Customer Reviews

The Best of Interzone

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first story makes the price of the book worth while! (Egan's piece, 'Mitochondrial Eve,' is tight, pertinent, and funny ten years after first publication. If you read it closely, you'll laugh out loud.)

The truth about British sci-fi is that it often puts American sci-fi to shame in the area of style. I found the stories in this work superbly written, whereas I often get sleepy slogging through Mr. Dozois tastes (because they're so consistent, so repetitive).

This collection has a lot of fresh ideas. 'Best of Interzone' is a great gift for a person you know who likes modern (short) fiction and wants to try, for the first time, "a little science fiction." It will offer a sublime feel for what authors with panache and a little articulate gab can do if they're motivated. High recommendations!

K.M. McKay

Here's the Table of Contents:

Introduction by David Pringle
Mitochondrial Eve by Greg Egan
The Message from Mars by J. G. Ballard
The Sculptor by Garry Kilworth
The Allure by Richard Calder
Song of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese by Nicola Griffith
Pigs, Mostly by Ian Lee
The Tourist by Paul Park
George and the Comet by Stephen Baxter
Warmth by Geoff Ryman
The Family Football by Ian R. MacLeod
Ahead! by Ian Watson
Bad Timing by Molly Brown
World Wars III by Paul Di Filippo
Bird on a Time Branch by Cherry Wilder
Norbert and the System by Timons Esaias
Sharp Tang by John Meaney
Off the Track by David Garnett
The Eye-Opener by Brian Aldiss
The Welfare Man by Chris Beckett
The Data Class by Ben Jeapes
Downtime in the MKCR by Eric Brown
Eat Reecebread by Graham Joyce and Peter F. Hamilton
The Unkindness of Ravens by Brian Stableford
The Man Who Read a Book by Thomas M. Disch
Slow News Day by Kim Newman
The Net of Babel by David Langford
A Ring of Green Fire by Sean McMullen
Human Waste by Mary Gentle
Cyril the Cyberpig by Eugene Byrne
-Author Biographies

This is a average anthology which provides a good intro to Brit Sci-Fi. Well, mainly Brit, anyway. My favorite story here is "Mitochondrial Eve" by Greg Egan, who is an Australian.

I got this book cheap, so I can't really complain.

There are 29 stories here, representing "The Best of Interzone" from the first half of the Nineties. Interzone is the UK's premiere SF magazine and it can certainly hold its head up in any company. So, this book has the makings of a good anthology. Many of the authors will be well known to SF fans around the world.

Perhaps I was expecting too much but, for me at least, the book did not live up to expectations. Some of the stories were really good but too many were mediocre and one or two were very hard going.

The two stories that stood out the most were right at the end of the book. "Human Waste" by Mary Gentle and "Cyril the Cyberpig" by Eugene Byrne. These two tales could hardly be more different. The first was a ghastly reminder of the desire or perhaps even the need for cruelty that can drive humans. It reminded me very much of "All My Darling Daughters" by Connie Willis which you can find in the first of Ellen Datlow's "Alien Sex" anthologies. Eugene Byrne's tale on the other hand is a sort of "Robocop" satire which had me laughing out loud several times.

I rate this as three stars. It's worth it if you like shorter SF a lot but if you will only read one anthology this year, then you should really find a better one. A real "Best of Interzone" could have been much better than this.

I don't even much like the british things that are popular in the usa like monty python, the beatles, shakespeare okay americans don't like shakespeare either, but you get my point. Anyway they do produce great science fiction. Interzone has some stuff too out there for me, but this has some hard sf & other stuff that's readable. Try it if you got time.