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Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF Mass Market Paperback – March 30, 2010

by Jetse de Vries (Author)

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Some of the world’s most talented SF writers collected to throw light on a brighter future.

Shine: a collection of gems that throw light on a brighter future. Some of the world’s most talented SF writers (including Alastair Reynolds, Kay Keyon and Jason Stoddard) show how things can change for the better. From gritty polyannas to workable futures, from hard-fought progress to a better tomorrow; heart-warming and mind-expanding stories that will (re-) awaken the optimist in you!

Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF

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Product Details

Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
Publisher: Solaris (March 30, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1906735670
ISBN-13: 978-1906735678
Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.2 x 6.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,115,913 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2246 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Anthologies
- #106902 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States

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Top Customer Reviews

Hopeful, sophisticated SF

ByFred L. Warrenon September 11, 2010

Format: Mass Market Paperback

Science fiction is not a cheerful genre. You might think that people preoccupied with the future would be purveyors of all that is happy and uplifting-flying cars, wonder cures, brave new worlds, friendly aliens, robot maids-a merry universe filled with optimistic geekery.

You'd be wrong, mostly. Oh, the happy-sappy stuff is out there, but it's dominated by gloomy, grimy, horrific tales of Humanity Gone Wrong. Stories that wake you in the wee hours to whisper in your ear, "You will all die-or you will desperately wish you had."

Enter Shine, "an anthology of near-future optimistic science fiction." Editor Jan de Vries has collected 16 stories with a common theme: There is hope for the future. Is he peddling naive visions of rainbows and lollipops? Hardly. de Vries is convinced that getting to the future is going to be an uphill climb. It will require blood, sweat, and ingenuity. We will fall along the way, and we will pick ourselves up and keep going. We will never surrender, and we will win through.

Lofty sentiments-more worthy, I think, than your run-of-the-mill apocalyptic death cult dystopias, though I expect it will take something more than a stiff upper lip to set things right on `ol Terra del Sol, and I consider myself an optimist.

At any rate, these are some thoughtful, well-written stories that don't settle for easy answers. Like all speculative fiction, they are children of the times that spawned them. There's a preoccupation with Green issues and technology. Transhumanism, the melding of mind and machine, pops up quite a bit. There are fewer space travel/colonization stories than I expected, but Shine focuses on the near future, wrestling with problems we experience now or expect soon. The authors are multinational, offering some fresh perspectives set in unusual locales.

An exhaustive review of all the stories would be too time-consuming, and I've rambled enough. It's a good anthology. If you're hankering for optimistic, sophisticated sci-fi, it's here. Buy, read, enjoy, and prepare to be challenged a little. A few of the stories include rough language and adult situations, so if you're sensitive to that, be forewarned.

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fun

ByM. Serruyaon July 30, 2010

Format: Mass Market PaperbackVerified Purchase

What a great idea! A refreshing change from dystopian visions yet in a manner that isn't really 'utopian' either, but intelligently optimistic.

My favorites were:

The Earth of Yunhe by Eric Gregory
Summer Ice by Holly Phillips
Overhead by Jason Stoddard
Church of Accelerated Redemption, Gareth L. Powell & Aliette de Bodard
Russian Roulette 2020 by Eva Maria Chapman

Although not the most 'sci-fi-ish' or technical, Holy Phillip's piece was by far the most beautifully written, reminiscent of Walker Percy, Michael Chabon and Virginia Woolf. In this sense she might be a kind of heir to Ray Bradbury in bringing such skill with style and metaphor to the sci-fi genre.

I feel like Russian Roulette 2020 would be a great story to assign to teenagers and discuss- the author definitely has her fingers on the pulse of 2010.

Stoddard, Powell & de Bodard and Gregory's stories have clever ideas, pacing and make you want to jump up and cheer.

I heartily look forward to reading more stories by these authors and more anthologies by this editor.

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The future is up to you. Get to work!

ByModesty Presson July 6, 2012

Format: Mass Market Paperback

Most people seem to seek optimism through religious belief. In a sense, religious documents such as the Bible were the first science fiction stories, imaging how the world was created, how human beings developed, and imagining happy outcomes such as life after death and creating imaginary worlds such as Heaven and Hell, so that the good are rewarded and the evil are unpunished, something that does not always happen in mundane life.

Now that humans have invented/developed science/empiricism, we have less need for "creation myths," though lots of humans still cling to them. Most science fiction writers and readers, I suspect, are not religious believers, though there are notable exceptions, such as Cordwainer Smith. Nevertheless, empiricism does not provide us with consolation for our mortality, or a reason to live. Although most of us choose to live, despite the existential dilemma - "Life is a bitch/bastard; then you die" - it is notable that human beings are pretty much the only animals that commit suicide. (Possible exception - whales.) But most of us live because we are animals and that is what animals do.

To me, there is clearly no God. Humans are clearly animals, with exceptional brains and self-awareness, especially of our mortality and the nihilistic futility of existence. So why do we choose to survive? As animals, we reproduce and dote on offspring. As we get older, we fantasize Heaven or reincarnation, or we engage in projects (what the followers of Ernst Becker call "immortality projects") to make ourselves live in in the consciousness of others, but good deeds such as saving lives or creative endeavors such as composing symphonies, making paintings, designing buildings, or writing novels.

We are both very dangerous and destructive creatures, with the capability to destroy ourselves (as we have already wiped out many creatures and harmed our ecosphere, and we are very caring and creative creatures who can cure cancer, transplant hearts, and create great works of beauty and kindness. As there are so many evil events in history such as slavery, genocide, individual murder and tortue - such as the Holocaust and Stalin and Mao's slave states and mass murders, as well as eco disasters such as Bhopal, Chernobyl, Seveso, Exon Valdez, Love Canal, Pacific Gyre Dead Patch, and Mississippi Dead Zone.

Thus there is no lack of inspiration for dire dystopian science fiction. Shine makes a valiant effort to imagine human imagination and talent succeeding in solving our problems, and in providing projects to work on and reasons to live. Others have written story by story synopses, so I won't do that. But I consider the book provides entertaining and inspiring imaginations of success and interesting projects for us to work on. I am old so I won't save the world. But if you are a younger person reading this, read this book, and get to work creating a decent future for my grandchild to live in.

0Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Most Recent Customer Reviews

Worth Purchasing For the Sake of A Single Story

Not optimistic so much as dystopian futures where people haven't completely given up yet. It's a stretch to call these optimistic.Read more

Published 1 year ago by sailorrun

More of this please

We have enough experience of the science fiction condition (with a mostly dystopian flavor) by reading the latest news, and increasingly, daily life.Read more

Published 1 year ago by Chris Crihfield

Shining shines shone and shined but is mainly blocked out by a giant eclipse of silly science

The anthology opens with an introduction by the editor exclaiming his disinterest and disappointment in the numerous and abundant distopian sci-fi novels that have filled-out...Read more

Published on March 7, 2014 by Inspector Gadget

I wanted to believe...

SHINE is a sadly depressing collection of dark stories, which are set in a dystopian nightmare world of tomorrow.Read more

Published on June 10, 2011 by E.S.S.

Worth Plundering and Well-Edited

When I'm running low on new authors, I buy an anthology. I found _Shine_ when it was mentioned as proof-of-life in an [otherwise mediocre] article re-hashing the "Is Science...Read more

Published on March 20, 2011 by Amazon Customer

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Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF Mass Market Paperback – March 30, 2010

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