Customer Reviews

Live Without A Net

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

 

 

This anthology was my first exposure to Lou Anders' work as an editor, and I found myself very, very impressed.

I'm a choosy SF reader, and anthologies in particular drive me nuts. I've been rereading DANGEROUS VISIONS for years, and the one bright spot annually is Windling and Datlow's BEST FANTASY AND HORROR - basically, I have to be force-fed anything new.

I was offered an advance copy of LIVE WITHOUT A NET, started reading with no small trepidation, and found myself devouring it. Anders' choices are stunningly good, and his taste in material impeccable. Swanwick, Roberson, and Meaney's contributions may be some of the finest short fiction I've ever read, and the rest of the material held a similar line of quality.

Quit reading this and just go buy the book. Trust me - it's worth the price and then some.

This is an excellent compilation of stories. If you are interested in understanding how science fiction and fantasy are morphing into a new and facinating genre, then I highly recomend this book. It is a snapshot of the medium as it reaches a tipping point and shoots into the future. I have bought 4 books from authors whose short stories I read in this anthology. I highly recommend this book not only for the content, but also for the reading lists it will help you build.

For me the best picks from this volume are those where the authors really get to grips with the idea of a future that has not followed the usual technological route, particularly Di Filippo and Rucker. On the more traditional SFnal front Melko and Del Stone Jr provide more than the bigger names of Brin and Baxter, and Resnick/Kenyon, Hutchinson, Meaney and Stross provide top quality stuff.

All in all, an interesting varied collection, and well worth the shelf-space....

This is a spotty collection. The premise -- a world without computers -- is certainly interesting. The antho, sadly, did not live up to its potential.

Some of the stories are excellent, thought-provoking, and moving: Alex Irvine's "Reformation," Del Stone Jr.'s "I Feed the Machine," and John Meaney's "The Swastika Bomb." A few were truly dreadful -- loosely related at best and/or more style than substance -- including a couple I couln't even make it through. Most were solid, but still dissapointing, on topic, but not credible as to how or why computers weren't in this world. One, John Grant's "No Solace for the Soul in Digitopia," was simply porn with (at its end) a veneer of alternate-universe's clothing.

The closest thing to a common thread was biotech of one sort or another replacing some functions of silicon computing, and the inherent differences of the two computing approaches. When done well (about half the time), that made for something to think about.

Edited by Lou Anders, the sci-fi anthology Live Without a Net (all never-before-published stories, save one) imagines a variety of sci-fi-tinged worlds, future, past, and, present, in which IT, the Internet, and AI as we conceive of it do not exist. Introducing this limitation is an intriguing concept, and the end result is five or six very good stories, a bit of remarkable crap, and some filler.

The best stories are Adam Roberts' "New Model Computer," which puts an O. Henry twist on post-Singularity fiction; Michael Swanwick's "Smoke and Mirrors," an amusing set of short-shorts featuring the author's retro-Victorian rogues, Darger and Surplus; Charlie Stross' "Rogue Farm," David Brin's "Reality Check;" S. M. Stirling's PKD-style head-scrambler "The Crystal Method;" John Meaney's "The Swastika Bomb," a WWII spy epic in an alternate history of advanced biowarfare; and my pick for the best story of the book, Del Stone Jr's frightening doomsday cult scenario, "I Feed The Machine."

Unfortunately, most of the rest is unengaging filler or just plain awful. John Grant's "No Solace For The Soul In Digitopia" consists largely of painfully detailed descriptions of the narrator depositing his seed into his various parallel-Earth wives, and Grant is no better than most sci-fi writers when it comes to sexual matter. The most inexplicable inclusion of the anthology is Alex Irvine's "Reformation," which infuses some Islamic mysticism into a straightforward cyberpunk yarn about a hacker/Internet-revolutionary. Irvine's story completely breaks the "no Net" theme of the book and is terribly out of place. Best left undescribed are "Frek and the Grulloo Woods," Paul di Filippo's "Clouds and Cold Fires," and Dave Hutchinson's "All The News, All Time, From Everywhere."

I'd check this book out at a library for the good stories, but hold off on buying it.

The premise of this anthology is "What would a world without the internet be like?" Some are quite entertaining and inventive and others (notably David Brin and John Grant) are just boring. The majority are just readable and not really worth the time to discuss.

The Novella by John Meaney is the most complete but that may be because it's the only long story in the book and the length helps alot. Some of the writers seem to think that an abrupt ending (like a song that just stops) is how best to end a short story. IMHO it's not. A couple of the stories are just convoluted musings and go nowhere fast.

All in all Harlan Ellison has nothing to fear.

Zeb Kantrowitz

Lou Anders edits Live Without A Net, a fine anthology of stories from masters of speculative fiction. 18 short stories diverge from the popular futuristic visions of a cyber-controlled future to consider alternative futures where cyberspace does NOT rule. Here you'll find winners by Brin, DiFilippo, and others who present startlingly different worlds.

The underlying premise to this eighteen story collection is based on no Internet communicating between the many to the many. This reviewer not only read the book, but also asked her college IT major son do so too (that in of itself is a miracle that he left the hyper realm for the printing realm). Based on this unscientific sample of two (still 67% of the household population), the reaction to the tales will differ depending on the age (and experiences) of the reader. Those ancient baby boomers and fountain of youth older generations know first hand an unwired world of dial phones in which the consumer could choose any color as long as it was black. To that group, the stories will seem like alternate history as it is not much of a stretch to believe that the alternatives might have been viable at one time. To those whose braces are wireless cell phones from the birthing room, the book will still find reading it fun, but it will feel more like a fantasy or science fiction anthology.

The tales are cleverly written so that the much of the audience, regardless of age or experiences, will find LIVE WITHOUT A NET as an entertaining short story medley that is worth the time away from hyperspace HTML to enter the world of printing text.

Harriet Klausner