Product Description

Customer Reviews (2)

Not Free SF Reader
A reasonable collection of fantasy, with a 3.55 average.The best stories being Garth Nix's very funny and clever giant monster short, and Laird Barron's horror piece.

There is a quite brief piece by the editors about the state and source of stories in general, and each individual tale is prefaced with further info.

A solid 4, this book

Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Eating Hearts - Yoon Ha Lee
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : The Denial - Bruce Sterling
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : The Fraud - Esther Friesner
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Sunbird - Neil Gaiman
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Shard of Glass - Alaya Dawn Johnson
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : The Farmer's Cat - Jeff Vandermeer
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Crab Apple - Patrick Samphire
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : The Comber - Gene Wolfe
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Walpurgis Afternoon - Deliah Sherman
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Monster - Kelly Link
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Robots and Falling Hearts - Tim Pratt and Greg van Eekhout
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Still Life with B00bs - Ann Harris
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Heads Up Thumbs Down - Gavin J. Grant
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Newbie Wrangler - Timothy J. Anderson
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Being Here - Claude Lalumière
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Mom and Mother Theresa - Candas Jane Dorsey
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : The Imago Sequence - Laird Barron
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Magic in a Certain Slant of Light - Deborah Coates
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Single White Farmhouse - Heather Shaw
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Read It in the Headlines! - Garth Nix
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Niels Bohr and the Sleeping Dane - Jonathon Sullivan
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Mortegarde - Liz Williams
Year's Best Fantasy 6 : Inside Job - Connie Willis


Perfect magician, belt up and bonk.

3 out of 5


We're dead, stupid.

3.5 out of 5


Pregnant unicorn variation end.

4 out of 5


"I have a presentiment of doom upon me," ..."And I fear it shall come to us with barbecue sauce."

4 out of 5


Racist memory power runaway.

4 out of 5


Moggie ursa major makes troll mob minor.

3.5 out of 5


Dryad heart dump.

3 out of 5


Swiftly tilting city.

4 out of 5


Witchiness good for gardens.

3.5 out of 5


Hey, Bungalow Jim
I Might Eat Him

3.5 out of 5


Reality altering with replicating rodent robots. With a bit of mechanical criticism of the critical literary abilities of people.

3.5 out of 5


Mendicant mammaries.

4 out of 5


Sound of music is Matchless.

3 out of 5


Gud is bloody lazy, Zep Boy.

3.5 out of 5


Can't see this one, maybe that's us.

2.5 out of 5


No Aunt, just gimme shelter.

3 out of 5


Awful art lust trephination escape cave meld.

4 out of 5


Predicting dirigible desperation.

4 out of 5


Architectural pr0n, same?

3.5 out of 5


Very large Daikaiju font.

4.5 out of 5


Statue sword-slinger saves scientist.

4 out of 5


World Tree gatespeaking wyvern blood lecture dissection decision.

3.5 out of 5


Making monkeys of mediums.

4 out of 5



4 out of 5

Bizarre and beautiful
YEAR'S BEST FANTASY 6, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, is an engaging anthology of the absurd, the fantastic, the beautiful, and the horrifying, comprising twenty-three stories written by some of the best in the industry. The tales range from light and whimsical, as in "Still Life with Boobs" by Anne Harris, to dark and chilling, as in Laird Barron's much-acclaimed novella, "The Imago Sequence," which has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award in the long fiction category for 2005.

The book comes in with a tiger in Yoon Ha Lee's elegant parable "Eating Hearts," and goes out with a tiger, in Connie Willis's smartly crafted homage to H. L. Mencken entitled "Inside Job." Kelly Link's outstanding "Monster" is a tongue-in-cheek modern-day version of Beowulf in a boys' summer camp; and Bruce Sterling's satirical "The Denial" brings to mind the genius of Isaac B. Singer. Authors include Esther M. Friesner, Neil Gaiman, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Jeff VanderMeer, Patrick Samphire, Gene Wolfe, Delia Sherman, Tim Pratt and Greg van Eekhout, Gavin J. Grant (husband to Kelly Link), Candas Jane Dorsey, Timothy J. Anderson, Claude Lalumière, Deborah Coates, Heather Shaw, Garth Nix, Jonathon Sullivan, and Liz Williams.

Award recipient David G. Hartwell is the senior editor at Tor/Forge Books, the publisher of THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION, and the author of AGE OF WONDERS.

