Book Review: Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson

Illustrated by Alan Lee

Pros: beautiful pictures, variety of stories

Cons:

Merlin is trapped under the earth, dreaming of his past and things yet to come.

This is a book of 9 pseudo-medieval short stories based around the frame story of the British sorcerer Merlin, dreaming. There is a good variety of stories, including knights, kings, and villages with problems. There’s a slew of fantasy creatures: a form of werewolf, mermaids, dragons, enchanted knights, a basilisk and even a sciopod, which was kind of cool.

The stories take weird turns and generally don’t end the way you’d expect, but do often end in a more realistic manner.

The art is a stylistic pencil work (or maybe charcoal?), some in black and white, some with a hint of colour, and a few with bold colours of knight’s heraldry and ladies dresses.

The book is out of print, but may be worth keeping an eye out for if the story content interests you.
(If you have a free archive.org account you can borrow it there.)

Shout-Out: Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Zelda Knight

Coming November 2022

From an award-winning team of editors comes an anthology of thirty-two original stories showcasing the breadth of fantasy and science fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora.

A group of cabinet ministers query a supercomputer containing the minds of the country's ancestors. A child robot on a dying planet uncovers signs of fragile new life. A descendent of a rain goddess inherits her grandmother's ability to change her appearance-and perhaps the world.

Created in the legacy of the seminal, award-winning anthology series Dark Matter, Africa Risen celebrates the vibrancy, diversity, and reach of African and Afro-Diasporic SFF and reaffirms that Africa is not rising-it's already here.

Table of Contents

• “Introduction” by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight
• “The Blue House” by Dilman Dila
• “March Magic” by WC Dunlap
• “IRL” by Steven Barnes
• “The Deification of Igodo” by Joshua Omenga
• “Mami Wataworks” by Russell Nichols
• “Rear Mirror” by Nuzo Onoh
• “Door Crashers” by Franka Zeph
• “Lady Rainbow” by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu
• “A Dream of Electric Mothers” by Wole Talabi
• “Simbi” by Sandra Jackson-Opoku
• “Housewarming for a Lion Goddess” by Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga
• “A Knight in Tunisia” by Alex Jennings
• “The Devil Is Us” by Mirette Bahgat
• “Cloud Mine” by Timi Odueso
• “Ruler of the Rear Guard” by Maurice Broaddus
• “Peeling Time (Deluxe Edition)” by Tlotlo Tsamaase
• “The Sugar Mill” by Tobias S. Buckell
• “The Carving of War” by Somto Ihezue Onyedikachi
• “Ghost Ship” by Tananarive Due
• “Liquid Twilight” by Ytasha L. Womack
• “Once Upon a Time in 1967” by Oyedotun Damilola
• “A Girl Crawls in a Dark Corner” by Alexis Brooks de Vita
• “The Lady of the Yellow-Painted Library” by Tobi Ogundiran
• “When the Mami Wata Met a Demon” by Moustapha Mbacké Diop
• “The Papermakers” by Akua Lezli Hope
• “A Soul of Small Places” by Mame Bougouma Diene and Woppa Diallo
• “Air to Shape Lungs” by Shingai Njeri Kagunda
• “Hanfo Driver” by Ada Nnadi
• “Exiles of Witchery” by Ivana Akotowaa Ofori
• “The Taloned Beast” by Chinelo Onwualu
• “Star Watchers” by Danian Darrell Jerry
• “Biscuit and Milk” by Dare Segun Falowo

Shout-Out: Iraq + 100 Edited by Hassan Blasim

A groundbreaking anthology of science fiction from Iraq that will challenge your perception of what it means to be "The Other".

"History is a hostage, but it will bite through the gag you tie around its mouth, bite through and still be heard."-Operation Daniel

In a calm and serene world, one has the luxury of imagining what the future might look like.

Now try to imagine that future when your way of life has been devastated by forces beyond your control.

Iraq + 100 poses a question to Iraqi writers (those who still live in that nation, and those who have joined the worldwide diaspora): What might your home country look like in the year 2103, a century after a disastrous foreign invasion?

Using science fiction, allegory, and magical realism to challenge the perception of what it means to be "The Other", this groundbreaking anthology edited by Hassan Blasim contains stories that are heartbreakingly surreal, and yet utterly recognizable to the human experience. Though born out of exhaustion, fear, and despair, these stories are also fueled by themes of love, family, and endurance, and woven through with a delicate thread of hope for the future.

Shout-Out: Grave Predictions Edited by Drew Ford

These compelling visions of post-apocalyptic societies and dystopian worlds include short stories by some of the most acclaimed authors of our time. Among the noteworthy contributors and their works are Stephen King's "The End of the Whole Mess," "The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke's "No Morning After."

