Scan barcode
wicked_turtle's review against another edition
3.0
This is a solid collection of stories, but I'll admit some of them just didn't work for me. Humor is subjective, however, so my personal tastes probably didn't gel with those particular pieces. I tend to like stories that have an absurd premise or eccentric characters. I'm particularly fond of writers like Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Christopher Moore, and Jasper Fforde. That's the kind of vibe I look for in humor stories. With that in mind, my favorites in this anthology are:
"Timber" by Scott Almes - A criminal about to be executed gets summoned by a wizard who requires his help in convincing activists to allow the logging of a living forest. This is first story in the collection and remained my favorite after reading the whole book. It has absurdity in droves, from the witty dialogue to the increasingly bad situations the narrator stumbles into.
"The Last Dragon Slayer" by Chuck Rothman - An unlikely hero is forced into taking up arms to slay a dragon. I especially enjoyed this story because of how Rothman plays with various fairy tale tropes. He flips them in ways you don't expect for some hilarious results.
"The Alchemist's Children" by Nathaniel Lee - The daughter of a powerful alchemist undergoes a perilous journey to save her brother, using only reason and science to defend herself against the likes of werewolves and dragons. This is science fiction mashed up with fantasy in a way I haven't seen before, where science is used to help disprove common things that occur in fantasy stories. Most of the humor stems from the protagonist, Jen, and her nonchalant approach to dangerous situations.
"Cake from Mars" by Marko Kloos - The son of a 149-year-old-man is guilt-tripped into fulfilling his father's birthday wish to receive illegal goods from Mars but banned on Earth: namely, a giant birthday cake with a "whore" who pops out of it. I get a Douglas Adams vibe from this story, but with humor that isn't safe for the whole family.
"One-Hand Tantra" by Ferrett Steinmetz - Speaking of adult humor, this story follows a powerful wizard who practices the rare magic of "masturbancy" to help clients influence the actions of others. Yep, it's exactly what you'd expect. Lots of dirty, awkward humor.
"Worm's Eye View" by Jody Lynn Nye - A detective must host a parasite... err, "guest" alien in her body as part of the witness protection program because the alien witnessed the murder of his previous host. This was a unique mash-up of science fiction, mystery, and absurdity. Much of the humor in this piece is situational, as the protagonist, Sgt. Dena Malone, learns how to live with a talkative alien who can see and feel everything she does and but can't seem to understand the meaning of "tact."
I do own the other books in this series. I enjoyed this enough to read through the rest of the anthologies eventually.
"Timber" by Scott Almes - A criminal about to be executed gets summoned by a wizard who requires his help in convincing activists to allow the logging of a living forest. This is first story in the collection and remained my favorite after reading the whole book. It has absurdity in droves, from the witty dialogue to the increasingly bad situations the narrator stumbles into.
"The Last Dragon Slayer" by Chuck Rothman - An unlikely hero is forced into taking up arms to slay a dragon. I especially enjoyed this story because of how Rothman plays with various fairy tale tropes. He flips them in ways you don't expect for some hilarious results.
"The Alchemist's Children" by Nathaniel Lee - The daughter of a powerful alchemist undergoes a perilous journey to save her brother, using only reason and science to defend herself against the likes of werewolves and dragons. This is science fiction mashed up with fantasy in a way I haven't seen before, where science is used to help disprove common things that occur in fantasy stories. Most of the humor stems from the protagonist, Jen, and her nonchalant approach to dangerous situations.
"Cake from Mars" by Marko Kloos - The son of a 149-year-old-man is guilt-tripped into fulfilling his father's birthday wish to receive illegal goods from Mars but banned on Earth: namely, a giant birthday cake with a "whore" who pops out of it. I get a Douglas Adams vibe from this story, but with humor that isn't safe for the whole family.
"One-Hand Tantra" by Ferrett Steinmetz - Speaking of adult humor, this story follows a powerful wizard who practices the rare magic of "masturbancy" to help clients influence the actions of others. Yep, it's exactly what you'd expect. Lots of dirty, awkward humor.
"Worm's Eye View" by Jody Lynn Nye - A detective must host a parasite... err, "guest" alien in her body as part of the witness protection program because the alien witnessed the murder of his previous host. This was a unique mash-up of science fiction, mystery, and absurdity. Much of the humor in this piece is situational, as the protagonist, Sgt. Dena Malone, learns how to live with a talkative alien who can see and feel everything she does and but can't seem to understand the meaning of "tact."
I do own the other books in this series. I enjoyed this enough to read through the rest of the anthologies eventually.
misterjay's review against another edition
4.0
Look, humor is so completely subjective that I'm not really going to try to write an individual review for each story. Instead, think of the ratings I assign each story as a scale where 5 is "made me fall out of my chair laughing" and 0 is "I forgot it the moment I finished it." Your mileage may vary.
Timber! by Scott Almes - 3/5
The Alien Invasion as Seen in the Twitter Stream of @dweebless by Jake Kerr - 5/5 - Honestly laugh out loud funny.