World Fantasy Award winner Kathryn Cramer is an editor at THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION. She has also co-edited the outstanding anthologies, THE ASCENT OF WONDER, THE HARD SF RENAISSANCE, and the YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION series.

YEAR'S BEST FANTASY 6 is highly recommended reading for anyone who enjoys variety in the fantastic.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Not Free SF Reader
A good collection of stories, the highlights of which are, in general, the various Shaper/Mechanist tales and Spook.It is the fantasy inclusions that are weaker and let the overall rating down a bit.Basically you can call this one a 4.25, but not quite, so gets a 4 rating overall.

Crystal Express : SPIDER ROSE - Bruce Sterling
Crystal Express : CICADA QUEEN - Bruce Sterling
Crystal Express : SUNKEN GARDENS - Bruce Sterling
Crystal Express : TWENTY EVOCATIONS - Bruce Sterling
Crystal Express : GREEN DAYS IN BRUNEI - Bruce Sterling
Crystal Express : SPOOK - Bruce Sterling
Crystal Express : THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE SUBLIME - Bruce Sterling
Crystal Express : TELLIAMED - Bruce Sterling
Crystal Express : THE LITTLE MAGIC SHOP - Bruce Sterling
Crystal Express : FLOWERS OF EDO - Bruce Sterling
Crystal Express : DINNER IN AUDOGHAST - Bruce Sterling


Nose For Profit pet interest trade real rescue transformation.

4.5 out of 5


Wellspring of Investors.

4 out of 5


Regal terraforming judgement.

4 out of 5


Shaper/Mechanist list.

3.5 out of 5


Mini country definitely getting away from it all for engineer boy if the best his mates can get him is Foster's.

3.5 out of 5


Super spies not like us.

4.5 out of 5


Copying what a dragonfly does is rather complex.

3.5 out of 5


Dark Girl From the Sea.

2.5 out of 5


Youthful waters arrangement.

4 out of 5


Local art ideas, one demon.

3 out of 5


Prophetic annoyance.

3.5 out of 5

simply amazing
The first time I read this I was blown away. These stories are chock full of ideas, and at the same time contain some of the most weirdly beautiful moments I've ever read in SF. The impact hasn't really lessened with any of the half-dozen re-reads in the time since. Highly recommended to any fan of intelligent SF (not space opera).

Surpisingly good....
While waiting at a train station I was loaned this book by a friend and soon found myself interested in the stories._Crystal Express_ is a wonderful introduction to the work of Bruce Sterling and I found it good enough to actually convince me to try and reread _Schismatrix Plus_.If you are a fan of the Shaper/Mechanist storyline then you should buy _Schismatrix Plus_ and leave this one behind.

Sterling is actually good in the short story genre whereas, some of his novels may drag a bit and be a bit scanty in character development the stories in this collection hpowever, are quite good in pacing and development.

One of the best moments was reading "Flowers of Edo" while on a train to Nara.The story of Japan's embrace of modern technology and the destruction of its past had a great resonance for me after seeing the hyper buzz of Tokyo.I felt that Sterling also showed more hope and charm of his romantic nature with "Green Days in Brunei".

The most daring work within a standard narrative format were all the Shaper/Mechanist stories.The other stories were interesting in ideas and themes, but nothing outside the scope of regular science fiction or fantasy themes found elsewhere.

Before slapping heavier works on your plate such as, _Global Head_ or _Disctraction_ pick up this book of his early work when he was learning his craft and was willing to dare a little bit more.