The first-ever apocalyptic fantasy about global warming, "The End of the World," appears here, in translation from Eugene Mouton's 1872 French-language original. "The Pretence," by Ramsey Campbell, questions the nature and structure of everyday life in the aftermath of a doomsday prediction. In addition, thought-provoking stories by Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Greg Bear, Erica L. Satifka, and others offer an end-of-the-world extravaganza for fans of science fiction, horror, and fantasy.

Shout-Out: Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond + Book Launch

In Paris, James Bond meets his match over appetizers and cocktails—with an aperitif of industrial espionage and chilly sadism. Off the coast of Australia, he learns about a whole new level of betrayal under the scorching light of a ball of thunder. In Siberia, he dreams of endless carnage while his fate is decided by one of his most cunning enemies and perhaps the greatest of his many loves.

And in Canada, James Bond finds freedom.

In January 2015, the world’s most famous secret agent entered the public domain in Canada—one of the few remaining countries in the world that subscribe to the Berne Convention and allow copyright to extend not 70 but just 50 years past the death of the work’s creator. Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond, lives in this shadow space of copyright law: a collection of 19 new, exciting, transformative James Bond stories by a diverse crew of 21st-century authors.

Collected herein are new stories about Secret Agent 007, as the late Ian Fleming imagined and described him: a psychically wounded veteran of the Second World War and soldier of the Cold War, who treated his accumulated injuries with sex, alcohol, nicotine, and adrenaline. He was a good lover but a terrible prospect.

He was James Bond.

And in Licence Expired, James Bond is back.

Licence Expired is a collection of 19 short stories edited by Madeline Ashby and David Nickle.  And if you're in the Toronto area, ChiDunnit and ChiZine Publications are having a launch party for the book tomorrow.  From their facebook page:

ChiDunnit and ChiZine Publications are thrilled to invite you to the launch party for LICENCE EXPIRED: THE UNAUTHORIZED JAMES BOND at 7:30pm on Tuesday, November 17 at Pravda Vodka House (44 Wellington St. East). Costumes and Bond-themed dress is highly encouraged, and there will be prizes for the best costumes.

Come try our signature Bond cocktail, and don't forget to ask for your martini shaken, not stirred. And yes, there will be food.

Editors and authors will be there for readings and book signings.

Prizes and surpises are coming from our generous friends at Grand Touring Automobiles (Aston-Martin), Surmesur, Doll Factory by Damzels, BMB Image Consulting, B's Truly Couture Cupcakes, DJ Wondah (Gorilla Beats), Bakka-Phoenix Books, Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery, and Bicycle Playing Cards. Thank you to all our sponsors!

Book Review: The Apex Book of World SF 4 Edited by Mahvesh Murad

Pros: wide variety of authors and subgenres, several excellent stories

Cons: several confusing stories, no grouping together of similar stories

The 28 stories in this collection are written by authors from around the world, covering a number of SFF genres.  While most of the stories were good to excellent, I found a few to be rather confusing (a state which may have cleared up with further readings in some cases).  There’s no theme connecting the stories and they’re not gathered in any order, which is a bit disorienting, as you can read a story about spaceships followed by local mythology followed by post-apocalyptic followed by another spaceship story.  Gathering the SF, horror and fantasy stories together would have created a more cohesive feeling to the collection.  The anthology is a great jumping off point for finding authors as several contributors have novels out now or coming soon.

Stories are highly subjective, so while I’ve rated them, pay more attention to the mini synopses to see if the stories would appeal to you than to my ratings.  

Not all of the stories appealed to me, but I thought the majority were quite good to excellent, making this a worthwhile collection if you’re looking for something different.

"The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family" by Usman T Malik (Pakistan)

***1/2 In the aftermath of a tragedy, Tara Khan seeks knowledge, in order to understand herself and work for a better world. - 

This is a story of how violence begets violence, and only knowledge and love can stop violence from consuming the world. 

"Setting Up Home" by Sabrina Huang (Taiwan) (Translated by Jeremy Tiang)

***** A young man starts finding furnishings appearing both inside and outside his apartment, with no idea of his benefactor. -

Quite short but with a delightfully creepy ending.

"The Gift of Touch" by Chinelo Onwualu (Nigeria)

** The three passengers Bruno’s ship takes on for much needed money turn out to be very different from the farmers they claimed they were. - 

I found the story interesting but the execution a bit heavy handed. There’s some expository conversations that felt forced (Marley’s love of guns, their smuggling past), and Horns’ past somehow only comes up now, during this crisis situation, rather than the interview when she was hired (I can understand her hiding part of her past and Bruno being ok with that, but it sounds like he never asked about anything she did before coming to work for him, and that’s just not believable). 

"The Language of Knives” by Haralambi Markov (Bulgaria)

***** Together with your apprentice daughter, you carve up your recently deceased husband into cakes for the gods.

- A creepy premise that’s handled with care. It’s a touching story of dealing with loss, connecting with the past, and healing relationships.

"In Her Head, In Her Eyes" by Yukimi Ogawa (Japan)

***** Hase wears a heavy pot on her head, covering her eyes.  The household she is staying with to learn new patterns to bring to her home mistreats her, especially the wives of the older two sons. Only the youngest son treats her kindly.

