A review by jessidee
Diverse Energies by Tobias S. Buckell, Joe Monti

3.0

I'm not usually a fan of short stories, but I requested this one from NetGalley because I like some of the authors mentioned and I love supporting books about diverse characters. The stories are all interesting, but there are definitely some that I enjoyed more than others. My favorites were "Uncertainty Principle" by K. Tempest Bradford (a girl discovers that she's the only person who can detect temporal anomalies), "Gods of the Dimming Light" by Greg van Eekhout (a modernization of Ragnarok - especially cool because I read it the day before Ragnarok was thought to occur!), and "Blue Skies" by Cindy Pon (not your typical kidnapping story). The others weren't bad, but these were the three that I found the most interesting and wish I had gotten more story for.

This collection is great because of the much-needed diversity it features. However, the downside is that so much of it is bleak. The worlds these authors have created are beautiful and fascinating, but also really terrible if I were to actually live in them. I would love to see a collection of stories (or novels) about these characters when they're happy and living normal lives.