This is another of those thick Prime Books anthologies (just
over 400 pages) and has some big names in it - Elizabeth Bear, Ian McDonald,
Catherynne M. Valente, etc.
Although the title is "Robots" not all of the
stories are about what we would consider robots. For example, you could make a
case for the houses in Mark Pantoja's story by the same name, but Metta in
"Kiss Me Twice" is a sessile AI who's hands and eyes are the police
officers she works with.
All of the stories in this collection were good. "Kiss
Me Twice" by Mary Robinette Kowal is probably my favorite - and includes
an intriguing answer to the question of "is an artificial intelligence a
person" that says as much about today's politics as her future. Ian
McDonald knocked it out of the park again with "The Djinn's Wife" -
if you are interested in stories that step out of our western mindset and
paradigm, take every trip to India this man offers.
My least favorite? Catherynne M. Valente's "Silently
and Very Fast." I've never been fond of stories that are told in snippets
with sub stories. It's a shame, I normally quite like Valente, but this one
didn't do it for me. I also found "Alternate Girl's Expatriate Life"
by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz less than satisfying.
Overall, though, this is a good anthology - and the variety
of the stories is sufficient to keep one from really noticing how thick it is.
Four stars.
(Another one I picked up at Balticon)
No comments:
Post a Comment