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26th out of 214 books
—
96 voters
Wireless
by
Charles Stross (Goodreads Author)
Science fiction guru Charles Stross "sizzles with ideas" (Denver Post) in his first major short story collection.
The Hugo Award-winning author of such groundbreaking and innovative novels as Accelerando, Halting State, and Saturn's Children delivers a rich selection of speculative fiction- including a novella original to this volume- brought together for the first time in...more
The Hugo Award-winning author of such groundbreaking and innovative novels as Accelerando, Halting State, and Saturn's Children delivers a rich selection of speculative fiction- including a novella original to this volume- brought together for the first time in...more
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published
July 7th 2009
by Ace Hardcover
(first published January 1st 2009)
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WIRELESS is brilliant from cover to cover. The first story/novella, "Missile Gap," is my favorite. The ideas! What if a vast alien intelligence, without our noticing, instantly "peeled the Earth like a grape" and transferred it to a colossal deep space disk large enough to contain a billion Earths? What's on all those other continents that came from somewhere else? Is this real, or is it a simulation? Stross has done some deep thinking here.
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More struggling with short stories on my part. Actually I'm struggling with all fiction at the moment. Of the ten books I read before Wireless, only 1 was fiction, and that was a holiday read.
I finished Wireless impressed with Stross, but not particularly impressed with the collection. I've now read a few of Stross's blog posts and I'm currently following him on Twitter, and I like the guy. He's clearly very smart, and that's evident from the stories themselves too. But I didn't get much out of...more
I finished Wireless impressed with Stross, but not particularly impressed with the collection. I've now read a few of Stross's blog posts and I'm currently following him on Twitter, and I like the guy. He's clearly very smart, and that's evident from the stories themselves too. But I didn't get much out of...more
Stross mentions that he likes writing short stories as a way to experiment with style and format to see what works. That being said, I think the raw density of Stross' ideas make it difficult for me to get a handle on the story he is telling before it is over.
There are only two stories in this collection that I especially enjoyed.
The first is "A Colder War," which is the only duplicate with Stross' Toast, which I haven't read, and am not sure if it is a priority for me any longer.
The second sto...more
There are only two stories in this collection that I especially enjoyed.
The first is "A Colder War," which is the only duplicate with Stross' Toast, which I haven't read, and am not sure if it is a priority for me any longer.
The second sto...more
It's always interesting to read single author story collections. As a reader, you can see themes and ideas as they form and interbreed across stories. In fact, that seems to be the point of this collection:
Two of the stories collected here show the origins of Stross' popular Laundry novels. "Colder War" and "Missile Gap" are variations on the ideas of Cthulu, Cold War, alternate history, and ways in which we're all doomed and don't even know it, and how they might all interact in the confines of...more
Two of the stories collected here show the origins of Stross' popular Laundry novels. "Colder War" and "Missile Gap" are variations on the ideas of Cthulu, Cold War, alternate history, and ways in which we're all doomed and don't even know it, and how they might all interact in the confines of...more
This is a very enjoyable collection of shorts from Stross, a writer I usually enjoy anyway. Of the two longer pieces in the book, Missile Gap and Palimpsest, I probably enjoyed the latter more than the former, with its rather interesting ideas of time travel which seemed to resonate at times with Asimov's 'Eternity' (as in The End of Eternity). Mind you, the Big Dumb Object of the former (a vast disc in space upon which the Earth was 'peeled' and deposited by unknown aliens) was pretty mind-blow...more
Wireless is a quality short-story collection by Stross. Quick reviews:
Missile Gap: This is the story of a late 1950s earth whose crust has been peeled off our globe and stuck on an even larger flat plate, what that means to the people who live there, and how that influences the tensions of the Cold War. It was fascinating, weird, and fun. The concept was oddly original. 4 of 5 stars.
