Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
Certainly the right price, it was available for free from Tor here:http://www.tor.com/blogs/2015/01/some...“As Good As New” by Charlie Jane Anders (Short Story) 4 stars. Short & very good.“The End of the End of Everything” by Dale Bailey (Novelette): 3 stars. Pretty horrible, but how would I spend my time at the end of everything?“Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch” by Kelly Barnhill (Short Story) 3 stars. Fun, short fantasy story with a air of the fairy tale about it, even though it's set in th...
Gut rating, i.e. the rating I feel it should get: 4 starsAverage rating for the stories: 3.15 starsThis anthology, as any other short story collection out there, is a mixed bag. A 3-star rating would be just, since it includes stories I hated or disliked and stories I enjoyed and loved. However, there is a discrepancy between what would be the average rating and what I feel this collection deserves. I really, really liked this. It honestly felt like a 4-star book, which I guess means the good st...
Unthemed, multi-author collections of stories are difficult to review, and this is no exception. There wasn't a story in it that I didn't enjoy. A couple creeped me out successfully, and a couple moved me deeply. But I can't bring myself to give it five stars, and I'm not sure why.Ellen Datlow (if this wasn't already obvious) is a talented, skilled editor who finds stories worth reading and puts them in front of the public. She has gathered here, as I understand it, stories first published on th...
As Good As New by Charlie Jane Anders— Really charming take on both the end of the world and the genie in the bottle. 4/5The End of the End of Everything by Dale Bailey— Fascinating look at the end times and whether art for art’s sake is enough to make life worth living in the face of the end. 5/5Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch by Kelly Barnhill— This was fun. Kind of a Circe for modern times, only with acceptance instead of revenge as the theme. 4/5Sleep Walking Now and Then by Richard Bowes— L...
I've had this on my Kindle for a while, having picked it up when it was free. I've delayed reading it, because I often don't like the stories published at Tor.com--my impression, from reading the occasional one, is that they're darker than I prefer, and rely too often on standing back and pelting the characters with adversity to get an emotional reaction from the audience. Since it's probably the highest-paying market in SF, though, I wanted to get a better idea of what they publish. Possibly re...
Fun collectionLots of stories, some pretty good, some stellar, & some that I didn't like but could still appreciate. Definitely a good mix of stories in the science fiction, fantasy, and the similar genre.Worth the full read! Some stories i definitely would love to see further works on, or finish out with my own imagination.
I downloaded this free ebook anthology of science fiction and short stories, novelettes, and novellas for kindle. I have previously read the 2011 and 2012 anthologies, but this one is over double those in size. 28 stories. 719 pages according to goodreads, although the concept of a page is somewhat problematic.Some of these have been nominated for a 2015 Nebula award; the winners have not yet been announced.Sleep Walking Now and Then, by Richard Bowes (novelette)The Mothers of Voorhisville, by M...
The stories of this book vary wildly, some are brilliant, like Reborn by Ken Liu, and Unlocked by John Scalzi, but a bunch are just fine and more than a few pretty bad. I particularly didn’t like The End of the End of Everything, but there are more than one that I read just to have it over. Uneven.
So I finally finished it, with just 4 days left of the year to go!! I've talked about this before, but I have a perpetual problem with anthologies, in which the stop-and-start pace and unknown quality of the writing means it takes me much longer to get through them -- I'll tear through a story that I love, but then be disappointed that it's over already. I'll drag my heels through a story that I hate, then I'll be quietly wary to start the next one, because I'm not sure what awaits me. It's not
There were a few stories that I didn't like at all, but overall, a nice collection. As Good as New - Charlie Jane Anders.Nice, but didn't really stick to my memory.The End of the End of Everything - Dale Bailey.Depressing, but that's it. Mrs Sorensen and the Sasquatch - Kelly Barnhill. This was sweet and funny at times, but it frustrates me a bit that it's a story about a magical woman seen from a distance, instead of her being the actual protagonist.Sleep Walking Now and Then - Richard Bowes. I...