- A fun, creepy story about being careful how you treat others.

"The Farm" by Elana Gomel (Israel)

**** A comrade rides to a farm looking for food he can confiscate for his commune.  

- The eaters are quite terrifying and the slow build up to the ending really works.

"The Last Hours of The Final Days" by Bernardo Fernández (Mexico) (Translated by the author)

**** Aida and Wok slowly travel through post-apocalyptic cities by motorcycle, skateboard, foot and car while they await the end of the world.

- A surprisingly upbeat post-apocalyptic story.

"The Boy Who Cast No Shadow" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Netherlands) (Translated by Laura Vroomen)

***** The strange friendship between Look, a boy with no shadow, and Splinter, a boy made of glass.

- A brilliant but sad story of bullying and finding yourself.  Has some adult content.

"First, Bite Just a Finger" by Johann Thorsson (Iceland)

***** After taking a drug at a party and witnessing a guy do a strange party trick, Julia develops a terrible addiction.

- Really, really creepy.

"The Eleven Holy Numbers of the Mechanical Soul" by Natalia Theodoridou (Greece)

**** An old man, marooned on an oceanic planet, creates his own animals for company.

- An interesting story about survival and the nature of a soul.

"Djinns Live by the Sea" by Saad Z. Hossain (Bangaldesh)

**** A rich business man feigns sanity after 8 months of being haunted by a djinn. 

- An interesting interpretation of djinn. Limited description.

"How My Father Became a God" by Dilman Dila (Uganda)

***** A girl, whose father has been banished from the family’s homestead for wasting money on failed inventions, needs him to succeed at something to help her avoid an arranged marriage.

- Interesting characters and a fascinating belief system.

"Black Tea" by Samuel Marolla (Italy) (Translated by Andrew Tanzi)

***** Four men are trapped in a nightmarish landscape of old hallways, empty rooms and stairs leading nowhere, being hunted by a creature masquerading as an old lady.

- You feel Nicola’s confusion as he tries to figure out where he is and what’s going on.  The horror begins with a note he finds in his pocket.

"Tiger Baby" by JY Yang (Singapore)

***1/2 Felicity is an office worker who knows she is meant to be more, more free, more… feline.

- Lyrical writing and a slowly unfolding story.

“Jinki & the Paradox” by Sathya Stone (Sri Lanka) 

***1/2 Jinki’s family lives on an experimental colony set up by aliens.

- I really liked the trickster robot and puzzling out what Jinki is.

"Colour Me Grey" by Swabir Silayi (Kenya)

**** The protagonist lives in a world devoid of colour, protected by a wall erected by the Man and his descendants.

- A quick dystopian tale.

"Like A Coin Entrusted in Faith" by Shimon Adaf (Israel) (Translated by the author)

*** Correspondences between someone in Israel and a woman in the US who’s helping train an AI, tell the tale a midwife who helps birth a stillborn demon.

- I found this story fairly confusing. The format shifts between narrative, emails, and play dialogue, didn’t help.  While I thought it added to the story to have some phrases in Jewish Moroccan (and one in Aramaic), having the translations on the last page of the story rather than at the end of each short chapter (where they would have been easier to find/flip to) was annoying.  I did find the mythology mentioned really interesting and would have liked to learn more about it.

"Single Entry" by Celeste Rita Baker (Virgin Islands)

**** A special busker act at Carnival.

- Told in dialect, the story is both triumphant and a little sad. 

"The Good Matter" by Nene Ormes (Sweden) (Translated by Lisa J Isaksson and Nene Ormes)

*** A antiques dealer with a special gift makes a purchase for something he’s been hunting for for years.

- This is a story set in the world of the author’s novels, and entices one to read more.

"Pepe" by Tang Fei (China) (Translated by John Chu)

*** Two mechanical children who can only speak to tell stories, visit an amusement park.

-There’s a lot of repetition and circular logic, which made the story less clear to me.

"Six Things We Found During The Autopsy" by Kuzhali Manickavel (India)

** Six inexplicable objects found on a woman’s body during her autopsy.

- I give this story 2 stars for the section on angels, which I found hilarious.  The rest of the story was too bizarre for my tastes. 

"The Symphony of Ice and Dust" by Julie Novakova (Czech Republic)

**** An exploratory spaceship arrives at Sedna, a dwarf moon where thousands of years earlier, two other spaceships crashed.

- A story of multiple discoveries and how humans and science have evolved.

"The Lady of the Soler Colony" by Rocío Rincón Fernández (Spain) (Translated by James and Marian Womack)

**** The narrator’s family works at the Soler textile colony, passing by the metallic statue of the Lady every day.  Until the day the factory it fronts, collapses.

- An interesting story, though a few aspects left me confused. 

