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I am not a short story fan, which is odd, given my mouldering span of attention. But there is something irritating about a tale that is over just when you start to 'get' it. But I am a Charles Stross fan, one who discovered him late, and while desperately waiting for another novel to appear, I decided to try out his shorter output via this retrospective volume selected out by the author himself.

Stross has an incredibly wide-ranging imagination. He writes hard science fiction about very far out ideas. In fact the very first story here, Antibodies, is about a theoretical idea whose very existence can threaten reality. From there we go one to the economics of information in a very virtual universe, the coffee club that ate the world, what H. P. Lovecraft only suspected, and other, equally peculiar tales.

Stross's tongue is always squarely in his check, even as he displays an impressive intellect and a deep understanding of what the world inside a geek's head really looks like. I'm to old to be considered a geek any longer, but it is fascinating to read Stross's own spin on what was interesting about my own generation of 'techies' (the title story). And there is even a delightfully ironic narrative about a Y2K apocalypse cruise.

While I haven't been converted to a short story lover, my faith in one of the odder minds out there producing quality science fiction has been confirmed. This is a writer who first made his mark as a short fiction writer. If you want to see what the fuss is about, with the added pleasure of occasional comments by the author, start here.

This collection of short stories has been available for some years now, being originally published in 2002, and containing stories written between the late 80s and 2000. This limited edition is supposedly the last one there will be, but it is still available in a mass-market paperback edition and online, although the online edition doesn't include one of the best stories, "A Boy And His God". The limited edition is worth buying though, simply because it's a far higher quality physical artifact.

As you would expect of a book containing some of the author's very earliest work, the quality is patchy. Some of the stories have dated badly, and others are poorly plotted or poorly written. However, there are four really good stories here that are well worth reading and which between them make the book worth buying.

The best two are "A Colder War" and "A Boy And His God", both of which use H.P.Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, and use it far better than Lovecraft himself ever did. "A Boy And His God" is particularly interesting, as it twists the mythos to be funny and even cute. Both are well-observed and eminently enjoyable. Also worth mentioning are "Big Brother Iron", which brings Orwell's "1984" up to date by exploring what might happen when Big Brother computerises his records, and "Lobsters", which was later turned into the first section of Accelerando.

All of the other stories have fairly serious flaws, but are at least worth reading as most of them do at least contain interesting ideas.

These are several short stories that were written before 1995, with a current commentary. It is interesting to see how technology has made some of these stories outdated, and some of them have held up. The commentary by the author adds interest. While many of the stories were clearly written in the early part of career, it is worth reading to see how his writing has improved and ideas have been expanded. Buy this if you like Stross' writing.

Every story is in a different tone, almost in the style of a different classic SF author each time. Highly recommended.

I was really disappointed with this one-- It wasn't up to his usual quality. The story "Lobsters" was good, but it was just an excerpt from Accelerando.

I really enjoy Stross, but as a big fan, I have to rate this one "meh"

A collection of early short stories. You can see some of the early ideas that get developed later in the novels. His later novels are much better.

ANTIBODIES alone is worth the price of admission on this book. Significant for readinig Stross' getting up to speed work and some of these stories are classic SF in their own right.

Stross tackles the singularity in these stories. This is the concept put forth a few years ago by Vernor Vinge and Hans Moravec. That the rate of change in human society induced by technology is accelerating. And that at some point, we will build a true sentient artificial intelligence. A singularity. Since presumably that being can then rapidly improve itself, and leave us pitiful mortals far behind.

Most of the stories in this collection revolve around the concept. Think of it as cyberpunk taken to an extreme. The stories were written from the late 80s to the early Noughties. The first stories predate the Web. And one story from the early 90s warns of Y2K. Where the last sentence echoes Clarke's ending to the Nine Billion Names of God.

We are already in 2006 as I write this. One amusing note from the book was a claim made by someone else in the late 90s. That the Noughties will see change equal to the changes from 1950-2000. With only 4 years to go, that prediction seems a tad optimistic. Like Minsky's predictions in the 60s of imminent AI.