This collection of 25 innovative and mind-blowing stories includes contributions from Sci-Fi pioneers such as Stephen Baxter, Robert Reed, J. G. Ballard, Arthur C. Clarke, Alastair Reynolds, and Geoffrey Landis.
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About the Author
Mike Ashley is the editor of numerous successful Sci-Fi and fantasy collections including The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction and The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy. He lives in Chatham, England.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A really good anthology.,
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This review is from: The Mammoth Book of Mind-Blowing SF (Paperback)
I enjoyed most of these stories. There are many of my favorite authors including Baxter, Reed and Silverberg. Highly recommended!
* 1 * Out of the Sun * (1958) * shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke * 9 * The Pevatron Rats * (2009) * novelette by Stephen Baxter * 30 * The Edge of the Map * (2006) * shortstory by Ian Creasey * 47 * Cascade Point * (1983) * novella by Timothy Zahn * 105 * A Dance to Strange Musics * (1998) * novelette by Gregory Benford * 131 * Palindromic * (1997) * novelette by Peter Crowther * 156 * Castle in the Sky * (2009) * novelette by Robert Reed * 191 * The Hole in the Hole * [Wilson Wu and Irving] * (1994) * novelette by Terry Bisson * 224 * Hotrider * (1991) * shortstory by Keith Brooke * 237 * Mother Grasshopper * (1997) * shortstory by Michael Swanwick * 255 * Waves and Smart Magma * novelette by Paul Di Filippo * 282 * The Black Hole Passes * [Eight Worlds] * (1975) * novelette by John Varley * 309 * The Peacock King * (1965) * shortstory by Larry McCombs and Ted White * 325 * Bridge * (1952) * novelette by James Blish * 355 * Anhedonia * (2009) * novelette by Adam Roberts * 380 * Tiger, Burning * (2006) * novelette by Alastair Reynolds * 407 * The Width of the World * (1983) * shortstory by Ian Watson * 421 * Our Lady of the Sauropods * (1980) * shortstory by Robert Silverberg * 438 * Into the Miranda Rift * (1993) * novella by G. David Nordley * 504 * The Rest is Speculation * shortstory by Eric Brown * 524 * Vacuum States * (1988) * shortstory by Geoffrey A. Landis
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mildly Mindblowing,
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This review is from: The Mammoth Book of Mind-Blowing SF (Paperback)
MindBlowing SF is a mix of hard-to-find reprints and 5 brand-new stories. There's a definite emphasis on long out-of-print stories that have been supposedly overlooked.
The book is definitely mammoth and tends toward hard science fiction. This means that the stories generally focus on science (or pseudo-science) and ideas, and it is the ideas that will blow your mind, not love-triangles or feelings. Most of the stories are very good and worth reading though some of the older stories don't seem to have aged well in my opinion. Calling them mindblowing is a bit of marketing exaggeration obviously, these are not the best 21 science fiction short stories ever written, just very good SF short stories that are hard to find anywhere else. Some of the more mind-blowing stories: Our Lady of the Sauropods / Robert Silverberg - Dino SF, and my favorite story in the book. It's Jurassic Park in space with a better ending. The Rest is Speculation / Eric Brown - A visit to Earth when the sun is in its dying stages. It will make you consider what a short run humans have had compared to the age of our planet. Vaccum States / Geoffrey A. Landis - An enjoyable story written in the rare 2nd person perspective. It may or may not be about the end of the universe.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Brace yourself for not having your mind blown,
By
This review is from: The Mammoth Book of Mind-Blowing SF (Paperback)
I do realize that the word "mindblowing" in the title has a lot to do with marketing, but I was very disappointed when I realized it had much more to do with marketing than I assumed. The book opens up with a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, "Out of the Sun". It is a fairly good story and it made me think the book is going in the right direction.
Truth is, it's all just downhill from there on, with a couple of exceptions, such as "The Hole in the Hole" by Terry Bisson, which is a nice and relaxing read, but hardly mindblowing; and "The Black Hole passes" by John Varley, which is more of a love story with elements of SF, than SF with elements of a love story. The high point of the book, in my opinion, is "Cascade Point" by Timothy Zahn, a story in which the protagonist is followed on a journey through alternate realities that has gone terribly wrong, then backtracks on a series of educated guesses, all the while being tormented by the event that takes place during each of the jumps through the realities only to realize in the end that what he sees - the results of the numerous alternative choices he could have made in the past - should not torment him at all. Then again, there are stories in this book with an underlying man-hating premise, which spoils any story, however good the ideas. Two most prominent of these are "Anhedonia" by Adam Roberts and "Our Lady of the Sauropods" by Robert Silverberg, one suggesting that our capacity for experiencing pleasure only gets in the way of our intellectual abilities (more precisely in space exploration), and the other suggesting that our intellectual abilities are hampering what is deemed as more important by the author - the feeling of togetherness and belonging. Then again there are stories which just seem too plain silly to have ever made it to paper, let alone book form. Such are "The Pevatron Rats" by Stephen Baxter, featuring mutant rats that can travel through time and multiply uncontrollably; "The Edge of the Map" by Ian Ceasey, with the idea of microscopic cameras filming at all times every square inch of the Earth - and I mean EVERY square inch; "A Dance to Strange Musics" by Gregory Benford, teaching us that some places are better left unexplored; "Mother Grasshopper" by Michael Swanwick, featuring a grasshopper-shaped planet where death walks in flesh, etc. The book earns its second star only on the merit of containing the stories I mentioned first. If they were mindblowing like the title promises, I might have given it the third star. The most you can expect from this book are some original ideas, but nothing more.
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