"The Four Generations of Chang E" by Zen Cho (Malaysia)

***** Chang E wins the moon lottery, immigrating there.  But her descendants face different challenges because of her decision.

- An exploration of immigration and how it feels to be different. 

"Pockets Full of Stones" by Vajra Chandrasekera (Sri Lanka)

***** A woman takes a job on a relay station between Earth and a colony ship to speak with her colonist grandfather.

- A story about family that has an alien twist.

"The Corpse" by Sese Yane (Kenya)

* A middle aged man passes away while riding the bus.

- I found this story boring and rather pointless.

"Sarama" by Deepak Unnikrishnan (The Emirates)

**** A man tells of his family’s forest demon ancestry as related to him by his grandmother.

- A fascinating story based on the Ramayana, of war and revenge. Adult content. 

"A Cup of Salt Tears" by Isabel Yap (Philippines)

***** Makino goes to an onsen at night to help alleviate her sorrow over her dying husband and encounters a kappa, a water demon.

 - I enjoy kappa mythology and this one takes an interesting turn.

Shout-Out: Masters of Time Anthology

A clone who usurps his own destiny--and with it, the power of Time. A time travel romance that would defy death, and an alluring agent from the future hunting her prey...

Imaginative and heart-pounding stories are woven into the fabric of this time travel short story collection. From adventure to loss, hope and sacrifice, each tale touches upon the precious value given to Time, and what we'd do with it, if we were its masters.


Stories by: Samantha LaFantasie, Alesha Escobar, Devorah Fox, Timothy C. Ward, H.M. Jones, and Alice Marks.

Our July 13th

Shout-Out: nEvermore! Tales of Murder, Mystery and the Macabre edited by Nancy Kilpatrick and Caro Soles

Compiled by multi-award winning editors, Nancy Kilpatrick and Caro Soles, nEvermore! Tales of Murder, Mystery and the Macabre presents a tantalizing selection of imaginative stories by New York Times bestselling and prize-winning authors, including:

Colleen Anderson
Kelley Armstrong
Margaret Atwood
Robert Bose
Jane Petersen Burfield
Rick Chiantaretto
J. Madison Davis
Barbara Fradkin
Nancy Holder
Michael Jecks
Tanith Lee
Robert Lopresti
Richard Christian Matheson
David McDonald
Lisa Morton
William Nolan (with Jason Brock, Sunni Brock)
Loren Rhoads
Christopher Rice
Thomas S. Roche
Uwe Sommerlad
Carol Weekes & Michael Kelly
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

This anthology consists of 22 original tales that blend supernatural and mystery elements in unique re-imaginings of Edgar Allan Poe's exquisite stories.

Shout-Out: Reach for Infinity Edited by Jonathan Strahan

HUMANITY AMONG THE STARS 

What happens when we reach out into the vastness of space? What hope for us amongst the stars? Multi-award winning editor Jonathan Strahan brings us fourteen new tales of the future, from some of the finest science fiction writers in the field. 

The fourteen startling stories in this anthology feature the work of Greg Egan, Aliette de Bodard, Ian McDonald, Karl Schroeder, Pat Cadigan, Karen Lord, Ellen Klages, Adam Roberts, Linda Nagata, Hannu Rajaniemi, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Ken MacLeod, Alastair Reynolds and Peter Watts.

Book Review: Machine of Death Edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennarto and David Malki

I've got quite a back log of reviews building up - especially of books I read a while past or ones for pleasure (where there's no immediacy to publishing it).  So I finished this a few months ago.  Due to its length, it took a while to read (about a year, on various commutes, between novels).

I'll be posting reviews on Thursdays to help get rid of the back log.
-------------------------------------------

Pros: interesting premise, wide variety of stories, varied interpretations of the theme

Cons: the first few stories plus and introduction and comic all explain the machines, which gets a bit tedious; several of the stories ignore the fact that there can be multiple interpretations to the predictions; towards the end of the collection the variety of story possibilities becomes exhausted and the stories become less interesting because of it; the stories vary in quality from fantastic to confusing

This was an interesting collection of stories, with a mix of qualities.  Some were brilliant and others unexceptional to bad.  The premise was fascinating though the number of stories that spent time explaining what the premise was grated after a while, since, as a reader, I knew the premise.  The stories were obviously not planned as a continuum since they contradicted each other, though that's not necessarily a bad thing as it allowed for a more varried interpretation of the theme.

I suspect my fatigue with the theme, more than the quality of the stories, led to lower star ratings the closer I got to the end.  The collection is 439 pages and consists of 34 stories, each preceeded by an illustration.  So you're definitely getting your money's worth.  And there were enough good to great stories here to make it worth the purchase.

Because it's easier than my other methods of grading stories, I decided to give each story a rating out of 5 stars.

**** "Flaming Marshmallow" by Camille Alexa - How you'll die is now the basis of high school cliques. Caroline is finally turning 16 and able to learn where she'll fit in.

