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The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction
 
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The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction (Mass Market Paperback)

by Stephen Baxter (Author), Peter F. Hamilton (Author), Neal Asher (Author), George Mann (Editor)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Solaris (5 Feb 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1844164489
  • ISBN-13: 978-1844164486
  • Product Dimensions: 16.8 x 10.4 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 193,371 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #8 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > H > Hamilton, Peter F.
    #18 in  Books > Fiction > Anthologies > Science Fiction
    #28 in  Books > Fiction > Anthologies > Adventure Stories

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Product Description

Synopsis

This is an eclectic collection of all-original science fiction stories from some of the foremost luminaries in the genre. Featuring new tales of far future murder, first contact, love and war from such well-regarded and award winning authors as Peter F. Hamilton, Stephen Baxter, Adam Roberts, Jeffrey Thomas, Eric Brown, Paul Di Filippo, Neal Asher, Jay Lake and Ian Watson, this collection is sure to delight all fans of good science fiction.

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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A mixed bag, inevitably, 22 Aug 2008
By gigidunnit (Tokyo, Japan) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   
Inevitably, because you need to be clear about the word "new" in the title. These are not the best stories from magazines or anthologies, drawn together as representing the cream of modern SF. They're a bunch of new stories, all by UK writers or set in the UK, created and compiled for this particular book. This causes quality problems -- these stories have not been acknowledged as good, but are seemingly simply whatever the authors came up with when called upon to contribute something. So there are a couple of excellent stories, ie when the authors actually made the effort, and a whole bunch of lousy stories and throw-aways. After all, writers are lazy like the rest of us. Why throw away a great, potentially money-making story on an anthology that will print anything you come up with? You just give them whatever's languishing in your "seconds" pile, or toss something off on the spot.

Much here is not interesting at all, and almost nothing is genuinely new or exciting. Brian Aldis's four-page "story" seems to be there simply to be able to add his name to the authors list. Eric Brown and Neal Asher sleepwalk through theirs. Most annoying is Jeffrey Thomas's instantly forgettable "In His Sights", which gets pride of place at the head of the collection but seems to be here merely to advertise Thomas's novel "Deadstock", from which it might have been excerpted. Available, as the full page advert at the back proclaims, from Solaris.

Keith Brooke's "The Accord" is quite simply dreadful -- this is seemingly an author who never got over the whole cyberpunk/group gestalt style, doesn't have the wit or invention of Geoff Ryman's "The Child Garden" to pull it off, and instead is content to rewrite "The Matrix" movie, already about as far down the SF food chain as it's possible to go without eating your own remains. Whatever Simon Ings was on when writing "The Wedding Party", a gruesome (and not SF) story about hacking up bodies to sneak them through UK customs, he needs serious psychiatric help. The story undoubtedly has an audience, but it's quite out of place here.

The collection hits rock bottom with a handful of attempts at humour -- James Lovegrove's "The Bowdler Strain" is a sort of starched-lip Wellsian comedy about a disease that stops you from swearing, mangling your words instead. It's fUkCiN awful. "Personal Jesus" by Paul Di Filippo regurgitates PK Dick's briefcase psychiatrist into a thing he calls the "godPod" (ha ha), where the punchline writes itself and isn't worth waiting for. Worst of these is "Jellyfish", an excruciating piece of self-indulgence by Mike Resnick and David Gerrold, both of whom should have known better, about how fictional science fiction writers can change reality. It is itself a thin parody of Kurt Vonnegut's Kilgore Trout, but a good few steps below even "Venus On The Half-Shell", whose memory I apologise for regurgitating here.

Outside of the comedy, I *think*, whatever possessed Stephen Baxter to write "Last Contact"? It's no more than a rewrite of that classic SF tale "Finis" by Frank L Pollack -- the end of the world is calculated to take place at 3pm next weekend. In this case it's due to some kind of gravitational disruption wave sweeping toward us.

On the plus, "If At First" by Peter Hamilton is a mildly diverting time loop story (nothing new, but well constructed). Mary Turzillo starts poorly, but rescues "Zora And The Land Ethic Nomads" with an escalating panic in the centre, only to flitter all that tension away before the end. And Tony Ballantyne doesn't quite pull off "Third Person", about a drug that makes you see things from third person viewpoint, getting no further with the idea than shoving it on a battlefield as yet another disassociated-soldier device. Tony, we already get the idea of abdication of responsibility, but a shame you didn't try to explore it here.

Adam Roberts, author of some flawed novels, comes up with a flawed religious nutcase story "A Distillation of Grace", which has the germ of a good idea. And thank Shad (bless his memory) for Ian Watson, whose "Cages" is the one bright spark in the entire collection -- brilliant, disturbing, thought-provoking. But not enough on its own to excuse the rest.

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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Some very interesting ideas, 27 Jun 2007
By D. Wilson (UK, NW.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Brilliant short stories, most are fantastic, some amazing ideas and very different to what I've read before. Only a couple of stories I couldn't get into though on the whole a good book especially for the price.
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