Archipelago of nightmares; Allegorical sagas
Divided into three sections; Shaper/Mechanist, Science-Fiction and Fantasy, Crystal Express provides a series of vignettes for the reader. Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist saga follows the developments of the two parties through war, peace and nervous antebellum. Starting with a story called the Swarm, the allegories are firmly underway; justifications for Caananite slavery in the name of science destroyed by sheer humanity (or entymology). Through a series of characters neurotic about their own societies, the Mechanists and Shapers represent the human need for perfection - with the reptillian Investors acting almost as Greek Chorus - and yet despite their advances we are still filled with horror. Sterling is offering a grim caveat that we need to retain our humanity, no matter what devices become viable to us. The last Shaper/Mechanist, Twenty Evocations, is in itself a series of short stories, encompassing the life of a Shaper and yet with the twist of each sinking deeper to what we conceive to be our souls. So much for the Shaper/Mechanists, then. What of the rest of the book? Amongst them are the romance and beauty of Green Days in Brunei; evocative and rich, though the storyline somewhat askewed; the twist at the end also questions our beliefs of what is beautiful and what should be pursued, and Spook, a delightful thriller-macabre, is essentially Heart of Darkness with an unexpected twist, and a few nods to the inhumanity of medical technology. The Fantasy section reinforces one's conception of Sterling as an iconoclast, his sly yet almost whimsical story of a man who attains eternal life without the expected regret destroys a thousand myths; wise men of an ancient city discuss their eternal reign and; in perhaps the strangest, yet most wildly exotic in its reality, deals with the coming of electricity to Japan. In this last, there are no allegories, aside from a sense that now Japan has lost all its magic and wonder, just human beauty and rich, rich, lovingly-researched detail ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air...
'All that is solid melts into air'... description of advanced capitalism by Marx.These words are a good description of how our media landscape transforms the meaning of anything... Arthur Kroker in his book and CD 'Spasm' give us the sound and insight into this 'meltdown' taking place all around us.Like Marshall McLuhan, Kroker asks "What haven't you noticed lately?" Kroker goes ahead and tells you, from biotechnology to music sampling, he hangs on a point of view - before it melts...

Bruce Sterling's introduction to Kroker's 'Spasm' is worth the price of admission alone, it's short, but sets the tone.

You will not always agree, but you will think, not many books or CDs that do that these days.Give Kroker a spin. ... Read more

Product Description
The 12 artists in Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence--Christian Boltanski, Jim Campbell, Michel Delacroix, Laurent Grasso, Jeppe Hein, William Kentridge, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Teresa Margolles, Oscar Munoz, Julie Nord, Rosangela Renno and Regina Silveira--draw on forms of representation associated with phantasmagoria and reframe them around contemporary notions of absence and loss, using spectral effects and immaterial media such as shadows, fog, mist and breath. A "phantasmagoria" was a pre-cinematic theatrical show, devised in France in the late eighteenth century, which gained popularity throughout Europe in the nineteenth century. Long before blockbuster art exhibitions, crowds were wowed by these traveling shows, in which stories were performed with magic lanterns and rear projections that created dancing shadows and frightening melodramatic effects. These lively, interactive events incorporated narrative, mythology and theater in a single art form; they entertained a wide audience and provided a space to consider the otherworldly, mobilizing viewers' anxieties regarding death and the afterlife. This catalogue, produced for the traveling exhibition of the same name, includes a text by curator Jose Roca and his interviews with the 12 artists, as well as a newly commissioned short-fiction piece by Bruce Sterling. The exhibition is co-organized by the Museo de Arte del Banco de la Republica, Bogota, Columbia. ... Read more

Product Description
“La amo, e le amo, entrambe. Sono arrivato a capire che lei è quel che loro sono. Una donna accetta un uomo, aspettandosi che lui cambi. Un uomo prende una donna, aspettandosi che lei non cambi mai. Saranno entrambi delusi. Ma proprio questa delusione è l’origine primaria di tutti i nuovi uomini e di tutte le nuove donne.”

Un racconto italiano di Bruce Sterling ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Steampunk risorgimentale
Un eroe alla Barry Lyndon, la Carboneria, Giuseppe Mazzini: Bruce Sterling ne ricava, da par suo, un racconto ai confini dello steampunk ambientato in un'altra Italia. Nel "Bisturi napoletano" si incrociano magistralmente la storia del Risorgimento, secoli di cultura letteraria europea e l'immaginario fantascientifico dei mutanti.

