Monday, June 16, 2008

Sideways in Crime: A Nifty Notion

"The earth's greatest science fiction and fantasy magazine," SFX, has reviewed my just-released latest anthology Sideways In Crime,calling it "a nifty notion." They toss out phrases like "it brilliantly conjures up a sense of place" (for Kristine Kathryn Rusch) or "proves he’s as adept at the whodunit as he is at rewiring the past" (for Stephen Baxter). They praise stories by Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Jack McDevitt, Mary Rosenblum, Pat Cadigan and Chris Roberson. But we only get three stars. Apparently, we are too clever. As in: "Here, the sheer cleverness of so many of the stories can become wearing: as clever twist follows clever idea, don’t be surprised if occasionally you find yourself yearning for more straightforward narratives." I am reminded of something Ian McDonald said recently about books verses television. And my own opinions of why The Simpsons was more popular than Futurama. But happy that we're nifty.

8 comments:

Liviu said...

I read Sideways in Crime on Sunday and I liked it; for me the standout by far was T. Judson story with Cromwell and Colbert; but I love Mr. Judson's reinterpretations of history and I would sure love a novel in that setting. Also JCG's, J. McDevitt's and J. Meaney's stories were excellent.

I liked most of the rest too, there are several authors there that are not my cup of tea but those stories were ok and overall I felt it was a very, very good anthology.

The only complaint I have is that I would have really loved some of those stories to be novella length...

Lou Anders said...

Liviu - I have missed you! How have you been?
Thanks for this! Me, I'm hoping it does well enough that Solaris wants a Sideways in Crime 2 because I'd love to see some of these crime-solving teams get a second outing. (Stirling's already does in his recent short story collection, I believe.)

Liviu said...

Just finished MultiReal - got an arc from Robert and he will post my review on Fantasy Book Critic - and I loved it; I posted a mini-review both on sffworld and at goodreads, I will do the full review in a day or two and I guess it will get posted around publication date.

Looking forward to FastForward2 also, so to speak.

Lou Anders said...

And I look forward to your review. Hey - having read Multireal - the first book was "Donald Trump meets Vernor Vinge." I've been half-jokingly calling this one "The Matrix meets Boston Legal," am I right?

Liviu said...

It's as good a sound bite as any. Though the book is much richer than that :) The conclusion to the trilogy should be a cracking read :)

Lou Anders said...

Yes. I want him to hurry up and write it.

Liviu said...

What about Mr. Judson? Do you have any plans to publish more?

Lou Anders said...

Nothing to report as yet.