An engaging collection of dystopian, post-apocalyptic, paranormal, quantum tales that kept me engaged from beginning to end. Each story simultaneously captured the inherent creepiness and magic of the City of Angels and its surrounding environs.

Really enjoyed this collection. I am struck by how so many of the writers envisioned that our very much reliant tech-future also comes hand in hand with an environmental dystopia. It makes for an unnerving feeling about our future!

This was a little uneven, as would be expected from a hodgepodge of different writerly styles and stories in various subcategories of speculative fiction, but only a little uneven. Most of them I liked very much and thought it far superior as a collection to editor Denise Hamilton’s previous anthology, Los Angeles Noir . But I knew I really couldn’t go wrong with this one when I saw an Eve Babitz quote in the front of the book: “. . . everybody who really lived in L.A. was linked into the tranc...

EXCELLENT SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY STORY COLLECTIONThis collection of science fiction/fantasy/horror stories is top drawer.Each is set in a different LA neighborhood.They’re written by a diverse group of authors.I loved this collection, even though I’ve neverbeen to LA.Of course, as with any anthology, some storieswere better than others. I disliked a couple.This is always a matter of taste. It’srare that every story in an anthology willappeal to every reader.GREAT AUDIO NARRATORSThe multiple aud...

Denise Hamilton, who previously edited two collections of LA noir--Los Angeles Noir and Los Angeles Noir 2--The Classics--has now commissioned 14 writers to think about alternative LAs. The result is a collection of extremely high quality which deserves wide readership.Los Angeles embodies all the contradictions of California, and more broadly, the United States as a whole. These are patent in the stories here. Some deploy old, rather tired tropes about the city's future as a dystopian hell hole...

The anthology contains a diverse blend of speculative fiction: science fiction, horror, mystery/crime, urban fantasy. I particularly enjoyed Alex Espinoza’s “Detainment.”

The first in a new city-based series from Akashic Books, Speculative Los Angeles is a triumph. Going into this, I clearly had no concept of the breadth of genre that the term "speculative fiction" encompassed. The stories in this collection range from magical realism, to Sci-Fi, to noir, to pure horror. These are not happy stories by any stretch of the imagination, but rather they will reach inside you, grab hold of your heart, your lungs, your stomach, and tear you apart. The first few were som...

Akashic Books has criss-crossed the entire world twice over with their Akashic Noir series, each one focusing on a particular geographic area with mystery/crime/noir stories by various local authors, some well known and some barely discovered. Stop the presses! Akashic Books has just previewed the start of a brand new series of geographically-based speculative fiction (what we used to call science fiction) with the first one centered in La-La Land (Los Angeles). These stories take us through LA'...

4.5 stars! As usual, Akashic has compiled an excellent ensemble of writers for this mind-bending compilation.

Interesting concept. Fourteen authorswith future tales around the city.Most were very entertaining andI look forward to another spec city.

“If Memory Serves” by Lynell George is the best story in here. Way more high-concept than the rest, and much more skillfully written. Similar to the other stories, George weaves in critiques of widening class inequality, gentrification, and environmental degradation. Hers is a much more intimate voice though, and that’s where the difference is. The prisms of memory and limited geography lend a texture and specificity to her voice which most of the other narratives lack.“West Torrance 2BR 2 BA W/...

4 stars... though it's difficult to rate anthologies because each individual story deserves its own individual rating. A couple of the stories I didn't really care for, most were pretty good, and a few I loved! This anthology covers monsters, black holes, vaqueros, psychic terrorists, noir, parallel dimensions, gods, robots, and more! My favorite story was "Walk of Fame" by Duane Swierczynski. As soon as I finished it, I immediately read it again. I imagine there will be future rereads as well.

A very disappointing collection that fails to live up to its promise. So many authors live and writer about LA, and it's such a rich vein for speculative possibilities, that it's a shame this wasn't better, more intriguing, with better stories. The individual ones are desperately uneven, and to some degree, it feels...well, lazily edited. In the sense that they didn't seek out any variety of stories, really (with the notable exception of Aimee Bender's). The primary outlet for this is the sheer

An excellent collection of speculative tales set in and around Los Angeles, CA. Those familiar with the area, though, might find a great many things have changed, particularly in the future-set and alternate reality entries. My favorite piece was "Where There are Cities, These Dissolve Too" , involving a future in which the disenfranchised pick useful garbage from the landfill by day and turn it into fighting mechs by night, but more because of the relationship that unfolded against that backdro...

purchased this book as soon as it became available for preorder in late 2020. i'm working on an anthology of speculative fiction short stories by queer, trans and non-binary asian writers, and one of my friends posted about this anthology. it appealed to me since i happen to be working on a similar project and i grew up in the 626.for folks interested in this book, here's some trigger warnings to note:- violence (gun violence, murder, war, police brutality)- child sexual abuse- sexual assault gi...

Sci Fi shorts

Speculative Los Angeles seems like the start of another fabulous Akashic series. I hope it is. Akashic publishes a series of noir anthologies focused on different cities around the world. Speculative Los Angeles is a similar anthology focused on speculative and science fiction stories centered on L.A.There are fourteen stories grouped into four sections: Changelings, Ghosts, and Parallel Worlds; Steampunks, Alchemists, and Memory Artists; A Tear in the Fabric of Reality; and Cops and Robots in t...

The good news here is that Akashic Books has begun a new series of short story collections similar to its successful series of noir short story compilations readers have enjoyed for several years now. The bad news is that the first offering in this new series of “speculative” short stories, Speculative Los Angeles, is not home to many really exceptional stories. According to the book’s editor, Denise Hamilton, the fourteen writers whose work is included in the collection were asked to “reimagine...

I’m a sucker for well-done speculative fiction and this collection was right up my alley. I’m also a resident of California, and although I do not live in Los Angeles, I did live there for five years. I loved the variety of stories, how they took a different slant on speculative, from magical realism to sci-fi to horror. I particularly enjoyed the stories by Aimee Bender, Ben Winters, Denise Hamilton, S. Qioyyi Lu, Francesca Lia Block, Stephen Blackmoore, and Duane Swiercynski. Now I'm going to

Very Meh. I got the sense that these stories were rushed out to fulfill this anthology's premise and most of them were really bad - rife with SF cliches plus an overemphasis on up-to-the-minute social and political problems, and just cheesy bad writing.The only ones I'd recommend here, for being unexpected within the "speculative" prompt or having nice prose, are:"If Memory Serves" Lynell George"Purple Panic" Francesca Lia Block"Maintenance" Aimee Bender"Sailing that Beautiful Sea" Kathleen Kauf...