Review: Solaris Rising 3

 

(Solaris Rising 3: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ian Whates; Solaris, 2014, 443 pp., $7.99)

Reviewed by Zeke Teflon

This collection is a disappointment in comparison with last year’s Solaris Rising 2. It has the same orientation toward hard sci-fi and social sci-fi, though this time the stories are, overall, weaker. Last year, I made it through all but one of the stories; this year there were three: an unreadable word-salad tale, an equally unreadable stylistic throwback to 19th-century novels (written almost entirely as exposition rather than narrative–telling rather than showing), and a social/military sci-fi tale with a poorly drawn background and poorly written combat scenes.

One welcome feature of Solaris Rising 3 is that, as in its predecessors, Solaris Rising 1 & 2, there’s a welcome paucity (at least relatively) of stories with unsatisfying or nonexistent conclusions. (This is an annoying feature of short stories of all types, not just sci-fi stories: all too many end anti-climactically or just peter out rather than conclude.)

The stories I thought the best were Lara Lam’s “They Swim Through Sunset Seas” and Adam Roberts’ “Thing and Sick.” Lam’s very well written story is a taut psychological tale of the aftermath of a first-contact situation, botched because of human hubris and recklessness. Roberts’ story is another well written psychological tale, this time concerning the effects of prolonged isolation. There’s considerable humor in the first several pages, but following that the story grows increasingly dark.

The rest of the stories are competent if unmemorable.

Recommended only if you’re hooked on sci-fi anthologies or are trapped in an airport.

If you haven’t read any of the Solaris short-story anthologies, you’d do well to buy the much better Solaris Rising 2.

 

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Zeke Teflon is the author of Free Radicals: A Novel of Utopia and Dystopia.

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Review: Old Mars

 

(Old Mars, George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, eds. Bantam, 2013, 486 pp., $28.00)

reviewed by Zeke Teflon

The number of science fiction short story collections has exploded in recent years. Formerly, there were a relatively few “year’s best” collections of stories that had already been published in science fiction magazines. But roughly two decades ago that began to change. “Themed” sci-fi short story collections began to appear in large numbers: detective/noir; alien sex; time travel; alternate history (alternate presidents, alternate Kennedys); alternate futures (including one collection with advanced technologies, but no Internet); “positive” sci-fi; and the list goes on. Another change is that the stories in many of these collections had not already been published, and were written specifically for these anthologies.

This is somewhat unfortunate, because formerly (as in the “year’s best” collections) the stories had jumped two selection hurdles, the first to make it into magazines, the second to make it into an anthology. As well, the editors choosing the stories for “year’s best” anthologies had a plethora of material to choose from.

In themed collections, the situation is different. The stories in them, when written specifically for the anthologies, only have one selection hurdle to jump, and the editors often have to actively solicit contributions. So, at least occasionally, quality suffers. But this is much less of a problem with themed anthologies such as Old Mars, which has well established, well respected editors, and features stories by established writers.

Old Mars, as the title and cover suggest, is a collection of stories set in the romantic worlds portrayed by writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, and (in the sense that the anthology deals with “lost worlds”), H. Rider Haggard. Thus the Mars depicted in Old Mars has canals, a breathable atmosphere, humanoid Martians, terrifying beasts, cities fallen to ruin, booby-trapped royal tombs, and swashbluckling heroes–with, as additional backdrop, an ocean- and swamp-covered Venus populated by telepathic Venusians.

The most well known authors represented in Old Mars are Allen Steele and Mike Resnick. And this anthology seems an ideal vehicle for Resnick, who has written an impressive number of  sly, tongue-in-cheek tall tales, such as the “Santiago” and “Inner Frontier” stories. He doesn’t disappoint here.

Even though it’s well done, Old Mars is not for all sci-fi fans. If your interests lie in space opera, hard sci-fi, social sci-fi, cyberpunk, steampunk, or military sci-fi, you probably won’t like Old Mars. But if you’re a fan of Burroughs, Bradbury, or pulp or “golden age” sci-fi, you probably will.

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Zeke Teflon is the author of Free Radicals: A Novel of Utopia and Dystopia.

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Review: Solaris Rising 2

 

(Solaris Rising 2: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ian Whates; Solaris, 2013, $7.99)

Reviewed by Zeke Teflon

First, a relatively minor matter: It’s unfortunate, but if you read many science fiction short story collections, you’ll often find the same stories reprinted in anthologies for the same year issued by different publishers. That holds here. While the cover doesn’t mention any particular year, the copyright page lists all of the stories as copyright 2013. So, I was a bit disappointed when I discovered that I’d already read two of the first three stories in other anthologies. (If you can remember short story titles, your memory is better than mine.)

Having said that, the stories tend toward hard sci-fi and social sci-fi; there’s a welcome absence of military sci-fi and impressionistic, word-salad tales in this collection.

The stories, overall, are as well written as you’d expect in an anthology featuring work by Nancy Kress, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Norman Spinrad. I only stopped reading a single story part way through while muttering, “Jesus Christ, dude. Enough with the passive voice already!”

The stories I thought the best were Nancy Kress’s “More,” Robert Reed’s “Bonds,” and Nick Harkaway‘s “The Time Gun.”

Kress’s chilling tale follows Caitlin, a terrorist just released from prison, set against a backdrop of class stratification, grinding repression, and violent resistance to it. Kress’s portrayal of Caitlin rings true–she’s reminiscent of members of marxist-leninist terrorist groups, such as Ilich Ramirez Sanchez (“Carlos”), virtually the entire Japanese United Red Army, and some members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Like most of them, Caitlin is from an upper middle class background (her dad being the inventor of the ultimate gated-community technology), and she sees people as objects to be used and discarded in pursuit of her “revolutionary” goals. This story is all too plausible.

Reed’s “Bonds” is an amusing send-up of New Age b.s. As Reed makes abundantly clear, New Age charlatans who babble about quantum physics are often flawed human beings, and have no more understanding of quantum physics than a dog does of calculus.

Harkaway’s “The Time Gun” is a clever, high energy time travel tale, which will leave you guessing right up till the end, which has a great twist.

There’s even a straight throwback to apolitical 1950s hard sci-fi, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s well written “Feast and Famine.”

This is one of the best sci-fi short story collections of recent years, especially at the price. Recommended.

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Zeke Teflon is the author of Free Radicals: A Novel of Utopia and Dystopia.

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