This story takes a teenage viewpoint of learning how you'll die.  There's excitement as well as apprehension.  Similarly, the idea of where you'll sit and who your friends are as determined by the machine is a reasonable extrapolation of the importance of the Machine of Death.

*** "Fudge" by Kit Yona - A man contemplates if he wants to know his manner of death while waiting at the mall for his fiancee.  

A highly introspective story questioning whether it's worth knowing your manner of death and how the knowledge may change how you live your life.

** "Torn Apart and Devoured by Lions" by Jeffrey Wells - An insurance salesman regales customers with how he's going to be killed by lions.  He begins living his life in anticipation of the most exciting event in it - his death.  

Certainly a different outlook on how people react to the knowledge on the death cards.  Sort of an odd story.

***** "Despair" by K. M. Lawrence - A doctor must deal with the unusual cause of death card by her first patient of the night.

A look at how hospitals would have to opperate and how doctors would second guess their actions, based on the information on patients' cards.

**** "Suicide" David Michael Wharton - A man tries to prove the death cards wrong.

A very interesting story about fate and whether you can change yours.

***** "Almond" by John Chernega - The first death machine opperator writes a diary of his experiences, first when no one's interested in the machine up to when officials start requiring mandetory testing.

A chilling look at how corporations and governments could use the information on death cards to control and descriminate against people.

**** "Starvation" by M. Bennardo - Two soldiers survive a helicopter crash in a jungle in enemy territory and try to survive despite their death predictions.

A very tense story.  Like the protagonist, you think you know how this is going to end.

*** "Cancer" by Camron Miller - Curiosity causes the people in this story get their results one by one, despite seeing how knowing their cause of death destroys the lives of those who got the knowledge before them.

This is a story about human nature.  Even when you know something's bad for you, it's hard to resist doing it.  

** "Firing Squad" by Jack Unrau - Two old friends meet unexpectedly and eat together.  One of them shares adventures he's been on.

Tense story but a let down ending.

** "Vegetables" by Chris Cox - A man 'helps' his co-worker deal with his prediction of death.

This is a story of how a psychopath could use the information contained in death cards to his own advantage.  While well written (especially the very creepy protagonist), the opening was disgusting and I would have stopped reading had I not been reviewing the collection.

*** "Piano" by Rafa Franco - A story about a man who's at first incapacitated and then liberated by his cause of death.

Interesting story about how knowing how you'll die (and therefore how you won't die) can be liberating.

*** "HIV Infection From Machine of Death Needle" by Brian Quinlan

A short but clever story.

*** "Exploded" by Tom Francis - How the two inventors of the machine deal with the infamy of their creation and the riches they earn.

I really enjoyed this story but the confusing ending brought down the star rating.

**** "Not Waving But Drowning" by Erin McKean - A girl explains test day at her school, the first day of grade 9, and the results she gets.

An interesting narrative with a lot of information about how individuals and families cope with their predictions.  Also notable for the humour.

*** "Improperly Prepared Blowfish" by Gord Sellar - Two yakuza bring their boss a requested machine of death.

Some interesting characters and a decent ending.

** "Love Ad Nauseum" by Sherri Jacobsen - A woman's later life as told through her wanted ads.

A neat concept that ends so abruptly I turned the page looking for the rest of the story only to realize that it was over.

* "Murder And Suicide, Respectively" by Ryan North - A play about two scientists discussing a scientific theory.

I didn't understand how their theory would work in practice and there was too much unnecessary dialogue.

*** "Cancer" by David Malki - James' father has cancer and doesn't like how his mother drags him first to an inpirational speaker and the to a faith healer.

Shows how some people deal with their impending death, in this case frustration and a desire to cheat it through supernatural means.

***** "Aneurysm" by Alexander Danner - Norma has an unusual party game planned for her get together, and Sid, her ex-husband, who hates party games, has a plan.

A fun, interestingly morbid story with a satisfying ending.

***** "Exhaustion From Having Sex With a Minor" by Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw - The Prime Ministerial race hinges on the death predictions of the two candidates, one of whom has no desire to share his shameful method of death.

The story messes with your assumptions with several good twists.

*** "After Many Years, Stops Breathing, While Asleep, With Smile On Face" by William Grallo - Ricky gets an awesome prediction of death but what he wants is another man's fiancee.  So when she invites him to 'Toe Tag Night' at a club, he says yes.

Interesting story, especially the tag night of seeing how people will die as a means of hooking up.  Open ending.

***** "Killed By Daniel" by Julia Wainwright - A man whose marriage broke up due to his wife's prediction of death gets his own and discovers his son is destined to kill him.

How do you live normally with a horrific prediction hanging over your head?  The protagonist, having seen his wife deteriorate tries to avoid the same fate.  Partly centers on a gay relationship.

**** "Friendly Fire" by Douglas J. Lane - Tommy's anti-machine of death activist group, whose recent attack on mall machines went exceptionally well, is taking things to the next level.

