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A review by flying_monkey
Again, Dangerous Visions by James B. Hemesath, Joanna Russ, Harlan Ellison, Ken McCullough, Ray Faraday Nelson, Gahan Wilson, Kate Wilhelm, Robin Scott, T.L. Sherred, Ursula K. Le Guin, A. Parra, David Gerrold, M. John Harrison, Burt K. Filer, Andrew Weiner, Chad Oliver, Lee Hoffman, Piers Anthony, Judith Ann Lawrence, James Blish, Gregory Benford, Leonard Tushnet, Gene Wolfe, Andrew J. Offutt, Edward Bryant, Ben Bova, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard A. Lupoff, Joan Bernott, H.H. Hollis, Barry N. Malzberg, Terry Carr, Evelyn Lief, David Kerr, John Heidenry, Josephine Saxton, Bernard Wolfe, Richard Hill, Dean Koontz, James Sallis, Ross Rocklynne, Ray Bradbury, Thomas M. Disch, James Tiptree Jr.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
I probably read this a long time ago, but if so, I forgot how utterly atrocious this collection is. With the exception of Ursula Le Guin's superb novelette, The Word for the World is Forest, and the odd interesting story, this successor to the far superior Dangerous Visions represents everything that was bad about 'boundary-pushing' science fiction of the late 1960s and early 70s. Just as prog-rock provides the obvious rationale for punk and new wave, so this kind of the science fiction provides the explanation (and indeed the necessity) for the emergence of cyberpunk, feminist SF and a whole lot more. The main 'danger' provided by the stories seems to be either self-indulgence or heterosexual white men fantasizing about being able to get away with even more of what heterosexual white men get away with. It's made infinitely worse by the editor's interminable, blokey, inside-jokey, and altogether insufferable introductions to each story - he's great friends with all the authors and admires all their lovely, perky wives, don't you know? - and the introduction to the book itself, which basically expounds upon Harlan Ellison's favourite subject - himself and how brilliant he is - at even greater length. I'm not generally in favour of book burnings, but if all existing copies of this book happened to fall into a pit of fire, the world would lose nothing.