Rogue Farm: A weird concept of extreme body modification (to the extent of creating communes-in-a-body), and the b...more
Missile Gap: This is the story of a late 1950s earth whose crust has been peeled off our globe and stuck on an even larger flat plate, what that means to the people who live there, and how that influences the tensions of the Cold War. It was fascinating, weird, and fun. The concept was oddly original. 4 of 5 stars.
Rogue Farm: A weird concept of extreme body modification (to the extent of creating communes-in-a-body), and the b...more
I grew up reading SF short stories, mostly from the Gold and Silver Age. That was the primary form of the medium, then, fostered by a healthy SF periodical biz. Now short stories are a lot more uncommon, with novels (and, more importantly, novel series) the primary medium.
Stross demonstrates why that's unfortunate with this 2009 collection of some of his shorts (and an introduction that analyzes quite nicely why the form is so wonderful). While not every tale is a hit out of the park, it is full...more
Stross demonstrates why that's unfortunate with this 2009 collection of some of his shorts (and an introduction that analyzes quite nicely why the form is so wonderful). While not every tale is a hit out of the park, it is full...more
This was a great collection of short stories.
Stross has what very few speculative fiction authors have: an actual aptitude for prose. Rather than be like the typical speculative author, who's merely declared a truce with the English language, Stross can use the language as a tool to further his ends of tone, mood, pacing, and atmosphere. He can inhabit many different voices, something that a collection of short stories can really show to good effect. He's more than once sent me scrambling for t...more
Stross has what very few speculative fiction authors have: an actual aptitude for prose. Rather than be like the typical speculative author, who's merely declared a truce with the English language, Stross can use the language as a tool to further his ends of tone, mood, pacing, and atmosphere. He can inhabit many different voices, something that a collection of short stories can really show to good effect. He's more than once sent me scrambling for t...more
Jan 28, 2013
Pamela
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Shelves:
alternate-futures,
fun,
imaginative,
mind-bending,
novella,
readin2013,
sci-fi,
short-stories
Extremely enjoyable collection of Stross' work--I particularly enjoyed Missile Gap, the first short story/novella. One of the things I love about Charles Stross is how he always tosses in loads of references to other books and authors: in-jokes are my thing.
The only real weakness here is the last novella, Palimpsest. I'm definitely not as smart as the author, and I never was one for the time-traveling branch of sci-fi (more the space-opera, far-future, or military branches for me). I felt like...more
The only real weakness here is the last novella, Palimpsest. I'm definitely not as smart as the author, and I never was one for the time-traveling branch of sci-fi (more the space-opera, far-future, or military branches for me). I felt like...more
The collection has some interesting stories, some fall a little flat, others are just great.
I think missle gap is one of the more interesting ideas, even though I'm not especially amazed by the idea of an alderson disk. I liked the exploration of things like the slam missle being developed to their conclusion.
Snowballs chance is a funny little aside that I also liked. A colder war is good in it's exploration of the laundry universe for another angle.
unwired, is very obviously something that was...more
I think missle gap is one of the more interesting ideas, even though I'm not especially amazed by the idea of an alderson disk. I liked the exploration of things like the slam missle being developed to their conclusion.
Snowballs chance is a funny little aside that I also liked. A colder war is good in it's exploration of the laundry universe for another angle.
unwired, is very obviously something that was...more
I can get pretty sick of my little box of pseudo-reality. When I read a book I want to be challenged; go somewhere I have never travelled, marvel over ideas and concepts I would never find on my own. Charles Stross takes me to those places and this collection is a great sample of his work.
