The investigator surmised that the dimensional worlds are not endless, but circular, and the relic's calculations had spanned throughout that circle, approaching its own dimension from the opposite direction. There, it intuited the rise of its OWN CULTURE. Not understanding the true nature of the universes, it eliminated themselves at their own inception, believing it was eliminating some alien rival civilization. The wife killed the husband bc this relic is her single defining achievement, and she didn't want anyone to know how reviving this machinery would eventually endanger their own civilization.
Width of the world - Ian Watson
Space inexplicably widens, a 20 min journey home suddenly requires 50 min, and people begin disappearing. Like bees who swarm away to form another hive when the hive population reaches a certain point, the world shifts into some other, unseen dimension, taking with it about 10% of the population. Including the protagonist's wife. My critique is, how human- and earth-centric. Why should the entire world (universe?) split into 2 just because a tiny backwater planet on the ass-end of the Milk Way becomes a bit full of people?
Our Lady of the sauropods - Robert Silverberg
A scientist "ship"-wrecked on a space island with re-engineered dinosaurs in re-created natural climate. She goes native within 30 days and becomes connected to this primitive community. Apparently raw dinosaur meat is perfectly edible for humans and would not cause any diseases or even indigestion. Meh.
Into the Miranda rift - G. David Nordley
Miranda, a Uranus satellite, is riddled with holes. An expedition is trapped in these collapsing cave system as the holes begin to shrink in the midst of quakes. It shrinks some more, and they are alternatively trapped inside a cave like babies in a birth canal, or emerging suddenly into mega-caves with sharp drops that could kill even in a low-grav fall. A claustrophobic adventure story. Gripping, scientifically sound, with good psychology too. A highlight of this collection.
The rest is speculation - Eric Brown
Another science-fantasy. A man regenerated 2 billion years after the human species have died, along with 2 creatures from 2 later races, led by a "crab" through the dried sea bed with the sun so near it took up most of the sky. Written in mythic tones a la any-sufficiently-advanced-science-is-akin-to-magic; pseudo-religious; in fact, very similar to the Dying Earth, and literally concerns the death of Earth itself, universe tore open to reveal ....other dimensions/Heaven, seeds for new universes. Un... ha. But I dig it.
Vacuum states - Geoffrey A. Landis
A gimmick choose-the-ending-of-the-universe story.
-----
Out of the sun - Arthur C Clark
Might be great, but I literally cannot recall it without having to reread it.
The Pevatron Rats - Stephen Baxter
A quick and absorbing read about time travel and its effect on rodent evolution.
Edge of the Map - Ian Creasy
In a world blanketed by nanocams, what space is left for the monstrous and strange? A journalist makes her last attempt of onsite reporting in the last Net-free corner of the world. Interesting premise, but ends with a sigh and a whimper.
Cascade Point - Timothy Zahn
Mm. Something about traveling through special kind of space, during which you could visibly see all the selves you could have been right now, had you made different choices.
A dance to strange music - Gregory Benford
This one I quite like. Earth scientists explore a planet where all life is energized by massive exchanges of information, and are daunted by the utterly alien qualities they found. Some interesting work-through of evolution here.. And a commentary on the beginning of our eventual complete immersion in virtual reality?
Palindromic - Peter Crowther
Friendly aliens who, albeit inadvertently, causes destruction as an accident causes them to live life in opposite direction to humans, who must decide on how to decide how to deal with them. The conveniently smart person was TOO smart. The gimmick was too obvious...
Castle in the sky - Robert Reed
Quite like this one. An indestructible mysterious discovery on the moon. What if we had viewing access to the 4th dimension? Conclusion, neither Gods nor aliens cared so much about humanity as humanity does itself.
The hole in the hole - Terry Bisson
A hole linking earth and the moon exists in an automobile junkyard. Kind of a shaggy dog story.
Hotrider - Keith Brooke
Generic. On some planet covered by lava, where cities float on lava, hotriders ride the lava on scooters. One hotrider faces the end of his career and acts out.
Mother grasshopper - Michael Swanwick
Really like this one. Almost a science fantasy, or a fable. Humanity lived on a planet the shape of a grasshopper, having conquered death. And yet. We are not meant to be deathless. The funny thing is, most other reviewers seem to hate this one. I can only say I'm more a fantasy reader, and the lyrical absurdity of this story is right up my alley.