Shows the consequences of getting predictions becoming the reasong youth become activists against the machines.

**** "Nothing" by Pelotard - A young woman confronts her grandfather about his age and prediction of death.

This story delves into what it means in the book's world to have a different or special prediction.

*** "Cocaine and Painkillers" by David Malki - Kelly's first informercial is a hit so her boss puts her on a mystery project for a device that may be a portable drug test, though that doesn't add up to what's written on most of the white slips coming out of the prototype.

A story about the social implications of salesmen who lie to sell a product.  The focus of the story is more on her previous assignment and how she feels about the job than on the prototype she's to sell next.

***** "Loss of Blood" by Jeff Stantz - In a horrifying future where predictions of death land citizens in different classes, with lower classes working and living in slums far from the upperclass Garden, Kevin and his wife have just received their death date from the ministry.

This is a brilliantly creepy story with a truly gut-wrenching ending.

*** "Prison Knife Fight" by Shaenon K. Garrity - A rick kid's future is put into question as prestigous kindergardens refuse him due to his ignoble cause of death.

An interesting premise with a good set-up but the ending wasn't the best.

**** "While Trying To Save Another" by Daliso Chaponda - A group of people who are given a time as well as method of death comfort each other.  A new member has the same death date as a regular, bringing them a sudden, unexpected closeness.

I liked the added dimension of the time of death, complicating an already difficult situation.  The story also shows that people don't always use their time wisely, even when they know the end is coming.

*** "Miscarriage" by James L. Sutter - A couple who have miscarried in the past have the fetus of their new pregnancy tested.

It explores the interesting idea of how testing for the cause of death can bring hope.

*** "Shot by Sniper" by Bartholomew von Klick - Nato troops in the middle east get pinned down by a sniper and the squad's knowledge of their commanding officer's cause of death paralizes them.

This is another story that subverts expectation with some minor character development.

**** "Heat Death of the Universe" by James Foreman - A smart teen ponders Stephen Hawking's writings on order vs chaos as he examines the results of his, and his girlfriend's, MOD readings and the reaction hers causes.

Smart story with an interesting message.

* "Drowning" by C. E. Guimont - Character who reads dreams for a living finds his world changing and his union benefits are scaled back as the machine of death is introduced to society.

Kind of a pointless story which I didn't really understand.  The guy's job is bizarre to say the least, and the machine is only tangenitally mentioned.  I also didn't understand why the machine's predictions would affect a union or this guy's dream reading.

* "?" by Randall Munroe - An angry young many thinks questions to the universe while lighting forest fires.

I can understand wanting answers and not liking how the machine's predictions are true, but I can't understand how lighting fires and burning down forests helps him or anyone else.

** "Cassandra" by T. J. Radcliffe - A woman working in the Insurance industry tries to understand why the technology of the Delphic Device failed at allowing predictions of death to be changed in an attempt to change her own.

The story has one bizarre contradiction.  It starts with a quote from the 1983 movie War Games, but the protagonist later doesn't know what a 'film' is.  I suppose the word film could go out of use in time, but it's still odd for her to know about the 80s and not know that term.  The Ignorance Theorem didn't make any sense to me, but I'm not the best with science.  It sounded like a philosophical problem I read once (Plato?), where if A=B and B=C than A=C, even if you know it doesn't. 

Book Review: Diverse Energies Edited by Tobias Buckell and Joe Monti

Pros: wide variety of dystopian worlds, protagonists of diverse races and sexual orientations

Cons: in several of the stories the characters are in lower class/servile roles to white people, 

For Parents: no language, minimal violence, one story hints at sex but there are no descriptions, three of the stories have positive GLTBQ content 

This is a great collection of stories.  Not only do they feature people of colour in lead roles, there are also several positive portrayals of gay/lesbian teens in worlds where their choices are normal and accepted by those around them as such.  Each of the dystopian worlds depicted is very different, with some ending with hope and others less optimistic.  I was a little disappointed that a few of the stories cast their coloured protagonists in subservient roles, as I expected this anthology to give a more hopeful viewpoint regarding race in the future (much as it does do for its GLTBQ characters).  But there's a lot to love about this collection, including the fact that a portion of the proceeds from the book are going to the Carl Brandon Society's Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund.  If you or your kids are into dystopian fiction, this is a must for your bookshelf.

***** "The Last Day" by Ellen Oh - It's the 15th year of the war between the East and the West and two 12 year old boys are working to help provide for their families in rural Japan.

This is a very powerful alternative history.  If you've read Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse or seen the Studio Gibli film Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka), you'll know where this story is headed.

*** "Freshee's Frogurt" by Daniel H. Wilson - A frozen yogurt worker gives a police report about the domestic robot that malfunctions and attacks him and his co-worker.

