Customer Reviews

Tangents

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

 

 

"Tangents" is a mixture of mostly strange, bizzarre 'hard' sci fi and a few stories that actually are easy to grasp by the casual scifi reader (which I am one). Dealing with the drawbacks of genetic programming in a very futuristic world, "Sisters" was touching emotionally, a fascinating short story that was very well written. "Blood Music", the short that spawned an entire novel by the same name, had an intriguing premise, while "Tangents" (the story) showed us the musical bridge to the fourth dimension but the real star of the show was the haunting "Dead Run" which was turned into a Twilight Zone episode. Its by far the best of the bunch. The rest range from disgustingly strange, "Sleepside Story", which is one of the worst pieces i have ever read, and a giant waste of time, and the same sentiments apply to "Webster". Casual sci fi'ers might want to look elsewhere.

This collection of short stories by Greg Bear (his first collection published) feels as if he scoured his desk drawers looking for anything to fill the pages of this collection. His main focus was, obviously, the short story Blood Music. It's great, but the book is even more epic. And the only other story which seems to fit well into a Greg Bear short story collection would be Sisters. This is a sort of precursor to his future society based books Queen of Angels and Slant. Sisters is a healthy grassroots look at being a simple teenager in simple future times.

The rest of the stories range wildly and annoyingly from 1) a story about a man and a magical prostitute, 2) a woman and her dictionary-born boy-toy, 3) a news article about the (quite dated) future of computer graphics and animation.

If you're looking for Bear SF, then look no further than The Venging, which has heaps of hard SF in a number of presentable not-pulled-from-the-back-of-his-desk-drawer stories.

An earlier story collection, and he writers an introduction talking about the difference between forward looking and 'past=comforted' pepole in America, relating that to science fiction.

A pretty good bunch of stories, averaging 3.44.

Tangents : Blood Music [SS] - Greg Bear

Tangents : Sleepside Story - Greg Bear

Tangents : Webster - Greg Bear

Tangents : A Martian Ricorso - Greg Bear

Tangents : Dead Run - Greg Bear

Tangents : Schrödinger's Plague - Greg Bear

Tangents : Through Road No Whither - Greg Bear

Tangents : Tangents - Greg Bear

Tangents : Sisters - Greg Bear

Microcolony kill failure transfer overrun.

4 out of 5

Escort pruning promotes renewal.

3.5 out of 5

Dictionary definition not the same as the real thing.

3 out of 5

First contact rapid overtaking.

2.5 out of 5

Trucking hell, man.

3.5 out of 5

Coin toss experimental global philosophy pandemic probability.

3.5 out of 5

I see bad things for the SS.

3.5 out of 5

Music just adds that extra dimension.

4 out of 5

Designer defect death.

3.5 out of 5