| Title | : | Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0765334305 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780765334305 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 400 |
| Publication | : | First published December 2, 2014 |
| Awards | : | Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award "Lady with Fox" (2015) |
Contents:
Blue afternoon that lasted forever / Daniel H. Wilson --
Slow unfurling of truth / Aliette de Bodard --
Thunderwell / Doug Beason --
Circle / Liu Cixin --
Old timer's game / Ben Bova --
Snows of yesteryear / Jean-Louis Trudel --
Skin Deep / Leah Petersen & Gabrielle Harbowy --
Lady with fox / Gregory Benford --
Habilis / Howard Hendrix --
Play's the thing / Jack McDevitt --
Every hill ends with sky / Robert Reed --
She just looks that way / Eric Choi --
SIREN of Titan / David DeGraff --
Yoke of inauspicious stars / Kate Story --
Ambiguous nature / Carl Frederick --
Maldelbrot bet / Dirk Strasser --
Recollection / Nancy Fulda.
Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction Reviews
-
**** “The Blue Afternoon That Lasted Forever” by Daniel H. Wilson
This one could almost be a companion piece to Ben H. Winters' 'Last Policeman' series... OK, the specifics of the disaster are different, but I thought it was similar in feel. Some might find it too sentimental, but it worked for me.
A socially-challenged but brilliant physicist is struggling with the minutiae of life... from the fallout of divorce to the struggles of being a single father. He's the only one who realizes what's happening when a strange phenomenon is seen in the sky...
**** “A Slow Unfurling of Truth” by Aliette de Bodard
One thing de Bodard is very good at is really giving the reader a sense of a full and complex world around her stories. This one shares a theme I've seen in other of her stories: exploring the feelings of members of a minority culture that's been decimated by contact with a more powerful civilisation. The main character here is both surprised and suspicious when a man purporting to be someone who was important to her in the past turns up. He says he has something to give her. But is it really him, or is it a trap? In a world where switching bodies is common, even a professional verifier of identity can have trouble ferreting out the truth.
* “Thunderwell” by Doug Beason
OK, this guy has a PhD in physics, and works at Los Alamos, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that the unlikely scenarios involving nuclear launches in this story may be more theory-based than they seem to a casual reader. However, this is still just not a good story. The writing is terribly awkward, full of strange word choices and tortured grammar. The characterization (what there is of it) was unconvincing. The dialogue was stilted. I was genuinely surprised that the author has published novels to his name.
After a supply ship fails to deliver its payload of necessary supplies to Mars, one of the stranded astronaut's wives (who just happens to be highly placed in the government's nuclear energy division) is convinced to implement a dangerous plan. If all goes well, her husband and his colleagues could be saved. But the cost of failure could be much higher.
*** “The Circle” by Liu Cixin (translated by Ken Liu)
Credited as an 'adaptation' of an excerpt from Liu Cixin's recently-translated 'The Three-Body Problem.' I recently read the novel, so I was slightly taken aback when, after a different set-up, I suddenly found myself re-reading some very, very familiar passages.
The author is enamored of the idea of creating a non-electronic 'computer' using binary rules. After all, it's just math, and not technically dependent on technology. The iteration of the idea found here may actually be stronger than the one in the novel.
** “Old Timer’s Game” by Ben Bova
If advances in anti-aging technology are made, enabling men of sixty (or even older) to maintain the vigor of twenty-year-olds, how would this affect professional sports? That's the question Bova asks here, through the device of a Sports Commission's interview with an aging (or, not-aging) athlete. I'm not generally a fan of sports stories, but my problems here weren't with the theme. I just didn't feel there was enough to the piece, and I found the portrayal of the athlete to be more condescending than humorous.
*** “The Snows of Yesteryear” by Jean-Louis Trudel
A couple of scientists doing climate-change-related investigations in Greenland accidentally uncover a corporate-terrorist plot. OK, but not particularly memorable.
**** “Skin Deep” by Leah Petersen & Gabrielle Harbowy
Medical advances have allowed for many ailments to be treated by specially-programmed cells, which are 'tattooed' into a client's skin and are triggered into appropriate response when needed - when all goes well. As with any new and delicate technology, all does not always go well. Indi is a talented lawyer who's made her reputation protecting the victims of tattoo treatments gone wrong. She's the bane of the medical company that's patented these treatments. Until now, Indi has strictly avoided becoming a tattoo client herself due to a potential conflict of interest. But circumstances may make her stance untenable.
Really nicely done. Great characterization, meaty ethical issues.
*** “Lady with Fox” by Gregory Benford
If Anais Nin had been in a time and place to write a cyberpunk story, it might've come out something like this. An enigmatic femme fatale and the two men (and the hints of many more) caught in her web. However, the weirdly alluring promise here is one centered on neurological research and the new technology that allows two dreaming minds a kind of telepathic communication - the 'konn.' The scientific reality has quickly acquired illicit overtones of both sex and spirituality. Strange and interesting.
** “Habilis” by Howard V. Hendrix
Some time ago, a soldier captured by the alien enemy was given an artificial replacement hand - and then, inexplicably, let go. Now, he's working an unglamorous job as a fish hatchery manager on a frontier planet. This 'story' is his philosophical rambling to his co-worker about human consciousness and its relation to left- or right-handedness.
It feels very unfinished.
*** “The Play’s the Thing” by Jack McDevitt
Slight shades of Connie Willis here, I thought. A researcher programs an AI simulation of William Shakespeare - which ends up exceeding its creator's expectations significantly. There's ironic humor in how the programmer handles the situation.
*** “Every Hill Ends With Sky” by Robert Reed
A researcher's computer simulations emulating the development of life in the solar system come up with some surprising results.
These results have no effect on humanity's self-destructive spiral into collapse. A generation later, a young woman in a post-apocalyptic landscape looks to those simulations for a hope that is less than a wisp of a prayer...
** “She Just Looks That Way” by Eric Choi
Most young people know what it's like to have that unrequited love that you just can't get over. The young man here is willing to go to desperate measure to 'wash that girl right out of his head' - he wants to undergo an experimental treatment intended to treat body dysmorphia to make him unable to love the object of his affections. There are some serious logical holes in his assumptions, and unfortunately I felt that the story's end was a bit of a cop-out as far as dealing with some of the issues it brings up.
***** “SIREN of Titan” by David DeGraff
I'm awarding an extra star here, just because it's so refreshing to see a sometimes-pernicious trope turned on its head. There are so very many, many stories that trade on the fear of technology escaping human control. From 'Frankenstein' to '2001' and beyond, in fiction our creations have run amok. In this story of a robotic space probe and its human control team, it happens again - but the real danger is shown to be our fear, not our technology. Thought-provoking - and heartbreaking.
