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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent collection no matter where you're from...,
By
This review is from: A Very Large Array: New Mexico Science Fiction and Fantasy (Hardcover)
New Mexico is home to a surprising number of sci-fi and fantasy authors--and an even more surprising number of really good ones. This collection features short pieces from a wide variety of them, as well as brief introductions to every piece by their authors attempting to explain how the state has affected their work and why they live here.
The best parts of A VERY LARGE ARRAY, however, are the stories themselves, most of which are good enough that any fan of the genres could find something to enjoy in them, whether they live in New Mexico or not. Here is a list of the stories and authors the book contains, with brief commentaries for them all. 1. "For a Breath I Tarry," by Roger Zelazny. This one is easily my personal favorite in the collection--a 1966 short story about a distant future in which humanity is extinct, but huge, god-like machines still exist to maintain the planet for humanity's well-being. One product of these machines is a forty-foot-wide, sentient, gelatinous cube that becomes obsessed with what it must be have been like to be human, and his story is just outstanding--extreme sci-fi at its best. I would have loved to have seen this idea and this world expanded into a novel. Zelazny is just amazing. 2."Jamboree," by Jack Williamson. This is a terrifying and totally ridiculous view of the future, in which robots have turned the earth into a giant Boy Scout camp, in which every child can earn merit badges for snitching on those would disobey, adults don't seem to exist, and everyone lives in fear of the dreaded "Jamboree." Very enjoyable. 3."Video Star," by Walter Jon Williams. This seems to take place in a world very similar to Williams' HARDWIRED, and is the story of a man trying to steal a super-drug from a futuristic hospital, with the help of cyberpunks. It's a page-turner, for sure. 4."Smasher," by Fred Saberhagen. This takes place on a distant, earth-like but mostly lifeless planet, where a small group of scientists are descended upon by tiny robot killing machines. It's very visual, and good. 5."A Musical Interlude," by Suzy McKee Charnas. This is a chapter from Charnas's book, THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRIES. A vampire professor preys on students at UNM and then attacks a man backstage at the Santa Fe Opera. It's interesting, but not a genre I usually get into. Also, it's the only piece in the book that doesn't completely stand alone. 6."Sliding Rock," by Terry Boren. This is an often creepy piece about skinwalkers on the Navajo reservation. It felt tinged with supernatural qualities to me, but could have merely been a portrayal of an unusual reality as seen from a supernaturally-minded perspective. It's very atmospheric, and made me want to head out the rez. 7."In the Lost Lands," by George R.R. Martin. I do not consider myself much of a fantasy fan, but this is one of the most well-written pieces in the book, and kept my attention and interest for page after page. It's the story of a mysterious woman paid to give a woman the ability to become a wolf, of how she hunts down a werewolf, and of why it might have been better for people not to have sought her help. It's a good read. 8."Unworthy of the Angel," by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is the story of a unique angel who comes to save a sculptor who has been making dark statues out of an evil-seeming black clay. For every piece the sculptor makes, his sister bleeds more; she's dying from it. It's beautifully written, and its best parts are the sort-of-sci-fi perspective it lends to the everyday and the mundane--to light, crowds, a city, and so forth. 9."Feast of John the Baptist," by Victor Milan. In a post-apocalyptic future that not even carrion birds and flies have survived, a small band of inexplicably surviving humans finds a dead sheep in the Southwestern desert. Almost a lyric essay. Very nice. 10."Frenchman and Plumbers," by Martha Soukup. Wow, this is entertaining. In the future, mankind has pretty much destroyed the planet, and is dying off. They beseech a recently detected alien race for help, but the aliens think humans just need the planet to be prettier.... This is a great idea, and it's set mostly in northern New Mexico. 11."Ouroboros," by John J. Miller. This is a great story about a genius girl who works to build a time machine at a college laboratory. The college may be UNM, but it's not explicit about that. It's a great piece, and is good enough that by the time you get to it, even after reading other stories, you still want the book to continue. 12."Requiem," by Melinda Snodgrass. This story, a bit more sexually explicit than most of the others, shows a Santa Fe about three-hundred years in the future, in which a strange race of parasites has possessed everyone, living in them symbiotically, making them live in fear, in a tired, mechanistic routine. It's a fun and interesting read, and reveals its details carefully, almost like a mystery novel. "Requiem" is written by Melinda Snodgrass, who put this whole collection together, and who wrote the book's introduction. The story I've heard says that this book almost single-handedly saved UNM Press from the brink of bankruptcy when it came out, because all the writers in this book donated their stories just to help out what they recognized as one of the Southwest's greatest literary assets. The book was a huge success, one of the press's biggest sellers ever, and served as just the impetus needed to get the entire operation back on track. That's what I've heard, anyway. In a perfect world, A VERY LARGE ARRAY would always remain in print. It's a great book for any fan of sci-fi and fantasy, and it's an absolute pleasure to read.
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