A review by robertrivasplata
Future Tense Fiction: Stories of Tomorrow by Kirsten Berg, Madeline Ashby, Charlie Jane Anders

4.0

Solid collection of futuristic short stories. There are no clunkers here; all of the stories are at least pretty good; I rate none of them as utterly mind-blowing. Favorites are the Madeline Ashby, Emily St John Mandel, Mark Stasenko, Lee Konstantinou, Paolo Bacigalupi, & Charlie Jane Anders stories. Some of the stories in this collection I consider generally upbeat, such as the ones by Okorafor, Newitz, Elison, Rajaniemi, & McHugh. The Machado, Oshiro & St John Mandel stories are mostly sad. I would class the Ashby, Anders, Stasenko, & Bacigalupi stories as mostly darkly satirical. The Newitz story manages to be both upbeat & darkly satirical, envisioning a bright future for the crows and feral robot drones of North America. The Olukotun story is the most curious, revolving around the frustrations of an AI that has to work with human sports referees. There are no super disturbing stories in this collection, though the Bacigalupi & Ashby ones may come the closest.