Brian W. Aldiss. The Mighty Mi Tok of Beijing. (Twelve Tomorrows)
Grandmaster Aldiss gives an elegant oriental take (albeit a very rude one!) of the inspiration behind a biological tweak – a seafood-induced inspiration.
Reviewing short SF since 2000
Grandmaster Aldiss gives an elegant oriental take (albeit a very rude one!) of the inspiration behind a biological tweak – a seafood-induced inspiration.
Paolo Bacigalupi. Yellow Card Man. Bacigalupi’s ‘The Calorie Man’ appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction’s
Walter Jon Williams. The Green Leopard Plague. A very skilfully crafted short story. Set in
Sixteen stories, of which I’d say 8 hit the mark. It’s a collection of fairly traditional SF, eschewing the new speculative, as perhaps might be expected with the authors for the most being well established. The majority of the stories could have been written anytime during the 1990s, making it a good, if safe collection, and a solid start.
If it’s SFnal bang for your buck you’re after, you won’t get much better value for money than this during 2005.
A mellow, mature consideration of what it is to be human, which doubtless Aldiss, now in his eighties, feels can be done from the perspective of experience, rather than plot devices involving far-future forest worlds or generation starships.
Stories by : Tuli Kupferberg, Harvey Jacobs, Kit Reed, Tommaso Landolfi, Donald Barthelme, J.G. Ballard, Gilbert Thomas, Tuli Kupferberg, John Updike, Hilary Bailey, Bob Shaw, Peter Tate, R.A. Lafferty, Sonya Dorman, Thomas M. Disch, Brian W. Aldiss, Hortense Calisher, Charles L. Harness, R.A. Lafferty, William Burroughs, Fritz Leiber, Dick Allen, J.G. Ballard, Henri Michaux, Katherine MacLean, Carol Emshwiller, Gunter Grass, Samuel R. Delany, Tuli Kupferberg. (Contents only).
Stories by : Holley Cantine, Bernard Wolfe, Ward Moore, R.C. Phelan, Felicia Lamport, Michael Ffolkes, Arthur C. Clarke, Leonard Lockhard, Shel Silverstein, John Brunner, Roger Price, Henry Slesar, Lester del Rey, Howard Fast, Christopher Anvil, Elizabeth Emmett, Isaac Asimov, Marshall King, William Sambrot, Frederic Brown, R. Bretnor, Rosel George Brown, Walt Kelly, Zenna Henderson, Joseph Whitehill, Ray Bradbury, Hilbert Schenck Jr., Dean McLaughlin, Kingsley Amis, Richard McKenna, Brian W. Aldiss. (Contents only).
Stories by Carol Emshwiller, J.F. BOne, Richard Gehman, Robert Sheckley, Rog Phillips, Gerald Kersh, Theodore L. Thomas, R. M. McKenna, Fritz Leiber, Avram Davidson, Brian W. Aldiss, E. C. Tubb, Arthur Zirul, Theodore Sturgeon, John Steinbeck, Avram Davidson
Stories by : Brian W. Aldiss, Gene Wolfe, Joe W. Haldemn, Josef Nesvadba, Kingsley Amis, Max Beerbohm, R.A. Lafferty, Robert Scheckley, Robert Silverberg, Thomas M. Disch, Tor Age Bringsvaerd, William Harrison.
Stories by : Ken W. Purdy, Brian W. Aldiss, James E. Gunn, Jonathan Ela, Keith Roberts, Robert F. Young, Andre Carneiro, Alex Hamilton, Howard L. Myers, Victor Sabah, Christopher Priest, Joe W Haldeman.
Stories by : Arnold M. Auerbach, Arthur C Clarke, B. Alan Burhoe, Barry N. Malzberg, Brian W. Aldiss, Charles Baxter, Cynthia Ozick, Donald Barthelme, Gahan Wilson, James Blish, Kingsley Amis, Lawrence Sail, Norman Spinrad, Richard E. Peck, Robert Sheckley, Steven Herbst, Steven Schrader, Thomas M. Disch.
Stories by : Algis Budrys, Anthony Burgess, Brian W. Aldiss, Bruce McAllister, Frederik Pohl, J.G. Ballard, James Tiptree, John Hartridge, Joseph Wesley, Jr, Ken W. Purdy, P. g. Wyal, Paul Ehrlich, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin.
With the SF community having being served for two decades by the Dozois annual collection, producing an anthology with only a dozen stories is going to be challenging. The Silverberg/Haber collection makes it even more difficult as the majority of the stories are from the first half of 2002.
Stories by : Alastair Reynolds, Brian W. Aldiss, David Morrell, Edward M. Lerner, Gene Wolfe., Gregory Benford, James Morrow, James Patrick Kelly, Lisa Goldstein, Michael Swanwick, Nancy Kress, Richard Chwedyk, Simon Ings, Stephen Baxter, Terry Bisson, Terry Dowling, Thomas M. Disch, Ursula K. Le Guin.
Stories by : Brian Stableford, Brian W. Aldiss Steppenpferd, Charles Dexter Ward, Chris Beckett, Dan Simmons, Darrell Schweitzer, David Brin, David Langford, Greg Egan, Howard Waldrop, Joan Slonczewski, John M. Ford, Ken MacLeod, M. Shayne Bell, Michael F. Flynn, Nancy Kress, Norman Spinrad, Paul J. McAuley, Robert Charles Wilson, Robert Reed, Robert Sheckley, Robert Silverberg, Stephen Baxter, Stephen Dedman, Tananarive Due, Ted Chiang, Ursula K. Le Guin
Stories by : Brian W. Aldiss, Bruce Sterling, Charles Sheffield, Connie Willis, Dan Simmons, Don Webb, G. David Nordley, Greg Egan, Ian R. Macleod, Jack Cady, Joe Haldeman, Jr, Mark Rich, Maureen F. McHugh and David B. Kisor, Mike Resnick, Nancy Kress, Neal Barrett, Pat Cadigan, Rebecca Ore, Robert Reed, Stephen Baxter, Steven Utley, Walter Jon Williams, William Browning Spencer
Stories by : Alexander Jablokov, Brian W. Aldiss, Chris Beckett, Connie Willis, Geoffrey A. Landis, Greg Egan, Gregory Benford, Ian McDonald, Ian R. Macleod, Jack Dann, James Patrick Kelly, Karen Joy Fowler, Kathe Koja, Kim Newman, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Lois Tilton, Mark L, Mike Resnick, Nancy Kress, Pat Cadigan, Paul J. McAuley, Rick Shelley, Robert Reed, Robert Silverberg, Walter Jon Williams, William Gibson
Eleven uniformly excellent stories, covering most topics you might expect to see : time travel, far future, virtual reality, New Wave, and fantasy. What is perhaps of note is the lack of ‘hard SF’, and the extent to which so many of the stories are fundamentally about humanity, about people.
The first in a l-o-n-g running series.
Stories by : Brian W. Aldiss, John Varley, Michael G. Coney, Richard Cowper, Lester Del Rey, Isaac Asimov, Barrington J. Bayley, Joanna Russ, James Tiptree Jr, Damon Knight. (Content listing only.)
Stories by Richard Wilson, Samuel R Delany, Colin Kapp, R A Lafferty, Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Thomas M Disch, Rogert Zelazny, Andrew J. Offutt, Harlan Ellison, Ron Goulart, Keith Roberts, R A Lafferty, Larry Niven, Brian W Aldiss, D G Compton.
A ‘How to Start Reading and Enjoying Classic Short SF’. Compulsive and required reading for anyone who wants to get into what makes short SF.