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erichart's review
4.0
Several good stories - just look at the line-up. But if there's a stand-out, it has to be Ian McDonald's powerful "Ten Landscapes of Nili Fossae". McDonald describes an ill-fated expedition to Mars through by comparing the landscapes painted by one of the astronauts to the styles of artists such as Turner, Blake, Monet and Rothko. Beautiful and haunting.
souloftherose's review
4.0
An anthology commissioned to commemorate the centenary of Arthur C. Clarke's birthday with the quirk that each story should be exactly 2001 words long. This was commissioned by the Arthur C. Clarke award and NewCon press (independent SF publisher in the UK) and authors who had previously been shortlisted for or won the Arthur C Clarke award were asked to contribute new fiction.
I initially wondered whether the strict word requirement would mean the quality of the stories would suffer but on reading I really couldn't see that this was the case and this was a very strong anthology.
Of particular note were:
Golgotha by Dave Hutchinson where a priest gets involved with first contact.
Murmuration by Jane Rogers - another first contact story but this time with a tragic end.
Dancers by Allen Stroud where an AI called HAL seems to be going wrong.
The Ontologist by Liz Williams - would struggle to explain what this one was about but it was beautiful.
The Collectors by Adrian Tchaikovsky where the remains of an ancient alien civilisation are discovered.
Roads of Silver, Paths of Gold by Emmi Itaranta - where ancient myth and aliens meet.
Last Contact by Becky Chambers (I think the title is explanation enough)
Ten Landscapes of Nili Fossae by Ian McDonald - art on Mars
Providence by Alastair Reynolds - a final sacrifice made to save the human race.
Some great stories by authors I knew I already liked and some new authors to look out for too (Jane Rogers, Allen Stroud and Liz Williams were new to me).
I initially wondered whether the strict word requirement would mean the quality of the stories would suffer but on reading I really couldn't see that this was the case and this was a very strong anthology.
Of particular note were:
Golgotha by Dave Hutchinson where a priest gets involved with first contact.
Murmuration by Jane Rogers - another first contact story but this time with a tragic end.
Dancers by Allen Stroud where an AI called HAL seems to be going wrong.
The Ontologist by Liz Williams - would struggle to explain what this one was about but it was beautiful.
The Collectors by Adrian Tchaikovsky where the remains of an ancient alien civilisation are discovered.
Roads of Silver, Paths of Gold by Emmi Itaranta - where ancient myth and aliens meet.
Last Contact by Becky Chambers (I think the title is explanation enough)
Ten Landscapes of Nili Fossae by Ian McDonald - art on Mars
Providence by Alastair Reynolds - a final sacrifice made to save the human race.
Some great stories by authors I knew I already liked and some new authors to look out for too (Jane Rogers, Allen Stroud and Liz Williams were new to me).
sbisson's review
5.0
Recent Reads: 2001 An Odyssey In Words. Ian Whates and Tom Hunter put together an anthology in honour of the Clarke Award. The rule? Each story has to be 2001 words. The result? Concise snippets of SF in the mould of Clarke's own shorts. Recommended.
davidallkins's review
4.0
2001 An odyssey in words Edited by Ian Whates and Tom Hunger
The theme of this anthology is the commemoration of the birth of Sir Arthur C. Clarke.. While some of these stories directly refer to Clarke’s work, others do it in a way that I probably missed. But the important thing is that they all written to word counts of 2001 words. This makes a useful reference for people who want to get into writing short stories as it provides them with examples by experienced writers of what you can do with the format. There are also a couple of interesting non-fiction essays by Neil Gaiman and China Mieville. Definitely worth checking out for fans of science-fiction and short stories
The theme of this anthology is the commemoration of the birth of Sir Arthur C. Clarke.. While some of these stories directly refer to Clarke’s work, others do it in a way that I probably missed. But the important thing is that they all written to word counts of 2001 words. This makes a useful reference for people who want to get into writing short stories as it provides them with examples by experienced writers of what you can do with the format. There are also a couple of interesting non-fiction essays by Neil Gaiman and China Mieville. Definitely worth checking out for fans of science-fiction and short stories
wcs53's review
4.0
This is a decent short story collection written to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Arthur C. Clarke. Each story had to be exactly 2001 words in length, as a nod to Clarke's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' As in any collection, I enjoyed some more than others, but there was only one that I didn't like that much, which is pretty good for a collection like this.
lordofthemoon's review
3.0
This is a Kickstarted anthology celebrating the centenary of the birth of Sir [a: Arthur C. Clarke|7779|Arthur C. Clarke|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1357191481p2/7779.jpg]. There's no specific theme to the collection, but the gimmick is that each story in it is exactly 2001 words long. This is a fairly short length for a short story, so there's quite a number of stories here, from many authors, most of whom are past winners or nominees of the Clarke Award. The list of names is very impressive and includes [a: Becky Chambers|8389735|Becky Chambers|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1494228249p2/8389735.jpg], [a: Jeff Noon|9233|Jeff Noon|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1259549169p2/9233.jpg], [a: Alistair Reynolds] and many more (twenty four more, to be precise).
With a collection as large and as varied as this, quality is bound to vary. There are some cracking stories here, and some that made me scratch my head but none that I outright hated. Some reference Sir Arthur's work (such as Paul McAuley's Monoliths of Mars or Bruce Sterling's Takes from the White Hart; and then there's editor Ian Whates' The Last Fable which is goes meta in referencing his other anthology [b: Fables From the Fountain|11110486|Fables from the Fountain|Ian Whates|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1335742112s/11110486.jpg|16021274], which was itself a take on Clarke's [b: Tales From the White Hart|149055|Tales from the White Hart|Arthur C. Clarke|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1226695451s/149055.jpg|143857]).
There were a few pieces of non-fiction at the end, none of which really grabbed me. Andrew M. Butler discusses how Man has adapted through the use of tools; Neil Gaiman talks about being a past judge of the Clarke Award; and China Miéville rambled... something... about the state of SF today (I think).
So a good collection, but I can't help thinking the word limit kept stories too short to really develop into anything memorable. Still, at least the less interesting ones were over sooner too and there was another one along pretty quickly.
With a collection as large and as varied as this, quality is bound to vary. There are some cracking stories here, and some that made me scratch my head but none that I outright hated. Some reference Sir Arthur's work (such as Paul McAuley's Monoliths of Mars or Bruce Sterling's Takes from the White Hart; and then there's editor Ian Whates' The Last Fable which is goes meta in referencing his other anthology [b: Fables From the Fountain|11110486|Fables from the Fountain|Ian Whates|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1335742112s/11110486.jpg|16021274], which was itself a take on Clarke's [b: Tales From the White Hart|149055|Tales from the White Hart|Arthur C. Clarke|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1226695451s/149055.jpg|143857]).
There were a few pieces of non-fiction at the end, none of which really grabbed me. Andrew M. Butler discusses how Man has adapted through the use of tools; Neil Gaiman talks about being a past judge of the Clarke Award; and China Miéville rambled... something... about the state of SF today (I think).
So a good collection, but I can't help thinking the word limit kept stories too short to really develop into anything memorable. Still, at least the less interesting ones were over sooner too and there was another one along pretty quickly.
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