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A review by kamela
Cyber World: Tales of Humanity's Tomorrow by Paolo Bacigalupi
3.0
It's hard to rate this book accurately since the stories varied so much in quality and appealing-to-me-ness, so I end up with 3 stars.
I wouldn't have picked this up at the library, honestly; I tend to have a problem with cyberpunk, most of it being that I don't really "get" it, and often find its technological preoccupations too byzantine to care about. But then I started writing a near-future book based on a cyberpunk roleplaying campaign, and so for all of the ways I'm trying to write the least cyberpunk cyberpunk novel imaginable, I still feel like I need to know a lot about the genre, particularly what it looks like in more recent iterations (this anthology is from 2016).
I really enjoyed Althea Ann's review of this, and shamelessly swiped the story titles from them for my own review.
**** SERENADE - Isabel Yap
Really cool to read a first story in a cyberpunk book that is about love and loss, even as the mechanics of it are about memory sticks and body-replacement and broken-down computer stores.
*** THE MIGHTY PHIN - Nisi Shawl
The beauty of the relationships and characters in this story really got me, though the setting was abstract enough that I had trouble understanding who they all were. That seemed to be part of the point. More intriguing and satisfying were the questions of polyamory, gender, and the body in this one.
**** REACTIONS - Mario Acevedo
I loved this opportunity to follow a future-soldier's bleak dive into a leave too long to overcome the drugs he needs to keep sane. I've known too many soldiers, and this feels like a very real type of future. Once again, the story is ultimately about love - and poly love at that, though I would have liked to see the story go on quite a bit longer to flesh out the ideas.
***** THE BEES OF KIRIBATI - Warren Hammond
This was the first story in the collection that to me felt like a complete narrative, classic and clean and shocking like a Ray Bradbury joint. Excellent and chilling.
** THE REST BETWEEN TWO NOTES - Cat Rambo
Eh. Shocking I guess, abusive mom I guess, I wasn't really feeling it?
** THE SINGULARITY IS IN YOUR HAIR - Matthew Kressel
I felt like what was a very good premise in this story was dependent on another premise that was too vague to have a lot of meaning. The result was that in the end, I didn't understand what I was supposed to have gotten from it.
***** PANIC CITY - Madeline Ashby
This was fantastic - GLADOS-level evil AI stuff packaged in a nurturing-mom-style programming. Very effective - but also excellent for my own research.
**** THE FAITHFUL SOLDIER, PROMPTED - Saladin Ahmed
This one. This one KNOCKED. ME. OUT. So frickin' good. I laughed, I cried, it was better than Snow Crash.
**** YOUR BONES WILL NOT BE UNKNOWN - Alyssa Wong
Ooooof, this is like watching a truly great anime. Really good mob-style dystopian sci-fi, badass female characters who don't die.
* STAUNCH - Paul Graham Raven
This story contained, from its first sentence, everything I hate about cyberpunk. I didn't get over it.
*** OTHER PEOPLE’S THOUGHTS - Chinelo Onwualu
This was a yummy little vignette, but I wanted much more from it.
* WYSIOMG - Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
I hated this. Didn't understand a single word, and couldn't be made to care.
** WE WILL TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN - Angie Hodapp
This one felt a bit preachy and overwritten.
** A SONG TRANSMUTED - Sarah Pinsker
This was nice, and I liked the relationship-building early in the tale, but the ending wasn't as satisfying as I might have liked. I'm not sure, to be honest, that I've ever seen anyone describe a musical experience in words that truly conveyed its power.
* IT’S ONLY WORDS - Keith Ferrell
This whole story feels like the lament of a whiny teenager. Which it is, so I suppose that works.
**** SMALL OFFERINGS - Paolo Bacigalupi
Oof, this one was near-literally gut-wrenching - very graphic, brutal, and probably not too far off from possible reality. Disturbing as hell.
*** DARKOUT - E. Lily Yu
The thing I didn't expect from this story, which spends a lot of time with a disaffected white guy and his proto-fascist buddy, was for it to be sort of sweet at the end. Yes, little old Jewish lady on my block, I would love to get breakfast with you after all the surveillance cameras go out at once.
** VISIBLE DAMAGE - Stephen Graham Jones
This had that deep-dive, we're going into the net to do HACKING THINGS cyberpunk thing going on, which always puts me off, but somehow the twist got me.
***** THE IBEX ON THE DAY OF EXTINCTION - Minister Faust
This, alongside Saladin Ahmed's story, was by far my favorite piece in the book. I wanted to hang out with this protag in the desert indefinitely, and I wanted to know sooo much more about the world. So great - it felt like everything cyberpunk is trying to be and so often fails to be, for me.
