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Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine 30th Anniversary Anthology
by Sheila Williams (ed.)
349 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/SF
I'm going to just record my personal reader-thoughts on each of the stories, since short stories are very much a matter of taste anyway and this is outside my usual genre. Hopefully you know me well enough to be able to judge disparities. Recommended stories are marked with a *.
Overall, I liked 6 stories, half-liked 2 stories ("The Happy Man" and "The Children of Time"), either hated or was indifferent toward the other 7. Not bad stats, although the organization is skewed with most of the good stories toward the beginning. My favorites were Octavia Butler's "Street Sounds" for emotional impact and Kelly Link's "Flying Lessons" for creativity.
Reading this anthology has taught me what my limits are regarding hard SF; there was more than one story that I appreciated on a technical level but just couldn't become engaged enough to care. (I also confirmed that Kim Stanley Robinson's writing and I do not get along.) Although I wouldn't ever subscribe to Asimov's, it was worth reading for my first glimpse of Butler and Link, plus testing the waters of hardcore SF.
If anyone has also read this anthology or any of the individual stories, I'd very much like to know your thoughts.
by Sheila Williams (ed.)
349 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/SF
I'm going to just record my personal reader-thoughts on each of the stories, since short stories are very much a matter of taste anyway and this is outside my usual genre. Hopefully you know me well enough to be able to judge disparities. Recommended stories are marked with a *.
( cut for length )
Overall, I liked 6 stories, half-liked 2 stories ("The Happy Man" and "The Children of Time"), either hated or was indifferent toward the other 7. Not bad stats, although the organization is skewed with most of the good stories toward the beginning. My favorites were Octavia Butler's "Street Sounds" for emotional impact and Kelly Link's "Flying Lessons" for creativity.
Reading this anthology has taught me what my limits are regarding hard SF; there was more than one story that I appreciated on a technical level but just couldn't become engaged enough to care. (I also confirmed that Kim Stanley Robinson's writing and I do not get along.) Although I wouldn't ever subscribe to Asimov's, it was worth reading for my first glimpse of Butler and Link, plus testing the waters of hardcore SF.
If anyone has also read this anthology or any of the individual stories, I'd very much like to know your thoughts.
