From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The solid, straightforward storytelling of the 19 stories and two poems that Anders (
Futureshocks) gathers for this first in a projected series of all-original SF anthologies speculates on people's efforts to "make sense of a changing world." The contributors don't necessarily assume that humans will find it easy or even possible to cope with all the changes around and within them—but they'll try, which is just part of SF's continuing dialogue about the future. The collection's strongest pieces include Robert Charles Wilson's character study of an almost-artist in search of a muse ("YFL-500"), Mary A. Turzillo's dissection of love ("Pride"), Paul Di Filippo's witty extrapolation of electronic consumerism and democracy gone berserk ("Wikiworld") and Ken MacLeod's understated, moving report on the Second Coming ("Jesus Christ, Reanimator"). All the selections in this outstanding volume prompt thoughtful speculation about what kind of tomorrow we're heading toward and what we'll do when we get there.
(Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
An anthology inspired by its editor's declaration that "science fiction is a tool for making sense of a changing world" contains quite a range of stories, from Elizabeth Bear's "The Something-Dreaming Game," in which children play a fainting game (basically autoerotic asphyxiation), and one girl communicates with the possibly last member of an alien species, to Tony Ballantyne's "Aristotle OS." In that mind-boggler, a journalist with computer problems upgrades from the familiar, platonic OSs to the titular system; the different systems operate on the theories of the philosophers referenced, causing some very interesting problems when the journalist connects to the Internet with its wealth of contradictory information. Ken MacLeod's "Jesus Christ, Reanimator" is an interesting take on the second coming, replete with fascinating rationalizations by both scientific and Christian establishments, none of which wants to take Jesus on faith. Louise Marley tells a time-travel story about a particular performance instruction,
p dolce, in the music of Brahms. Other contributions by such familiar and new names as Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper, Mike Resnick and Nancy Kress, Gene Wolfe, and Paul DiFiippo fill out a worthy menu of engrossing forays into wildly, creatively varied futures.
Regina SchroederCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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