Customer Reviews

New Legends

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

 

 

This contained "Wang's Carpet" which I believe became part of "Diaspora" & "Recording Angel" which is set in the world of "Child of the River". It also contains other good stories enjoy!

This collection of SF explores many fields of science like a collection of short stories has never done before. Each story sheds like onto some science related topic, some newly written about and some reworked. What follows is the story title, science explored and synopsis

Elegy
Neurology
Squid neurons in human brains

Desperate Calculus
Epidemiology
Superflu infects 97% of humans

Future Marriage
Psychology
Couple argue after losing game show

Coming of Age in Karhide
Xenosociology
Nostalgic coming-of-age for alien

High Abyss
Xenometerology
Victorious king takes scientific flight

Recording Angel
"Chrono-sociology"
Ancient human disrupts future society

When Strangers Meet
"Xenomonarchology"
The One commontates on New Year ritual

The Day the Aliens Came
"Interxenosexology"
Alien neighborhood orgies on Earth

Gnota
Transgenetics
Soldier struggles with inplant and donor

Rorvik's War
Military technology
Drafted soldier fights Russians

Radiance
Experimental physics
Team struggles to build weapon for government

Red Blaze is the Morning
Archeology
Telepathis alien talks to man at dig site

One
Explorative astronomy
Isolated couple explore solar systems

Scarecrow
Theology
Couple stranded on Saturn moon

Wang's Carpet
Xenobiology
Post-human faction explores new planet

A fine anthology that Bear put together here. There is also a reminiscence he wrote about a group of right wing sf writers being asked to talk to the government about space weapons etc. meeting Arthur C. Clarke while discussing this and telling him off for having the temerity to actually disagree with them, because he was not American, with Heinlein the ringleader. Friendly bunch. Bit insecure too, by the sound of it.


New Legends : Elegy - Mary Rosenblum
New Legends : A Desperate Calculus - Sterling Blake
New Legends : Scenes from a Future Marriage - James Stevens-Arce
New Legends : Coming of Age in Karhide by Sov Thade Tage em Ereb of Rer in Karhide on Gethen - Ursula K. LeGuin
New Legends : High Abyss - Gregory Benford
New Legends : Recording Angel - Paul J. McAuley
New Legends : When Strangers Meet - Sonia Orin Lyris
New Legends : The Day the Aliens Came - Robert Sheckley
New Legends : Gnota - Greg Abraham
New Legends : Rorvik's War - Geoffrey A. Landis
New Legends : Radiance - Carter Scholz
New Legends : The Red Blaze is the Morning - Robert Silverberg
New Legends : One - George Alec Effinger
New Legends : Scarecrow - Poul Anderson
New Legends : Wang's Carpets - Greg Egan


Scientist use squid neurons against Alzheimer's, may have found a surprising relationship as a consequence.

4 out of 5


Population control by epidemic.

3.5 out of 5


Taking gameshows way too seriously.

2.5 out of 5


Puberty gender blues cured by dedicated fracking and food, even if the flavor can be a crapshoot.

4 out of 5


Large scale type war.

3 out of 5


Personality variations don't quite cut it, universal aims are worth a shot though.

4 out of 5


Better understand the local entertainment customs.

3 out of 5


Trading with the long way out of towners is quite odd.

4 out of 5


Hard, life or death choices, with pigs like us.

4.5 out of 5


Drafted into simulation.

4.5 out of 5


Space missile defense politics, physics and prevarication.

3.5 out of 5


Archaeologist time swap.

4 out of 5


Astronomically improbable flop gets robots religion, and they are guided to the irrational light.

3.5 out of 5


A conservative transhuman polis sets out to search for alien life on other planets. The planet they find surprises them in a bit way, as the carpetlike inhabitants seem to grow by a pattern described by an obscure mathematician. Their nature allows them to perform as a Turing machine, and they are running one pretty impressive simulation.

A story you might just have to read a bit of twice.

5 out of 5

An interesting and somewhat ambitious collection of stories. Most of them are not, in fact, "hard" SF in any meaningful way.

In general, the stories are more interesting than truly entertaining, with a couple of exceptions; the authors and editor seem more interested in impressing critics than in old-fashioned sense of wonder. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does suggest that those of us who lack highbrow tastes should approach the book with some caution. (Also, most of the stories are on the downbeat side, which is typical of the literary approach.)