** “The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars” by Kate Story
There have been enough re-tellings of Romeo and Juliet. I don't think we need any more, especially not ones as self-consciously meta- as this one.
This tale places the familiar story in an outer space mining station, tenanted by two rival corporations. There are some original twists and entertaining details, but I wasn't fully won over.
* “Ambiguous Nature” by Carl Frederick
Sorry, but this was just a string of stereotypes. The Regular White Guy scientist protagonist. The aboriginal Australian physicist sidekick who talks about the Dreamtime and goes by a demeaning-sounding nickname. The wife and mother who exists to act nurturing, say she doesn't really understand all that difficult physics stuff, and to freak out protectively about her child. The child who says stuff like, "Gosh!" Stilted dialogue, and a not-too-mind-blowing concept about how SETI researchers might be looking in the wrong places.
*** “The Mandelbrot Bet” by Dirk Strasser
One of those that conflates the understanding of mathematical concepts with the application of those concepts. I know this idea has its adherents, but I'm not one of them. A paralysed physicist figures out some equations and finds himself at the end of the universe.
**** “Recollection” by Nancy Fulda
I didn't think this would be up my alley, but I ended up finding it very touching. A new treatment has been developed for Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, while it arrests the progress of the disease, it is unable to restore lost memories. The story explores one family's - specifically, one couple's - wrestling with the new reality that the treatment has given them. Very realistic, and something that could be a real issue within our lifetimes.
Many thanks to Tor Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this anthology. As always, my opinions are my own. -
Received this book as an ARC through netgalley. I added my reviews of each individual story as I read them. Overall, it's a pretty diverse collection in terms of type of story, topics covered, and my enjoyment of each story was variable as well. That's pretty common for an anthology like this, and overall, I think the editors did a good job of putting together a collection where everybody will enjoy at least one story. I'd recommend giving this collection a try, and if you find yourself not enjoying one of the stories, just skip it and move on.
1. The Blue Aftermath that Lasted Forever by Daniel H. Wilson - 3.5 stars
Short story about an astrophysicist and his reaction to the end of the world. Great character development, some wonderful descriptions and imagery, the scientific concept explored is one I hadn't seen stories written about before. The main character was a bit of a stereotype, and I wish he had been a bit more original as the story is really all about him.
2. A Slow Unfurling of Truth by Aliette de Bodard - 4 stars
Novellette set in the far future where humans can change bodies. A man claiming to be from the main character's past shows up and she hires and authenticator to determine if it's actually him. The idea and process behind the authentication is pretty cool. The authenticator studies the target's body language, psychology, etc., and uses these characteristics to predict whether or not they are the person they claim to be. Nice reveal at the end as well, not the best story I've read from this author, but enjoyable none the less.
3. Thunderwell by Doug Beason - 2 stars Novellette set in the near future where a mission to Mars goes wrong leaving NASA unable to resupply the astronauts on Mars. I liked the concept of this story and the solution to the problem, however, the writing style really killed the story for me. In particular, the dialog came off forced and false.
4. The Circle by Cixin Liu - 2.5 stars This story explores the idea of using human beings as components of a computer to perform advanced calculations during the Warring States Period of Chinese history. It's a cool idea which is also explored in Cixin Liu's novel The Three Body Problem. In fact, about half of this story is adapted or reprinted from a similar section of The Three Body Problem. The new framing device for the story was interesting, and the fundamental idea is still a really awesome premise, but I had read about half of this story last month when I read The Three Body Problem. If this had been my first introduction to the idea, I probably would have loved this story.
5. Old Timer's Game by Ben Bova - 4.5 stars In the near future, stem cell treatments and telomerase enhancement allow baseball players to stay youthful and continue playing at a professional level well into their forties. This story is set up as a hearing of major league baseball owners to decide if these treatments should be allowed. It's a great look at how advancements in biotechnology will affect one aspect of modern life. It's a great story with a fun, laid-back writing style.
6. The Snows of Yesteryear by Jean-Louis Trudel - 2.5 stars A near future story about global warming in Greenland. I had no strong feelings towards this story. It was okay.
7. Skin Deep by Leah Petersen and Gabrielle Harbowy - 4 stars Indira Chang is a lawyer who prosecutes cases against a large biopharmaceutical company. The company produces medical tattoos which disperse medications directly into the patient. Cool concept, cool characters, I liked the resolution of the plot. The representation of the US health care system and how clinical trials work was kind of far off, but it was fun.
8. Lady with Fox by Gregory Benford - 1.5 stars I didn't like this one, it came off as a bland, femme fatal type story with some jargon thrown in to make it seem scientific. The story follows a main character who is studying neural networks through a process called Konn which allows a person to share the subconscious experiences of another person as they sleep. It's a good idea which could have developed into a much better story.
9. Habilis by Howard Hendrix - 2 stars This story is set up as a dialogue between two men who are working at a fish farm in the distant future. They talk about current events and the universe's bias towards left handedness. The dialogue is very awkward and is a device to hide the fact that the entire story is one long info dump.
10. The Play's the Thing by Jack McDevitt - 3 stars A cute little story about an AI impersonating Shakespeare. AIs acting as famous historical figures is well worn SF territory, and I didn't think this concept added anything new. It was an enjoyable quick read, however.
11. Every Hill Ends with Sky by Robert Reed - 3 stars A Brazilian scientist runs a computer model to determine how life evolved in our solar system and predicts life on Venus. I'm not even sure what I think about this story, it was odd. It gave me something to contemplate though, so I guess that's a good thing.
12. She Just Looks That Way by Eric Choi - 4.5 stars A man convinces his friend to put him in a trial for an experimental treatment to remove his ability to discern specific faces after a terrible romantic experience with a co-worker. Probably my favorite story in the collection so far, great twist ending.
13. SIREN of Titan by David DeGraff - 3.5 stars On Saturn's moon Titan, an automated prob gains sentience despite strict laws on Earth limiting the ability of machines to think for themselves. Cool concept and plot, rather lacking in character development.
14. The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars by Kate Story - 3 stars A retelling of Romeo and Juliet set on a mining outpost on Jupiter's moon Europa. I liked the science fiction and world building elements in this story. I rather dislike the story of Romeo and Juliet, however.
15. Ambiguous Nature by Carl Frederick - 2.5 stars Astronomers at a SETI radio telescope in the Australian Outback experience an alien encounter. Not really a bad story, but not the right story for me either.
16. The Mandelbrot Bet by Dirk Strasser - 4 stars A brilliant wheelchair bound physicist devises time travel and experiences the end of the universe. I liked the narrative structure of this one and the vision for the end of the universe.
