Another solid and diverse collection of contemporary science fiction. ( )

An adequate but unremarkable collection. The one story that really stood out for me was Nick Harkaway's "The Time Gun". ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2015/11/review-of-solaris-rising-2-ed-by-ian.ht... ( )

Paul Cornell - Tom

In a near future of friendly humanoid aquatic aliens arriving, this a tale of romance with one of them...

Nancy Kress - More

Rather forced tale of a daughter turning against her inventor father, mainly because his invention is unlikely...

James Lovegrove - Shall inherit

With the world ending soon, because of terrorism, a very unlikely emergency space program is set up....

Adrian Tchaikovsky - Feast and famine

A mission is scrambled when contact is lost with an expedition investigating 'anchorites', a quasi-lifeform.

Eugie Foster - Whatever skin you wear

Neat tale of the effects of a blip in a very networked future...

Neil Williamson - Pearl in the shell

A satirical take on the future of copyrighted music...

Nick Harkaway - The time gun

A burglar at a research lab gets 'shot' by a very strange gun..

Kristine Kathryn Rusch - When Thomas Jefferson dined alone

Being able to view the past opens up the study of history but may have side-effects...

Robert Reed - Bonds

Story is about a reclusive youth who turns into a global cult leader. But the expected path is not taken....

Allen Steele - Ticking

In a future where robots are commonplace, all digital devices fail, causing chaos, and robots turn on humans.

Kim Lakin-Smith - Before Hope

A grizzled trader gives a girl the chance of a new life off the backwoods planet of her birth - cliched.

Kay Kenyon - The spires of Greme

Rather daft scenario of survivors living in isolated flying ships because of a human-engineered 'green plague' that turned the biosphere against humanity. And yet despite of all this there is romance!

Mercurio D. Rivera - Manmade

An AI decides it does not want to pretend to be a human anymore...Idea is good but not much is made of it.

Martin Sketchley - The circle of least confusion

Awful cliched story about an alien gadget which can control time falling into human hands via an encounter with a 'ufo'...

Norman Spinrad - Far distant suns

Monologue from a far-future human who has pioneered an odd approach to space exploration.

Liz Williams - The lighthouse

Generations of women have served as guardians of the lighthouse against ruthless aliens but this iteration of the pattern comes to a new ending...

Martin McGrath - The first dance

An old man wants access to an earlier happy memory of his but copyrighted material is present...

Mike Allen - Still life with skull

Weird cyberpunk/fantasy milieu in which powerful individuals clash. Tries too hard.

Vandana Singh - With fate conspire

Strange, but moving, tale of a small group of scientists trying to change reality to avoid global disaster. The viewpoint character is an ordinary woman who sees the past.... ( )

There were some good stories, and science fiction is not dead. Yadda yadda.

The first story, or one that was very close to first, ruined a perfectly good story with a completely frivolous, unnecessary use of the word 'tranny'. :P

A story shortly after that was all about sending kids with Asperger's into space to save the human race. It made no sense whatsoever. And while I am not on the autism spectrum or know anyone very closely who is, it struck me as not a very good portrayal. Very Othering.

Another story just past the middle (I checked, because I know the weakest stories are usually in the middle) was so completely long-winded and boring. It needed serious editing. Like, more than half of it could've gone and it would've been such a better, tighter story. Still not all that great, but better.

More men than women in the antho. ( )