Identity Theft by Robert J. Sawyer

Identity Theft and Other Stories by Robert J. Sawyer. Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Red Deer Press, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-88995-411-3

Here we have another collection of short stories, in this case by Canada's preeminent Science Fiction author, Mr. Robert J. Sawyer. These are good stories, by and large, well written and entertaining. In addition to working as SciFi, some are also mysteries, some lean a bit in the horror direction, and some (at least one) are just plain jokes.

Several of the mysteries take place on Mars, a barren, desolate Mars where everyone mostly lives in one big domed city, but people go out on the regular surface hunting rare Martian fossils, from a brief period of life eons before. The other twist on these Martian stories involves transferring one's complete memory matrix into android bodies, and the complications that ensue for the private eye who has to untangle them.

In another story, the man left behind after such a transfer has a change of heart, and wants his life back. Unfortunately, he is no longer a legal entity, with no rights or standing whatsoever, beyond the right to live out his life in seclusion, in luxurious surroundings as a nonentity. He resorts to drastic action to attempt to persuade the powers that be, including his android replacement to reverse course.

Another story involves the first Catholic priest on Mars, who resorts to a miracle to enhance his status. And yet another is a sequel to H.G. Wells's The Time Machine. And yet another, “Immortality,” is from an anthology of tales by different authors based on Janis Ian songs. One brief humorous bit is a setup for classic awful pun based on the name of a very famous and prolific golden era SciFi author.

And that's just a taste of what's in store for the reader of this fine little collection. While I wouldn't probably call any of the stories here masterpieces, they are more than worth the time it takes to peruse them. Definitely recommended for all SciFi aficionados.

Steampunk edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

Steampunk edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer. San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2008. ISBN: 978-1-892391-75-9

This sub-genre-driven collection contains a brief preface by the editors, a more detailed introduction by Jess Nevins, in which he traces the roots of the genre in areas that are probably relatively unfamiliar even to most modern practitioners, and concludes with two bibliographical essays, the first of which lists instances of steampunk in modern culture, including online on the Internet, in gaming, especially role playing games of the D&D variety, on TV and in film, and the second of which surveys “the genre within the comic book medium.”

In between are 13 steampunk stories, the first and last of which are excerpts from larger works. Their copyright dates range from 1971 to 2007. So what is steampunk, exactly? Basically, it's science fiction set in the Victorian age, with marvelous machines, often (but not nearly always) steam driven, and frequently alternate universes or worlds in which such advanced technologies existed in an earlier era than in ours.

The Jess Nevins introduction describes The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling as “still the finest expression of the genre yet written,” an assessment with which I must sincerely agree. The Difference Engine is a must read for anyone interested in science fiction at all, and is canonical within the sub-genre. It's quite simply a wonderful book, not to be missed.

As to the rest of the examples provided here, well, I could live without many of them. They offer sometimes intriguing, sometimes less than intriguing views of various steampunk universes. There were many entertaining moments along the way as I read my way through this collection, but no epiphanies, no discoveries of writers or stories so amazing or wonderful that I felt compelled to seek out more of the same.

If, on the other hand, steampunk is your thing, you'll find much to admire here. I think my favorite stories were Michael Chabon's “The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance” and Stepan Chapman's “Minutes of the Last Meeting,” although the both had (in my view) unsatisfactory endings. The first just sort of trickles off (one charitably assumes it's just the first part of a much larger saga), and the second ends altogether too dramatically, in a denouement that makes the entire story up to that point an exercise in futility.

Still, this collection is recommended for anyone interested in exploring this fascinating, albeit (in my view) ultimately dead-end sub-genre within the larger science fiction universe.

Ascendancies by Bruce Sterling

Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling by Bruce Sterling. Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-1-59606-113-2

The stories in this collection range in original publication dates from 1982 to the present. Some of them fit into series that Sterling has written, including five “Shaper/Mechanist” stories, three “Leggy Starlitz” tales, and three “Chattanooga Stories,” one of which I had read before in some other collection somewhere (I enjoyed it almost as much the second time around; it's a good story). Then there are even larger segments of the book simply lumped together under the headings “Early Science Fiction and Fantasy,” and “Later Science Fiction and Fantasy.”

Amazingly, there is nothing else by Sterling in my blog, which means, apparently, that I've not read any of his work (except in anthologies) since 2003. I know I read some of his cyberpunk stuff back in the 80's and 90's, but apparently nothing recently. It's the old “too many books, too little time” dilemma.

Because Sterling is definitely worth reading, and there are a lot of good stories in this collection, along with the requisite, albeit in this case, quite restrained, author commentary. While many authors feel compelled to unburden themselves given the excuse of a collection like this, Sterling's comments are confined to a paltry five pages at the beginning of the book. After that, he just lets the stories speak for themselves. And speak, they do! Definitely recommended.

