I… don’t know what to say about this. It’s an anthology of short stories by Sarah Totton. While I don’t love them, they’re… good? I can’t tell. They’re kind of weird. I said this to faintingviolet, and her response was: “You were expecting not weird?” I was expecting weird, considering where I bought the book, but I suppose I was expecting a different kind of weird. I think my favorite part of the whole book is the Introduction by Forrest Aguirre. His prose is […]
I’m running out of ways to describe likable characters in an interesting sci-fi world.
This is the fifth book in the Old Man’s War series, which takes place in a Star Trek-like future where humans have colonized space, and are warring with other alien races for territory. It’s generally been a great read, and I highly recommend the series to any fan of science fiction. But…something happened on the way to book 4. Scalzi double dipped into the plot of book 3, and just retold the story from a different perspective. Maybe some don’t mind re-reading a story so […]
Do you cyborg?
Cyborgs are a common theme in SciFi, so Upgraded, edited by Neil Clarke, with short stories from authors from around the world is a welcome anthology for the genre. I picked it up, specifically to read Madeline Ashby’s contribution, “Come From Away” but I was definitely invested in reading more. Unfortunately, more doesn’t begin to describe Upgraded. In all, there are 26 stories, which, might honestly be over-egging the pudding a bit. When your theme is so narrow that every story pretty much has to begin […]
Fifties Pulp Science Fiction by the Masters
Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful World of Science Fiction – Intergalactic Empires, Edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenburg, and Charles G. Waugh (1983) “We have nine stories by nine authors illustrating nine different versions of Galactic Imperial history…” Isaac Asimov Although this anthology was published in the eighties, it contains stories from the science fiction masters of the fifties. Some of them are dated, but most of them are simply well-written, exciting tales of man against the universe. Chalice of Death by Robert Silverberg – Earth […]
Frogs, Ducks, Turtles, Rabbits, and How Things Got the Way They Are
Spark – A Creative Anthology, Edited by Brian Lewis (2015) – I usually make it a rule not to critique an anthology that contains a story I’ve written, but this collection of short stories is so good, I couldn’t resist. I won’t mention the story I wrote (except perhaps to say how much I appreciate being included with these tales) or the poetry (which is a foreign language to me). I will, however, list the stories and tell you a little about them. The Frog […]
All the Yes: The Worst Years of Your Life.
The back of this book tells you this collection of short stories is “delightful and terrifying” which immediately drew me in, because I can’t think of two better words that together, conjure up adolescence. In his introduction, the editor Poirier states the stories stem “from nostalgia for the intense and sometimes confusing emotions that we all experienced at this time in our lives.” The cover of the book has a drawing of a frog, belly side up, ready for dissection. This gave me an overwhelming […]