Quando la letteratura è politica
La novellette "Il bisturi napoletano" di Bruce Sterling andrebbe letta come testo obbligatorio nelle scuole italiane. Accanto al Manzoni. Anzi, il Manzoni tenerlo in casa, che sembra essere una pratica già diffusa fra i suoi contemporanei come racconta il protagonista del racconto: "Dagli scaffali brulicanti di libri della biblioteca del Conte, presi un volume degli Inni Sacri di Alessandro Manzoni. Data la grande stima verso Manzoni, questo volume è in ogni casa istruita d'Italia. Ma nessuno lo apre o legge mai".
Sterling scava le origini risorgimentali e perciò le radici del popolo italiano, tra contraddizioni e società segrete, tra spinte rivoluzionarie e "carattere" del Belpaese. Illuminante e profetico il discorso che il mazziniano e carbonaio Conte fa al giovane "terrorista": "Molti cospiratori italiani sono semplici malavitosi ottusi. E il loro numero è molto più grande di quello di noi patrioti. Questi banditi senza età saranno ancora rigogliosi quando noi non saremo che polvere".
Il resto è letteratura. Nel richiamo fortissimo delle "belle lettere", nel rincorrersi centrale dei contenuti dei romanzi dell'epoca o dei saggi che trattiamo oggi nelle nostre scuole come fondamento del nostro pensiero e che lì, nel contesto, assumono tutto il fascino di una civiltà che può affermarsi: "esisteva una superba teoria non provata chiamata "il popolo italiano". Al tempo l'Italia era solo un'espressione geografica". Essendo letteratura è il racconto forse più politico di Sterling.
Ma Sterling è Sterling. Aspettatevi quindi una componente punk o meglio, freak, che squarcia la lettura introducendo quello straniamento che a me ricorda il Calvino dei nostri antenati.
... Read more

Product Description
Featuring thirteen satirical short stories, a unique collection includes scientific superstars, a rock singer who is the voice of the people, and two lost souls who drive off the edge of the world and find each other. Reprint. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

C'mon, man, you can do a lot better than this . . .
I first met Bruce back in the `70s, when he was one of the young Texas SF authors who regularly appeared at IguanaCon in Austin, so he's been at this awhile. While he has talent, he's not the best Texas has to offer -- that would be Howard Waldrop and the late Chad Oliver. Unfortunately, Sterling's stories from the 1980s and early `90s, of which there are thirteen in this collection, are heavily politics-dependent, and they don't always wear well ten or fifteen years later. As in "Hollywood Kremlin" and "We See Things Differently," they postulate a Soviet Russia or a Middle East that really haven't changed -- but things have changed, a lot. He also has a habit of launching into stories brimming with neat ideas, stories that would actually make good novels, and then running out of steam (or becoming bored?) and simply stopping instead of ending. This is the case in "The Moral Bullet" (which, in fact, led to his novel, _Holy Fire_ -- sort of) and "The Unthinkable." The best stories in this collection are those that step entirely outside our world, especially "The Shores of Bohemia" and "Are You for 86?," and maybe "Dori Bangs."

Hits and Misses
This collection of short stories contains some interesting "hits" (Hollywood Kremlin, Storming the Cosmos, We See Things Differently, Are you for 86?) and some disappointing "misses" (The Sword of Damocles).

Sterling is at his best when he is discussing alternative futures close to our own, and he has done his homework in studying two rival cultures that play roles in his alternate universes -- the Muslim world and the world of the old Soviet Union.He creates memorable characters (the international arms dealer/hustler Leggy Starlitz, for instance) and generates a lot of thought-provoking ideas (Will Turing-conscious AI's embrace Islam?Was the Tunguska blast really caused by an alien speacecraft? Will Islam become the dominant superpower -- threatened only by American rock and roill?Will genetically engineered pets capable of human-like thought and speech exist?).

Sterling's prose here is not of the quality of William Gibson's, or indeed, as good as Sterling is in other works, such as Schismatrix, or The Difference Engine.It is a good collection of stories, for the most part, and makes a good companion on a trip to the beach.

An Intriguing Mix Of Sterling's Short Stories
Admittedly this isn't Sterling's best short story collection, yet it does contain an intriguing set of 11 tales which run the gamut from slightly hard science fiction ("Storming The Cosmos") to humor ("Hollywood Kremlin"). Sterling is at his finest writing lean, lyrical cyberpunk prose in the tales I mentioned. Yet anyone expecting a literary classic comparable in quality to William Gibson's "Burning Chrome" may be disappointed. Still, Sterling, as always, is intriguing to read for his ideas and his uncanny knack at conjuring plausible near future scenarios, as well as his fine writing.

A mixed bunch of stories
In this book, you will find 11 stories by Bruce Sterling and two collaborations. All but one of the stories has prviously appeared in magazine form between 1985 and 1991.

Most of the stories here are well worth reading. Especially "Hollywood Kremlin" and "Are You For 86?" which introduce Leggy Starlitz, one of Sterling's enduring characters. Also, the two collaborations, "Storming the Cosmos" and "The Moral Bullet" respectively with Rudy Rucker and John Kessel, are very good.