It's not mentioned in the collection, but this story comes from Wilson's Robopocalypse.  I was unable to finish that novel due to inconsistencies between the frame stories and the narratives they're retelling.  For example, this story is told after the fact, as a police report, yet for some reason the narrator is using present tense language which, I'll admit gives the story more immediacy, even though it makes no sense.  At one point the narrator says, "Man, I hope he's out of it" after watching his co-worker get injured.  The problem is, this happened sometime in the recent past, and no longer applies to where the narrator (or his co-worker) is now.  

The story itself is well written, if designed to be part of a larger narrative.

***** "The Uncertainty Principle" by K. Tempest Bradford - Iliana can tell when a change is coming, but she's the only one afterwards who recognizes that the world is different.

This story reminded me of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven.  The writing is great and the story interesting.  The protagonist is feisty and proactive.  The world-building is necessarily limited.  I'd love to see this fleshed out as a novel, detailing what's changed as Iliana becomes old enough to know the history, etc. from previous timelines.

**** "Pattern Recognition" by Ken Liu - David and the other boys and girls at the Volpe Ness School are taught that the Outside world is a horrible, desolate place.  Inside the compound, the kids work on pattern games during the day, even as he wonders more and more about the outside world.

This premise - of a school of kids kept separate from a post-apocalyptic world - has been explored in several teen novels (Eve by Anna Carey comes immediately to mind), but it's the ending of this story that makes it unique.

**** "Gods of the Dimming Night" by Greg van Eekhout - It's the third winter without a summer in San Diego, and 17 year old Edward is out begging for work to help his family survive when he sees the flyer for a NorseCODE medical study that pays well.

Interesting use of Norse mythology.  I liked the author's definition of heroism at the end.

*** "Next Door" by Rahul Kanakia - Aakash's family squats in the garage of a family of strangers.  But unlike most of the strangers who wear implants, this father and son are aware of the hoards of street people around them.  When Aakash and his boyfriend see the son of his stranger family trying to break into the conservatory, they wonder if their dream of having their own pest free place to squat is finally within reach.

A very unique dystopian world, with gross overcrowding and a huge bedbug problem.  Definitely not a world I'd want to live in.  The story's a little bittersweet with an open ending.

*** "Good Girl" by Malinda Lo - Kyle looks pureborn despite her mixed blood, allowing her to live above ground.  She meets Nix in a basement leading to the tunnels to ask if her brother, who disappeared the previous year, lives there now, and finds something unexpected.

Another bittersweet story about forbidden love and survival in dangerous circumstances.  Well written but the ending's a little depressing.

*** "A Pocket Full of Dharma" by Paolo Bacigalupi - Wang Jun is a beggar boy in old Chengdu.  When he's witness to a murder, he ends up with an object that men will kill - and die - for.

Kind of long, the story moves around a lot, with Wang meeting up with various people, trying to figure out what to do with the object.  Very little is told about the interesting living architecture that is slowly growing over the city into luxury housing or the plague that crippled the boy.  Still, it has its moments.

*** "Blue Skies" by Cindy Pon - The unnamed narrator kidnaps a you girl for ransom.  You, the haves, live in helmeted suits, with purified oxygen, water and food.  This provides them longer lifespans than the rest of the human race.  

The story ends a bit abruptly, but I found the characters very interesting and the have/want conflict familiar, if taken to extremes.

**** "What Arms to Hold Us" by Rajan Khanna - Ravi drives a golly, a mechanical mining machine controlled via a crown powered by the mineral they're digging, primosite.  But Ravi dreams of someday moving on from the mines, like his older brother.

Minimal world building doesn't detract from the emotional punch of this story or the hopeful ending.

**** "Solitude" by Ursula K. Le Guin - Serenity's mother is a scientist who, when the inhabitants of Eleven-Soro prove to be enigmas to the previous Observers, decides to use her children as a means of learning how the society works.  Growing up as one of the natives, Serenity has more of a connection to her new home than her mother's people.

This is a great story about learning from other cultures and accepting that one people's way of seeing the world isn't every people's way of doing so.  It's a longer story and while it covers a lot of time, it's interesting for its characters and world building.  

Book Review: Fat Girl in a Strange Land Edited by Kay T. Holt and Bart R. Leib

This is a short story collection dealing with two things: overweight women and fantastical locations.  Aside from those criteria, the collection is quite diverse.  The stories are a mix of fantasy and science fiction, in some the women are comfortable with their weight, in others they aren't.  The stories that take place on earth are situated all over (Guatamala, Australia, New York City), and though most of the authors are American, there are several from other countries as well.  The quality of stories is quite high, and in all cases the women are sympathetic protagonists.  Ultimately this collection showcases a great variety of plus sized women.

(Note, I've used a star rating for the stories as my previous method of stating if I liked a story or not seemed too convoluted.  In each case I rate the story, give it's title and author, a short synopsis and my thoughts on it.  As the stories are short and I don't want to spoil them I've kept my comments to a minimum.)