17. Recollection by Nancy Fulda - 3 stars A man receives a treatment to reverse alzheimer's disease. He's now able to form new memories, but does not regain the old memories lost to his disease. A heart wrenching look at the way alzheimer's affects a person's family. This story is told in the second person; a format I'm really beginning to dislike. -
https://anaslair.wordpress.com/2016/0...
This collection started off really well. The Blue Afternoon That Lasted Forever was a touching story about a single father who is an astrophysicist. It had a near perfect balance for me of a good sci-fi plot and characters.
4 stars
The second story was heavier on the sci-fi and all about the plot. A Slow Unfurling of Truth takes place in a time where people can switch bodies, using them up in the process. I felt the world setting required something lengthier than a short story could provide, and I was never really enthralled by it, often times lost. The ending left me lacking as well.
1.5 stars
Sadly, I could not appreciate Thunderwell at all. When I first started reading it, it sure sounded a lot like the book The Martian, by Weir. A bunch of astronauts on their way to Mars, supplies being sent ahead, etc. When I found out what the plot was headed all my interest when out the window. Seriously, a nuclear powered slingshot? Or cannonball as the author put it. That premise is just so silly that I could not take the story seriously no matter how accurate the science was. The writing was unappealing and even irking as well, particularly the fact that the author kept saying the two main characters showed no emotion, over and over again. So yeah, probably my least favourite one of the bunch.
1 star
The Circle might have been interesting had I any appreciation for math or computing. I don't. None whatsoever. But I can appreciate the effort. However, even though the story takes place in China, it didn't have a Chinese feel at all...
1.5 stars
I don't know the first thing about baseball but Old Timer's Game was fun because it is one of my favourite kind of stories - the ones that really have you convinced something like that could happen.
4 stars
Snows of Yesteryears is a story about climate change and greed. There was also an air of mystery around the two main characters that I appreciated. It was ok, not going to stay in my mind for long.
2.25 stars
Skin Deep had a very interesting premise. The idea of getting automatically regulating medicine being tattooed into you is quite mind-blowing. Imagine having a certain allergy that, when coming in contact with you, your body would trigger the adequate response to it. When it all goes according to plan, that is.
I am not sure why that did not seem to be any heterosexual relationships in this world, but the development of the story was gripping and the twist at the end topped it off well enough.
3.75 stars
Lady with Fox's writing was awkward. Something about the phrasing and punctuation, I don't know. It lost me all the talk about k-fibers and whatnot.
The basic premise in this world is that people are able to konn-ect while dreaming, leading to a very interesting experience, so they say. There was a hint of mystery throughout the story that I appreciated but I missed too much to be able to enjoy it and after so much build up I have to admit I was disappointed.
Insect gastronomy was interesting, though.
1.5 stars
Habilis was a story almost entirely composed of dialogue which varied between two timeframes. I suppose it was meant to give the story some dynamics but since during both times I kept reading about the same two characters carrying out pretty much the same actions I was constantly confused.
1 star
The Play’s the Thing is a really short one but to the point, about artificial intelligence and greed. It was quite enjoyable, although the AI sounded off to me, and the ending definitely surprised me.
3 stars
Every Hill Ends With Sky was another of those just ok stories. It also narrates two different times and I had no clue how one world led to the other, so I felt like the story did not have much development at all. The ending was too bleak to be hopeful.
1.5 stars
She Just Looks That Way was more up my alley because it was a character-driven story. Although it was all a tad bizarre - both the crazy woman and the crazy willingness to risk blindness in order to get over her - and sappy, I was moved by the morale of the story.
3.25 stars
SIREN of Titan was an excellent approach on sentient machines. I thoroughly enjoyed the duality of how SIREN was perceived and how she actually felt. The ending was very touching. This was a near perfect short story.
4.75 stars
The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars was disappointing. What could have been a pretty cool sci-fi story was smothered by a Romeo and Juliet bad adaptation, where every now and then poetic lines would enter the narrative in a rather awkward manner. I wish certain aspects of that world would have been further developed, particularly the link between the technicians and the miners - I never understood why or how it worked like that, so intensely.
2 stars
Ambiguous Nature was ok. Mankind's search for intelligent life and prime numbers being proof of such is not new. There was an interesting twist to it and the addition of a child character made things interesting as it usually does, but overall not a memorable story.
2.5 stars
The Mandelbrot Bet was quite surprising. I am not sure if it was exactly believable - the communication part at least - and the ending was quite bleak but I especially loved the dialogues, the intonation of the entire conversations; it was a very engaging, personal dynamic that softened all the hard theory.
3.75 stars
Recollection was so sad and so real. In a world where Alzheimer's can be cured but the past's memories cannot be restored, a man and his family struggle to deal with this new situation. The tension is palpable and you feel for everyone in the story.
4.5 stars
So, the final verdict. This anthology started out really well for me and there were some true gems in there, as well as an abundance of food for thought. However, during most of the rest of the tales I felt a bit lost due to it being really hard sci-fi and/or the writing style in some of them being truly off putting.
I do believe there is something for everyone's taste here, as it addresses a very wide range of the sci-fi scope.
In the end, I believe fans of hard sci-fi will enjoy this a lot more than I did. I however need more than interesting science to grab my interest. Unfortunately, too much of this anthology felt like info dump and not nearly enough engaging story weaving for my personal taste.