There are also one or two stories here which quite fankly should not have seen the light of day. "The Sword of Damocles" is the sort of exercise often tackled in writer's workshops and that is where is should have stayed.

There is not as much hard science in here in some of Sterling's other books but that does not detract from this collection. Indeed, a number of the best stories would escape all but the broadest definition of SF.

In the Leggy Starlitz tales, Sterling lays out lots of technical trivia in the same style as do many thriller writers. His facts are often wrong and self contradicting. Often laughably so and that does detract from the writing.

This is not the best collection to introduce you to Sterling's short fiction. I would recommend "A Good Old Fashioned Future" as an introduction but if you read and enjoy that and want more, you will not be disappointed by this book.

If you enjoy this book and want to read something in the same vein, I'd suggest William Gibson's collection "Burning Chrome" or the anthology "Mirrorshades" edited by Bruce Sterling.

Third World Posse
"Apocalypse is boring," so spaketh Chairman Bruce, in his mission to overcome the faux-Terminator after-the-bomb scenarios which typify so much contemporary SF hack-work.It's been a long time coming since J. G. Ballard's classic planetary-disaster novels; those who do SF in his wake must write their way to new levels of subtlety and informed speculation, become a legitimate participant in the great Futurological Debate, rather than just another cynical doomsdayer-cum-road-warrior writing in the megalomaniacal glare of Oppenheimer's bomb-God.In light of Sterling's admonition, it is peculiar to admit that the stories in *Globalhead* have an inescapable post-Nuke groove to them, symptomatic of Sterling's coxcomb-jingling portrayal of disaffected Third World spaces.A far subtler apocalypse, but still great fun.

"Our Neural Chernobyl" (my personal favorite) is a stunning hybrid of high comedy, dead seriousness, and throat-grabbing economy which the remainder of this collection will never surpass.The old-school SF theme of intelligence-maximization is treated with breezy hep-cat irony and panache, a counterculture of renegade "gene-hackers" riding the god project of biotechnology.Cagey, brilliant, underhanded, hilarious, dead-on modern fiction.

The last twenty pages of "Storming the Cosmos" reaches a pinnacle of revisionist SF, in the glassed-in detention cell of a Soviet gulag for dissident rocket-scientists, the purveyors of a protean technology that *actualizes* the subjective imagination of its observer (i.e. an experimental substance that changes shape and function according to the minds which possess it).When the conservative, obstructionist members of blackguard Soviet science abduct the item, the device *becomes* an antique rocket, replete with hoary, mind-blowing (literally) repercussions.Just read the story.

"Jim and Irene" hits a tender note, the possibility of trans-cultural romance in a dingy, saturated, postmedia world.It goes a long way towards justifying the travails of relationship-related stress and paranoia, the feasibility of making human connections at the heart of a Baudrillardian desert, postmodern Nothingness encroaching upon our air-conditioned havens of glass and steel.

"The Gulf Wars" points to the cyclical barbarism of Middle East violence and warcraft, in a brash little comedy about two hapless army engineers sucked into an Arabian time-warp to die the good death.But by now Sterling in beginning to lose his edge....

"The Shores of Bohemia", notable for its extrapolation of animal-empathy cults in the future, simply does not pay the reader back for his/her efforts, as the arch-narrative of Gaia vs. Artifice and the propaganda-value of Titanic architecture (see Sterling's *Wired* travelogue "The Spirit of Mega") comes on a bit conventional and, well, conceptually worn-out.

Things pick up with "The Moral Bullet", the precursor to Sterling's superb *Holy Fire*(1996), where a pharmacological fountain-of-youth corners the black market run by paramilitary Mafioso competing for urban territory, a lawless after-the-Fall wastelander fantasy.Sterling grooves hard for about twenty pages, but the story's denouement seems rushed, desperate, unsatisfying.

In the hackneyed genre of Lovecraftian satire, "The Unthinkable" is a rare triumph.The military-industrial complex has assimilated the necromancy of the Great Old Ones in a new arms race for weapons that attack the very dreams and souls of the enemy.Despite my weighty paraphrase, the piece is really quite funny.

"We See Things Differently" offers a very intelligent, very wily indictment of monotheistic Islamic culture, while providing a convincing scenario for the survival of such religious traditions in the total-media zone of Western tech-wealth.An Islamic secret agent journeys to the heart of American rock culture to reap the whirlwind of his martyrological devotion to Allah.

