From Publishers Weekly
Among the contributors headlining this 23-story anthology are Vonda McIntyre, Lawrence Watt-Evans and Bruce Holland Rogers. There are also many mid-level or relatively unknown authors represented, including some making their first appearance in print. Projected as the launch to an annual series, the book is the product of SFF Net, a well-known Web site. According to editor Dwight's afterword, submissions were announced at the site on April 16, 1998, and closed 12 days later. Submissions totaled more than 450--an estimated two million words, according to Dwight. "[I]n a month," he writes, "we went from no book at all to a whopping big 109,000-word anthology filled with award contenders." The result seems to reflect the rapidity of the selection process, as readers will find little new here in terms of theme or style. There are several stories involving cloning or genetic engineering, a few space-based tales and other classic speculative fiction themes. Overall, the selections border on the mundane, although adult language and situations are peppered throughout several of the tales. None of the stories are stand-out efforts; the best is McIntyre's "Elfleda," a solid science-based fantasy yarn. This anthology may have broken some new ground in terms of packaging an anthology, but what's within the package is well-trodden territory.
Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