***** "La Gorda and the City of Silver" by Sabrina Vourvoulias - La Gorda, The Fat One, was born into a wrestling family but told she could never enter the ring.  She makes the Guatamalan streets of City of Silver her ring, wearing a mask and making the streets safe for women and girls until a masked menace comes.

This is a touching story of wanting to be more than you are, and more than society allows you to be.  It's about heroes and sacrifice.  It's not really a science fiction story (as no one has superpowers), but it is a well written story.  

**** "The Tradeoff" by Lauren C. Teffeau - Commander Clarinda Hilliard is on a mission to begin the terraforming process on Caldwell, an ice planet.  In order to work long hours in the cold, her and the other members of her team must bulk up.  She's left very uncomfortable in her new body. 

The examination of a woman who's become fat, if on purpose, is interesting.  Many women are uncomfortable with their bodies, so it's a story with realistic underpinings and an interesting look at food rationing in the future.  

*** "Cartography, and the Death of Shoes" by A. J. Fitzwater - A city woman whose size belies how much walking she does and how many shoes she goes through, tries to find the cobbler shop she remembers as a child where she got a perfect, lasting pair of shoes.

The author puts a fun spin on an old trope though I wasn't a fan of the rather unusal second person singular the story was written in.

**** "Survivor" by Josh Roseman - Overweight Wen Irons is the only survivor when her graduation party shuttle crash lands on Sidqiel.  She's told by a Sergeant on the nearest space station that she must walk 35 kilometers to an old research substation on the planet before sunrise 7 hours away or she will be killed by the radiation.

A great story about persevering under pressure, both physical and mental.

**** "The Right Stuffed" by Brian Jungwiwattanaporn - Two large women are hired for what they're told will be secretarial positions, but turn out to be something else.

This story deals with a digital world and utilizes its protagonists in an interesting way.

***** "Tangwystl the Unwanted" by Katherine Elmer - It begins with a princess stuck in a tower, but if you think this is a retelling of Repunzel, think again.  Elmer combines several fairy tale motifs to create a new story, about a young woman fed daily fairy cakes with no room to exercise.

This is a fun story that has the dependence on 3s so prevalent in fairy tales.  Tanny's a great character who never learned that being large is a problem and so merely considers it objectively as her situation changes.

**** "Flesh Of My Flesh" by Bonnie Ferrante - Alina's not thrilled to learn her fiancee is en route to the distant alien planet where she provides translation  He's controlling and she's learned to love her new home.  

Creepy story and quite short.

*** "How Do You Want To Die?" by Rick Silva - A group of captured soldiers escape the desert city of Ahman and run into a sand storm.  Their leader, Donna Stone, contemplates how she'd like to die. 

This is an atmospheric story.  The author packs a lot of character detail into Donna, considering the setting and length.

***** "Nemesis" by Nicole Prestin - When Flux, a size 14 soccor mom who can manipulate molecules (think Kitty Pride of the X-Men), joins Liberty Force, she's dismayed by the attitude of one of her teammates and the press about her size.  She quickly proves that intelligence and skill are what make a superhero.

This is the only story in the collection to have typos.  Most notably, the team is called Liberty Force five times and Omega Force three.  That aside, it's a brilliant story, the type that makes you want to cheer for the heroine who's completely comfortable with who she is and won't take grief from anyone or change herself to meet others' standards.

***** "Davy" by Anna Dickinson - The unnamed narrator of the story suffers from post-partem depression and excessive weight gain.  In an attempt to help his despondent wife, her husband buys a painting.  All is not well when the wife starts seeing grey, elf like figures emerge from it.

Another creepy story with antecedents in old folk and fairytales.

*** "Sharks & Seals" by Jennifer Brozek - Corelli, a member of the First Circle of the Order of the Sacred Eye, is asked to a meeting with the leader of the Children of Anu.  

This story felt like a prologue or first chapter to a novel.  While it was self-contained, as I reader I was left wanting more. 

*** "Marilee and the S.O.B" by Barbara Kransoff - Marilee's hobby when depressed is to follow interesting looking people and see where she ends up.  Her latest target is an overly good looking boy on the subway.

An interesting premise, with a classical ending.

**** "Blueprints" by Anna Caro - The unnamed narrator of this dying earth story wants desperately to travel to Terra Nova, a beautiful, unpoluted planet.  But people above a certain weight are denied transport on the grounds of health.

An interesting look at getting what you wish for versus knowing what you want.

***** "Lift" by Pete Alberti - Teenaged Mary Beth determines to build her own spaceship after friends tell her she's too fat to ride in theirs.

A great story about hard work and effort paying off in the end.  And that some friends aren't worth keeping.

Ultimately I was happy with this collection.  I would have liked more stories where the protagonists were not bullied/teased about their weight or where they were content with their weight despite outside criticism.  However, the collection does pack a lot of realistic emotions into its stories, exploring a number of different personalities and situations.

Want some great stories with a character set that's usually ignored (as far as being the protagonist is concerned)?  Then pick this collection by Crossed Genres up.