"Hollywood Kremlin" introduces Leggy Starlitz of *Zeitgeist*(2000), the pragmatic middle-aged worldweary go-getter trying to help a grounded Russian aviator complete his sortie.Like so many Sterling protagonists, Starlitz is an inspiring blend of cool optimism and brute adaptation to the caterwauling world around him, largely forsaking acid-spray cynicism for the ethos of pragmatic global cooperation.(Until the very end of the story, that is.)The Starlitz double-feature continues with "Are You For 86?", where Leggy becomes a smuggler of do-it-yourself abortion pills (a drug called RU-486), pursued by fundamentalist Christian soldiers (in death's-head masks, black robes, and wielding plastic scythes no less!) across the Utah desert.The story's climax at the State Capitol and Museum is both intellectual and action-packed, Sterling's trademark double-play.

And finally, there's "Dori Bangs," a pseudo-mainstream fantasy of star-crossed Beatniks coming to terms with their artistic mediocrity in a commodified universe of death....

Suffice it to say, my summaries don't do justice to level of intelligence at work in these narratives.So much of what matters here is contained in the brilliant minutiae which hang on every descriptive passage, which color every extended dialogue. (Sterling's in the details.)While not as ambitiously original as the Shaper/Mechanist cycle of the mid `80s, these stories are all satisfying in their own brash, silly, madcap, populist way; even the boring ones are worth reading, as "meta-journalism" or political satire.Though a part of me hesitates to recommend them to non-SF enthusiasts.There are simply too many in-jokes. ... Read more

Product Description
Have you ever wondered if one day Windows 2028 might just know what you're thinking and type it? In this collection of essays, a selection of today's top media and sci-fi theorists weigh in. The Book of Imaginary Media explores the persistent idea that technology may one day succeed where no human has, not only in space or in nature, but also in interpersonal communication. Building on insights from media archeology, Siegfried Zielinski, Bruce Sterling, Erkki Huhtamo and Timothy Druckrey spin a web of associations between the fantasy machines of Athanasius Kircher, the mania of stereoscopy and "dead" media. Edwin Carels and Zoe Beloff descend into the cinematographic caverns of spiritualism and the iconography of death, and renowned cartoonists including Ben Katchor depict their own visionary media fantasies. On the enclosd DVD, artist Peter Blegvad provides hilarious commentary in a son et lumiere version of his On Imaginary Media. ... Read more

Product Description
With little more than courage and ingenuity, five Union prisoners escaped the siege of Richmond-by hot-air balloon. They have no idea if they'll ever see civilization again-especially when they're swept off by a raging storm to the shores of an uncharted island. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Entertaining Castaway Classic
This book lands in the category of Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson.It's a great concept with an intriguiging start and finish.However, some of the inbetween gets a little slow.It is definitely worth the read and is educational as well.The resourcefulness of the castaways is remarkable and somewhat unbelieveable at the same time.(spoiler alert) The book has a great tie-in to 20,000 Leagues which made things even more mysterious.Also, Issac Asimov has an afterword which thankfully was an afterword rather than an introduction, making it easy to skip.

Variation on a timeless theme. . . .
Just finished reading this book and a grand tale it is!Verne is a master
craftsman!He justly deserves the title (together with H.G. Wells) of
"Father of Science Fiction."But whereas Wells developed science fiction
as a means of conveying definitive utopian visions, for Verne the genre
facilitates the exploration of classic dilemmas confronting humankind.

Think of "Mysterious Island" as "Robinson Crusoe" meets "Twenty Thousand
Leagues Under the Sea" and you'll get an idea of where Verne is headed
with this story.There is certainly the emphasis on technology, science
and learning with which all sci-fi fans are familiar.What makes the
book worth reading, however, is the variation it represents on classic
themes found throughout literature."Mysterious Island" is essentially
the age-old story of man versus nature and man versus his fellow man and
what consequences these confrontations have upon the human condition in
general.The interaction of these opposing forces constitutes the
enduring appeal of "Mysterious Island" and make it much more than just a
science fiction story.

Considering Verne's reputation and how well he writes I am surprised his
works are not more often taught in school.Perhaps the moniker "Father
of Science Fiction" hangs too heavily with him.Maybe it would just be
too easy to write a report on his ideas.Whatever the case, many people
are acquainted with his works only through their movie versions, and that
is a lost opportunity!Verne's works seem worthy of consideration
equally great as those of Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Daniel Defoe,
or Jonathan Swift.It is a joy to read Verne's works to see how he
develops many of life's classic oppositions in his tales.

