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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
All of the stories were readable. They flowed together in interesting ways--e.g., the first two stories had bees in them. While the tone varied, they all seemed to have an element of magic to them: with the exception of Maureen McHugh's "After the Apocalypse," which was horrific, although probably not on the level you'd expect. Whew.
I think the thing that set these stories apart was that they were put together in a way that allowed you to savor them. Maybe that's a dumb thing to say. Shouldn't all anthologies do that? But no--some anthologies are show-offs. Some of chaotic. This is like a good mix tape, where every song is good, and underneath the whole tape you pick up on what the mixer meant: "I have a crush on you," that kind of thing. In this case, the underlying meaning was, "I just want you to sit back and savor these, the contrasts between them, their similarities." Anyway, good stuff, will pick up more from this editor.
So many great writers. Worth a long read.
For many of these writers this was breakthrough work.
Very enjoyable and
The best is "A Small Price for Birdsong" but many of the collected stories are excellent - high fantasy, hard sci-fi, steam punk.
To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.
As with any anthology, the reader won't connect with every story; some will seem like space-fillers and others will be gems enjoyable to discover. For me, this one contained too few gems and too many that I simply didn't enjoy. There are 31 stories in this 589-page book. For a handful, I couldn't even tell why they were included -- there seemed to be zero elements of either science fiction or fantasy. Quite a few others, either I never understood what was happening, or nothing ever happened. Some, it seemed, were simply poorly written. I'm surprised this book won awards.
The stories I did enjoy include: All That Touches The Air, by An Owomoyela; The Server And The Dragon, by Hannu Rajaniemi; Malak, by Peter Watts; The Paper Menagerie, by Ken Liu; and Digging, by Ian McDonald.