Disclaimer: I would like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. -
Mon avis en Français
My English review
The blue afternon That Lasted Forever – Daniel H Wilson
Here we find a rather touching story between a scientist father and young daughter during the end of the world. A story of love, protection and the difficulties that can cross a family. 3.5/5
A slow unfurling of truth – Aliette de Bodard
This story was quite complex. We do not really understand universe where we fall, or what is happening in this different space. A man appears, explaining that he is a person who has disappeared a long time ago and everyone is trying to find out if this is the truth. Everything was a blur for me and it was a shame not to understand what exactly was going on. 2/5
Thunderwell – Doug Beason
I enjoyed this story. The author poses the foundation of the novella and unlike the previous story, we understand what is happening. A group of astronauts went on a mission to Mars but their cargo of food has been lost. Their lives are at stake and on earth the wife of one of astronauts has to decide what she wants to do, and that begins with a reflection on the nuclear fields. It was really interesting and I really enjoyed discovering the ideas of the author! 4/5
The Circle – Liu Cixin
I have not really been able to get into the story. The characters did not genuinely interest me, not even the story or the story about the numbers or circles. However, the Asian environment was quite interesting and different. 1.5/5
Old Timer‘s Game – Ben Bova
This story is a light science fiction novella. This is a discussion on baseball, whether a person who has followed a fairly advanced treatment can continue playing or not. An investigation to understand whether this treatment is finally considered like a drug or not. A rather original topic I must say. 3/5
The Snows of Yesterday – Jean-Louis Trudel
I was surprised to see a highly important issue here: global warming and the opportunities that exist to continue to survive. I admit that I struggled to get into the story, but interesting to see the whole thing. 2.5 / 5
Skin Deep – Leah Petersen & Gabrielle Harbowy
I was fascinated by the ideas here, something that could also be possible. A company has invented a tattoo for managing people allergies, treating them automatically. Still, something that could change the face of the world can also have many detrimental and dangerous effects and it is up to our heroine to deal with it. A good discovery. 4/5
Lady with Fox – Gregory Benford
I do not think I understood everything in the story. We follow a scientist in his researches, in his encounter with a young woman. What happens between them and the impact on his work. 2/5
Habilis – Howard Hendrix
It’s a pretty original subject presented in this story, a man with the hands of another person who tells his story and ideals about all this. I was perhaps a little lost in the numbers history, but it was quite interesting to discover everything. 3/5
The Play‘s Thing – Jack McDevitt
What would we do if we could create programs by cloning large icons of the past like Shakespeare? So it’s the theme put forward here and I admit that the whole thing was really well done. Finally realizing that the boundaries are more blurred than people think at the start and the machine can perhaps go further than we might think. 4/5
Every hill ends with sky – Robert Reed
Here is a discussion between a man and his wife about a simulation program and the future of Venus and Mars. I admit that I was not excited about this story, and maybe I did not understand everything either … 2/5
She just looks That Way – Eric Choi
And if we could have an operation that changes our perceptions? This is what makes our main character yet for some quite shocking reasons especially since nothing has been tested. Indeed, our hero wants to forget his attraction to a woman who works at the same place. He hopes not to feel anything for her anymore. But this treatment would it not be too much? An interesting idea although I find it a bit too exaggerated. 4/5
Siren of Titan – David DeGraff
I always had a little trouble with stories about robots and I admit that I once again struggled to get into the story and to be interested. We follow two scientists who observe the actions of an entity that seems to start having own goals. 2/5
The yoke of inauspicious stars – Kate Story
Here we have a tale about Romeo and Juliet and I admit that it’s not something I expected by starting the story. It’s pretty interesting to see how it is done on another planet. I just regret the number of characters that made me a little lost. 3/5
Nature Ambiguous – Carl Frederick
This is a story about aliens research. Indeed, men watch the space in the hope of receiving a call and it seems that time has finally arrived even if they are not able to know if it is a reality and what it means. 3/5
The mandelbrot bet – Dirk Strasser
The author presents a novella mixing physical and maths and I admit that I once again struggled to get into it. We find very scientific parts between the discussion of two scientific. 2/5
Recollection – Nancy Fulda
What if we could increase our life span but without our whole memories? Grace tries to keep her husband with her, she loves him more than anything in the world but he does not remember her. He knows nothing of his life, his grandchildren and does not feel the love he had for his wife and family. It’s quite sad to see what has been lost, but Grace does not give up. A beautiful story. 4/5 -
Dnf - 28%
I got this to read the first story- ‘Blue afternoon that lasted forever’ which was great. The other stories were boring. -
reviews.metaphorosis.com
3 stars
A collection of stories focused on new hard science fiction.
I like to believe that I used to be a scientist, and I do retain a faint memory of that period, along with some leftover jargon. When I started to read science fiction, hard SF was a key part of it, and no doubt bolstered my feeling that this was serious stuff, not just escapism. Along, probably, with everyone else, I've noted a decline in hard SF over the last decades. I don't write any myself. It sometimes seems like Stephen Baxter and Ben Bova are the only one waving the flag. So it was nice to see Bova and Eric Choi put together an anthology aimed at addressing the deficit.
The anthology starts strong, with a series of well written, credible stories that show off the strengths of hard SF. Unfortunately, just over halfway through, the quality dips, and we run into hard SF's traditional weakness - stories with credible science, but characters so cool and distant that it's hard to care about them, which makes reading the story more academic exercise than pleasurable. I can go to New Scientist to read articles; I want something different from a story. Perhaps attempting to display its breadth, the anthology also displays newer, more modern weakness stolen from other genres: the apparent belief that an opaque (almost incomprehensible) story peppered with technology is innovative, when in fact it's just bad writing (even from a known author).
Some of the stories give a certain wanna-be hard SF feel - for example mixing imperial and metric units. Clearly that does happen (recall a certain Mars orbiter), but I'd hope that in the future we're not mixing the units in a single sentence (or using imperial at all, actually). Similarly, there's occasionally a laziness in calculation or extrapolation. When I read hard SF, I expect the background calculations to work. In this book, they usually do, but not always. It's one thing to imagine implanted cells that create and deliver drugs, but jumping from that to built-in radio transmitters is a big leap.
It may be that not all readers find fault with this, but I found some of the stories to be too overtly opinionated with regard to current politics. It's one thing to extrapolate global warming policies; it's another to complain about funding for Osama bin Laden missions. SF is not just about escapism, but there is an element of getting away from mundane tribulations.
All that said, the stories in the anthology were largely good, with one or two very good, and a few not so good. Some of the best were:
The Blue Afternoon that Lasted Forever by Daniel H. Wilson. An astrophysicist comforts his daughter when he spots an imminent disaster. A counterpoint to the flat-character flaw noted above, this one is all about people, and a strong opener for the collection.
The Circle by Liu Cixin (translated by the ubiquitous Ken Liu). An imperial advisor proposes a way to investigate life's secrets. The writing in the story is in the "good, but not great" category, but it's good enough to support a very interesting concept - using people for calculations. This is an idea that's been covered by others (e.g., Sean McMullen's Eyes of the Calculor), but not quite in this way. I've got Liu's Three Body Problem (which this is an excerpt from) on my list as well, and I'm curious to see whether he can make it work as well at novel length.
She Just Looks That Way by Eric Choi. A young man with a crush looks to surgery to relieve his obsession. This is another of the stories carried more by an interesting idea than by the writing. It could have been shorter and simpler, but after some treacherous ground in the middle, Choi pulls it out in the end.
SIREN of Titan by David DeGraff. A goal-driven robotic rover begins to act up. Despite the title, there's only a faint, conceptual link to the Kurt Vonnegut book. This story is in some ways the antithesis of the Liu and Choi stories; that is, the idea is relatively thin, but the story is so well written that it just doesn't matter. Possibly the best story in the book.