Dreamsongs: Volume II by George R.R. Martin

Dreamsongs: Volume II by George R.R. Martin. New York: Bantam Books, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-553-80658-8

I reviewed Volume I back in July, and have finally gotten around to reading and now blogging Volume II. The stories are good. I certainly enjoyed the Haviland Tuf, biogenetic engineer extraordinaire. I suppose I should look up Tuf Voyaging (1986), which is a whole collection of Tuf stories, published as a novel.

Less successful, in my view, are the TV scripts. TV is for watching, not reading. Since these for the most part, never got made, this is admittedly the only way to experience them, but they're not worth the effort, in my view.

The "Wild Card" stories were better, almost (but not quite) good enough to make me want to read the series, either the original, or the revived versions, in which Martin invites lots of other writers to the party.

The final group of stories is a mixed bag. Even Martin admits that some of them are difficult to classify. SciFi? Horror? Fantasy? Who cares? They're stories! “The Hedge Knight” is still my favorite, even though I've read it at least twice before, once in its original Robert Silverberg Legends anthology, and once somewhere else.

Finally, the book ends with a bibliography of Martin's writings, compiled by Leslie Kay Swigart. If you're a fan of Martin's work, you'll want to read this collection. If you're a fanatical fan, you'll want to consult the bibliography, for sure. Recommended for both those fans, and anyone who enjoys a good story or two.

Dreamsongs: Volume 1 by George R.R. Martin

Dreamsongs: Volume 1 by George R.R. Martin. New York: Bantam Books, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-553-80545-1

Once an author becomes (presumably) rich and famous, and publishers are hanging onto his every word—or so it seems, sooner or later the author feels the need to publish all of his or her work, early, late and middle—good, bad, or indifferent, in a collection. Short stories, and some not so short; anyway, the kind of thing that can be readily anthologized. And for some odd and unknown reason, recently I've been awash in these self-selected collections. I've just finished (look back on the blog!) reading and reviewing collections by Orson Scott Card, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., and Neil Gaiman. And I've already finished reading, but haven't yet gotten around to blogging a similar collection from David Gerrold.

So here's the first of two, not just one, mind you, from master fantasist, George R.R. Martin, whose “Song of Ice and Fire” cycle has all of his fans twitching in anticipation for the next and fifth volume, A Dance with Dragons, due for release in September. Martin must be extremely and exceptionally prolific in the short story genre, since his “Books by” page lists no less than seven (7!) previous short story collections by him.

This is the first that I've read, I must confess, at least so far as I can recall. At least, none appear on my blog, which covers pretty much everything I've read since August of 2003, including Vol. 4 of the “Song of Ice and Fire,” A Feast for Crows.

What makes this volume interesting is how it showcases Martin's work from its earliest feeble beginnings (said with tongue firmly in cheek, since none of them are particularly feeble), on into his maturing in his craft as a writer. His introductions are an essential part of this journey, explaining as they do how he first got started by telling himself stories as a child, reading the “funny books” (comics), and then starting to write for the fanzines of the early sixties.

Interestingly enough, even these very earliest stories, while admittedly somewhat naive in their conception at times, are well written, and entertaining to read. Even when the ideas behind them are a little on the shallow or trivial side, they still keep you turning the pages. What's amazing to me is that by just the second batch of stories, Martin already pens one, “With Morning Comes Mistfall,” that get nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards! It didn't win, but it got nominated. I'll admit it's a good story, but I wouldn't have thought it was THAT good, personally.

By the third batch, he actually DOES win a Hugo, this time with “A Song for Lya,” which, again, was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo, but only won the Hugo. And it IS a darn good story, even if I knew what was going to happen well before it actually came to pass. Can't be helped, I suppose. This section also has “And Seven Times Never Kill Man,” which is a truly disturbing story. Aliens against human religious fanatics, with an ending in this case NOT anticipated, at least not by me. Martin is really catching his stride with stories of alien worlds, alien artifacts, aliens embracing human religions, humans embracing alien religions, and more.

Next comes a section of fantasy stories, and these are very well done also. I think I actually liked them better than the SciFpi stories. Then come the horror stories, and these I don't like quite as well, but I can't deny their power. I'm just not a horror fan, even though these stories can also be considered fantasy, or in the case of the often-anthologized “Sandkings,” science fiction. I think “Sandkings” is the only story that remember reading before, and probably more than once, but then, it's a story that once read, is not likely to be forgotten. The stories in this section are also some of the longest in the book. “Nightflyers” is another SciFi horror tale, involving as it does, interstellar travel, and a most strange alien lifeform.

