Aug 08 2004
AH quick review:
I just got in a bunch of AH novels and story collections, and I recommend you guys check out ReVisions (edited by Czerneda and Szpindel), and here’s my blow-by-blow: (1-10 with 10 being glows-in-the-dark good)
Resonance of Light (Landis) (6) - I’m not so sure of this science-wise, but it made for a nice story.
Out of China (Czerneda) (6) - The thrust of this is that if X out of China is good, then A through Y must be correct as well. I don’t buy that. The first part with the rats was execellent.
Site Fourteen (Gilman) (3) - Mushily written, pretty much a loss.
Silent Leonardo (Baker) (4) - Cute, but the science and the story have huge holes.
Call from the Wild (Durgin) (3) - Not very readable as AH at all.
Axial Axioms (Gardner) (1) Totally unreadable.
Terminal Solution (Bailey) (5) Needs a careful read to see what’s really going on between the lines. I don’t quite buy the posits on the mass infection.
Ashbazu Effect (McDaid) (7) Neat stuff.
Word for Heathens (Watts) (3) Just as irritating to me as the overly political AH is.
Ghost Story (Noskateh) (5) Interesting, not sure this is AH, and tricky to follow.
Executioner’s Apprentice (Kenyon) (6) How are they digging up genomes with their tech? Wasn’t clear, but the story is interesting.
Swimming upstream… (Resnick/Matthews) (5) Most interesting Resnick I’ve seen in a while.
Unwirer (Doctorow/Stross) (8) Best story of the collection. Great stuff.
When the Morning Stars… (Szpindel) (5) I got the thrust of this, but I really can’t say it was very enjoyable or easy to follow. Herd Mentality (Caselberg) Not AH.
All of these were interesting variances from the usual sort of what-ifs we see, but there’s a lot of uneveness as you can tell from my ratings.