Overall, a good collection, but not really one that is likely to turn the tide for hard SF. I would have hoped for a stronger collection that more consistently avoided the sub-genre's traditional flaws.
NB: Received free copy from Net Galley. -
If you liked this book, you might also enjoy:
✱
The Three-Body Problem
✱
Stories of Your Life and Others
✱
Influx
★★★☆☆ The Blue Afternoon that Lasted Forever by Daniel H. Wilson
★★★☆☆ A Slow Unfurling of Truth by Aliette de Bodard
★★★★☆ Thunderwell by Doug Beason
★★★★☆ The Circle by Liu Cixin (translated by Ken Liu)
★★★☆☆ Old Timer’s Game by Ben Bova
★★★☆☆ The Snows of Yesteryear by Jean-Louis Trudel
★★★★☆ Skin Deep by Leah Petersen & Gabrielle Harbowy
★★★☆☆ Lady with Fox by Gregory Benford
★★★★☆ Habilis by Howard Hendrix
★★☆☆☆ The Play’s the Thing by Jack McDevitt
★★★★☆ Every Hill Ends with Sky by Robert Reed
★★★☆☆ She Just Looks that Way by Eric Choi
★★★★☆ SIREN of Titan by David DeGraff
★★★★☆ The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars by Kate Story
★★★★☆ Ambiguous Nature by Carl Frederick
★★★★☆ The Mandelbrot Bet by Dirk Strasser
★★★★★ Recollection by Nancy Fulda -
I got this audiobook without paying attention to who narrated it. Uncharacteristic of me yes, but there are several narrators involved and I knew I would like some and dislike others. It's all personal preference. But when the first voice I heard was Stefan Rudnicki's I lit up. He has narrated hundreds of science fiction books and is producer of Lightspeed Magazine podcast. I really love his narrating style. In this book he reads the introduction to each story and one or two of the stories themselves. His wasn't the only familiar voice I heard. I think a few others have done work on science fiction podcasts.
Alright, as for the stories themselves, the first story packs a real punch in the emotional department. I loved it and felt the book was off to a promising start. It wasn't alone but if I had to give stars to individual stories most of them would get two stars ("it was ok").
I listen to several short story podcasts, all of them scifi/fantasy or horror. If we're sticking to the idea of giving each story stars I would say a little over half of the stories from any of those podcasts get three or more stars. This collection did just a little worse than that. I did end up skipping a few stories because I found them totally uninteresting.
This is a collection of hard scifi. It was put together with real science in mind and that was what really attracted me to it so I was surprised to find a few there that seemed incredibly well ... soft. One in particular had telepathy as a major part of the plot. I kept wondering if they thought of Greg Egan when putting this together because he really blows me away in the hard scifi genre but maybe it's because he doesn't like having and internet presence. Or maybe nobody cares about Greg Egan (but you should if you don't).
I really wish I could rate each author separately because I wouldn't give two stars to every story but I have to give this book a measly two star rating because that's really all it gave. -
Review:
http://bennitheblog.com/bookbiters/ca...
Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction is named after the hard science fiction writing group that editors Ben Bova and Eric Choi belonged to in the late 1990’s. The subtitle speaks for itself.
For me, the best hard science fiction uses its technical aspects to enhance tales of human interest. The editors of Carbide Tipped Pens seem to agree, as the bookend stories are among the strongest. The first story, “The Blue Afternoon that Lasted Forever” by Daniel H. Wilson of Robopocalypse fame, is about fatherly love. The physicist father, who likely suffers from Asperger syndrome, is unable to muster enough emotion to convince his wife to stay. Nor is he particularly sensitive to the feelings of other people’s kids (keep in mind that all quotes are from an ARC and are subject to change):Perez’s son is five years old and at the department picnic the boy could not tell me how many miles it is to the troposphere. And he says he wants to be an astronaut. Good luck, kid.
But he expresses his love for his daughter by providing stability and protection, even during a potentially apocalyptic event.
The final story, Nancy Fulda’s “Recollection,” examines spousal affection when the husband has been cured of Alzheimer’s, but the memories already robbed by the disease cannot be recovered. As the husband observes:You must have loved her, once. Yes, you almost certainly loved her, and the endless prattle now spilling off her lips must be weighted with decades’ worth of meaning—shared jokes, shared secrets, shared opinions . . . Each fleeting phrase a lifeline to a hoarded wealth of common history. It should mean something to you, but it doesn’t.
These two stories are tearjerkers, if you are so inclined. (I was.)
The editors’ own tales are also excellent. Ben Bova’s “Old Timer’s Game” explores the problems professional athletics will have to deal with once the medical field advances even farther.
In Eric Choi’s “She Just Looks That Way,” scientists begin to treat those with body dysmorphic disorder by modifying neural pathways. The protagonist, however, wants to use the same technology to modify his own standards of beauty, so that he will no longer find his uninterested beloved attractive.
Since the future will of course include non-Western cultures, it’s refreshing to see that Carbide Tipped Pens also presents non-Western perspectives. Aliette de Bodard’s “A Slow Unfurling of Truth” deals with universal issues—how we authenticate identity when we are no longer tied to only one body—but the story is set in her alternate universe of Xuya, where China discovered the Americas first. (Note, however, that based on the character names, this particular story appears to be part of alternate Vietnamese history.)
Speaking of Chinese and alternate histories, Cixin Liu’s “The Circle” contemplates what history may have been had King Zheng of Qin (also known in our version of history as Qing Shi Huang) been distracted by ordering his army to carrying out computing functions, hoping to find the answer to immortality. At first, I was a little disappointed that “The Circle” was primarily an adaptation of an excerpt of the amazing The Three-Body Problem, but the context and outcome are distinct enough to still be entertaining. That such two disparate tales can be told out of a similar concept illustrates how flexible premises can be.
While most of the authors have impressive technical and/or scientific résumés, a few authors have more humanities-related accomplishments. Two authors, Jack McDevitt and Kate Story, integrate Shakespeare into their stories, with varying success. McDevitt’s “The Play’s the Thing” is a charming tale of a scientist’s recreation of Shakespeare’s knowledge and personality (or whoever wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare) in computer pod form. When the pod demonstrates itself as artificial intelligence that far exceeds its creator’s intentions, we get a second coming of William Shakespeare. Kate Story’s “The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars,” on the other hand, was a somewhat limp retelling of Romeo and Juliet set on Europa, a frozen moon of Jupiter. While it was interesting to see how Story adapted the play into a science fiction soap opera, the science fiction setting added little to the story.
