Apostrophes & Apocalypses: The First Collection From One of the Most Acclaimed SF Writers of the Decade (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

John Barnes writes hard SF with a heart; his speculations are always grounded in working things out from first principles, but he remembers to think also about how his imaginary situations might feel. "Gentleman Pervert, Out on a Spree," for example, starts with some speculation about tagging, and the speed with which an information age can make a marginal life worse--Ken is photographed curb-crawling and is then divorced and fired before he even gets home.

It moves, though, in unexpected directions--no excuses are made for Ken and his compulsions, yet we get to know and even love him like a deeply flawed younger brother. When Barnes writes of the fall of civilization to Christianity and/or barbarism, his rationalism does not rule out empathy for other ways of seeing--and there is a sense that armed conflict always involves collateral losses of more than just lives. The doomed soldier of "Advice to the Civilized" knows that in that regret lies the whole difference between civilization and barbarism. The stories come packaged with some nonfiction--Barnes writes well about building a world and his views on style and criticism; he writes inspirationally about education and his hopes for the future. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

In the dozen stories presented here, Barnes (Mother of Storms; A Million Open Doors) deals with social mechanization, nonhuman intelligence, extraterrestrials, the biology and politics of the far future and diverse extrapolations of modern science?the kind of SF that defines the genre for many readers. In an unusual fantasy piece he even analyzes goblin magic, quantifying the relation of pain and power. Not a few of the works are "trunk stories" and, strangely, Barnes, in brief introductions, variously apologizes or refuses to apologize for the deficiencies that made them unsalable. There are several cautionary tales about the mind-strangling tyranny of a future theocracy and some brave forays into sexuality, including a future therapy for sexual compulsive disorder and an instance of gay interspecies sex. That typical SF hazard, a daunting proportion of information to plot, creeps into several stories. But Barnes's canvas is often exhilaratingly broad; he can sketch the genesis and decline of planetary civilizations in three or four pages?and be funny at the same time. His classic essay, "How to Build a Future," is reprinted in these pages as well; it's a juggling act of rigorous number-crunching and the baldest guesswork. There are seven other short essays, too often smug, pompous even, and not so carefully reasoned, on topics ranging from pedagogy to genre criticism.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (November 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312861478
• ISBN-13: 978-0312861476
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,530,072 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Barnes does it again, January 11, 1999

By	[e-mail] (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This is exactly what I want in a collection - stories and essays by a great author. I really enjoyed it, and reccomend it to anyone who likes Barnes' novels, or just well written SF.

I found in reading this book that the author has both a BA-Economics and an MA-Political Science, math-intensive. This explains much about his well planned worlds and scholarly characters, but there is so much more here than that. Buy it. Read it. Understand why he's compared to Heinlein so often.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Barnes' short stories are even better than his novels, May 8, 2000

By	Travisji Corcoran "anarcho-capitalist" (Arlington, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: Apostrophes & Apocalypses: The First Collection From One of the Most Acclaimed SF Writers of the Decade (Paperback)

I came to John Barnes' writing through his novels, and was very pleasantly suprised to find his short stories. They pack almost as much creativity as is usually found in a 300 page work into a scant 30 pages. The downside to this, of course, is that after being so drawn in to one of his universes, you want to stay with the world and the characters for another 270 pages...

One great thing about this collection are the essays interleaved between the stories. The insight into how Barnes arrives at his plots and universes is a special treat.

3.0 out of 5 stars Warts and All--But Too Many Warts, August 4, 2003

By	Scott R. Lucado "I'm the other author named L... (Fort Worth, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been reading a lot of John Barnes in the past year, and maybe I'm just overdosing.

Parts of this collection, mostly the non-fiction segments, were quite interesting, but others were boring, inferior, and in the case of "Gentleman Pervert, Out on a Spree," downright repulsive.

As a prelude to one of the stories, Mr. Barnes writes: "If you have half as much fun reading this as I had writing it, I will have had twice as much fun as you did" or something like that. I'll be more generous than that--he probably had twenty times as much fun as I did.

Mr. Barnes's fans (and I consider myself one) should read this book, as I think it offers some insight into the writer's scope, and perhaps more importantly, thought process.

The overall impression I have after reading this collection is that Barnes is a talented and prolific writer, but a trifle condescending.