* HOW NOTHING HAPPENS - Darin Bradley
Eh. More of a metafictional experiment, and indeed, nothing occurs, which is kind of like trying to play "boredom" as an actor.
I wouldn't have picked this up at the library, honestly; I tend to have a problem with cyberpunk, most of it being that I don't really "get" it, and often find its technological preoccupations too byzantine to care about. But then I started writing a near-future book based on a cyberpunk roleplaying campaign, and so for all of the ways I'm trying to write the least cyberpunk cyberpunk novel imaginable, I still feel like I need to know a lot about the genre, particularly what it looks like in more recent iterations (this anthology is from 2016).
I really enjoyed Althea Ann's review of this, and shamelessly swiped the story titles from them for my own review.
**** SERENADE - Isabel Yap
Really cool to read a first story in a cyberpunk book that is about love and loss, even as the mechanics of it are about memory sticks and body-replacement and broken-down computer stores.
*** THE MIGHTY PHIN - Nisi Shawl
The beauty of the relationships and characters in this story really got me, though the setting was abstract enough that I had trouble understanding who they all were. That seemed to be part of the point. More intriguing and satisfying were the questions of polyamory, gender, and the body in this one.
**** REACTIONS - Mario Acevedo
I loved this opportunity to follow a future-soldier's bleak dive into a leave too long to overcome the drugs he needs to keep sane. I've known too many soldiers, and this feels like a very real type of future. Once again, the story is ultimately about love - and poly love at that, though I would have liked to see the story go on quite a bit longer to flesh out the ideas.
***** THE BEES OF KIRIBATI - Warren Hammond
This was the first story in the collection that to me felt like a complete narrative, classic and clean and shocking like a Ray Bradbury joint. Excellent and chilling.
** THE REST BETWEEN TWO NOTES - Cat Rambo
Eh. Shocking I guess, abusive mom I guess, I wasn't really feeling it?
** THE SINGULARITY IS IN YOUR HAIR - Matthew Kressel
I felt like what was a very good premise in this story was dependent on another premise that was too vague to have a lot of meaning. The result was that in the end, I didn't understand what I was supposed to have gotten from it.
***** PANIC CITY - Madeline Ashby
This was fantastic - GLADOS-level evil AI stuff packaged in a nurturing-mom-style programming. Very effective - but also excellent for my own research.
**** THE FAITHFUL SOLDIER, PROMPTED - Saladin Ahmed
This one. This one KNOCKED. ME. OUT. So frickin' good. I laughed, I cried, it was better than Snow Crash.
**** YOUR BONES WILL NOT BE UNKNOWN - Alyssa Wong
Ooooof, this is like watching a truly great anime. Really good mob-style dystopian sci-fi, badass female characters who don't die.
* STAUNCH - Paul Graham Raven
This story contained, from its first sentence, everything I hate about cyberpunk. I didn't get over it.
*** OTHER PEOPLE’S THOUGHTS - Chinelo Onwualu
This was a yummy little vignette, but I wanted much more from it.
* WYSIOMG - Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
I hated this. Didn't understand a single word, and couldn't be made to care.
** WE WILL TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN - Angie Hodapp
This one felt a bit preachy and overwritten.
** A SONG TRANSMUTED - Sarah Pinsker
This was nice, and I liked the relationship-building early in the tale, but the ending wasn't as satisfying as I might have liked. I'm not sure, to be honest, that I've ever seen anyone describe a musical experience in words that truly conveyed its power.
* IT’S ONLY WORDS - Keith Ferrell
This whole story feels like the lament of a whiny teenager. Which it is, so I suppose that works.
**** SMALL OFFERINGS - Paolo Bacigalupi
Oof, this one was near-literally gut-wrenching - very graphic, brutal, and probably not too far off from possible reality. Disturbing as hell.
*** DARKOUT - E. Lily Yu
The thing I didn't expect from this story, which spends a lot of time with a disaffected white guy and his proto-fascist buddy, was for it to be sort of sweet at the end. Yes, little old Jewish lady on my block, I would love to get breakfast with you after all the surveillance cameras go out at once.
** VISIBLE DAMAGE - Stephen Graham Jones
This had that deep-dive, we're going into the net to do HACKING THINGS cyberpunk thing going on, which always puts me off, but somehow the twist got me.
***** THE IBEX ON THE DAY OF EXTINCTION - Minister Faust
This, alongside Saladin Ahmed's story, was by far my favorite piece in the book. I wanted to hang out with this protag in the desert indefinitely, and I wanted to know sooo much more about the world. So great - it felt like everything cyberpunk is trying to be and so often fails to be, for me.
* HOW NOTHING HAPPENS - Darin Bradley
Eh. More of a metafictional experiment, and indeed, nothing occurs, which is kind of like trying to play "boredom" as an actor.