Waves and smart magma - Paul Di Filippo
An adventure story with fantasylike beats. Humans having evolved beyond the physical plane, they left behind AI and genetically modified guardians to watch over Earth. A segment of this AI breaks off and becomes rogue, and a band of guardians go forth to destroy it.
The black hole passes - John Varley
Ugh. A man in a space station driven crazy by isolation, clinging to long distance (like, couple of lightdays away long distance) relationship with a strong woman. Then, a black hole sweeps through their area. Robinson Crusoe, in space. I kind of hated the whiney man, though.
The peacock king - Ted White & Larry McCombs
Hyperspace apparently feels like becoming schizophrenic. Two people with high ESP are trained via Buddhist philosophy and LSD to mentally prepare for the journey. A plotless story, full of shallow spirituality. What really bothered me is the depiction of zen Buddhism and how other subjects failed because they cannot deal with man's existential aloneness. Because that is precisely one ultimate point of zen, the understanding and acceptance of that aloneness. What a ridiculous cop-out to depict this couple as successfully navigated that truth bc they merged minds and know they are not actually alone. Truly, this could only have been written in the 70s.
Bridge - James Blish
Written in the 1950s, the vision of constructing a giant ship in the ice of Jupiter, of how space travel/living may be like, the equality between men and women space operators. Very advanced for its time, I think. The only sign of age is fear of the Soviets taking over the world, background of McCarthyism, and imminent decline of the West as a culture.
Anhedonia - Adam Roberts
I disagree vehemently with the premise of this story--the very scientific basis. It posits the universe as unbearably wondrous, enough to blow the overly-sensitive human mind. Remnant from days when we do not know enough about the brain. The brain cannot perceive what is beyond its capacity to conceive. Awareness of beauty is complex conglomeration of thought and emotion, and not a physical senses like hearing or sight. While we can see light so bright as to blind us, or encounter sound so loud as to deafen, we cannot be overawed by beauty beyond our cognitive abilities to encompass and appreciate. This scenario is, to me, viscerally incorrect, and I cannot suspend belief to appreciate the underlying idea.
Tiger burning - Alastair Reynolds
This one is weird, in a good way. I would like to read more stories based in this world, which has discovered endless dimensions and can travel through them via ever-degrading replication. An investigator travels to the farthest world (by this point, a limited personality-slice of the original human and not technically considered alive) to investigate the death of 1/2 of a husband-wife scientist team. The wife is researching a gigantic relic from long-vanished alien culture. This relic can calculate into the far future to stop a thing from happening at inception, and prevent that thing from ever happening throughout all instances of time and space.
Width of the world - Ian Watson
Space inexplicably widens, a 20 min journey home suddenly requires 50 min, and people begin disappearing. Like bees who swarm away to form another hive when the hive population reaches a certain point, the world shifts into some other, unseen dimension, taking with it about 10% of the population. Including the protagonist's wife. My critique is, how human- and earth-centric. Why should the entire world (universe?) split into 2 just because a tiny backwater planet on the ass-end of the Milk Way becomes a bit full of people?
Our Lady of the sauropods - Robert Silverberg
A scientist "ship"-wrecked on a space island with re-engineered dinosaurs in re-created natural climate. She goes native within 30 days and becomes connected to this primitive community. Apparently raw dinosaur meat is perfectly edible for humans and would not cause any diseases or even indigestion. Meh.
Into the Miranda rift - G. David Nordley
Miranda, a Uranus satellite, is riddled with holes. An expedition is trapped in these collapsing cave system as the holes begin to shrink in the midst of quakes. It shrinks some more, and they are alternatively trapped inside a cave like babies in a birth canal, or emerging suddenly into mega-caves with sharp drops that could kill even in a low-grav fall. A claustrophobic adventure story. Gripping, scientifically sound, with good psychology too. A highlight of this collection.
The rest is speculation - Eric Brown
Another science-fantasy. A man regenerated 2 billion years after the human species have died, along with 2 creatures from 2 later races, led by a "crab" through the dried sea bed with the sun so near it took up most of the sky. Written in mythic tones a la any-sufficiently-advanced-science-is-akin-to-magic; pseudo-religious; in fact, very similar to the Dying Earth, and literally concerns the death of Earth itself, universe tore open to reveal ....
Vacuum states - Geoffrey A. Landis
A gimmick choose-the-ending-of-the-universe story.
lowthor's review
4.0
Not every story is great but it was certainly broad with lots of interesting subjects. A solid handful of very strong stories as well. Worth dipping in and out of.
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