Dreaming Harry by Stephanie Burgis - 4/5 - A little creepy.
Fight Finale from the Near Future by James Beamon - 1/5
Temporal Shimmies by Jennifer Pelland - 3/5
The Day They Repossessed My Zombie by K.G. Jewell - 2/5
Moon Landing by Lavie Tidhar - 3/5
The Last Dragon Slayer by Chuck Rothman - 4/5
The Venus of Willendorf by Deborah Walker - 5/5 - Genuinely original.
Love Thy Neighbors by Ken Liu - 3/5
The Alchemist's Children by Nathaniel Lee 5/5 - This is one I wish I had written.
The Fifty-One Suitors of Princess Jamatpie by Leah Cypess - 4/5 - This one too.
If You Act Now by Sergey Lukyanenko - 5/5 - You can see the end coming, but it's a fun trip.
No Silver Lining by Zach Shephard - 3/5
Go Karts of the Gods by Michael Kurland - 2/5
My Kingdom for a Horse by Stephen D. Rodgers - 3/5
Cake from Mars by Marko Kloos - 5/5 - Space hookers and outlaw sugar, what more could you ask for?
An Unchanted Sword by Jeff Stehman - 4/5
The Real Thing by Don Sakers - 5/5 - This was a fun take on the alien invasion trope with a good punchline.
2001 Revisited via 1969 by Bruce Golden - 3/5 - Clever
First Date by Jamie Lackey - 4/5 - I really liked this but it felt like it petered out just before it could get really interesting.
One-Hand Tantra by Ferrett Steinmentz - 2/5
Of Mat and Math by Anatoly Belilovsky - 5/5 - Russian puns about mathematics and a man who can only solve them through swearing. Brilliant.
All I Want for Christmas by Siobhan Gallagher - 5/5 - I want to see more Santa vs. the zombies fiction now.
The Velveteen Golem by David Sklar - 5/5 - What a difference a single letter can make. Fun take on a classic.
The Working Stiff by Matt Mikalatos - 5/5 - It's so hard to find good help these days. Especially when you're a vampire 'vampire hunter' hunter.
Worm's Eye View by Jody Lynn Nye - 5/5 - Cute. Cleans up a little too nicely at the end, but fun. Reminds me of the Jadzia Dax story lines from Star Trek DS9.
The Secret Life of Sleeping Beauty by Charity Tahmaseb -3/5 - Nice gender flip on a classic.
El and Al vs. Himmler's Horrendous Horde from Hell by Mike Resnick - 3/5 - Standard Resnick; good but a little forced.
teachinsci's review against another edition
3.0
This was an interesting collection I picked-up because I like the idea of humorous sci-fi (and a few fantasy) stories. Some of them were quite good, a couple were funny, however a few of them I felt were so weak compared to the others that I was surprised by their inclusion in this collection. As others have said, the comics inset between some of the stories were the parts closest to laugh-out-loud funny.
Easily my favorite two stories were the invasion of earth as told on Twitter and the Last Dragonslayer. The first because I liked the unusual method of presentation, the idea of how an invasion would appear on Twitter was both amusing and amusingly realistic. The second because I enjoyed the characters. Additionally, The world building in The Alchemist's Children and The Day They Repossessed My Zombies was especially good.
On the bad side, unfortunately, was the last story, "El and Al Vs...". The reason I didn't like it, I believe, is that it had so much promise early on but became just a vehicle for bad jokes about famous people with little to redeem it in the eventual climax and conclusion.
Easily my favorite two stories were the invasion of earth as told on Twitter and the Last Dragonslayer. The first because I liked the unusual method of presentation, the idea of how an invasion would appear on Twitter was both amusing and amusingly realistic. The second because I enjoyed the characters. Additionally, The world building in The Alchemist's Children and The Day They Repossessed My Zombies was especially good.
On the bad side, unfortunately, was the last story, "El and Al Vs...". The reason I didn't like it, I believe, is that it had so much promise early on but became just a vehicle for bad jokes about famous people with little to redeem it in the eventual climax and conclusion.
acourtofbooksandrain's review
4.0
Enjoyed many of the stories, especially the last one set in world War 2!
tregina's review
2.0
I had SUCH a hard time rating this, because there were some stories I genuinely liked, but also others that were more offensive than funny. I think humour, especially SF humour, works better when it retains the complexity of the genre and doesn't just aim for the cheap punchline.
Humour is a tricky beast. One woman's hilarious is another woman's "huh?" In an anthology where the goal is to include a variety of stories, it's inevitable that some of them are going to work for some people and some of them are going to work for others.
Unfortunately fewer of these worked for me than not, but in this sort of collection, maybe more than any other, YMMV.
Humour is a tricky beast. One woman's hilarious is another woman's "huh?" In an anthology where the goal is to include a variety of stories, it's inevitable that some of them are going to work for some people and some of them are going to work for others.
Unfortunately fewer of these worked for me than not, but in this sort of collection, maybe more than any other, YMMV.
More...