Scan barcode
A review by davecreek
Dark Beyond the Stars: A Space Opera Anthology by Jennifer Foehner Wells, Patrice Fitzgerald, Elle Casey, Annie Bellet, David Gatewood, S.M. Reine, Susan Kaye Quinn, Julie E. Czerneda, Rysa Walker, Ann Christy, Blair C. Babylon, Theresa Kay, Autumn Kalquist
4.0
DARK BEYOND THE STARS is an unexpected treat
So on Facebook awhile back, there was this guy lamenting that teh wimmens was ruining SF, and he was particularly incensed that a new anthology was out with nothin' but chicks in it, man. What's this world coming to?
Poor guy. I suppose he's only read poor sad excuses of SF writers like Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia Butler, C.J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold . . . well, the list keeps going on, doesn't it?
But this alleged fan thought an all-female anthology was some kind of awful thing. I guess he never noticed the many, many anthologies where it's nothin' but dudes. Guess he just took that for granted.
But the great part about this fellow's rant was that I discovered the above-mentioned anthology, DARK BEYOND THE STARS, edited by David Gatewood. A lot of folks like our above-mentioned wimmen-intolerent "fan" say "it should just be about the stories, man!"
And so it is.
"Containment" by Susan Kaye Quinn has one of the better-drawn artificial intelligences I've read about in some time. The Mining Master of Thebe (a satellite of Jupiter) is a "machine-sourced intelligence" who checks out a mysterious situation that seems mundane at first but could lead to something transcendent.
Kudos to Quinn for finding something new in a genre that's seen everyone from ST:TNG's Data to Hal of 2001 exploring similar territory.
In "Lulu Ad Infinitum," Ann Christy relates the story of Lulu, a woman coping with the near-destruction of her spaceship, which is designed to terraform alien planets to resemble the Earth. But the disaster has left her without a crew. The title might give you a clue as to who comes to the rescue -- several times over!
Other authors take us to a stranded ship orbiting a red giant, a card game with a lot more at stake than usual, and plenty of other colorful scenarios. A pretty successful anthology, overall, and I'll eagerly await any other volumes in this series that might come along.
So on Facebook awhile back, there was this guy lamenting that teh wimmens was ruining SF, and he was particularly incensed that a new anthology was out with nothin' but chicks in it, man. What's this world coming to?
Poor guy. I suppose he's only read poor sad excuses of SF writers like Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia Butler, C.J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold . . . well, the list keeps going on, doesn't it?
But this alleged fan thought an all-female anthology was some kind of awful thing. I guess he never noticed the many, many anthologies where it's nothin' but dudes. Guess he just took that for granted.
But the great part about this fellow's rant was that I discovered the above-mentioned anthology, DARK BEYOND THE STARS, edited by David Gatewood. A lot of folks like our above-mentioned wimmen-intolerent "fan" say "it should just be about the stories, man!"
And so it is.
"Containment" by Susan Kaye Quinn has one of the better-drawn artificial intelligences I've read about in some time. The Mining Master of Thebe (a satellite of Jupiter) is a "machine-sourced intelligence" who checks out a mysterious situation that seems mundane at first but could lead to something transcendent.
Kudos to Quinn for finding something new in a genre that's seen everyone from ST:TNG's Data to Hal of 2001 exploring similar territory.
In "Lulu Ad Infinitum," Ann Christy relates the story of Lulu, a woman coping with the near-destruction of her spaceship, which is designed to terraform alien planets to resemble the Earth. But the disaster has left her without a crew. The title might give you a clue as to who comes to the rescue -- several times over!
Other authors take us to a stranded ship orbiting a red giant, a card game with a lot more at stake than usual, and plenty of other colorful scenarios. A pretty successful anthology, overall, and I'll eagerly await any other volumes in this series that might come along.