The weaker tales here tend to be those that neglect the story for science or technology. Jean-Louis Trudel’s “The Snows of Yesteryear” is a bit too pedantic and preachy for my tastes. If we are to examine human motivations for ignoring or discounting science in favor of greed or politics, Doug Beason’s “Thunderwell” is more successful. In “Thunderwell,” where a NASA administrator has to balance her latest crew’s safety against her country’s worldwide political standing, the stakes feel more urgent and personal.
While the science fiction premises may be interesting, primarily adapting those premises into dialogue—such as in Howard Hendrix’s “Habilis”—does not an interesting story make. That’s not to say highly technical dialogue cannot be interesting; Carl Frederick’s “Ambiguous Nature” also pokes fun at the nature of scientific articles and Dirk Strasser’s “The Mandelbrot Bet” also exudes some deadpan humor as a time traveling scientist’s success comes at the expense of a missed connection.
For me at least, the joy of reading anthologies comes from discovering new authors, more so than loving every single story. (I’ve yet to read a collection where I’ve loved every single story.) By that measure, and by its thought-provoking nature, Carbide Tipped Pens is a good, solid collection of hard science fiction.
I received a review copy courtesy of Tor Books.
Review:
http://bennitheblog.com/bookbiters/ca... -
An excellent collection of hard science fiction stories where where they are:
1) rooted in existing or near-realistic scientific possibilities and
2) the narrative could not exist without these notable scientific features -
[I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher via NetGalley.]
Editors Ben Bova and Eric Choi have collected seventeen short stories from authors across the globe, where the primary focus is on technology. These are stories of hard science fiction, where the scientific concepts provide not only a framework for the plot, but are so integral to the story being told that without such a tech-heavy conceit the story would be impossible to tell.
The anthology opens with The Blue Afternoon That Lasted Forever by Daniel H. Wilson (Robopocalypse). Here, we are introduced to a theoretical physicist who is so coldly rational and unemotional that he's very nearly a robot. If it weren't for his daughter, he'd likely have no humanity to him whatsoever, and she is what pins him to this earth. Far too late, he learns that his theoretical equations showing the existence of pinhole black holes are deadly accurate. While the physicist is cool and methodical, Wilson manages to wring the heartstrings for all their worth in an emotional wallop of a finale. Although the story itself is short, there's a lot going on here, and serves as a terrific opener to Carbide Tipped Pens.
I was also deeply impressed by Doug Beason's Thunderwell, which concerns a last-ditch effort to save an otherwise doomed mission to land the first team of human explorers on Mars. We get snippets of action from these intrepid astronauts, but the focus is on the Earth-based scientists' efforts to beat the odds and launch a care-package stocked rocket into space. There's a smidge of inspiration from Jules Verne at hand here, and it works very well. The technology at play here is also one we are deeply familiar with, using the physics of projectiles as the main thrust (forgive the pun) behind the narrative.
Liu Cixin delivers The Circle, a story adapted and expanded upon from his novel, The Three Body Problem. Ben Bova's contribution, Old Timer's Game, tells a straight-forward story about the future of baseball, as the sport is heavily impacted by medical advances and stem cell research. Habilis, by Howard Hendrix, is an interesting, dialogue-driven meditation on the 'handedness' of the universe, with insights in the left-favoring nature of electron orbits to the curves of letters and numbers driven home by a war vet with a prosthetic hand. David DeGraff's SIREN of Titan was another strong inclusion, focusing on the sudden sentience of a moon rover and some intriguing American politics generated by the Religious Right's fear of artificial intelligence.
I tend to find anthologies to be a mixed bag. Not every story can satisfy every single reader. For instance, I found Jack McDevitt's story, The Play's The Thing, to be interesting yet anticlimactic, and neither Aliette de Bodard's nor Kate Storey's efforts did much for me despite being well-written and having authentic feeling settings thanks to the strong world building in each of their works.
Taken as a whole, however, Carbide Tipped Pens is a solid collection of hard science fiction stories from many highly regarded authors in this genre and well worth the read. The stories themselves cover a broad swath of territory, from near-future Earth to far-flung empires of the distant future, where technology and scientific concepts are key. Recommended. -
Pardon me for a moment while I glue my heart back together.
And that is how I ended the first story in Carbide Tipped Pens - with a shattered organ, the sniffles, and high expectations for the rest of the stories.
As anthologies are oft to do, they put the best stories at the very front and the very end, hoping to pull book-store browser and preview-readers to the check out, while leaving readers who get all the way through with a feeling of satisfaction. Carbide Tipped Pens is no exception. It pulls your heart out, puts it back in, makes you think, then makes you wonder, strings you along and then lets you go with a head full of ideas.
In short, Carbide Tipped Pens is a good collection of stories representing several aspects of the hard sci-fi genre with enough great stories out of the seventeen to make it worth the read (though perhaps not the $15 price for the eBook that Macmillan is currently expecting). If you can find this one in your local library (or Macmillan stops being crazy) then pick it up. It's a good collection to have, and it represents a spectrum of science fiction stories.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in request for honest feedback. (Because no way am I ever going to pay $15 for an ebook...) -
First of all, thanks to TOR for the ARC of this fine collection of hard sci-fi short stories.
The first story The Blue Afternoon That Lasted Forever is worth the price of admission alone! This is what sci-fi is all about. This tale had a realism to it that was both sad and terrifying.
Other stories that I enjoyed were Ambiguous Nature which also had a lot of *yes this could happen* to it. It involves researches working on the SETI program.
Ken Liu's The Circle is a quirky alternate history story which was a fun read.
Ben Bova shows his love for baseball in Old Timer's Game which pushes performance enhancing tools in sports to the extreme.
One problem I have with short story collections, especially from different authors, is that you will always get a mix of stories you really like, and some you do not care for. This was the case with Carbide Tipped Pens.
Overall though, it is a solid collection of hard sci-fi shorts. The more realistic, the better the stories. That is how I like my Sci-Fi. -
Full disclosure: I received an Advanced Reader Copy of this book (thus the review prior to publication) for free from tor.com. (Seriously: if you're not taking part in their sweepstakes, you really should. Odds of winning are actually quite high.)
What we have here is an anthology of new Science Fiction, with the "Hard" classifier thrown on there for good measure. This is supposed to mean that there's some scientific or possible futuristic element that's crucial to the story.
As is typical whenever I read an anthology, I wish I'd review the stories independently. Yet again, that didn't happen, so this review is less good than it should be...
At any rate: The stories here are reasonably high quality, and enjoyable to read, but few of them really stuck in my memory. (Though the first and last stories were quite good.) Tragedy is a minor sub-theme as well, which is probably possible only in shorter works these days. (Can't make an 11-book series out of a tragedy...)
