Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not as bad as some people say, but not as good either, January 12, 2004
This is a disappointing collection that could have waited a while longer to include Stross's better fiction. Instead, we're left with three great pieces ("A Colder War", "Antibodies", "Extracts from the Club Diary") adrift in an ocean of mediocre prose and stories that range from the average ("Yellow Snow", "A Boy and His God" -- funny story, this, but not much else) to the atrocious ("Big Brother Iron").I still believe that Stross has potential, as evidenced by the better stories. Unfortunately, the rest of the collection fails to meet the same standards, not to mention that it's under-edited and poorly produced (quite a few typesetting errors, and too much text crammed into a single page to save on the page count).
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cory Doctorow is right: Charles Stross IS better than drugs, January 18, 2004
"Toast" is, bar none, the best short story collection I've ever read.Nearly every story gave me a whole-body physical thrill - goose bumps, tingling scalp, and other reactions I omit for fear of Amazon's censors. (Come to think of it, Amazon's censors will severely limit this entire review - you'll have to interpolate as best you can.) The only comparably exciting book I've read lately is Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep." "Lobsters" is my favorite short story, and gives a fair taste of the rest of this collection. In the not-too-distant future, Manfred Macx is busy implementing the principles of open source in the world of intellectual property. His ex-dominatrix/girlfriend is hunting him down; she works for the IRS and is pissed off because Manfred's system of high-tech altruistic barter is robbing the U.S. government of tax revenue needed to pay Social Security, the biggest pyramid scheme of all time. In between, Manfrend fends off a charmingly quirky Russian AI, hit-and-run rubberizations, and a slashdotting, among many other things. Sex, drugs, and patent law - all the ingredients of a fantastic short story, plus Stross's completely unique gritty/gonzo writing style. You can read it on the web - google "charles stross lobsters" and click on "I'm Feeling Lucky." If you are, like me, a computer geek, I have some urgent advice: You want this book. Now. Don't think, just buy it. You'll thank me. If you aren't a computer geek, you'll enjoy this collection anyway.
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30 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stross will melt your mind, September 23, 2002
Stross is a hell of a writer, and Toast is a hell of a book. Charlie and I have written two stories together (and we'll write more, you can be sure of that) and now that I've had a taste of Charlie's writing from the inside and the outside, I have to tell you that Charlie is better than drugs. The stories in this book are, of course, wildly original. Even when Stross is eating another writer's lunch -- a grand tradition in our field -- he's adding seasonings that are all his own. Every page contains ideas that are so whacky and weird that you shouldn't operate heavy machinery for an hour after reading them. Buy Toast. Read Toast. Loan Toast to your friends. They'll thank you, once they come down.
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