A collection of good to sublime short stories.
Listen To The Signal: Short Stories Volume 1 – Rob Dircks
Pattaya Youtuber: And Other True Stories from Thailand – Walt Gleason
The seven short stories in this collection about Westerners in Thailand range from the sordid to the humorous. Several are cautionary tales featuring culture clash, drug use, and girlies bars.
The stories themselves are quirky, with an often interesting take through the viewpoint of both jaded and more innocent visitors to Thailand. Unfortunately, they somewhat lack in hooks to draw the reader in and rely too much on rather unsurprising twists. The prose, structure, and often even the spelling, could have been significantly improved with some professional editing. A vaguely interesting and quick read for those interested in the subject matter, but not much further.
A Meeting with Medusa (The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke IV) – Arthur C. Clarke
A collection of stories from the late great Arthur C. Clarke. It is difficult to write a consistent review since the variation in tone, content and length is so large. Some are whimsical, some are epic. Some are short and some are long. Almost all showcase Mr. Clarke’s skill in instilling a sense of wonder. The collaboration with Stephen Baxter, about a world where teleportation is commonplace, was particularly thought-provoking.
Sex and Violence in Zero-G: The Complete “Near Space” Stories, Expanded Edition – Allen Steele
This expanded edition contains all previously published Near Space short stories and novelettes. The stories range from action to reflection, from joy to melancholy. The stories are presented chronologically, starting from the beginning of the Near Space timeline, in more or less the present era, and ending with the advanced colonised solar system of Mr. Chicago.
As he mentions in the introduction, Mr. Steele has been labelled a “Space Romantic”, and this is rather accurate. His stories are infused with an infectious sense of wonder about space exploration in the near future. His focus on the working stiff rather than the movers and shakers gives rise to interesting reflections and themes. Having read all or some of the Near Space long fiction is not a pre-requisite for reading this collection, though it will fill in some of the background.
Armored – Edited by John Joseph Adams
This anthology of short stories deals with armored fighting suits (mecha, what have you) from many different perspectives. Some stories are pure action, while others delve deep into sentient machines and man-machine interfaces. There’s even romance.
The stories range from excellent to passable. And there is quite a bit of thought-provoking stuff.
Alternate Generals – Harry Turtledove (Editor)
Alternate military history anthology. The quality is mixed, and it requires at least a passing knowledge of the incidents the stories are based on in order to extract full appreciation. A passable light read if you’re into military science fiction.
Drakas! – S.M. Stirling (Editor)
This anthology features short stories set in Stirling’s Draka universe. Twelve authors contribute. There are some real gems here, but you probably won’t appreciate them if you haven’t read the Draka series first.
The Magic May Return – edited by Larry Niven
This short story anthology is a sequel to The Magic Goes Away. While a bit more enjoyable that the first book, it suffers from the same basic problem. The idea of magic as a dwindling resource is clever but wears out its welcome too quickly.
Man-Kzin Wars volumes I-XI – Created by Larry Niven
A long running anthology series with stories set during the Man-Kzin Wars in Larry Niven’s Known Space universe. Niven started this thing up because while the Wars were very significant in the history of Known Space, he himself was not adept at writing about conflict. Niven has written some of the stories but most are by other authors. The writing ranges from average to excellent. Recommended if you are a fan of Known Space.
Bolos – Created by Keith Laumer
Bolos are huge self-aware robotic battle tanks/mobile fortresses. Throughout a very long history of wars and conflicts, they have served humanity selflessly.
After Laumer’s death, Baen thought to resurrect the Bolos with a series of anthologies featureing a variety of authors. There is some excellent, some good, and some less good, but the overall quality is surprisingly high. It is military SciFi in a very pure form, and many will probably be put off by this.
I have read the first four books:
- Bolos Book 1 – Honor of the Regiment
- Bolos Book 2 – The Unconquerable
- Bolos Book 3 – The Triumphant
- Bolos Book 4 – Last Stand
Grantville Gazette II – Eric Flint (Editor)
This is the dead tree edition of the second volume filled with “user generated content” in the Assiti Shards Universe. It continues Flint’s experiment with not only opening his universe, but letting other writers actually add to the stories and developing landscape in a major way. Flint does not set strict guidelines, allowing other writers to take his own creation in totally unexpected directions.
The book is a mixed bag. Some of the stories are cute, some are more serious. The novelette about setting up a medical school that fills a large part of the compilation is engaging but fails to pull out all the stops and ends up rather flat. The non-fiction is mostly interesting. None of the content is bad but there isn’t really anything that stands out as particularly good either. It’s interesting if you’re into the other books, but cannot be read as a standalone.
Grantville Gazette – Eric Flint (Editor)
This anthology began life as an electronic magazine, but the success was so great Baen Books decided to publish it in traditional format as well. Most of the stories and articles started as posts in the Baen’s Bar web forum. The stories are high quality fanfic from unknown and mostly unpublished. If you are not familiar with the Assiti Shards Universe, you will be somewhat confused.
Ring of Fire – Eric Flint (Editor)
An anthology of stories set in the Assiti Shards Universe. I would recommend reading 1632 and 1633 before this one. The most interesting thing about the Assiti Shards Universe is it’s shared nature. Flint has only set the most general guidelines, and other authors (both professional and non) are free to develop their story lines as they see fit, even if they affect other story lines in a major way. Flint is thus the editor of an evolving history that he has much less than perfect control over. The interesting part of the experiment is that it very much mirrors real history, which is non linear and chaotic.