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Great smattering of stories-- some more along the lines of "Huh?!" Fiction from the New Yorker than strictly SF-- but will definitely find some really intriguing bits that'll lead to checking out author.
I liked the previous anthology better as a whole. Still, here're the passages and stories that caught my attention:https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
I love to read stories where the main character doesn’t operate on the same assumptions I do, and they aren’t necessarily explained, being assumptions. I also love to read stories where the main character has the same concerns as I do, but something else is different, whether it be beliefs or language or food or clothing. This volume abounds with such tales, and I’m happy I got a chance to read it.There’s only one story in the collection that I didn’t care for. It’s by the author of The Witcher,...
Disappointing. A few decent stories, mainly from writers I already knew, but most were dull and below average. No new finds here.
4.5 stars. I have to remind myself that this was a world SF anthology (SF = speculative fiction, not science fiction), not a best of something book. No one claimed these were the best stories of the year or the best from these authors. Yet I liked almost all of them more than almost all of the stories in the last few of Gardner Dozois's best science fiction of the year anthologies. Which either means the story pool was better when Tidhar choose these stories or Dozois isn't reading the right stu...
Only read Lauren Beukes' "Branded." Intro to Moxyland?http://io9.com/5943053/a-brand-new-cy...
With 27 stories and one essay that seeks to define “world scifi,” this anthology is a worthwhile purchase for anyone who enjoys short stories and literature by non-western authors. Notice I did not say you need to be a scifi aficionado. The variety in theme, structure and style amongst these stories practically guarantees that any serious reader of any genre will find something to like, not to mention something to ponder, within the covers of this book. Among the stories that struck me as parti...
A bit hit and miss, but the good stuff is really good.
Some really good stories in here. I'll write a more detailed review at some stage.
Quizá por la comparación con la decepción que supuso el primer volumen, pero en este segundo Apex Book of World SF he encontrado lo que buscaba: una antología de género fantástico (a pesar del SF hay un poco de todo) contada en coordenadas muy diferentes a las mías. Quizá también se note la presencia de autores más consolidados (o al menos más consolidados hoy) como Nnedi Okorafor, Lauren Beukes o Hannu Rajaniemi, pero lo cierto es que el nivel medio (con alguna excepción) me ha parecido bastant...
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this anthology that brings much needed fresh perspectives and diversity of new voices into the Speculative Fiction realm. I'm honoured to be a part of it.
This collection of science fiction stories from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe was a mixed bag for me. My favorite was "The Secret Origin of Spin-Man", about a boy, his little brother, and their love of comic superheroes, which turned out to be a tremendous and unexpected story. "Zombie Lenin" by Ekaterina Sedia has something to say, and I also enjoyed "A Single Year", by Csilla Kleinheincz, about a woman whose father can see glimpses of the future, a fact which pretty much ruins...
A well-above average set of 'world' SF tales gathered together by Lavie Tidhar. No theme unites the stories in this collect, apart from being written by writers from around the world and the stories being mostly based in an environment that does not feel like a version of the western world. The stories that caught my interest include those by Daliso Chaponda, Csilla Kleinheincz, Andrew Drilon, Shweta Narayan, Tim Jones, Samit Basu, Andrzej Sapkowski and Jacques Barcia.- “Alternate Girl’s Expatri...
Another very solid collection from Apex and Tidhar. No great disappointments in this volume. Particularly strong were Rochita Loenen-Ruiz's tale of expatriate marginalization and alienation, Daliso Chaponda's spirit-laden story coloured by the ethnic strife in Burundi, Shweta Narayan's ephemeral story of reality and illusion, Gail Hareven's exploration of dehumanization and Andrezej Sapowski's powerful upstairs-downstairs confessional rewrite of an episode in the Tristan epic. There were three o...
A collection of mostly good short stories.
This collection contains some interesting speculative fiction. My favorite stories were 'Tree of Bone' by Malawian author Dasilo Chaponda and 'The Slows' by Israeli author Gail Hareven. The first is a horror story that takes place in the future in a small village in Burundi in the future where racial tensions are high and the ghosts of the past revisit the people. The second also takes place in a research clinic in the future where a young woman seeks to defend her baby and many unexpected twist...
...The Apex Book of Word SF 2 is bigger, more geographically balanced and, if possible, more diverse than its predecessor. I'm impressed with Lavie's selection and the work it must have taken to collect these stories from all over the planet. In his afterword Charles Tan points out the numerous problems with the term world SF. I guess that if a review wants to, they could have a field day picking this anthology apart based on the difficult to define concept. Personally I don't see the point of d...
There are twenty-six stories in this book, all of them interesting. A few of the stories were baffling, and a couple were too much horror for my taste. A few had satisfying twist endings. One reminded me of Borges' writing, and another required me to brush up on Arthurian legend. And a few of the stories were particularly funny, moving and/or fascinating. The authors are from Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, South and East Asia, and Australia.
This is another book club book. I get weird about anthologies because I generally don't like short fiction. Some of the stories in here were really good. Some of them were just kind of there. A couple of them weren't translated very well. Overall, I'm glad I read this, but there were too many stories that left me wondering, now what?
The Apex Book of World SF is quite a mixed bag. Some of the stories are excellent, some are mind-bending; others are uninteresting, gimmicky; some aren't even really science fiction or fantasy. The cross-cultural perspectives are... really not that different from what we're used to in mainstream SF. Honestly the ones that are most different feel unbearably parochial, like one story that's about Hutu versus Tutsi as though that's something that really resonates with the human condition (instead o...