Stand Pat, Ruby Stone (Roger Zelany): a story of alien marriage. Interesting. Old Woman By The Road (Gregory Benford): not my favorite author (given he wrote the worst book in Asimov’s Foundation universe, which is a bit of an achievement given some of the others. This story isn’t terrible, it just doesn’t go anywhere. There…
Tag: anthology
Space Soldiers
This is a collection of short stories about soldiers in space. Its not the strongest such collection I have read — Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow, Body Armor 2002 and Dogs of War are all better. The Gardens of Saturn (Paul J McAuley): veterans with jacked up nervous systems encounter genetically engineered people in deep space. Soldiers…
The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall
This is an anthology of Pern stories. It doesn’t really stand on its own though, you’re much better off having read the other Pern books first. The stories are: The Survey: P.E.R.N.: this story feels quite lazy. There are new characters, but they aren’t well introduced. They find the planet later called Pern, and explore…
A Separate War & Other Stories
This is a short story collection. I like anthologies, and this one was pretty good. The stories are: A Separate War: the end of The Forever War told from the perspective of Marygay. Diminished Chord: love and music on an old harp like instrument. Giza: genetic engineering to enable space mining. Foreclosure: let’s get rid…
Burning Chrome
This is a collection of William Gibson short stories. They’re gritty and real, and make more sense now that I’ve been to both the US and Japan. I read these stories as a kid and loved them, although their vision for the future isn’t a happy one. Its good to see I still like them…
Dogs of War
Another combat anthology, this time edited by David Drake. Or Battle’s Sound (Harry Harrison): already read in Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow and Body Armor: 2000. Liberty Port (David Drake): already read in The Complete Hammer’s Slammer’s Volume 1. Straw (Gene Wolfe): steam punk mercenaries in a future which is more like the past. A good read….
Body Armor: 2000
I love a good anthology, although I’d read a few of these stories before: Contact! (David Drake): this story is quite unlike the other stuff of his that I have read, mostly because its set in the Vietnam War, not the far future. A good story with an excellent twist. The Warbots (Larry S. Todd):…
Buy Jupiter Short Stories
This is another Asimov short story collection. The following stories appear in the book, although I have already read a couple as part of either the Robot short stories or the Nightfall collection of short stories. To be honest these stories aren’t Asimov’s strongest. They entertaining, but they’re not as amazing as some of his…
Foundation’s Friends
I was excited when I found Foundation’s Friends the other day, because I thought I’d read all the Foundation books and did not know that this one existed. It is an anthology which celebrates Asimov’s 50 years as a science fiction author, and each author takes their own approach to the Foundation universe. The stories…
Bolos 6: Cold Steel
This bolo book is different from the previous ones, in that it heavily focuses on the humans side of the story, instead of the bolo’s inner monologue. I’ve seen reviews online that say this makes it a bad bolo book, but I think that’s unfair. The bolos are critical to the telling of this story,…