Most of the stories are long, dense and crammed with humour, despair, science, information technology, horror, spy tropes, alternate histories. One could argue that shorter more focused stories could better sho...more
Most of the stories are long, dense and crammed with humour, despair, science, information technology, horror, spy tropes, alternate histories. One could argue that shorter more focused stories could better sho...more
All very thought provoking stories. Some of them took me a while to get my mind around, but I did enjoy every word of this book. "Missile Gap" is a particular mind-blower, with the Earth somehow being transported to a flattened disk, outside the Milky Way and in the far future. "A Colder War" has inspired me to put Lovecraft on my "to read" list. I think my favorite was the last, "Palimpsest." A palimpsest is a scroll or book that has had the text scraped off so that it can be reused. In the con...more
It's really hard to give a star rating to a short story collection, especially one by an author who is as hit-and-miss as Charles Stross. I've read two of his novels. I hated one and really enjoyed the other. That's kind of how I feel about the stories in Wireless.
Two of the stories, "Down on the Farm" and "Palimpsest" would have rated 5 stars. I especially liked "Down on the Farm" and will be checking out his novels featuring The Laundry, The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. "Rogue F...more
Two of the stories, "Down on the Farm" and "Palimpsest" would have rated 5 stars. I especially liked "Down on the Farm" and will be checking out his novels featuring The Laundry, The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. "Rogue F...more
9 likes · like · see review
I picked up this book at random at a clearance store, not recognizing the author (yes, I'm kind of out of the loop). The first few lines of the introduction I decided were entertaining enough to risk spending the three dollars on a book of short stories. I have to say I am not at all disappointed, and Charles Stross is now a name I will remember. This collection has a pretty wide variety of stories in it, especially considering it's length. There's a little science fiction, horror, alternate his...more
The short stories were mostly good or very good, but I skipped over Trunk and Disorderly after a few pages. I found the writing style confusing and annoying. I had no idea what it was about. That story was a sort of test run for Stross' later novel Saturn's Children, which I now also know to skip, heh.
Unwirer was another story I disliked. Stross collaborated with Cory Doctorow on that one, and Doctorow's usual annoying preachiness overrode everything else.
A Colder War is great, Missile Gap is go...more
Unwirer was another story I disliked. Stross collaborated with Cory Doctorow on that one, and Doctorow's usual annoying preachiness overrode everything else.
A Colder War is great, Missile Gap is go...more
Science fiction is not my favorite genre, mainly because you have to wade through a lot of mediocre writing that is in service to some imaginative concept. In other words, the writing comes second to the ideas. This is the main issue I have with Stross's stories: his ideas are often ingenious, but the way that he unspools his narrative leaves the reader confused and detached. The twisty time travel novella "Palimpsest" is a good example of this - while I liked the idea of an organization of time...more
A good collection, containing two flat-out great stories ('Palimpsest': dueling timestreams and the fate of the human race [and a Hugo winner]; and 'Missile Gap', communists and capitalists fight on a structure larger than the Ringworld and learn what communism REALLY implies...) some middlin'-good ones, and a P. G. Wodehouse pastiche that doesn't really work. I'm also not all that fond of his 'Laundry' stories -- they seem to gesture at something Lovecraftian that doesn't gel for me. I'm happie...more
I disliked one thing and one thing only about this book: at the end of the last and potentially best story, Stross admits that it should be a full short novel but he didn't want to drive the cost up by making the collection run over 500 pages. It's more a commentary on the sad state of the publishing industry than on Stross's skills, but that last great section really does feel truncated. Otherwise, it's a stellar collection, with a few genuinely great tales, notably "A Colder War" and the incre...more
This ended up being sort of a mixed bag for me. I bought it primarily for the Laundry story in it and was not disappointed. The other Cthulhu mythos story as fantastic as well.
My problem with the rest of it is that I don't particularly enjoy Stross's brand of pure Sci-Fi. Its very inventive and very well written but really just not my bag. Most of the stories were still interesting, although I really disliked the farm story and the comedic sci fi story he did.
All that said its worth the read,...more
My problem with the rest of it is that I don't particularly enjoy Stross's brand of pure Sci-Fi. Its very inventive and very well written but really just not my bag. Most of the stories were still interesting, although I really disliked the farm story and the comedic sci fi story he did.
