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A review by nakedsteve
The Big Book of Science Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer, Ann VanderMeer
4.0
"The Big Book of Science Fiction" this is called. That really makes it feel like it's aimed at three-year-olds, but these stories are for sure not for three-year-olds.
I got a copy of this massive tome by winning a sweepstakes on the tor.com website, sometime during the summer of 2016, and started reading it in earnest in November of that year. Here it is, 13 months later, and I'm finally done.
"The Big Book of Science Fiction" is a survey of Science Fiction from the very very early days of the form, beginning with H. G. Wells, to pieces that were authored only a few years ago. But the breadth of the selections are what are so impressive here. This is certainly not a collection of the most popular stories during that time frame, rather it's an attempt to show all the different forms and potential sources of inspiration that make up science fiction.
It might start with Wells, but the very next story is from a woman from Bangladesh, where "alternate reality" stories were a means to point out social ills and potentially help redirect the evolution of the society in which it was written.
There are a lot of new translations of non-English authors here, many stories by female authors, and a breadth of underlying topics that I found very refreshing. It really feels to me like the collection has been devised to be the core reader for a number of graduate level literature courses.
I really liked the collection. I struggled with finishing it, though, simply because it was so large, and there are so many other things I want to read!
Highly recommended for people who want to see where the genre of science fiction has come from. Just give yourself a break every now and then to read something else as well.
4.5 of 5 stars.
I got a copy of this massive tome by winning a sweepstakes on the tor.com website, sometime during the summer of 2016, and started reading it in earnest in November of that year. Here it is, 13 months later, and I'm finally done.
"The Big Book of Science Fiction" is a survey of Science Fiction from the very very early days of the form, beginning with H. G. Wells, to pieces that were authored only a few years ago. But the breadth of the selections are what are so impressive here. This is certainly not a collection of the most popular stories during that time frame, rather it's an attempt to show all the different forms and potential sources of inspiration that make up science fiction.
It might start with Wells, but the very next story is from a woman from Bangladesh, where "alternate reality" stories were a means to point out social ills and potentially help redirect the evolution of the society in which it was written.
There are a lot of new translations of non-English authors here, many stories by female authors, and a breadth of underlying topics that I found very refreshing. It really feels to me like the collection has been devised to be the core reader for a number of graduate level literature courses.
I really liked the collection. I struggled with finishing it, though, simply because it was so large, and there are so many other things I want to read!
Highly recommended for people who want to see where the genre of science fiction has come from. Just give yourself a break every now and then to read something else as well.
4.5 of 5 stars.