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Engineering Infinity
by
Charles Stross (Goodreads Author),
Gwyneth Jones, John Barnes, Hannu Rajaniemi, Stephen Baxter, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, John C. Wright, Karl Schroeder
,
more…
The universe shifts and changes: suddenly you understand, you get it, and are filled with a sense of wonder. That moment of understanding drives the greatest science-fiction stories and lies at the heart of Engineering Infinity. Whether it's coming up hard against the speed of light and, with it, the enormity of the universe, realising that terraforming a distant world is...more
Kindle Edition
Published
(first published December 28th 2010)
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Peter Watts again tops an anthology--the guy is damn consistent. (Plus after a recent legal run-in at the US border, where he was almost imprisoned and now can no longer return to the states, he is just recovering from a bout with scary leg strep or "flesh-eating bacteria"...)
I love anthologies, short story collections, whatever you might call them. You don't feel any press to finish it. You can pick it up, read a story, then put it down, only to pick it up later when the mood strikes. Jonathan Strahan has edited many collections and has won many awards for doing so.
This is a great collection, some authors known to me, some not. That is part of the joy an anthology brings. The reader gets a taste of an author or two or more with whom s/he is familiar but also gets t...more
This is a great collection, some authors known to me, some not. That is part of the joy an anthology brings. The reader gets a taste of an author or two or more with whom s/he is familiar but also gets t...more
http://idearefinery.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/back-and-engineering-infinity.html
I found this one to be a bit patchy. There were some stories in it that I really enjoyed, but just as many that didn't really grab me.
It's billed as hard science fiction, but Strahan notes in the introduction that the anthology "moved away from pure hard SF to something a little broader." I actually think this is perhaps its biggest weakness. It isn't laser-focussed, so I couldn't really read it as a bunch of different...more
I found this one to be a bit patchy. There were some stories in it that I really enjoyed, but just as many that didn't really grab me.
It's billed as hard science fiction, but Strahan notes in the introduction that the anthology "moved away from pure hard SF to something a little broader." I actually think this is perhaps its biggest weakness. It isn't laser-focussed, so I couldn't really read it as a bunch of different...more
This is a collection of short stories (mostly) with the theme of "hard SF", although this is never really defined (a point that the editor notes in the introduction) and some of the stories definitely stray outside this sub-genre. There were more hits than misses in the collection, but it's the misses that stand out for me, possibly because there was a string of them in quick succession in the middle of the book. There was Kathleen Ann Goonan's Creatures With Wings (a small Buddhist community is...more
Hovering between one and two stars, but I think the gems just about redeem the dross.
Not that there are many gems in here. The opener, though, is brilliant - Peter Watts' Malak explores what happens when a killing drone is required to evaluate collateral damage before making a strike - and slowly begins to question, begins to feel guilt. Beautiful prose style, brilliant at getting inside the mind of the machine and seeing things in variables and correlations - and a brilliant twist at the end. I...more
Not that there are many gems in here. The opener, though, is brilliant - Peter Watts' Malak explores what happens when a killing drone is required to evaluate collateral damage before making a strike - and slowly begins to question, begins to feel guilt. Beautiful prose style, brilliant at getting inside the mind of the machine and seeing things in variables and correlations - and a brilliant twist at the end. I...more
Pretty good, I loved almost all the short stories here, except a few but 1-2 miss among a series of well written, innovative or mind boggling stories is good.
Noted favorites in no order:-
The server and the dragon (An interesting view of interstellar routers)
Bit rot (Chilling as usual, Charles)
Judgement Eve (For a techno future, has a very a biblical feel)
Malak (A drone AI, which you can help but root for)
Laika’s Ghost (Difficult to make sense until the end, but even then it is hard to explain, k...more
Noted favorites in no order:-
The server and the dragon (An interesting view of interstellar routers)
Bit rot (Chilling as usual, Charles)
Judgement Eve (For a techno future, has a very a biblical feel)
Malak (A drone AI, which you can help but root for)
Laika’s Ghost (Difficult to make sense until the end, but even then it is hard to explain, k...more
1.Introduction
2.Malak, Peter Watts - excellent
3.Watching the Music Dance,
Kristine Kathryn Rusch - good
4.Laika’s Ghost, Karl Schroeder - ok
5.The Invasion of Venus, Stephen Baxter - dull
6.The Server and the Dragon, Hannu Rajaniemi - excellent
7.Bit Rot, Charles Stross - good
8.Creatures with Wings, Kathleen Ann Goonan - poor
9.Walls of Flesh, Bars of Bone,
Damien Broderick & Barbara Lamar - good
10.Mantis, Robert Reed - ok
11.Judgement Eve, John C. Wright - poor
12.A Soldier of the City, David Mo...more
2.Malak, Peter Watts - excellent
3.Watching the Music Dance,
Kristine Kathryn Rusch - good
4.Laika’s Ghost, Karl Schroeder - ok
5.The Invasion of Venus, Stephen Baxter - dull
6.The Server and the Dragon, Hannu Rajaniemi - excellent
7.Bit Rot, Charles Stross - good
8.Creatures with Wings, Kathleen Ann Goonan - poor
9.Walls of Flesh, Bars of Bone,
Damien Broderick & Barbara Lamar - good
10.Mantis, Robert Reed - ok
11.Judgement Eve, John C. Wright - poor
12.A Soldier of the City, David Mo...more
Apr 13, 2012
Dan
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
e-books,
science-fiction
This book bills itself as a collection of hard science fiction stories. Now, any collection is bound to be a little uneven. But some of the stories in here were in no way, shape, or fashion "hard" SF. And they weren't that good, either. But others particularly the first 2 and the last 1, had me thinking, "Yes! This is the stuff I fell in love with as a kid." So if you pick this book up, just know that you are in for some very disparate experiences.
