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tabatha_shipley's review against another edition
2.0
What I Didn’t Like:
-Lack of cohesion. I love short story collections. This one, however, doesn’t have a clear thread that brings the stories together. There’s no sense of balance to them, nothing tying them together.
-Short stories really need to pack a punch. Either be emotional, poignant, daring, or shocking. Otherwise, how will you remember this short journey? These lacked that punch. They lacked staying power.
-No world building. I understand we’re dealing with short stories here and there really isn’t TIME for complex world building. The problem here is that to fully appreciate some of these futuristic worlds you needed that building, you needed the time and space to understand it.
What I Did Like:
-The sci-fi aspects dropped into many of these stories were captivating. I love that many of them made AI or other technology commonplace.
-Poetry. Often a short story anthology will shy away from including poetry. This one embraced it, including two poems. Actually, one of my favorite pieces from the collection was one of the poems. Great choice to include it!
Who Should Read This One:
-Anthology readers who like literary voice and sci-fi components.
My Rating: 2 stars. For me the missing cohesion and forgettable nature of the stories was problematic.
-Lack of cohesion. I love short story collections. This one, however, doesn’t have a clear thread that brings the stories together. There’s no sense of balance to them, nothing tying them together.
-Short stories really need to pack a punch. Either be emotional, poignant, daring, or shocking. Otherwise, how will you remember this short journey? These lacked that punch. They lacked staying power.
-No world building. I understand we’re dealing with short stories here and there really isn’t TIME for complex world building. The problem here is that to fully appreciate some of these futuristic worlds you needed that building, you needed the time and space to understand it.
What I Did Like:
-The sci-fi aspects dropped into many of these stories were captivating. I love that many of them made AI or other technology commonplace.
-Poetry. Often a short story anthology will shy away from including poetry. This one embraced it, including two poems. Actually, one of my favorite pieces from the collection was one of the poems. Great choice to include it!
Who Should Read This One:
-Anthology readers who like literary voice and sci-fi components.
My Rating: 2 stars. For me the missing cohesion and forgettable nature of the stories was problematic.
piperkitty's review against another edition
3.0
Is a great collection of stories. This has 23 different short stories. All each have thier own charm. This has a mix of everything so has something for everyone.
arkron's review against another edition
2.0
What is a life well-lived? This topic clips the 23 stories from a broad range of speculative fiction subgenres together.
I expected much from several outstanding authors like Jane Yolen, Alan Dean Foster (my teenage favorite author), Rich Larson, and Maurice Broaddus. Additionally, I’m always on the hunt for new authors surprising me.
Let’s just say that I didn’t write a single review for any of those stories. Nothing catched my eyes, most of the stories were just mediocre and none of them touched me.
Jane Yolen gave a poem – I’m sorry, but I don’t read poems, like at all. Foster’s story was nice, but extremely short, a ten minutes read. Broaddus is capable to produce great stories (like his “City of Refuge”), but this was yet another BLM story, and an unegaging one.
No recommendation for this one from my side.
Content:
Clear Waters by Calvin D. Jim
Groven by Heather Osborne
Robocare by Rich Larson
Dress of Ash by Y.M. Pang
Hope to See the Ghost Tonight Patrick Swenson
Lay Down Your Heart by Elizabeth Westbrook-Trenholm & Hayden Trenholm
The Veil Between by Karin Lowachee
Sympathétique by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
The Selkie’s Skin by Bev Geddes
Messages Left in Transit, Devices Out of Sync by Divya Srinivasan Breed
Joe by Karen Vanessa Farkas-Brahmakshatriya
Summer of Our Discontent by Tyler Keevil
A Grave Between Them by Karina Sumner-Smith
Blue Kueh by Joyce Chng
Second Thoughts by Eric Choi
The Sabhu My Destination by Maurice Broaddus
The Hidden Knowledge Society by Bogi Takács
The Light of Stars by Amanda Sun
The Hollow Oath by Brent Nichols
When Resin Burns to Tar by Maria Haskins
Exchange of Perspective by Alan Dean Foster
The Astronaut’s Four Seasons by Jane Yolen
I expected much from several outstanding authors like Jane Yolen, Alan Dean Foster (my teenage favorite author), Rich Larson, and Maurice Broaddus. Additionally, I’m always on the hunt for new authors surprising me.
Let’s just say that I didn’t write a single review for any of those stories. Nothing catched my eyes, most of the stories were just mediocre and none of them touched me.
Jane Yolen gave a poem – I’m sorry, but I don’t read poems, like at all. Foster’s story was nice, but extremely short, a ten minutes read. Broaddus is capable to produce great stories (like his “City of Refuge”), but this was yet another BLM story, and an unegaging one.
No recommendation for this one from my side.
Content:
Clear Waters by Calvin D. Jim
Groven by Heather Osborne
Robocare by Rich Larson
Dress of Ash by Y.M. Pang
Hope to See the Ghost Tonight Patrick Swenson
Lay Down Your Heart by Elizabeth Westbrook-Trenholm & Hayden Trenholm
The Veil Between by Karin Lowachee
Sympathétique by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
The Selkie’s Skin by Bev Geddes
Messages Left in Transit, Devices Out of Sync by Divya Srinivasan Breed
Joe by Karen Vanessa Farkas-Brahmakshatriya
Summer of Our Discontent by Tyler Keevil
A Grave Between Them by Karina Sumner-Smith
Blue Kueh by Joyce Chng
Second Thoughts by Eric Choi
The Sabhu My Destination by Maurice Broaddus
The Hidden Knowledge Society by Bogi Takács
The Light of Stars by Amanda Sun
The Hollow Oath by Brent Nichols
When Resin Burns to Tar by Maria Haskins
Exchange of Perspective by Alan Dean Foster
The Astronaut’s Four Seasons by Jane Yolen
cerilouisereads's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Death, Racism, and Domestic abuse
paulap's review
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
3.0
This is an interesting collection of science fiction that does not address identity so much, but the human experience from different perspectives. The collection has a wide variety of formats, levels of science-fiction elements and length. There is even poetry. But the underlaying theme to me was to think about what makes us human. There is a several stories about death, parenthood and what drives us as human to do what we do or choose the careers that we choose.
Overall, I found most stories quite interesting, some of which I wish could be developed into full length novels. I also liked the addition that at the end of each story, instead of adding a biography of the author, they asked them what they would tell to their younger selves.
Overall, I found most stories quite interesting, some of which I wish could be developed into full length novels. I also liked the addition that at the end of each story, instead of adding a biography of the author, they asked them what they would tell to their younger selves.
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