Reviews

MECH: Age of Steel by David Boop, Ramez Naam, Mallory Reaves, Jennifer Brozek, Tim Marquitz, James R. Tuck, Shawn Speakman, C.L. Werner, M.L. Brennan, Graham McNeill, Marsheila Rockwell, James Swallow, Mark Teppo, Kane Gilmour, Jeff Somers, Peter Clines, Steve Diamond, Andrew Liptak, Jeffrey J. Mariotte, Scott Sigler, Gini Koch, Jeremy Robinson, N.X. Sharps, Kevin J. Anderson, Jason M. Hough, Martha Wells, William C. Dietz, Jody Lynn Nye

made_in_dna's review against another edition

1.0

The description reads "in the spirit of Pacific Rim, Macross, Transformers, Robotech, Gundam, Evangelion, and more", but to be honest, there are ZERO stories inspired by Macross (aka Robotech), Gundam or Transformers. This is book was inspired by solely Pacific Rim and possibly Evangelion. For potential readers not familiar with the mecha genre, or those only familiar with Pacific Rim, this means this collection is packed with stories about giant robots versus monsters (aka kaiju) -- which is a fine if that's what you like. Unfortunately, that's not the whole genre, only a subset. Nor is it really all that appealing to the fans like myself who are enamored with the space opera aspect ala Macross, Gundam, L-Gaim, Dougram, Votoms, et al.

I wanted this book to be so much more. I backed it on Kickstarter and waited for it for the longest time (and then I had problems loading my preferred version into my phone, and it took months of working with the publisher to get it to work). And it is a flat disappointment. I couldn't get through more than 30% of this book. I'm going to jump to the back and read Martha Wells (who always spins a great yarn), but I'm not hopeful as it seems even Kevin J. Anderson phoned in his story. That said, no matter how good it is, it will NOT be able to save this collection...

It. Stinks.