I didn’t love all the novellas in this generous sampler from Tor, but I have never come across a speculative fiction anthology of such consistently high quality. Every piece is beautifully written, there is absolutely no padding. I am amazed the publisher gave this out for free, and would be so even without the gorgeous cover illustrations commissioned for each novella. The genres covered range across the whole of speculative fiction, from hard sci-fi to horror noir. Because it is a collection o...
Nice little collection, and it was a free download! Some I loved, a few didn't really do it for me. I read them all except the Scalzi story, because it looks like a prequel to Lock In, which I'm hoping to read first and then. One back to the story.
There were some really really great stories in this collection, including:As Good as New by Charlie Jane AndersThe End of the End of Everything by Dale BaileyBrisk Money by Adam ChristopherUnlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome by John ScalziThere were also a couple very painful ones as well, which often caused me to set down the book for months at a time, including: A Short History of the Twentieth Century, or, When You Wish Upon a Star by Kathleen Ann GoonanCombustion Hour by Yoon Ha Le...
Charlie Jane Andrews "As Good as New": Clever tale about the end of the world and a genie in a bottle. ****Dale Bailey "The End of the End of Everything": Super depressing end of the world story- written extremely well but the characters are people I sure as hell wouldn't be hanging out with in that situation. *** three stars only because of those damned awful characters.Kelly Barnhill "Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch" Erm, I'm not really sure what the author was trying to say: pro-animal, equal...
- “As Good As New” by Charlie Jane Anders (Short Story): 4-4.5/5- “The End of the End of Everything” by Dale Bailey (Novelette): 2.5-3/5- “Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch” by Kelly Barnhill (Short Story): 2.5/5- “Sleep Walking Now and Then” by Richard Bowes (Novelette): 2.5/5- “Daughter of Necessity” by Marie Brennan (Short Story): 3.5-4/5- “Brisk Money” by Adam Christopher (Novelette): 3.5/5- “A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Proposed Trade-Offs for the Overhaul of the Barricade” by John Chu (Sho...
As Good as New - Charlie Jane Anders. It's a story of post-apocalyptic wishes gone wrong, and a playwright/surgeon.The End of the End of Everything - Dale Bailey. Another post-apocalyptic story, but where As Good as New was hopeful about the world being saved, The End of the End of Everything just accepts that humanity is doomed. Mrs Sorensen and the Sasquatch - Kelly Barnhill. It's full of Sasquatch lovin'.Sleep Walking Now and Then - Richard Bowes. I liked the idea of interactive plays, and th...
Finally got around to finishing this...it's quite long. The book is a collection of a large number of sci-fi & fantasy stories. Some of the stories are absolutely amazing, and others...less so. One of my favorite stories was called "A Kiss With Teeth" by Max Gladstone--a really cute story about a vampire trying to be a normal father. I also really enjoyed "Unlocked: And Oral History of Haden's Syndrome" by John Scalzi which basically read like World War Z meets I-Robot.Others I enjoyed included:...
This collection of short stories and novellas is one of the best anthologies I've ever read. The fact that it was free made it all the more enticing - who doesn't love free books? This sort of thing is why I love ebooks; a collection like this in hardcopy would be completely unwieldy and intimidating, but as an ebook collection it works perfectly. Each of the stories merits a review of its own, which I will post individually to benefit their authors. Some of my favorites were the following: The
Some good stories but many bad ones.
This is an ebook collection of what the editor thinks were some of the best stories published on Tor.com in 2014. Any short story book is a mixed bag. But in this one, it generally felt unsuited to my tastes. Mainly, there wasn't enough SF, compared to fantasy. There were some stories that I didn't see any value in, and a number of others where the style seemed to be the point rather than the story, too many stories that I'd call 'fables' (which I like even less than fantasy), and too many that