Low Port [Hardcover]

Sharon Lee (Author), Steve Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2003

Ever wonder what really happens on the lower decks of the space ship or in the castle kitchen? This unique collection of original science fiction and fantasy short stories focuses on characters that are normally in the background and brings them to the forefront of the adventure! Low Port features stories by Mark Tiedemann, Laura J. Underwood, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Nathan Archer, Jody Lynn Nye and many others, including a new urban fantasy by Sharon Lee! So come along and meet an orphan with a dream, a dockworker who believes in freedom, a maintenance worker with feelings and visit a soup kitchen with a secret.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For this unexpectedly rewarding SF/fantasy anthology, editors Lee and Miller (the Liaden Universe Adventures) take an offbeat if not especially compelling premise, focusing on writing that features characters who remain in the background of most fiction-street musicians, customs agents, bar owners, social workers, etc. The 20 contributors, mostly newcomers, all suggest that everyone is worth more than a fast glance and that everyone sometimes has a chance to make serious choices. Some preach sentimentally about these truths. But others offer memorable, thought-provoking stories, with settings ranging from alternate worlds (Laura J. Underwood's "The Gift") to urban homelessness (Ru Emerson's "Find a Pin"), from ancient Japan (Alan Smale's "Sailing to the Temple") to interstellar space (eluki bes shahar's "Riis Run"). There's a surprising amount of humor, and, nestled among usually upbeat tales, one lovely piece of blackhearted cynicism, Joe Murphy's "Zappa for Bardog." If the writers' names are largely unfamiliar, here's a good place to sample their work, to see what they can do when a fresh idea intrigues them.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Warning to fans of Lee and Miller's Liaden: this anthology isn't focused on that universe's Low Ports, much as readers might like to see them at center stage for once. Rather, these stories are about the low ports of many worlds, comprising a sort of universe of scruffy towns like Mos Eisley on Tattoine in Star Wars, particularly the back streets and dreary cantinas of such places. As in almost any anthology, the contents' quality varies. But the idea behind the whole enterprise is to tell the stories of folks who usually play small parts in the background; that is, when authors don't neglect them entirely. Despite the p.c. flavor that such a theme often generates, the 20 authors involved here produce a number of original settings and some high-quality characterizations. Pay particular attention to the contributions of eluki bes shahar (aka Rosemary Edghill), Edward McKeown, Jody Lynn Nye, Laura J. Underwood, and, in one of his relatively rare appearances at shorter-than-novel length, L. E. Modesitt. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 374 pages
• Publisher: Meisha Merlin Publishing, Inc.; 1st MM Pub. Ed edition (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592220126
• ISBN-13: 978-1592220120
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #127,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars WELL WRITTEN BUT GLOOMY, November 3, 2003

By 

Phillip B. Spotts "cintibookworm" (Cincinnati, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Low Port (Paperback)

LOW PORT is not your typical Lee/Miller book. It is an anthology of short stories, some very short, set in the depressed underbelly of our future space faring civilization. Don't expect any uplifting happy endings here, there are none. What you do get is some darn good writing from some of the best writers of our times.

If you like short stories, not my personal favorite, or tragedies, again not what I usually enjoy, then this is a book for you.. Involved plots and character development are almost nonexistent, but then that is to be expected from short stories. These are snapshots of life on the sharp edge, the stories of people who inhabit the seedy, grimy parts of our universe. Humans will be human whether its in the shanty towns surrounding a naval port in the Philippines or the whorehouses of a spaceport somewhere out in the stars.

Expect to be fascinated and enthralled by these glimpses into the belly of the beast, but don't expect to feel good afterwards. This isn't space opera where the hero wins out through incredible odds to save his lady love and live happily ever after, this is more like a Greek tragedy where the best you can expect is an ending not quite as depressing as the beginning, a forlorn hope for the most part.

For those of you who like tragedies and E.A. Poe type of stories then LOW PORT is for you in spades. If your tastes run more to the happy ending, space opera genre then you would do better looking elsewhere.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Four and a half star anthology, September 6, 2003

By 

Barb Caffrey "writer-for-hire" (In a Midwest State (of mind), USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Low Port (Paperback)

"Low Port" is a winning effort. The premise is intriguing; what actually happens below decks on a ship? Or in the places most books never bother to delve into?

There are many, many stories here. But to me, the best one was "Riis Run," by eluki bes shahar. This is a sort of prequel to her critically acclaimed "Hellflower" universe, featuring the same two main characters, and also features the patois Ms. bes shahar had made up for those books.

The story behind this one goes along with the overarching premise in the "Hellflower" trilogy, which is that sometimes it's better to die than to live as something other than what you are. And that some knowledge carries too high a price; thing is, the price should still be offered to be paid.

I know I'm not explaining this anywhere near as well as Ms. bes shahar did. Never mind. Let's just say that it's a great story, very well told.

The other stories that I really, truly enjoyed were Ru Emerson's "Find a Pin," which talked about the last day of a homeless woman's life -- and her daughter's search for meaning, and John Teehan's "Digger Don't Take No Requests, which talked about busking, buskers, and their subculture on a space station. Teehan's was particularly interesting, in that it showed that many people, not just technical sorts, will want to go to space. How do we accommodate them?

Several other stories were good, but were not up to the standard of the previous three. "Angel's Kitchen" by Chris Szego had an interesting idea that went on a bit too long for me; Sharon Lee's "Gonna Boogie with Granny Time" was a fun story about loss and potential redemption, but it took a long time to develop. (Granted, I can't think of a better way, myself, to explain this idea. It's just that, up until the last two pages of the story, I really thought the main bad guy had bought his way free of retribution. And he did, too; thing is, he'd bought his way into a worse retribution than he could have realized.)

Every story here is meaningful and has value and worth; that's rare in an anthology. Which is why I give it a four and a half star recommendation; five stars for the first three stories, strong fours for the rest, rounded up.

Final tally: four and a half stars, highly recommended.

Barb Caffrey

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not OUR "Low Port", October 17, 2003

By 

Mike Garrison (Covington, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Low Port (Paperback)

First thing to know is that this is not a collection of Liaden stories. I think the title is deliberately misleading in that regard. It's not that I think everything Lee and Miller does has to be Liaden, but calling the book Low Port seemed a bit deceptive.

So much for what it is not, what about what it is? It's a short story anthology, themed around the underclass and the disadvantaged. There are good and bad things about short story anthologies, and if you like to read them you will probably like this one. If you dislike them in general, you will probably also dislike this one. There is no special link between the stories such as common characters, settings, or authors. And while Lee and Miller seem convinced that it is unusual to write about the kitchen help instead of the king and queen, I've seen plenty of other stories told from that point of view.

Experienced readers will know what they are getting from this book, and can decide for themselves whether or not to read it. For those unexperienced in short story anthologies, you might as well try it out. It's a pretty typical example of the format, and there are some pretty good short stories in here.