All that said its worth the read,...more
Feb 25, 2013
De Jan
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
anthologies-collections,
21st-century-sf
Ovako: Sad mi je dosta!
Prijevod! Je sve!
U ovom slučaju katastrofa!
U nekom djelu, pored pisca, druga važna stavka je prevoditelj.
Nažalost imao sam prilike 5,6 puta susresti (sudariti) se sa prijevodima Marka Fančovića. Iako sam isto toliko puta rekao sam sebi "Nikad više", kad bi vidio njegovo me kao prevoditelja, eto opet njega... A tako sam se radovao Strossu... I pomislih da je čovjek ipak nakon 20 godina svladao koliko-toliko zanat. A ne. Nevjerica, ljutnja, bacanje knjige kroz prozor (skoro)...more
Prijevod! Je sve!
U ovom slučaju katastrofa!
U nekom djelu, pored pisca, druga važna stavka je prevoditelj.
Nažalost imao sam prilike 5,6 puta susresti (sudariti) se sa prijevodima Marka Fančovića. Iako sam isto toliko puta rekao sam sebi "Nikad više", kad bi vidio njegovo me kao prevoditelja, eto opet njega... A tako sam se radovao Strossu... I pomislih da je čovjek ipak nakon 20 godina svladao koliko-toliko zanat. A ne. Nevjerica, ljutnja, bacanje knjige kroz prozor (skoro)...more
Britanski autor Charles Stross u ovoj antologiji kratkih priča u integralnom obliku konačno se prikazuje hrvatskoj publici. Bio je dosad objavljivan u Monolithu, kao i Siriusu B (tu sam prvi put naišao na njega s pričom Bit Rot - Propadanje bitova). Autor sam priznaje da ima "nezdravu sklonost Lovecraftu i egzistencijalnom užasu općenito"; a tu je i dašak kafkanijanizma (kukci, birokracija, egzistencijalni užas), te mješavina specifičnog tipa horora i SF-a.
U "Missile gap" ljudi otkrivaju da se...more
U "Missile gap" ljudi otkrivaju da se...more
So what rules does Charlie follow to ensure maximum Strossness in his writing?
I think I've sussed out a couple:
1) Introduce at least one new thing every page.
2) Never explain any of these new things.
Let me elaborate on what I mean by these rules.
Ever hear of the van Vogt rule of writing? Referring to A.E. van Vogt, of course. His particular style was to introduce a new idea (or a new detail that helps unravel the plot) every 800 words. Damon Knight called this the "kitchen sink technique", but I...more
I think I've sussed out a couple:
1) Introduce at least one new thing every page.
2) Never explain any of these new things.
Let me elaborate on what I mean by these rules.
Ever hear of the van Vogt rule of writing? Referring to A.E. van Vogt, of course. His particular style was to introduce a new idea (or a new detail that helps unravel the plot) every 800 words. Damon Knight called this the "kitchen sink technique", but I...more
It's the worlds he creates. Layered, fascinating worlds. In stories like Missile Gap, A Colder War and Palimpsest, he creates strangely familiar yet utterly cold and different realities from our own, worlds so textured I wanted to spend more time exploring them.
This was my first Stross book and it's a mixed bag. I loved the world-building stories mentioned above, but felt left out of some others due to my utter lack of knowledge of Lovecraft. And one story, Trunk and Disorderly, never pulled me...more
This was my first Stross book and it's a mixed bag. I loved the world-building stories mentioned above, but felt left out of some others due to my utter lack of knowledge of Lovecraft. And one story, Trunk and Disorderly, never pulled me...more
If you haven't read any Charles Stross yet, you must. The two best places to start are either Accelerando or Wireless - this short-story collection.
Not all the stories are a hit for me, as not all of Stross's books are, since he has such a widely varied repertoire.
A few are great, though:
The first story, Missile Gap (a Locus Award–winner), is my favorite for the great Cold War setting that is really pretty well executed. It's about the US-USSR conflict transported from boring old Earth onto a di...more
Not all the stories are a hit for me, as not all of Stross's books are, since he has such a widely varied repertoire.