"Mysterious Island" does not represent Jules Verne's best work.Even the
Verne fan may find it somewhat dull or overwritten when compared with
better known works such as "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" or
"Around the World in Eighty Days."The latter two works do greater
justice to Verne's style and grace, especially his powers of characterization.But Verne's ability to create the classic oppositions
of the human condition and present them to the reader makes "Mysterious
Island"--along with his whole body of work--worthy of reading among the
best in world literature.

A Very Poor Translation
This is the 1875 translation, by WHG Kingston, which cuts sections of text, changes the names of the characters and is generally not faithful. Choose instead Sidney Kravitz's version for Wesleyan University Press to really understand what Verne intended to say.

Best Jules Verne Novel
I love the work of Jules Verne, and this is by far his best work. The island is really a symbol for the world, and how we could make use with it and still live in harmony with it. This translation (Signet Classic version) was very readable, and I believe that it was not edited in any way, but I can't find that anywhere on the book itself. I only mention this, because some Jules Verne novels are shamelessly cut apart, and censor the reading before the reader even has a chance to judge. The introduction and afterword are negligible. The characters are great, and even though they may be a little unbelievable by today's standards, the whole point of the novel is about what GREAT men can do even with nothing to start with. A MUST read after 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (be especially careful which version of that book you get) ... Read more

Product Description
2010 Sidewise Award Nominee Best Short-Form Alternate History

Una grande novelette che incrocia atmosfere di alternate history con un setting cyberpunk. Selezionata per diversi "Best Of", è ubblicata per la prima volta in ebook ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Storia interessante ma difficile
Devo dire che questo tipo di racconti per me è difficile. Amo le realtà alternative e il concetto del libro è originale. C'è una specie di idea audace nel racconto, che credo sia proprio un'idea da scrittore, quella che il potere della creazione sia a disposizione di chi ha l'ardire di immaginarlo. Inoltre credo che il finale del racconto sia davvero inaspettato.

Quello che ho trovato difficile, e che mi ha un po' reso difficile la lettura, sono i riferimenti politici, economici, culturali, tutte quelle considerazioni che ci si aspetta appunto da un giornalista. Ammetto che è un mio limite, perché in un racconto cerco di più l'aspetto dell'evasione che quello della riflessione. Questo racconto, insomma, per certi tratti sembra di più un saggio e questo mi ha messo un po' a disagio. ... Read more

Product Description
"I'm an entertainer in the military-entertainment complex." -- Bruce SterlingPolemicist, provocateur, futurist, 'visionary in residence', Bruce Sterling has been out there, personally sharpening the cutting edge of science fiction for more than thirty years.From his first story "Man-Made Self" in 1976 to his latest "Kiosk" in 2007, Sterling has written science fiction that is fast-moving, sharply extrapolated, technologically literate, and as brilliant and coherent as a laser, as he himself once said of William Gibson. His "Shaper/Mechanist" stories were an essential part of the cyberpunk movement of the '80s, just as his "Leggy Starlitz" and "Chattanooga" stories wrangled the near future of the '90s better than anyone else. Whether writing about the deep future in Schismatrix or the deep present in Holy Fire, he has developed into the best science fiction writer working in the world today.Born in Texas in 1954, Sterling has traveled the globe writing and working for The New York Times, Nature, Wired, Newsday, and a number of industrial design magazines. His short fiction has appeared in almost every major publication in the science fiction field. His novels include far future adventures Involution Ocean and The Artificial Kid, Schismatrix, John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner Islands in the Net, The Difference Engine, Heavy Weather, Holy Fire, Distraction, and The Zenith Angle. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

good synopsis of Sterling's works
Bruce Sterling fans will find nothing new here, sadly. But the selection of his best works will be a pleasant reread. While newcomers to Sterling's works can get an excellent synopsis of why he is so highly regarded. The stories in this book originally appeared in sundry magazines, scattered over 20 or so years. The diversity of topics speaks to a versatile writing ability.

As to what is be the best story, this might not be a useful question. Readers' tastes will vary widely enough to make difficult any sort of consensus judgment. My personal favourite would be the Dinner in Audoghast, for its piognant evocation of a lost culture. It also differs strongly from the cyberpunk flavoured tales for which Sterling is renowned. ... Read more