Ok, so I didn’t technically read all the stories. Which is silly, because I was really enjoying them, but it was due back at the library, and couldn’t be renewed, and I dunno, there’s so many other books to read! And I’d read the Becky Chambers story that has prompted me to get in the first place! That said, I enjoyed what I read very much, and if my path crosses it again I’ll finish it!

Absolutely fantastic! A wonderful and deliciously rich story, from beginning to end. Buckell is sure to gift us some amazing ideas, and I very much look forward to reading more from him.

"I" is a maintenance form robot who used to be human, who agreed more than one hundred years ago to give up its free will in order to perform contracts in exchange for a chance to see the galaxy on various contracted positions.(view spoiler)[After a war, the CEO of a starship, a flesh form who does not believe in the sentience/ autonomy /personhood of creatures such as "I" and AI, invokes robotic protocol where "I" must protect it from harm, either actively or passively. "I" procures medical sup...

My favorite stories:P. 55 Zen and the art of starship maintenance: this story is about a "robot" who is used by a biological form, who knows the 3 laws of robotics, to force it to save its life. 3 🌟P. 70 The Deckhand Etc: This story is by Becky Chambers who wrote Long Way to an Angry Planet. it's about an orphan who is A deckhand on a ship. Nobody likes her; she lost her best friend at the same time that she lost her parents. She likes to smoke weed in the chapel and she keeps a log that's halfw...

A wonderful anthology of science fiction and fantasy with a view towards the widest scopes. It's not all on a cosmic space or time scope, but it's definitely all playing to the theme. There's a wide range in tone as well, with some being very hard science fiction, a couple of laugh-out-loud funny stories and a few that are touching and sweet. As with all anthologies, the quality is somewhat uneven and naturally subjective, but there were only a few stories I really didn't care for and some of th...

Like all collections/anthologies this one has some winners and some losers but the good far outweighs the bad in this collection of stories from some very talented writers!

Some good stories but overall a bit underwhelming. 18 stories with a combined rating of 55 stars out of a possible 90 gave the average rating a 3.05. The following is the stories ranked from most liked to least liked:Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance by Tobias S Buckell - 5 Stars - Exquisite world buildingA Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime by Charlie Jane Anders - 5 Stars - HilariousUnfamiliar Gods by Adam Troy Castro & Judi B. Castro - 4 Stars - Hilarious and UnforgettableThe Deckhand...

I picked this anthology up for the Seannan McGuire and Becky Chambers stories, both of which are well worth reading. In point of fact, they are not the only gems in this collection, which has quite a few stellar stories. Unfortunately, there are also a number of tales that just made me tune out. They were a little too epic and somehow failed to be interesting. Or they just weren't my style. Still, it's a set of short stories, so there's no harm in putting the book down for a week or two before r...

This book was a mixed bag, but that mix was generally excellent- I enjoyed something from every story. I think the issue I encountered most often is that science fiction doesn’t lend itself to the short story format when you try to shoehorn in too much lore or information- you can’t worldbuild your robotic space odyssey as deeply in a short story as you would in a novel. That being said I think these stories were mostly balanced and interesting. Some stories, though I would give them only 3/4 st...

Interesting anthology of new, previously-unpublished stories. I liked some more than others. Overall, 3.3 stars?For me, the standouts were:* “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance” by Tobias S. Buckell. Classic biter-bit tale, in a posthuman, post space-war setting. With one nasty throwback onscreen. Tasty stuff: 5 stars! Also available online at http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic...Easily the best in the book!* "The Chameleon's Gloves" by Yoon Ha Lee. An interrupted art-heist becomes a mis...

Overall this was just an OK collection for me. There were more stories that I didn't much care for than those I did. The ones I liked best were The Deckhand, the Nova Blade, and the Thrice-Sung Texts; and The Chameleon's Gloves.A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime by Charlie Jane Anders - This was OK, but I'm not really a fan of humorous or zany satirical SF.Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance by Tobias S. Bucknell - This one I quite liked. A maintenance robot goes toe to toe with a snobby...

This is just one kickass good anthology. Go buy a copy in your preferred format now.Okay, okay, you want to know more.Every one of these stories is, as advertised, far-future, galaxy-spanning, and involves people confronting huge problems caused by technology, in some cases so advanced as to be, as Arthur C. Clarke said, "indistinguishable from magic."They vary wildly in tone, also.Charlie Jan Anders' "A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime" is just really funny."The Chameleon's Gloves" by Yoon

John Joseph Adams pretty much has the golden touch as an editor. I own several of his anthologies, and they've consistently been among the better SFF collections out there. This book definitely follows in that tradition. Some of these stories are outrageously over-the-top (in keeping with the bright, eye-watering cover art), but that is part of the theme, and the charm, of this book. The standout story in this anthology, so far, seems to be "Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance," Tobias S. Bu...

Cosmic Powers is an anthology of sci-fi stories from 18 different authors; many of them were new to me.I found it kind of disappointing: there were many stories I couldn't even get into; not all of them were necessarily bad, some were just really not my kind of sci-fi. On the other hand, the stories I was looking forward to were just as good as I expected.A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime by Charlie Jane Anders: ★½ DNFCharlie Jane Anders' writing really isn't for me, I already knew that bec...

Picked this up for “The Chameleon’s Gloves” © 2017 by Yoon Ha Lee, an excellent addition to the Machineries 'verse. a funny kind of weird and/or uplifting:“A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime” © 2017 by Charlie Jane Anders. <<< I was fully prepared to be squicked by the 'ball of flesh' floating in space and eating everything and its cult of smelly worshipers, and then by the grotesque perverted planet out of some lurid fantasy, but the characters were super amusing (I mean, just the monocellu...

LCL Summer Reading Challenge "Read a book published this year"

- Charlie Jane Anders, 'A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime' (3.5/5)What an odd but fun story. It's the kind I'd like to read more of (as a novel) to really get into the characters and world. - Tobias S. Buckell, 'Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance' (3/5)I struggled to get into this one, after a few attempts. While I don't necessarily understand everything, I could picture what was happening. Interesting. (The writing is so much like my brother's haha.)- Becky Chambers, 'The Deckhand, th...

Great short story of a bot on a spaceship just after a battle. Elements of Iain M Banks and perhaps also Neal Asher ... or at least it brought him to mind.

Space Opera. How did I not realize this was a distinct subgenre of science fiction? Consider me stumped but oh so very pleased. According to Wikipedia, space opera "emphasizes space warfare, melodramatic adventure, interplanetary battles, chivalric romance, and risk-taking.” Heck yes. Whatever you call it, this collection of short stories has been an absolute joy and refreshing escape. All the more necessary as a reprieve during my long dark read of Mr. Stephen Kings’ “The Stand” and our equally...

still reading, but so far, 3.5 starsA Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime - 2.5 starszany and hilarious at first, exhaustingly tedious in the middle, and something probably happens at the endZen and the Art of Starship Maintenance - 3.5 starswell written and engaging. More space opera like this pleaseThe Deckhand, the Nova Blade, and the Thrice-Sung Texts - 2 starsengaging enough, but literally nothing happens in front of the cameraThe Sighted Watchmaker - 2.5 starsnot bad, but the magic trick