4 of 5 stars. -
This is an excellent anthology of short stories clinching closely to the definition of "Hard" science fiction. In fact, the very science in each of these stories is crucial to the tale holding together. Very refreshing and uncommon in the genre. Even more wondrous, characterization is not sacrificed to the science.
My favorite: "The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars" by Kate Story. If Shakespeare had placed his iconic tale of young love and tragedy amongst the water miners of Jupiter's ice moon Europa. Cryogenic misdeeds and sound as a life form.
Most intriguing: "A Slow Unfurling of Truth" by Aliette de Brodard. A story covering over 200 years in the Xuyan Universe, a series of tales appearing since the mid 1980's spanning magazines, anthologies, authors, and websites all across the genre. I am now on a hunt to track down all the various tales (chapters?) and read them in chronological order.
These stories are as sharp, solid, and striking as carbide tipped pens. It isn't hard at all, though, to claim this anthology a real star. -
CONTENTS
• Preface by Eric Choi
• The Blue Afternoon That Lasted Forever • short story by Daniel H. Wilson
• A Slow Unfurling of Truth • [Universe of Xuya] • novelette by Aliette de Bodard
• Thunderwell • novelette by Doug Beason
• The Circle • novelette by Cixin Liu
• Old Timer's Game • short story by Ben Bova
• The Snows of Yesteryear • novelette by Jean-Louis Trudel
• Skin Deep • novelette by Gabrielle Harbowy and Leah Petersen
• Lady with Fox • novelette by Gregory Benford
• Habilis • novelette by Howard V. Hendrix
• The Play's the Thing • (2013) • short story by Jack McDevitt
• Every Hill Ends with Sky • short story by Robert Reed
• She Just Looks That Way • novelette by Eric Choi
• Siren of Titan • novelette by David DeGraff
• The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars • novelette by Kate Story
• Ambiguous Nature • novelette by Carl Frederick
• The Mandelbrot Bet • short story by Dirk Strasser
• Recollection • short story by Nancy Fulda -
The quality of the writing is signalled by the first story and does not let up. The stories are sharp and beautifully crafted, with the writers in full control of sometimes very complex material. These qualities beg for them to be read by an audience who would not normally consider dipping their toe in the science fiction genre. That said, it is also a book in which avid readers of science fiction will find no trouble immersing themselves.
Although firmly in the science fiction genre, the science is used intelligently to form a structure within which relationships and emotions are skilfully woven. The combination of these assets, with an assured display of varied storytelling techniques, makes Carbide Tipped Pens an ideal study book for anyone interested in writing credible and high quality science fiction.
If bought in physical form, Carbide Tipped Pens, will be the type of book that quickly becomes dog-eared through repeated reading. -
Interesting that this is labeled "Hard Science Fiction." It makes sense. For example, The Time Traveler's Wife might be considered "soft science fiction." That book is labeled as fiction, but clearly has a sci-fi element, but it doesn't hit you over the head with it. Carbide Tipped Pens does hit you over the head, but not all the time. Is there more techno babble jargon and out of this world concepts than other sci-fi books? Well, yeah, but since there's 17 tales you get a plethora of how authors approach science fiction differently. Most were good, a few I didn't quite get but that is ok.
-
No story beats the first one in this anthology. Still, the tales are good, but not as good as I expected.
-
This short story collection was often fun and thought-provoking, but the quality was wildly inconsistent. Has an unmistakable amateur feeling. To be frank, a majority of the stories felt like they needed another revision... or ten.
And almost all of the forewords are shockingly terrible. Written-at-four-in-the-morning-before-a-deadline kind of terrible.
"The Blue Afternoon that Lasted Forever" - Very short, intriguing, heartbreaking. Liked it a lot. 4/5
"A Slow Unfurling of Truth" - Far, far too much going on for a short story. Too many characters, too many names, too much backstory. It's an absolute mess. The premise would be far better suited to a novella. 2/5
"Thunderwell" - A bit silly, but compelling. Liked seeing the consequences of a runaway (and very plausible) anti-nuclear sentiment. Well suited to the format. 3/5
"The Circle" - A fun revisionist history where the ancient Chinese invent a human computer. It skirts much too closely to nationalist propaganda for my taste, but it's very clever. 3/5
"Old Timer's Game" - Bizarre and slight, tying in baseball to human augmentation, oblivious to the wider world. Weakest of the collection so far. 2/5
"The Snows of Yesteryear" - Unique look at scientists dealing with future climate change. Good characters, too - even makes time for some delightful corporate villainy. But the pacing is way off. And the science (and character motivation) goes completely off the rails at the end. Hollywood-level nonsense. Not what I look for in hard sci-fi. 3/5
"Skin Deep" - Really interesting look at near-future med tech, but ends abruptly and with no satisfaction. The villain's "plan" strains credulity to the limit. And no brownie points for LGBT representation when they're emotionally unstable monsters. 3/5
"Lady with Fox" - Fascinating ideas, world feels real and lived-in. But the prose was weak (especially in the dream sequence, terribly limp description), and I was not impressed by the science-y succubus. Very nearly a literal succubus. Come on! You've got to be better than that, Benford. 2/5
"Habilis" - Immediately intriguing. And grapples with big ideas about chirality and human development. But the prose is rough and the dialogue rougher. The expositionary baggage (and all the made-up words) just get in the way of the interesting stuff. The seed of a much larger story is buried in here - I'm not sure why the writer chose this format for it. 4/5
"The Play's the Thing" - An AI of Shakespeare writes plays! And... that's it. Totally wasted potential. 2/5
"Every Hill Ends with Sky" - Extremely well done. Wonderfully well-considered exploration of what an alien intelligence might look like. Plausible apocalypse scenario. Magic and optimism at the end of the world. One of my favorites of the collection. 5/5
"She Just Looks that Way" - Stupid guy does stupid thing with interesting consequences. This one was sneaky. Jumped around too much at the start, but ended well. 4/5
"SIREN of Titan" - Lovely depiction of the experience of a new-born AI, but ultimately depressing and toothless. 3/5
"The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars" - How do you live up to a title like that? Well, the worst foreword of the collection doesn't help. The science in this one was stellar, and I found the future it presented plausible. Lots of interesting ideas underpinning a narrative that felt very derivative. It's an intentional homage to Romeo and Juliet, but it was too on the nose. Too... literal, I guess. It felt cheap, and the Shakespearean dialogue was corny as hell. But even still, I was a bit enchanted. One of my favorites in the collection, despite the flaws. 4/5
"Ambiguous Nature" - SETI finds what it's looking for. Short and silly. I wouldn't credit this one with the "hard sci-fi" label. Techno-babble at its babbliest. Are these people really supposed to be scientists? Impossible to take seriously. 3/5
"The Mandelbrodt Bet" - A disabled layman solves time travel... kind of. Intriguing, well-paced, and with a high concept ending that works shockingly well. But a story so heavy on physics has no business making mistakes that even I can catch. 4/5
"Recollection" - Among the strongest in the collection. Short, focused, honest and effective. Alzheimer's and memory loss are a heavy subject that could weigh down a story, but Fulda strikes the perfect balance. There's not much sci-fi here, but the story is only stronger for it. 5/5 -
My only interest in this anthology was to read
A Slow Unfurling of Truth by Aliette de Bodard, so please read the following review with that in mind.
