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A review by lilibetbombshell
Even Greater Mistakes: Stories by Charlie Jane Anders
4.0
What I love about short story collections is that you get smaller, more condensed, more tightly edited stories that have to get across what they have to say or whatever message they want to convey in a much smaller amount of pages than a book would, and often it seems to me that a short story can seem much more satisfying in many ways to a book when you are looking for something to make you think. (Novellas do much the same thing, sometimes.)
Charlie Jane Anders is no stranger to science fiction, no stranger to short stories, and certainly no stranger to combining both. As such, it’s unsurprising that this collection is outstanding. I’ve long admired her work, and I think the manner in which she approaches science fiction (especially when it comes to gender, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexuality) is truly the perfect combination of something omnipresent and futuristic. We’re told science fiction has led to a lot of what has become science fact, and with her musings on everything from how robots might have gender and sexual orientations once they have sentience to how MMORPGs run by people whose brains work differently could be used to possibly solve global issues speak to questions scientists have only began to touch on, which makes these stories even more interesting to read.
There are a few stories that verge closer to horror or fantasy in here, including one laugh-out-loud funny TV vampire drama parody that had me snickering like crazy, but mostly this collection stuck to the science fiction path.
It was a well-rounded collection, with only one story I had to skip because Anders admitted that if you hadn’t read another title of hers you wouldn’t get it (probably). As always, her skills as a writer grow, and they’ll continue to grow. I look forward to it.
Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan-Tor/Forge for granting me access to this title for the purposes of reading and reviewing.
Charlie Jane Anders is no stranger to science fiction, no stranger to short stories, and certainly no stranger to combining both. As such, it’s unsurprising that this collection is outstanding. I’ve long admired her work, and I think the manner in which she approaches science fiction (especially when it comes to gender, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexuality) is truly the perfect combination of something omnipresent and futuristic. We’re told science fiction has led to a lot of what has become science fact, and with her musings on everything from how robots might have gender and sexual orientations once they have sentience to how MMORPGs run by people whose brains work differently could be used to possibly solve global issues speak to questions scientists have only began to touch on, which makes these stories even more interesting to read.
There are a few stories that verge closer to horror or fantasy in here, including one laugh-out-loud funny TV vampire drama parody that had me snickering like crazy, but mostly this collection stuck to the science fiction path.
It was a well-rounded collection, with only one story I had to skip because Anders admitted that if you hadn’t read another title of hers you wouldn’t get it (probably). As always, her skills as a writer grow, and they’ll continue to grow. I look forward to it.
Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan-Tor/Forge for granting me access to this title for the purposes of reading and reviewing.