 | EUROPE'S MOST VISITED SF/F WEB SITE |
| The
Mammoth Book Of 20th Century Science Fiction Volume 2 edited by David G. Hartwell check out website: www.constablerobinson.com
Picking fault with any author here could be seen as being in a time capsule because it's unlikely to change anything and not worry the author(s) concerned very much. However, as this is supposed to be a balanced review, let's just target Nancy Kriess' story 'Beggars In Spain'.
Written in 1991 about a selection of children who were genetically manipulated so as not to require sleep and thus having time to do everything, it is later discovered that one of the side effects is extremely long lives as well. Kriess centres on their lives as they grow up and how they fight their own victimisation yet none of this is new material. Olaf Stapleton did it with 'Odd John' and Van Vogt with 'Slan'. There is nothing new or different about Kress' treatment to how a superior minority is victimised for being different. If you are going to
play with an odd idea then the least expected is to come up with some other kind
of solution where their differences does make the difference. As this 'Sleepless'
story is one of several, maybe this situation changed later but this reviewer
is still puzzled why it should have been included here. 17 stories spread through just over 600 pages seems an awfully short number but I suspect that the diversity also means that there's something here for everyone and a sampling for everyone to try out at a very reasonable price that shouldn't break the bank for those who missed the original TOR release in 1997. Don't take my negative
remark above as indictive of the entire book. There's a lot of interesting material
here that new time SF readers really ought to read. GF Willmetts
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OTHER REVIEWS - September 2004
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This
second volume of SF short stories is more novelette than the former. The earlier
works by James Blish, Philip Jose Farmer, Cordwainer Smith and AE Van Vogt in
the short story format tending to shine a lot more than the novelettes indicating
again that it's not the word count that's important as the quality of the ideas.
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