Anybody read it? What do you think of these reviews?
Good and Bad, July 13, 2005
Reviewer: Brad Shorr (Geneva, IL USA) - See all my reviews
A hard edition to rate. There's an awful lot of gloom and doom, but
the atmosphere and characters are generally vivid and plots tight
with unambiguous endings.
"Inappropriate Behavior" by Pat Murphy. Spot the looney! A mental
patient must overcome her sane doctor to save a shipwrecked
anthropologist. B
"Start the Clock" by Benjamin Rosenbaum. In a future USA where
reality, time and the Internet freely mingle, some kids never grow up-
literally. C
"The Third Party" by David Moles. Planet resembling early 20th
century Earth beset by space faring capitalists and socialist
missionaries, with the hero getting caught in the crossfire big time.
Stunning characters and atmosphere. A
"The Voluntary State" by Christopher Rowe. Life on this chaotic
alternate Earth is only slightly less perplexing to the characters
than to me. D
"Shiva in Shadow" by Nancy Kress. The shadowy nether regions of their
own minds prove more baffling and dangerous than even the anomalous
black hole being explored by two space scientists and a ship captain.
Brilliant juxtaposition of infinite space and interior man. A+
"The People of Sand and Slag" by Paolo Bacigalupi. Bioengineered
super humans render the animal kingdom obsolete, but a surprising
visitor disturbs their illusions of grandeur. Poignantly asks, will
science make us more than men, or less? A
"The Clapping Hands of God" by Michael F. Flynn. Scientists travel
through wormhole to secretly observe a planet inhabited by gentle
humanoids, yet danger fills the air. The artfully drawn aliens are
fascinating. A
"Tourism" by M. John Harrison. Gritty lowlifes hang out in a seamy
otherworld bar with nothing much to do but generate more atmosphere.
C
"Scout's Honor" by Terry Bisson. Elegantly plotted time travel story
in which a scientist becomes best buds with a Neanderthal. A
"Men Are Trouble" by James Patrick Kelly. Earth is dominated by avian
aliens who have plucked away all the men. Hard-boiled detective story
just can't get off the ground. C
"Mother Aegypt" by Kage Baker. Characters leap off the page in this
medieval spellbinder about black magic true and false. A
"Synthetic Serendipity" by Vernor Vinge. Baby boomers flounder in the
new Net society. This one rings uncomfortably true. B
"Skin Deep" by Mary Rosenblum. Tender interplay between a horribly
disfigured boy and a surgeon with new techniques and mysterious
motives. B
"Delhi" by Vandana Singh. The author captures the mood of Delhi as
dwellers past and future come alive for a current day resident who
can't quite understand what he sees. C
"The Tribes of Bela" by Albert E. Cowdrey. The natives are restless,
to say the least, on a distant planet being mined by a company from
Earth. And some natives they are! Superb space adventure with lots of
action and a great ending. A
"Sitka" by William Sanders. The call of the wily. Grim and fatalistic
alternate history with Lenin and Jack London up to no good in Sitka.
B
"Leviathan Wept" by Daniel Abraham. Dismal picture of life in our
near future, when terrorism rules as if by design. Chilling, real,
almost unbearable to read. A
"The Defenders" by Colin P. Davies. Old man teaches his granddaughter
a bitter life lesson in this complex and mystical vignette. A
"Mayflower II" by Stephen Baxter. The entire religious and political
evolution and devolution of Western culture play out in microcosm
aboard a starship where generations of humans are escaping to a new
home twenty thousand years away-all related, alas, with the
rationalistic and cynical vigor so typical in this edition. Still,
mesmerizing and elegantly crafted in all respects, so reluctantly, A+
"Riding the White Bull" by Caitlin R. Kiernan. A profanity-laced
narrative seriously detracts from this already marginal story, a
tangled nightmare of social collapse and personal despair in the face
of a gruesome alien attack. D
"Falling Star" by Brendan Dubois. Technology collapses and society
reverts to the "Old Ways", which Mr. Dozois describes as "bigotry,
intolerance, and fear." Apparently this is the totality of his
conception of faith, yet he serves up story after story dramatizing
the futility of science--a rather hopeless vision. C
"The Dragons of Summer Gulch" by Robert Reed. A fantasy world
resembling the Old West has all sorts of characters scrambling for
control of some relics--for all sorts of reasons. B
"The Oceans of the Blind" by James L. Cambias. This first contact
story has three wonderful elements: snappy shifts in point of view
between the aliens and humans, a perfect balance of humor and horror,
and fascinating alien adaptation at the bottom of a deep, dark and
dangerous ocean. A+
"The Garden: A Hwarhath Science Fictional Romance" by Eleanor
Arnason. Feminist editorial masquerades as fiction. D
"Footvote" by Peter F. Hamilton. Angry leftist editorial with barely
the pretense of masquerade. D
"Sisyphus and the stranger" by Paul Di Fillipo. Albert Camus plies
his existential trade in an alternate world where the French Empire
rules all. B
"Ten Sigmas" by Paul Melko. Slice(s) of life for a "massively
parallel human" is somewhat over my head, but intriguing nonetheless.
B
"Investments" by Walter Jon Williams. Political intrigue and a
desperate fight against cosmic forces in a far-flung pan-galactic
empire. C
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