Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant (eds.)

Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories is a new young adult collection edited by veteran anthologists Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant. Featuring twelve conventional short stories and two graphic entries, Steampunk! showcases a wide variety of ideas and styles that fall under the steampunk umbrella. The collection is entertaining and is lent extra freshness by the variety of settings explored by the authors: none of the stories are set in Victorian London… Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories is a solid anthology well worth picking up by any young adult (or not-so-young adult) reader interested in the steampunk genre. Especially satisfying were the complex characters who populate these tales and the diverse range of settings. My personal favorites were the entries by Kelly Link, Dylan Horrocks, and M.T. Anderson, but I thoroughly enjoyed the whole collection and have discovered some new authors to try. Read the rest.

Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories edited by John Joseph Adams

…Brave New Worlds is as perfect an anthology as you could hope for… One of the great things about a broad anthology like this one, collecting 33 different stories that still all fall under the umbrella of dystopian SF, is that you get the chance to sample a large variety of styles and approaches. Classics and brand new stories, short vignettes and longer tales… Almost anything that could conceivably go wrong with our world goes wrong in one or more of these stories… There are a few stories in Brave New Worlds that will simply stay with you forever… It doesn’t happen very often that you find an anthology that’s perfectly executed from start to finish, but Brave New Worlds is exactly that. The stories in this collection are science fiction in the truest sense of the word, starting from an often painful sociological premise and extrapolating it to the most private and emotional aspects of our lives. The only reasons I can think of for not liking this book would be if you have an aversion to either dystopian SF or short fiction. If you don’t fall in either of those categories, you simply won’t find a finer anthology than Brave New Worlds. Read the rest.

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams

John Joseph Adams assembles a wide variety of apocalypse-related fiction in Wastelands. some of which are older than I am, while others are more recent. What you end up with is a diverse anthology covering topics such as religion, war, and exploration while containing horror, comedy, and a sense of wonder… Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse is an interesting ensemble and I enjoyed many of the stories in this anthology. Adams succeeds in providing a diverse array of pieces despite the seemingly specific theme… Read the rest.

The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow by Cory Doctorow

When we meet Jimmy Yensid, the hero of Cory Doctorow‘s novella The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow, he is aboard his giant mecha and hunting down a wumpus in the abandoned city of Detroit, until he comes under attack from a rival group of mechas. The resulting action scene is spectacular — and really made me want to dig out my ancient Mechwarrior games — but as you’d expect from Doctorow, there’s much more going on than meets the eye.

Jimmy is a transhuman boy, genetically engineered to be as close to immortal as you can get. The wumpuses are ravenous mechanical monsters who consume any non-organic matter they find and recycle it into arable soil. Meanwhile, Jimmy’s father is actually trying to preserve Detroit, the last standing city in the United States, as a historical artifact. Read more »

Context by Cory Doctorow

When you consider the entirety of Cory Doctorow‘s creative output, it’s actually a bit surprising that the first title in his bio (on his own site) is “science fiction novelist.” After all, if you add up the amazing amount of blog posts, magazine articles, newspaper columns, speeches and various other non-fiction he produces, I’m pretty sure that they would add up to more words per calendar year than his fiction, and in terms of visibility it’s quite possible that more people have seen his name connected to a blog post or newspaper column than on the cover of a novel.

Adding some balance to Doctorow’s bibliography, Tachyon Publications just released Context, his second collection of essays after 2008′s Content. Fans of the author will know what to expect, and for readers who are only familiar with Doctorow’s novels, this book is a great place to start and get to know one of the 21st century’s most interesting and prolific minds. Read more »