Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Chronological Dissonance on FF1

The blog Chronological Dissonance likes Fast Forward 1. They call out stories by Paolo Bacigalupi, Kage Baker, Stephen Baxter, A.M. Dellamonica, Ken MacLeod, Ian MacDonald ("One of my three favourite stories in the book"), Mary A. Turzillo, John Meaney and Paul Di Filippo. And I love their concluding remarks:

"If Sturgeon's Law (ninety percent of everything is crud) is true, then there are nine other anthologies filled with dreck, because this one is excellent. I look forward to more Fast Forward anthologies."

Also worth noting: A previous story in the world of A.M. Dellamonica's "Time of the Snake," caleld "The Town on Blighted Sea," is available online at Strange Horizons. And, of course, Paul Di Filippo's "Wikiworld" is still online here.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting, because I didn't know the anthology was supposed to be hard SF with no themes interposed. Well, I knew about the lack of themes, but not the hard SF. Is that accurate, cause if so, I didn't consider many of those stories hard SF, but I might have a weird definition. :)

Lou Anders said...

I think I should clarify this in the intro to the next one. It isnt' supposed to be all hard or all cutting edge. It's supposed to be all "pure SF." Of course, the Gene Wolfe story skirts that edge too. Maybe it's just supposed to be.

Steve said...

Actually, I don't think any clarification is needed. The introduction says the stories are "unthemed, science fiction-only" which I somehow misinterpreted as meaning hard science fiction.

I've corrected the review.

Lou Anders said...

Hey - I'm not complaining. And I think I said "hard" somewhere online somewhere at some point. But the point is, as you have it, simply original, unthemed SF in all that implies.

Justin Steiner said...

I just did a short review on my blog as well. It's a hell of an anthology, Lou. Fantastic job.

Lou Anders said...

Justin,
Thank you very much for the kind words of support. Really, really good to hear!