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scotchyeti 's review for:
Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds
by Alastair Reynolds
Alastair Reynolds is widely known for his novels but he has also written many great short stories. I am glad that Subterranean Press is continuing its long tradition (think of [a:Jack Vance|5376|Jack Vance|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207604643p2/5376.jpg], [a:Robert Silverberg|4338|Robert Silverberg|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1366300348p2/4338.jpg], [a:Greg Egan|32699|Greg Egan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1375595103p2/32699.jpg], [a:Lucius Shepard|26767|Lucius Shepard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1395743242p2/26767.jpg], ...) and decided to publish a "Best Of" collection with 18 stories.
Design, typesetting and layout meet the typical high standards and are beautiful. As someone else has put it, this is "shelf-candy". But what about the stories? Everyone who already owns a collection or two will unavoidably face some overlap. Fortunately it's much less than I have expected, there have never been taken more than 3 stories from any previous published work. 8 are from 2010 or later so it's definitely worthwhile to own this "Best Of" collection.
The stories are very different and show the mastery of a wordsmith. His novels are sometimes too long and would benefit from some editing. Here, however, everything is tight and to the point. If I have one complaint then it's that they are not always the most original in the world and tend to use common SF tropes like the question if one should interfere in matters of less developed cultures ("Minla's Flowers") or the encounter with a big dumb object ("Troika").
On the other hand there is the clever who-dunnit "Thousandth Night", which became the predecessor of "[b:House of Suns|1126719|House of Suns|Alastair Reynolds|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1447892903l/1126719._SY75_.jpg|2020929]". Or take "Sleepover" where the protagonist unexpectedly awakens from cryogenic sleep.
There is a lot of variety here and I can highly recommend this collection to every aficionado of SF short stories.
This ARC was kindly provided via NetGalley. In no way can this affect my review or rating.
Design, typesetting and layout meet the typical high standards and are beautiful. As someone else has put it, this is "shelf-candy". But what about the stories? Everyone who already owns a collection or two will unavoidably face some overlap. Fortunately it's much less than I have expected, there have never been taken more than 3 stories from any previous published work. 8 are from 2010 or later so it's definitely worthwhile to own this "Best Of" collection.
The stories are very different and show the mastery of a wordsmith. His novels are sometimes too long and would benefit from some editing. Here, however, everything is tight and to the point. If I have one complaint then it's that they are not always the most original in the world and tend to use common SF tropes like the question if one should interfere in matters of less developed cultures ("Minla's Flowers") or the encounter with a big dumb object ("Troika").
On the other hand there is the clever who-dunnit "Thousandth Night", which became the predecessor of "[b:House of Suns|1126719|House of Suns|Alastair Reynolds|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1447892903l/1126719._SY75_.jpg|2020929]". Or take "Sleepover" where the protagonist unexpectedly awakens from cryogenic sleep.
There is a lot of variety here and I can highly recommend this collection to every aficionado of SF short stories.
This ARC was kindly provided via NetGalley. In no way can this affect my review or rating.