Overall I liked it; as with any short story collection, some are hit and some are miss. Science Fiction writing has swung from bright-shiny adventures to seeing how characters in a SF setting deal with the circumstances they are in. These stories fall, for the most part, into the latter category - there is still plenty of hard science to be hard, though.
My favorite stories:
Peter Watts’ Malak - a military strike drone's reaction to a new conscience program.
Charles Stross' Bit Rot - android-like p...more
My favorite stories:
Peter Watts’ Malak - a military strike drone's reaction to a new conscience program.
Charles Stross' Bit Rot - android-like p...more
An interesting variety of stories built around a theme of basically some chunk of gee-whiz technology. Interestingly, two of the tales involve Buddhism, although rather peripherally in one case. There's also a very tasty Charles Stross follow-up to Saturn's Children, and in the final story, John Barnes uses an idea that I recognized immediately from Larry Niven's Known Space. John C. Wright's contribution makes me think the man is incapable of writing actual dialog. It didn't hurt his "Awake in...more
A mix of stories. Some are better than others, but all of them are good. The Invasion of Venus and Malak are the two standouts for me, by virtue of approaching life through a non-human perspective.
A great anthology showing that "hard" science fiction can also have a heart. The engineering in the title represents more tthan FTL drives, time machines, and SETI radio dishes. Fine pieces by Benford, Barnes, McDevit, and others all dedicated to Robert Heinlein who would appreciated the technology hand-in-hand with the humanity.
You won't need to engineer an infinity to read this collection, but the stories will stay with you for a long, long time.
You won't need to engineer an infinity to read this collection, but the stories will stay with you for a long, long time.
"Bit Rot" was disturbing, but I would still recommend that short story and I don't often say that about disturbing stories.
Solid anthology. One or two of the stories stand out for being wonderfully lyrical (Judgment Eve, John C. Wright) or offering clever twists on plausible scenarios (Malak, Peter Watts), and there were one or two awful ones, but the majority is basic, work-a-day sci-fi. A decent read, but nothing earth shattering.
Good anthology. Great stories by Stephen Baxter, Hannu Rajaniemi, Peter Watts, Charles Stross and David Moles.
I started reading this yesterday. Almost every story I read in this collection so far has been awesome!
Very good selection of stories. If you like what you find in Asimov's Science fiction you'll enjoy this.
Good read, good mix, general views of future - nothing stood out individually, but all were readable.
Jun 23, 2011
Jonathan Crowe
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction,
kindle
A handful of gems among otherwise insipid tales.
Excellent. All different, all good. Jonathan Strahan is a great editor - his story choices never fail to pleasantly surprise.
Despite not every story being "hard science-fiction" still a very good and inspiring read.
Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team.
To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.
There were a few stories that were interesting here - more so than a few other anthologies I've read lately - but as a whole, quite boring
There were a few stories that were interesting here - more so than a few other anthologies I've read lately - but as a whole, quite boring
I couldn't decide between 2 and 3 stars, but overall I just wasn't impressed with this anthology. Only 4 or the 14 stories do I consider really good, including: The Invasion of Venus by Stephen Baxter, Bit Rot by Charles Stross, Mantis by Robert Reed, and The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees by John Barnes. The other stories were either not SF (i.e. speculative, fantasy, etc.), poorly written, boring, or all of the above.
Good anthology. Three stars for the good stories, two stars off for the not so hot ones.
Some of the short stories in this collection were very technically complicated, so I only enjoyed a few of them, generally they were not of the dystopian variety of sci-fi (thank goodness) but the technological developments/concepts were a little hard to grasp in places, a good read but not ultimately really that enjoyable. I think I will go back to Ursula LeGuin and the more fantasy fiction type of sci fi stuff.
Good stories and a few very good stories.
I enjoyed Engineering infinity and will look out for more works by Jonathan Strahan
have read better...
Nice set of SF stories.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bradley Associates: ABOUT US - Dailymotion | 2 | 1 | Oct 02, 2012 06:50am |
Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy.
Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Richard Morgan.
SF...more
More about Charles Stross...
Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Richard Morgan.
SF...more
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Mar 15, 2011 04:37am