Jetse de Vries

I love science fiction books about space and alien encounters. Forever Curious addressed that love but did so in a tedious fashion. The book’s explanation of futurist scientific principles was way more detailed than necessary, making the book laborious to read. That technical treaty also took up a lot of reading time and didn’t add to the plot. I occasionally found my mind wandering as I read lengthy detailed explanations explaining the science behind previously unknown occurrences in the far future time where the story takes place.

Reaching the end of the book, I fancied reading the second book in the series because I liked the story. Contemplating that led to the question ‘do I want to subject myself to hours of technical-fiction reading again?’ I think not.

I regret feeling the way I do because the underlying story is great and is from a new author whose work I hadn’t read before. Hopefully, with future writings, Jetse de Vries devote fewer pages on imaginative technology and more pages on character development and plot twists. I would have like to learn more about the Moiety alien that accompanied Na-Yeli Maya at the end of her journey.… (altro)

In the interests of full disclosure, I should admit that my writing partner and I submitted a story to de Vries for Shine and it was rejected. I hope this hasn't colored my reception of the book, but I did have a reaction that was more negative than not. Part of what bothered me about the book was the sameness: many of the stories featured a future-Earth in the throes of environmental collapse, all of them seemingly obligated to slap the prefix "wiki-" onto something. Then, at the end, one small thing happens... hardly optimisitc, to be honest. De Vries wants stories where there's been serious positive change in the world, but his writers have perpetrated the scame crime he accuses much of contemporary sf of: they cannot conceive of how it could actually happen in the short-term future.

Even aside from conceptual problems, many of the stories in the book didn't interest me. Many felt generic, with people bravely fighting climate change or something with an "innovative" idea. Their samey futures meant that these stories lacked the strong sense of wonder that can make good sf; there was a lot of sub-cyberpunk stuff here that just failed to impress me either way. Less than a month since I finished it, and already much of the book I've forgotten. However, I particularly disliked "The Church of Accelerated Redemption" by Gareth L. Powell & Aliette de Bodard, which features a creepy cult kidnapping a woman and forcing her to work for them... and I think we're supposed to sympathize with the cult? Eva Maria Chapman's "Russian Roulette 2020" was also bad, a version of M. T. Anderson's Feed without the attention to character that makes Feed work; a noble savage Russian woman who walks around naked to teach the value of "real" sexuality tells our American hero how to stop being so capitalist and smell some flowers. Ugh. Then there were stories that weren't even stories, just short pieces where a character goes "I have an idea to make the world more awesome!" and then it just happens easily: Lavie Tidhar's "The Solnet Ascendancy," Silvia Moreno-Garcia's "Seeds," and Jason Andrews's "Scheherazade Cast in Starlight." The worst story, though, was "Paul Kinosha's Childen" by Ken Edgett, an overly sentimental story of a man who makes an educational television series that inspires all Africans to go into space or some such nonsense. Please.

There is some good stuff, though. I didn't expect to like Mari Ness's "Twittering the Stars" (Shine is littered with crappy stories from Outshine, de Vries's "Twitterzine"), but it did something inventive with the Twitter form, especially in the way it unfolded backwards, introducing surprisies that didn't feel contrived. In "At Budokan," Alastair Reynolds doesn't give much of a story, but he does depict some great ideas on the evolution of rock and roll. Neither of these stories seemed to have anything to do with the optimistic premise of the book, however. My favorite story, though, was Gord Sellar's "Sarging Rasmussen: A Report (by Organic)," which tells of a group of pick-up artists who decide to use their abilities to manipulate social situations to enact positive environmental change. What a great idea! Unfortunately, it's one of a scant few great ideas in a book of dreary ones. Shine is a great concept, but if de Vries tries for optimistic sf again, I'd like to see it be two things: 1) actually optimisitc and 2) actually good.… (altro)