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megapolisomancy's review
2.0
This is one of those books that is so painfully mediocre that just motivating myself to get down a few pithy comments here is like pulling teeth. I finished this like a week ago and now I've mostly forgotten these mostly-forgettable stories, so... here goes.
Saving the World by Terry Carr: A story about a conference of policy makers and ecological experts. No twists, no surprises, just... a conference.
Parks of Rest and Culture by George Zebrowski: A bleak little piece about a man who works in an air-filtration plant in an unlivably-polluted future whose faltering marriage echoes the faltering of society. Nice and elegiac.
The Quality of the Product shortstory by Kris Neville and Lil Neville: Um... I think this was the one that was a series of unconnected paragraph-long vignettes about people dealing with encroaching pollution. I skimmed a lot of it.
Small War by Katherine MacLean: MacLean set up the novum for her story (wars have been outlawed between nations but still take place between NGOs, here the Audobon Society and some hunters) but then forgot to actually write a story.
Desirable Lakeside Residence by Andre Norton: One of the best stories in this anthology is by Andre Norton - I kind of wish that I had just written that one sentence and let it stand as the review by itself. It's pretty telling.
The Smokey the Bear Sutra by Gary Snyder: Age of Aquarius hippie-dippie nonsense. Next.
An Article About Hunting by Gene Wolfe: Lesser Wolfe, but still one of the better stories here, narrated by an incompetent reporter (maybe?) who's taking part in a bear hunt (although the bear might be a person, or a mutant bear, or a regular old bear?) because the bear has been eating too many apples. I did appreciate greatly that this was an unreliable narrator tale about something other than rape or pedophilia.
Noonday Devil shortstory by Dennis O'Neil: Lecherous priest protagonist fits the overall grotesque approach of this story (including a truly nightmarish scene with a father and son), but still... spare me.
Scorner's Seat by R. A. Lafferty: A closed-system-village battles pollution and monsters. Not bad but it couldn't decide if it was a plot/character story or just an exercise in worldbuilding and so it kind of muddled its way down the middle.
The Battered-Earth Syndrome by Barry N. Malzberg: Another disjointed series of vignettes and I hated the way it was written so I skipped it.
Windmill by Poul Anderson: See Norton mini-review but replace "Andre Norton" with "Poul Anderson"
Paradise Regained by Theodore R. Cogswell and Theodore L. Thomas [as by Cogswell Thomas]: This was written in 1973 but it really reads like one of the hilariously bad pulp shorts from the 1940s: prisoners are exiled to a new planet far away from the heavily polluted Earth which has a toxic atmosphere and they escape and terraform it and we fast forward to five years later and it turns out that by terraform they meant "horrifically pollute" because, you know, that's what they were used to on Earth! Whoa!
Beautyland by Gene Wolfe: Better than "An Article About Hunting" but still far from his best.
The Day by Colin Saxton: I do not remember a thing about this story.
Don't Hold Your Breath by A. E. van Vogt: Impressively misogynistic! Something about the "kind of man" who would have four mistresses being the kind of man who would build shelters for people but then rig it with bombs (I never did piece together why he put bombs in this thing? I thought it was to kill people but when he realized that would be a side effect he raced to stop it. I don't know.) and something about mutating humanity to breathe... something other than oxygen, I don't remember what.
The Wind and the Rain by Robert Silverberg: Not a story but a series of descriptions of a ruined Earth. Not bad for what it is.
There were some poems in here too but I don't care about poetry so I skipped them - a philosophy I should have just applied to the whole book (heyooooooooooo).
Saving the World by Terry Carr: A story about a conference of policy makers and ecological experts. No twists, no surprises, just... a conference.
Parks of Rest and Culture by George Zebrowski: A bleak little piece about a man who works in an air-filtration plant in an unlivably-polluted future whose faltering marriage echoes the faltering of society. Nice and elegiac.
The Quality of the Product shortstory by Kris Neville and Lil Neville: Um... I think this was the one that was a series of unconnected paragraph-long vignettes about people dealing with encroaching pollution. I skimmed a lot of it.
Small War by Katherine MacLean: MacLean set up the novum for her story (wars have been outlawed between nations but still take place between NGOs, here the Audobon Society and some hunters) but then forgot to actually write a story.
Desirable Lakeside Residence by Andre Norton: One of the best stories in this anthology is by Andre Norton - I kind of wish that I had just written that one sentence and let it stand as the review by itself. It's pretty telling.
The Smokey the Bear Sutra by Gary Snyder: Age of Aquarius hippie-dippie nonsense. Next.
An Article About Hunting by Gene Wolfe: Lesser Wolfe, but still one of the better stories here, narrated by an incompetent reporter (maybe?) who's taking part in a bear hunt (although the bear might be a person, or a mutant bear, or a regular old bear?) because the bear has been eating too many apples. I did appreciate greatly that this was an unreliable narrator tale about something other than rape or pedophilia.
Noonday Devil shortstory by Dennis O'Neil: Lecherous priest protagonist fits the overall grotesque approach of this story (including a truly nightmarish scene with a father and son), but still... spare me.
Scorner's Seat by R. A. Lafferty: A closed-system-village battles pollution and monsters. Not bad but it couldn't decide if it was a plot/character story or just an exercise in worldbuilding and so it kind of muddled its way down the middle.
The Battered-Earth Syndrome by Barry N. Malzberg: Another disjointed series of vignettes and I hated the way it was written so I skipped it.
Windmill by Poul Anderson: See Norton mini-review but replace "Andre Norton" with "Poul Anderson"
Paradise Regained by Theodore R. Cogswell and Theodore L. Thomas [as by Cogswell Thomas]: This was written in 1973 but it really reads like one of the hilariously bad pulp shorts from the 1940s: prisoners are exiled to a new planet far away from the heavily polluted Earth which has a toxic atmosphere and they escape and terraform it and we fast forward to five years later and it turns out that by terraform they meant "horrifically pollute" because, you know, that's what they were used to on Earth! Whoa!
Beautyland by Gene Wolfe: Better than "An Article About Hunting" but still far from his best.
The Day by Colin Saxton: I do not remember a thing about this story.
Don't Hold Your Breath by A. E. van Vogt: Impressively misogynistic! Something about the "kind of man" who would have four mistresses being the kind of man who would build shelters for people but then rig it with bombs (I never did piece together why he put bombs in this thing? I thought it was to kill people but when he realized that would be a side effect he raced to stop it. I don't know.) and something about mutating humanity to breathe... something other than oxygen, I don't remember what.
The Wind and the Rain by Robert Silverberg: Not a story but a series of descriptions of a ruined Earth. Not bad for what it is.
There were some poems in here too but I don't care about poetry so I skipped them - a philosophy I should have just applied to the whole book (heyooooooooooo).
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