Reviews
L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XXIII, edited by Algis Budrys
The Writers of the Future Volume XXIII anthology opens beautifully with “Primetime” by Douglas Texter, a humanist tale of a future history channel that brings the past alive through live streaming coverage of history’s highest rating events. Alex, a lower level feed recorder for historical shows catches the attention of the head of the channel […]
Continue ReadingStarship Summer by Eric Brown
Eric Brown’s Starship Summer is a novella about Conway, a man who recently moved from Earth to a colony planet. Although the planet is famous for its Golden Column—religious pilgrims flock to it—Conway has come only to escape the tragedy of his past. Conway buys a spaceship to use as his home, expecting it […]
Continue ReadingGod Laughs When You Die by Michael Boatman
I have no idea whether or not God Laughs When You Die, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she allowed herself a wry grimace after reading Michael Boatman’s first collection of stories. The subheading, Mean Little Stories from the Wrong Side of the Tracks, accurately reflects both their mood and origin—cynical, grotesque, and sometimes hilarious […]
Continue ReadingHub #27 - 30
I was only a couple of paragraphs into “House Trainer” by Kenneth B. Chiacchia in Hub #27 when I thought, “Why didn’t I think of this idea?” Much has been written about home AIs, where the house has a personality of sorts, but Chiacchia’s take on it is a real treat.
Joyce has […]
Finding Magic by Tanya Huff
It’s odd how you can get to know a stranger by simply perusing a block of squashed tree for a few hours. Ten days ago, I didn’t know Tanya Huff from Adam—or Lilith, for that matter. I have since learned from her collection, Finding Magic, that she adores animals and strong women (especially redheads), appreciates […]
Continue ReadingPS Showcase #1: Sanity and Other Delusions: Tales of Psychological Horror by Gary Fry
The first of PS Publishing’s new Showcase range, Sanity And Other Delusions by Gary Fry is a collection of short stories which explores the human mind, takes the reader on a journey through the seemingly mundane, and forces them to face those nightmarish fears that keep us all staring at the ceiling after the lights […]
Continue ReadingThe City Beyond Play by Philip José Farmer and Danny Adams
Being the early labors of Philip José Farmer and the later workings of his grand-nephew, Danny Adams, novella The City Beyond Play is a pristine piece of science fantasy. The fantasy half revolves around a secluded cut of California re-created to represent a pre-17th-century Europe, known to all its accepted inhabitants as Scadia, while […]
Continue ReadingCrossTIME Science Fiction Anthology, Vol. VI, edited by Anthony Ravenscroft
The CrossTIME Science Fiction Anthology VI publishes the best of the stories contributed to the Crossquarter Annual Short Science Fiction Contest in 2006. The competition has been running since 2001 and is organised in memory of Paul B. Duquette, a friend of the publisher’s and an sf fan. The Crossquarter competition specifies that it […]
Continue ReadingAnalog, July/August 2007
In his Hugo-nominated novel, Eifelheim, based on a short story of the same name that appeared in Analog (11/1986), Michael F. Flynn demonstrated an understanding of the way the thought processes of Medieval man differ from modern man. It is so much more than just a matter of believing in “superstitions.” In “Quaestiones Super […]
Continue ReadingDead Earth: The Green Dawn by Mark Justice and David T. Wilbanks
Do yourself a favor and skip the introduction to Dead Earth: The Green Dawn. In a nutshell, it says that Dead Earth is a fine postapocalyptic novella, makes a couple of comparisons to explain why that isn’t such an easy thing to achieve, and then proceeds to ruin two of the three strong […]
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