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A review by teachinsci
Unidentified Funny Objects by Phil Selby, Mike Jacobsen, Dixon Leavitt, Siobhan Gallagher, Lavie Tidhar, Chuck Rothman, Leah Cypess, Jeff Stehman, Jamie Lackey, Alex Shvartsman, Charity Tahmaseb, James Beamon, Marko Kloos, Deborah Walker, Zach Shephard, Mike Resnick, David Sklar, Stephen D. Rogers, K.G. Jewel, Sergei Lukyanenko, Jake Kerr, Don Sakers, Stephanie Burgis, Ken Liu, Anatoly Belilovsky, Jennifer Pelland, Ferrett Steinmetz, Matt Mikalatos, Michael Kurland, Nathaniel Lee, Scott Almes, Bruce Golden, Jody Lynn Nye
3.0
This was an interesting collection I picked-up because I like the idea of humorous sci-fi (and a few fantasy) stories. Some of them were quite good, a couple were funny, however a few of them I felt were so weak compared to the others that I was surprised by their inclusion in this collection. As others have said, the comics inset between some of the stories were the parts closest to laugh-out-loud funny.
Easily my favorite two stories were the invasion of earth as told on Twitter and the Last Dragonslayer. The first because I liked the unusual method of presentation, the idea of how an invasion would appear on Twitter was both amusing and amusingly realistic. The second because I enjoyed the characters. Additionally, The world building in The Alchemist's Children and The Day They Repossessed My Zombies was especially good.
On the bad side, unfortunately, was the last story, "El and Al Vs...". The reason I didn't like it, I believe, is that it had so much promise early on but became just a vehicle for bad jokes about famous people with little to redeem it in the eventual climax and conclusion.
Easily my favorite two stories were the invasion of earth as told on Twitter and the Last Dragonslayer. The first because I liked the unusual method of presentation, the idea of how an invasion would appear on Twitter was both amusing and amusingly realistic. The second because I enjoyed the characters. Additionally, The world building in The Alchemist's Children and The Day They Repossessed My Zombies was especially good.
On the bad side, unfortunately, was the last story, "El and Al Vs...". The reason I didn't like it, I believe, is that it had so much promise early on but became just a vehicle for bad jokes about famous people with little to redeem it in the eventual climax and conclusion.