Reviews

Future Tense Fiction: Stories of Tomorrow by Kirsten Berg, Madeline Ashby, Charlie Jane Anders

craftysilicate's review

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fast-paced

4.0

robertrivasplata's review

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4.0

Solid collection of futuristic short stories. There are no clunkers here; all of the stories are at least pretty good; I rate none of them as utterly mind-blowing. Favorites are the Madeline Ashby, Emily St John Mandel, Mark Stasenko, Lee Konstantinou, Paolo Bacigalupi, & Charlie Jane Anders stories. Some of the stories in this collection I consider generally upbeat, such as the ones by Okorafor, Newitz, Elison, Rajaniemi, & McHugh. The Machado, Oshiro & St John Mandel stories are mostly sad. I would class the Ashby, Anders, Stasenko, & Bacigalupi stories as mostly darkly satirical. The Newitz story manages to be both upbeat & darkly satirical, envisioning a bright future for the crows and feral robot drones of North America. The Olukotun story is the most curious, revolving around the frustrations of an AI that has to work with human sports referees. There are no super disturbing stories in this collection, though the Bacigalupi & Ashby ones may come the closest.

asunnybooknook's review

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5.0

why is this book not on my goodreads shelves??? I literally own this book and it's one of my favorite anthologies.... love thought provoking speculative fiction & sci fi short stories !!

spoerk's review

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4.0

quite a satisfying collection!
And the stories! They didn't suck! What collection of short stories doesn't have at least ONE sucky story? THIS ONE DID NOT. they were great! well written! even the ones that I didn't love were great!

why not 5 stars?
Weeeeellllllllll
These were short stories each written around a particular current science. I would have liked a little blurb about that science so I could follow up on it! HOW COOOL WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN???!!

so, 4 stars. because of science

koby's review

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3.0

 A collection of stories set in the future, mostly sci-fi/dystopia. It's decent, but not unforgettable, and I skipped several stories that failed to capture my interest.

haleykegl's review

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5.0

loved it, type of book I would happily purchase for my shelf even though I read it through the library. hope they do another anthology

hopecatena's review

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challenging emotional informative tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

arkron's review

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2.0

An A.I. fembot - the eponymous Mika Model - turns up at detective Rivera, asks for a lawyer and confesses murdering its owner.
It is a short and easy read but doesn't bring up anything new if you've watched the movie Ex Machina, and there are a couple of logic issues in it - the police procedure part is just terrible.

Full review at my blog.

lynn4mk's review

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4.0

First time in a long time that I have read every story in a short story collection. A couple were forgettable, but most were good.

cheye13's review

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dark reflective fast-paced
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

A collection of short stories that either hit a little too close for comfort or fell a bit short of satsifying. Favorite was definitely Nnedi Okorafor's "Mother of Invention," but I also quite liked Madeline Ashby's "Domestic Violence" and Charle Jane Anders's "The Minnesota Diet." Most were middling, but the ones I enjoyed least were those that left me scrambling for purchase in an alien world while the story zipped along.
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