As far as i'm aware this is only currently available in the anthology Carbide Tipped Pens, which, for some reason unbeknownst to me, isn't available on Kindle: yes folks, it appears that the Luddites are at it again attempting their very worse to ruin life for us technologically advanced hominyds who read ebooks and love trees. But, not to be outdone, i suggest that maybe you could get imaginative with your technologically advanced minds and dream up ways of how you may wish to obtain a copy to read.
And that was my first usage of "unbeknownst" on this website. A lovely old word. Some words are just too good to let fade away.
Oh yeah, it's supposed to be a review of the story, i know, i'm getting to it, but you can't get to the story until you actually have a copy to read so that had to be dealt with first.
So once again we're back with the Galactics and the Rongs and now instead of downloading/uploading dead people into V-Space they now seem to be able to take dead people and upload/download/re-sleeve them into new bodies. Think
Altered Carbon kind of thing but i've no idea how it's being done in Aliette's universe as that bit's not explained.
The problem with re-sleeving people is that after a period of time, especially if you lost touch with them, you may not be able to tell who a person was or wasn't. This whole thing would obviously lead to whole new areas of crime with re-sleeved people claiming to be people who they aren't and claiming things to which they aren't entitled. This then leads to a whole new occupation, that of people who ascertain the validity of re-sleeved people.
And so, that's where we are with A Slow Unfurling of Truth. A Galactic has turned up claiming to be someone and it's very important that the Rong know if it's true or not, enter the Authenticators, a human and mindship pair working together to unfurl the truth.
I really enjoyed the re-sleeving and V-Space aspects of the Altered Carbon books, and it's great to re-encounter this kind of thing being written by other writers, especially writers as good as Aliette is. So yeah, would love to read a whole lot more of this re-sleeving V-Space stuff from Aliette in the future -- she's certainly created a big enough universe to shove a ton more stories into.
So onwards, onwards we read, and next up will be
The Frost on Jade Buds. -
I'm not usually a fan of short-story anthologies, but when I saw this sci-fi collection edited by Ben Bova, and the dedication to Isaac Asimov, I thought I'd give it a try. Other than Ben Bova, I had never heard of any of the authors, so I was curious how they would create their "worlds" within this genre. The first story, "The Blue Afternoon That Lasted Forever," had me hooked – a father/daughter end of the world piece that was both memorable and touching. The other stories were a mixed bag, but the sheer variety was impressive. The best stories had vivid imagery that will stay in my imagination for months to come: "The Circle," about a 15th century "computer" made up of thousands of soldiers; "Skin Deep," about medical tattoos that can prevent allergic reactions...unless something goes wrong; and "Siren of Titan," about a robot on one of Saturn's moons who discovers an innate love of beauty. I'll admit to skimming through a few of the stories, but the gems within this anthology make it worthwhile. As to my rating, there were certainly a few 4-star stories, but the 2-star stories hurt the "score."
-
17 short stories, 2 of which are women. Reviews later.
The Blue Afternoon that Lasted Forever- 5 stars
A Slow Unfurling of Truth- 5 stars
Thunderwell- 3 stars
The Circle- 3 stars
Old Timer's Game- 3 stars
The Snows of Yesteryear- 3 stars
Skin Deep- 6 stars (of 5)!!
Lady with Fox- 5 stars
Habiki- 5 stars
The Play's the Thing- 4 stars
Every Hill Ends with Sky- 5 stars
She Just Looks That Way- 5 stars
Siren of Titan- 5 stars
The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars- 5 stars (NSFW)
Ambiguous Nature- 4 stars
The Mandelbrot Bet- 5 stars
Recollection- 5 stars -
Overall, this was a 3 star experience as a collection of stories, but there were a handful of standouts that I would rate higher. It doesn’t take a scientific mind to deduce, then, that there were also a few that didn’t quite cut the mustard for me.
These 17 SF stories range from the intricately theoretical to the deeply human, with most landing at some intersection of the two. Personally, I enjoy sci-fi the most when it employs the mysteries and possibilities of science to illuminate the human experience. I thought this was done best in “Thunderwell,” “Skin Deep,” “She Just Looks That Way,” and “The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars.” Style points for the creativity of “The Circle.” -
Most of the stories in the book have interesting hooks, but many of the stories were pretty bland. However, I did enjoy a few of them quite a bit: Doug Beason's 'Thunderwell'; Leah Peterson and Gabrielle Harbowy's 'Skin Deep'; Eric Choi's 'She Just Looks that Way'; and Kate Story's 'The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars'. Interestingly, I thought the bookend stories were the best and most deeply affecting. They were 'The Blue Afternoon that Lasted Forever', by Daniel H. Wilson, and 'Recollection', by Nancy Fulda. Those were both amazing.
-
The Blue Afternoon That Lasted Forever: 5/5
A Slow Unfurling of Truth: 4/5
Thunderwell: 4/5
The Circle: 5/5
Old Timer's Game: 3/5
The Snows of Yesteryear: 2/5
Skin Deep: 3.5/5
Lady With Fox: 1/5
Habilis: 2/5
The Play's The Thing: 3/5
Every Hill Ends With Sky: 3/5
She Just Looks That Way: 3/5
SIREN of Titan: 5/5
The Yoke of Inauspicious Stars: 2.5/5
Ambiguous Nature: 4/5
The Mandelbrot Bet: 3/5
Recollections: 4.5/5 -
A thoughtful, variegated collection of "hard" science fiction, where the technology or theories behind the storyline is described and sounds almost plausible. The real story is of course what the effects are, on human rights, family bonds, and of consciousness itself. I find the very last story to be the best, even after accounting for recency bias. Saved the best for last!
-
Challenging stories that straddle the worlds of good literary fiction and hard science fiction, each story is a gem of possibilities. I especially loved the short-story treatment that Cixin Liu offered about the imagined alternative origin of computer technology, The Circle, which I again encountered as I'm working my way through his Three-Body Problem novel #1.
