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Reviewed
by Paul Graham Raven
While
the tsunami of themed anthologies shows little sign of abating, Solaris
are calmly and quietly getting on with their rather unique little
project: a series of unthemed anthologies of original short fiction.
This second volume in the series collects a good variety of tales from
some notable names from sf-nal pantheon.
There are a few
flops. Kay Kenyon's Space
Crawl Blues is an example of an idea too big for the short
fiction format, and cramming it into the space available makes for a
trite betrayal tale that doesn't really hinge on the novum. Conversely,
Eric Brown's Sunworld
seems too long: its ending is telegraphed too early, its sensawunda
lessened by that slow approach. Chris Roberson's The Line Of Dichotomy
is a vanilla mil-sf yarn that fails to use the full potential of its
setting, but which redeems itself somewhat with a sudden moral
cliffhanger ending.
There are some
real successes, too. Mary Robinette Kowal's Evil Robot Monkey
is the shortest piece and also the most memorable – it has followed me
around for days, and promises to continue doing so for a while to come;
Karl Schroeder shows signs of developing into BruceSterling2.0,
embedding civilisational lessons we could do with relearning in the
alt-history of Book,
Theatre and Wheel; Shining Armour by
Dominic Green crams all the potential merits of short sf into one
convenient parcel – it's fun, witty, full of spectacle and very
human.
And then there
are all the others which, while they aren't phone-a-friend excellent,
are still well worth the read – like the rambling cut'n'paste Jerry
Cornelius time-slip of Michael Moorcock's Modem Times, Peter
Watts' dark surveillance-society soliloquy The Eyes Of God, or
Robert Reed's post-post-human love-story-in-disguise Fifty Dinosaurs.
A cliché it may
be, but there really is something for everyone here – and the roster of
writers makes it an ideal bait to tempt those who only read novels to
climb over the short fiction fence. Let's hope the economics of the
market allow Solaris to keep this series running for some time to come.
(This
review was first published in Interzone)
Paul
Graham Raven
is a bedraggled museum library assistant by day, but at night he
transforms into a freelance writer and webgeek-for-hire to the stars of
genre fiction. He likes girls with tattoos and music with guitars, and
hopes the trend for eighties retro fashion ends sooner rather than
later.
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Publisher: Solaris
Publication
Date:
March 2008
Paperback/Hardback?
Paperback
First anthology?: No
Authors: Brian Aldiss, Neal Asher, Tony Ballantyne, Stephen Baxter, Keith Brooke, Eric Brown, Paul Di Filippo, Jay Lake & Greg van Eekhout, Peter F Hamilton, Simon Ings, James Lovegrove, Mike Resnick & David
Gerrold, Adam Roberts, Jeffrey Thomas, Mary Turzillo, Ian Watson
Buy this book (used or
new) from:
The
Publisher's Website: Solaris
AbeBooks
Amazon
BetterWorldBooks.Com
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forget your local booksellers and independent book shops! Visit IndieBound.org to find an independent bookstore near
you in the US
If
you liked this book you might also like....
George Mann (ed)
"Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction Vol 1"
Assorted “Year's Best
SF” anthologies
What
other reviewers thought:
SF Signal
The Fix
The Guardian
GoodReads
CinemaRatty
Rob Myers
SimonSays
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