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A review by arkron
Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction by Hannu Rajaniemi
4.0
For my full review with detailed, longer reviews of each story in this anthology, go to my blog
This is Rajaniemi's second anthology after Words of Birth and Death's three stories. It collects his best-of stories, re-publishes stories that are not accessible anymore and brings three previously unpublished stories. Their length reach from twitter size to novelette, they are in the genres of SF and weird fiction.
Considering that Rajaniemi published stories since some 10 years, one might get the impression that it is a bit early for a retrospective, comparing to other names like Zelazny, Vance or Dick. I found that some earlier stories showed the author's unfinished narrative voice, and I'm not so sure if they'd have been published or that even that I wanted to read those.
Rajaniemi is an author who seems to have set out to deliberately confuse readers by throwing strange words and complicate contexts at him without any explanation at all. One should be firm in geeky physics and mathematics when he throws terms like quantum theory, dark matter, cryptology, or recursion unexplained at you. That is my impression from the Quantum Thief. But don't despair: He exploits his PHD to a far lesser extent in the anthology's stories. Having stomached his novel, got used to this style I enjoyed them very much. But beware, they are not trivial. Either you like Rajaniemi's style or you run away from it - it certainly isn't dedicated to the weak-hearted who don't want to leave their comfort zone.
A second characteristic is that he often mixes mythology or Finnish faerytale subjects and hard SF: Interstellar routers and dragons, wizard and robots on the moon. It remembers me a bit of Science Fantasy style by Roger Zelazny.
I was overwhelmed by the first half of this anthology and would have given it five stars. The second half brought the overall quality down. The stories are best as long as Rajaniemi's imagination carries the tale. But when they need an easier style or when emotions and characters need to drive the narration, his stories sometimes lack - the plot is driven forward, leaving characters behind. Rajaniemi's vivid imagination isn't the only outshining factor - he also varies narration style and experiments a bit in structure (not always succeeding, e.g. with Invisible Planets).
I'd fully recommend this collection - as an introduction to the author you might want to cherry-pick a couple of stories, as a hardcore fan you'll want to read the whole thing.
Finally, let me thank Tachyon Publishing for providing an ARC.
This is Rajaniemi's second anthology after Words of Birth and Death's three stories. It collects his best-of stories, re-publishes stories that are not accessible anymore and brings three previously unpublished stories. Their length reach from twitter size to novelette, they are in the genres of SF and weird fiction.
Considering that Rajaniemi published stories since some 10 years, one might get the impression that it is a bit early for a retrospective, comparing to other names like Zelazny, Vance or Dick. I found that some earlier stories showed the author's unfinished narrative voice, and I'm not so sure if they'd have been published or that even that I wanted to read those.
Rajaniemi is an author who seems to have set out to deliberately confuse readers by throwing strange words and complicate contexts at him without any explanation at all. One should be firm in geeky physics and mathematics when he throws terms like quantum theory, dark matter, cryptology, or recursion unexplained at you. That is my impression from the Quantum Thief. But don't despair: He exploits his PHD to a far lesser extent in the anthology's stories. Having stomached his novel, got used to this style I enjoyed them very much. But beware, they are not trivial. Either you like Rajaniemi's style or you run away from it - it certainly isn't dedicated to the weak-hearted who don't want to leave their comfort zone.
A second characteristic is that he often mixes mythology or Finnish faerytale subjects and hard SF: Interstellar routers and dragons, wizard and robots on the moon. It remembers me a bit of Science Fantasy style by Roger Zelazny.
I was overwhelmed by the first half of this anthology and would have given it five stars. The second half brought the overall quality down. The stories are best as long as Rajaniemi's imagination carries the tale. But when they need an easier style or when emotions and characters need to drive the narration, his stories sometimes lack - the plot is driven forward, leaving characters behind. Rajaniemi's vivid imagination isn't the only outshining factor - he also varies narration style and experiments a bit in structure (not always succeeding, e.g. with Invisible Planets).
I'd fully recommend this collection - as an introduction to the author you might want to cherry-pick a couple of stories, as a hardcore fan you'll want to read the whole thing.
Finally, let me thank Tachyon Publishing for providing an ARC.