Well, I've already written way more about this book than I intended, while probably not saying all that much that is really helpful to the potential reader. I definitely recommend this collection for anyone who is a fan of Martin's work, and for that matter, for anyone who wants to read elegant, evocative, slightly twisted tales of wonder and the macabre.

Viewpoints Critical by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Viewpoints Critical: Selected Stories by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. New York: Tor, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-7653-1857-2

Here’s another short story collection by an established author much more known for his novels. In fact, as the author tells us in his brief introduction, “this collection has been a long time in coming,” since “the first story in this volume was published more than thirty years ago.” In other words, it’s taken him a long time to come up with enough short stories to fill up a publishable collection.

Modesitt is a prolific writer of science fiction and fantasy, but one I have hardly gotten around to reading. I started reading The Spellsong Cycle years ago, and enjoyed the first two volumes very much, but somehow never got around to reading the rest. I don’t know if they had yet to be written and published at the time, or if I just somehow never got around to finding and reading them. Then I reread the first volume recently (link), but my library has no copies of the second volume, so I guess I’ll have to break down and buy a copy. I need to reread it before I go on to the other three volumes.

These are all competently written, more or less entertaining stories. Which is to say that none of them were really that compelling. The best were actually the stories set in the author’s existing universes. “Black Ordermage,” for example, which is set in the Recluse universe, and explains how the character Cassius ended up there. Even though I’ve never read any of the Recluse novels (the more shame on me!), I very much enjoyed this story. Likewise “Sisters of Sarronnyn, Sisters of Westwind” which is another Recluse story.

“Beyond the Obvious Wind” was another story I liked, and it’s the story from which the entire Corean Chronicles originally sprang, even though it goes off in a different direction entirely, according to the author. I have to take his word for it, because, again, I’ve never read any of the novels in question. There are, to misquote that immortal old saw, just too many books, too little time.

So, Modesitt fans will definitely want to read this book, if only for those stories alone. Definitely recommended for his fans; others can take it or leave it, depending on the level of interest and the amount of time available.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman. New York: William Morrow, 2006. ISBN: 978-0-06-051522-5

I’ve been reading several short story collections recently, and this is just the first of them. Short stories are not my favorite genre, but when the author is someone known to me, particularly someone whose novels I enjoy, and especially in the science fiction and/or fantasy genre, I will generally read their short story collections, not only just to see what their stories are like, but also because they often include some stories based in one or more of their fictional universes that I have already enjoyed.

For example, Neil Gaiman includes a story set in his “American Gods” universe, a story that he originally wrote for one of Robert Silverberg’s justly famous Legends compilations. So anyone who is a fan of American Gods (which I’ve read and reviewed on this blog) or Anansi Boys (which I’ve not yet read or reviewed, but mean to as soon as I get around to it) will want to check out this Fragile Things collection if for no other reason than to read “The Monarch of the Glen,” unless, of course, they’ve already read it in Legends.

As for the rest of the collection, as with nearly every short story collection I read, it’s a mixed bag. Some of the substantial stories, such as “Closing Time,” “Bitter Grounds,” “Goliath,” and “Good Boys Deserve Favors,” I really enjoyed.

Others, not so much. I didn’t particularly appreciate the turn-around ending for “A Study in Emerald,” even though it (the story) won a Hugo award AND got Gaiman inducted into the Baker Street Irregulars. “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire” was just plain silly, although I suppose that was probably the intent. I could complain about some of the others, but to what point? The point is that anyone reading this collection will like some, dislike others.

Some of my favorites were actually some of the shortest, quickest little stories, the ones you can read out loud to someone you’re with, and it will only take 5 or 10 minutes, short enough that they probably can be persuaded to listen that long. Examples include “Other People,” “Locks,” “Instructions,” “In the End,” and “The Day the Saucers Came.” Several of these, some of my favorites, are actually poems. Or at least, written in verse.

So, if you’ve read and enjoyed any of Neil Gaiman’s work, you’ll probably want to read this short story collection as well. You’re sure to like some of them; you may not like some of the others; some of them may be disturbing, annoying, depressing, or even abhorrent, but that’s the way it is when you read a collection like this.

Oh, don’t overlook the introduction, in which Gaiman explains how each came to be written. You may want to read it after the fact or along with each story, but don’t leave it out altogether. Why? Because he actually embeds a very short story into one of the introductory comments, which you won’t want to miss. I have to say, I would have preferred the introductory materials to have been printed with each individual story, instead of grouping them together at the beginning, as that it would have made it easier to read each one with the associated story.

Definitely recommended for Gaiman fans.