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zombiezami's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, Murder, Sexism, Ableism, Misogyny, Racism, Stalking, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Sexual violence and Sexual assault
Minor: Mass/school shootings
kleonard's review against another edition
5.0
A great collection of short stories that speculate on the future of the United States...or whatever it becomes. The stories by Charlie Jane Anders, Tananarive Due, N. K. Jemisin, Seanan McGuire, Daniel José Older, and G. Willow Wilson show why these authors had and deserve large audiences and followings. All of the stories feature "badass" characters, as requested by the editors, and they all do deliver, from people who keep information free and available to those who physically protect others. This will make a great gift for readers who want tightly written dystopic fiction in which there are still threads of hope.
clareobrien92's review against another edition
1.0
Started reading this on inauguration day, it seemed like a good time to think about the future of America. I really wanted to like this! I like a lot of the authors featured, I like diverse sci-fi, and I like alternate histories. However way too many of these were forgettable and gave up on fleshing out interesting worlds to focus on identity in the most eye rollingly on the nose ways... or just seemed to have missed the prompt entirely, like “Harmony”. If you don’t enjoy the first 100 pages, give up, it’s just probably not for you. A few ideas that will stick with me are the collard green eating dragons, the undreaming, the Muslim internment camp, the redacted history, the newspaper story about the racist robot, the librarians tattooing books on their bodies, The bookstore at the end of the world, the non-binary person living with her beard and trying to hide the digital footprint of her queerness, the time traveler (though again... totally not a futuristic story). Other ideas stick with me because they were so slapdash and groan worthy, like Trump turning into a trans woman of color due to a “gene bomb”, a virus that targets capitalism, babies only able to be born through some kind of magical light of queer sex. It’s a neat concept for a collection and a killer title but they could have edited out a lot of these and been more imaginative with the world building, not just the characters. A lot of the endings are abrupt and feel lazy, too. Overall a bummer of wasted potential.
11corvus11's review against another edition
4.0
We got off to a rough start, but this ended up having a bunch of great stories. Most bleak, many predictive as good scifi tends to be, and a couple of little utopias. Also, listened to the audiobook while also consulting the print book I have on hand. The audiobook was very well performed across the board.
sarabz's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to like this collection more than I did. I thought the stories were uneven - there were some amazing ones, but others fell flat.
This was overdue at the library so I don't have the book in my hands now but, to the best of my memory, my favorites were:
The Bookstore at the End of America by Charlie Jane Anders
Read After Burning by Maria Dahvana Headley
Attachment Disorder by Tananarive Due
The Wall by Lizz Huerta
and a couple others that I now can't pick out from the table of contents.
This was overdue at the library so I don't have the book in my hands now but, to the best of my memory, my favorites were:
The Bookstore at the End of America by Charlie Jane Anders
Read After Burning by Maria Dahvana Headley
Attachment Disorder by Tananarive Due
The Wall by Lizz Huerta
and a couple others that I now can't pick out from the table of contents.
tomrrandall's review against another edition
3.0
Ultimately everything here ends up being a dystopia. I get why - it's almost impossible to imagine any other kind of future now - but what we need from sci-fi is a vision of something livable.
bethtabler's review against another edition
3.0
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this in exchange for my honest review.
This anthology is a who's who in current science fiction and fantasy writing. The stories are varied and all well written with various takes on the future of American culture and society. There are stories about everything from a book store that stands firmly on the dividing line between The United States and the country of California, to one about a world where contraception is outlawed, and feminists are considered terrorists. Even amid the various stories, there seems to be a thread of hope: hope for a better future, a dream of escape from the horrible now, hope at love, or a world that understands us. That is important in a collection such as this because without hope a collection of stories about the vagaries of the human condition could be depressing. This book isn't. Standout must-reads for this collection are "The Book Store at the End of America" by Charlie Jane Anders. A story about what divides us can ultimately bring us together and "The Synapse will Free Us From Ourselves" by Violet Allen. Allen's story is about high tech gay conversion therapy. It is sad, scary, and poignant. Check out this collection, you will be happy you did.
This anthology is a who's who in current science fiction and fantasy writing. The stories are varied and all well written with various takes on the future of American culture and society. There are stories about everything from a book store that stands firmly on the dividing line between The United States and the country of California, to one about a world where contraception is outlawed, and feminists are considered terrorists. Even amid the various stories, there seems to be a thread of hope: hope for a better future, a dream of escape from the horrible now, hope at love, or a world that understands us. That is important in a collection such as this because without hope a collection of stories about the vagaries of the human condition could be depressing. This book isn't. Standout must-reads for this collection are "The Book Store at the End of America" by Charlie Jane Anders. A story about what divides us can ultimately bring us together and "The Synapse will Free Us From Ourselves" by Violet Allen. Allen's story is about high tech gay conversion therapy. It is sad, scary, and poignant. Check out this collection, you will be happy you did.
sapphicroyaltea's review against another edition
Haven’t had access to the book again