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colossal's review
4.0
I keep anthologies for reading on my phone because I'm not often without my eReader and the shorter stories are good for the short times where I only have my phone as a reading device. I've been reading this one off and on for the whole of December.
This isn't my first Infinity Project anthology; I actually started with the second one [b:Edge of Infinity|13547291|Edge of Infinity|Jonathan Strahan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1350927167s/13547291.jpg|19112431] because I wanted to read an award-winning novella from that collection. I'm actually glad that that was the way I started, because had I read this one first, I'm not sure I would have continued. There are a few good stories in this one, but overall I felt the quality was uneven and the theme to be lacking.
Standouts for me were [b:The Invasion of Venus|17211450|The Invasion of Venus|Stephen Baxter|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|23693437] by [a:Stephen Baxter|20295|Stephen Baxter|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1391280682p2/20295.jpg] (I'm not normally a fan of his; now I'm wondering if I should check out more of his shorter works) and [b:The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees|26615683|The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees|John Barnes|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|46652900] by [a:John Barnes|45596|John Barnes|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1385398303p2/45596.jpg]. I also enjoyed the [a:Peter Watts|27167|Peter Watts|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png] story that kicks off the anthology ([b:Malak|26023594|Malak|Peter Watts|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|45946700]), but it's just a riff on Watts' normal themes around humanity and inhumanity, which I personally love, but is far from everyone's taste.
From a negative point of view I found the [a:John C. Wright|58124|John C. Wright|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png], [a:David Moles|941191|David Moles|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and [a:Robert Reed|57814|Robert Reed|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1455117424p2/57814.jpg] stories nearly unreadable.
From a should-be-noted point of view this collection contains [b:Bit Rot|18078713|Bit Rot (Freyaverse #1.5)|Charles Stross|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|25385695] by [a:Charles Stross|8794|Charles Stross|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1355510574p2/8794.jpg] which is a story between [b:Saturn's Children|2278387|Saturn's Children (Freyaverse #1)|Charles Stross|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348429796s/2278387.jpg|2284499] and [b:Neptune's Brood|15985402|Neptune's Brood (Freyaverse #2)|Charles Stross|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1358215802s/15985402.jpg|21562011] in the Freyaverse books.
Read if you're a completist or a Stross fan, but this is a skippable volume in this series.
This isn't my first Infinity Project anthology; I actually started with the second one [b:Edge of Infinity|13547291|Edge of Infinity|Jonathan Strahan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1350927167s/13547291.jpg|19112431] because I wanted to read an award-winning novella from that collection. I'm actually glad that that was the way I started, because had I read this one first, I'm not sure I would have continued. There are a few good stories in this one, but overall I felt the quality was uneven and the theme to be lacking.
Standouts for me were [b:The Invasion of Venus|17211450|The Invasion of Venus|Stephen Baxter|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|23693437] by [a:Stephen Baxter|20295|Stephen Baxter|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1391280682p2/20295.jpg] (I'm not normally a fan of his; now I'm wondering if I should check out more of his shorter works) and [b:The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees|26615683|The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees|John Barnes|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|46652900] by [a:John Barnes|45596|John Barnes|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1385398303p2/45596.jpg]. I also enjoyed the [a:Peter Watts|27167|Peter Watts|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png] story that kicks off the anthology ([b:Malak|26023594|Malak|Peter Watts|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|45946700]), but it's just a riff on Watts' normal themes around humanity and inhumanity, which I personally love, but is far from everyone's taste.
From a negative point of view I found the [a:John C. Wright|58124|John C. Wright|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png], [a:David Moles|941191|David Moles|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and [a:Robert Reed|57814|Robert Reed|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1455117424p2/57814.jpg] stories nearly unreadable.
From a should-be-noted point of view this collection contains [b:Bit Rot|18078713|Bit Rot (Freyaverse #1.5)|Charles Stross|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|25385695] by [a:Charles Stross|8794|Charles Stross|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1355510574p2/8794.jpg] which is a story between [b:Saturn's Children|2278387|Saturn's Children (Freyaverse #1)|Charles Stross|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348429796s/2278387.jpg|2284499] and [b:Neptune's Brood|15985402|Neptune's Brood (Freyaverse #2)|Charles Stross|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1358215802s/15985402.jpg|21562011] in the Freyaverse books.
Read if you're a completist or a Stross fan, but this is a skippable volume in this series.
useriv's review
3.0
My favorite stories were Malak by Watts and the last one with the gasoline trees.
ericlawton's review
3.0
For my tastes, some of the stories were really good, but some were so bad I couldn't read any more, so I skipped after reading more than I should have done. I DO NOT NEED TO BE FAIR TO AUTHORS.
will_sargent's review
4.0
A mix of stories. Some are better than others, but all of them are good. The Invasion of Venus and Malak are the two standouts for me, by virtue of approaching life through a non-human perspective.
lordofthemoon's review
3.0
This is a collection of short stories (mostly) with the theme of "hard SF", although this is never really defined (a point that the editor notes in the introduction) and some of the stories definitely stray outside this sub-genre. There were more hits than misses in the collection, but it's the misses that stand out for me, possibly because there was a string of them in quick succession in the middle of the book. There was Kathleen Ann Goonan's Creatures With Wings (a small Buddhist community is saved/kidnapped by angels/aliens just before the end of the world) and Walls of Flesh, Bars of Bone which started off strongly with a drunken sociology professor seeing something impossible in a fragment of old 35mm film but quickly descends into incomprehensibility (for me, at least).
But there are also some great stories. There's Charlie Stross's Bit Rot, set in the same universe as his novel [b:Saturn's Children|2278387|Saturn's Children|Charles Stross|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266693988s/2278387.jpg|2284499] and the wonderfully named The Server and the Dragon which was an interesting story but really left me wanting to know more about the world that we got glimpses of in the narrative. I had the same problem (albeit moreso) with David Moles' A Solider of the City, which dropped tantalising hints of the world the story was set in but ignored them in favour of a very narrow story that I found unsatisfying compared to the world.
Both Peter Watts' Malak and Stephen Baxter's The Invasion of Venus were fascinating reads because they had the Other at the heart of them. The former got us into the codebase of a non-sentient fighter drone aircraft whose program was altered to make it take collateral damage into account; and the latter had Humans getting really worked up about an incoming alien spacecraft and then feeling the let down when they realise that it wasn't heading towards Earth.
A decent mix of stories but unfortunately it's the ones I didn't enjoy that I remember more than the ones I did.
But there are also some great stories. There's Charlie Stross's Bit Rot, set in the same universe as his novel [b:Saturn's Children|2278387|Saturn's Children|Charles Stross|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266693988s/2278387.jpg|2284499] and the wonderfully named The Server and the Dragon which was an interesting story but really left me wanting to know more about the world that we got glimpses of in the narrative. I had the same problem (albeit moreso) with David Moles' A Solider of the City, which dropped tantalising hints of the world the story was set in but ignored them in favour of a very narrow story that I found unsatisfying compared to the world.
Both Peter Watts' Malak and Stephen Baxter's The Invasion of Venus were fascinating reads because they had the Other at the heart of them. The former got us into the codebase of a non-sentient fighter drone aircraft whose program was altered to make it take collateral damage into account; and the latter had Humans getting really worked up about an incoming alien spacecraft and then feeling the let down when they realise that it wasn't heading towards Earth.
A decent mix of stories but unfortunately it's the ones I didn't enjoy that I remember more than the ones I did.
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