A few are great, though:
The first story, Missile Gap (a Locus Award–winner), is my favorite for the great Cold War setting that is really pretty well executed. It's about the US-USSR conflict transported from boring old Earth onto a di...more
From the author of the Hugo-nominated Saturn’s Children comes a collection of short stories featuring a number of novellas and one previously unpublished work. Wireless kicks off with the strongest in the collection in “Missile Gap”: its 1962 and the Cold War is in full sway with the Cuban Missile Crisis, and then something catastrophic happens. Somehow all the continents and oceans of planet Earth are transported across the universe to the Large Magellanic Cloud where everything is situated on...more
Feb 06, 2010
Terence
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Stross fans, hard SF/Space Opera types
Recommended to Terence by:
AV Club book review
Shelves:
short-story-collections,
sf-fantasy
I defer to my GR Friend Sandi's review here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
She pretty much nails it on the head in my own reactions to the stories in this collection.
"Palimpsest" was definitely my favorite (easily 4-5 stars). Finally, a time-travel story that squarely faces up to the "grandfather paradox"! I almost wish Stross could expand it into a novel as his afterward notes. It reminded me of Asimov's The End Of Eternity SFBC 50th Anniversary Collection, another story about a nearl...more
She pretty much nails it on the head in my own reactions to the stories in this collection.
"Palimpsest" was definitely my favorite (easily 4-5 stars). Finally, a time-travel story that squarely faces up to the "grandfather paradox"! I almost wish Stross could expand it into a novel as his afterward notes. It reminded me of Asimov's The End Of Eternity SFBC 50th Anniversary Collection, another story about a nearl...more
1 like · like · see review
Wireless is a short story collection. The stories Missile Gap, A Colder War, and Palimpsest were excellent. The first two are terrific examples of Stross's ability to transmute Cold War era anxiety into darker horror territory, while the last is as good as Stross gets. Down on the Farm is another great story from Stross's Laundry (The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue) series. With the exception of Trunk and Disorderly, a Wodehouse pastiche, the other stories are also pretty good.
All right, I'm trying here. I'm just not a fan of short stories, but do like this author and Scott recommended this book.
Actually, in the introduction, Stross describes the history of short stories in general, short stories in science fiction in particular, and discusses WHY an author might write a short story instead of a novel. It gave me new perspective, and I tried to read these with his insights in mind.
It helped.
But I still just like novels better.
Actually, in the introduction, Stross describes the history of short stories in general, short stories in science fiction in particular, and discusses WHY an author might write a short story instead of a novel. It gave me new perspective, and I tried to read these with his insights in mind.
It helped.
But I still just like novels better.
READ. THIS.
When I got this book home from the library and realized it was a book of stories rather than a novel, I was disappointed. Reading short stories is not my thing. However, Stross's work is amazing, and a couple of the stories felt like novellas and were quite satisfying in length.
I remain awestruck by Stross's plotting and writing style(s). The science in this science fiction seems plausible and is not incomprehensible to the layperson (me).
When I got this book home from the library and realized it was a book of stories rather than a novel, I was disappointed. Reading short stories is not my thing. However, Stross's work is amazing, and a couple of the stories felt like novellas and were quite satisfying in length.
I remain awestruck by Stross's plotting and writing style(s). The science in this science fiction seems plausible and is not incomprehensible to the layperson (me).
Excellent collection of short stories and novellas by Charlie Stross. If you aren't particularly familiar with Stross, this would be a great set of example work; it definitely shows off his "voice". If you're already a Stross reader, there are probably a few things here you've read before online, but you may not have them bound together, and many of these are excellent choices for a collection. Recommended.
And even if you're a total fan-boy like me, and you've already read almost everything in...more
And even if you're a total fan-boy like me, and you've already read almost everything in...more
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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.
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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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