Man Vs Machine

Berserker

by Martin H. Greenberg (Editor), John Helfers

Fifteen original tales envision ever-more sophisticated technology-and the repercussions on humankind...

As our world and daily lives become more and more involved with and dependent on complex technology, concern over what the future holds increases. If computers develop genuine Artificial Intelligence will they still willingly serve humankind? If the machines rebel, can we shut them down? And what kind of world would we be left with if we did?

These are just a few of the questions explored in fifteen brand-new stories by some of science fiction's most visionary minds-inventive and cautionary tales about some of the futures we may be building for ourselves right now.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Ebooks, Robots

320 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 3, 2007

About the author

Martin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and speculative fiction anthologist. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel.

For the 1950s anthologist and publisher of Gnome Press, see Martin Greenberg.

Reviews

[Julie Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this with the best of intentions and failtfully read all of the stories at the beginning. After a bit, I was finding that the stories were either great, or I'd read a few pages and then skip to the next one.
This books one saving grace is that it presented me with a new favorite author. Bradley P Beaulieu. I was hooked after the first paragraph. The voice he had given to his narrator was brillian! I'm currently reading his third book now.

[Paulo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Algumas histórias boas, outras nem tanto ...

Minha expectativa era de apenas histórias de guerra "à la" Terminator, mas nem todas são assim ...

Algumas interessantes, mas há algumas tediosas, maçantes ...

Pena, pois há muitos contos melhores que poderiam ter sido selecionados ...

[Vicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewing an anthology of short stories has to be one of the hardest things a reviewer can do, especially if the stories are all written by different authors. Some of the authors in this anthology include S. Andrew Swann, Brendan Dubois, Loren Coleman, Rick Hautala, Bill Fawcett, Ed Gorman, William Keith, and more.

In this book, we are given fifteen different stories by fifteen different authors but with one theme uniting them all – in this case, man vs. machine. This book is hard science fiction. There are no feel-good, warm fuzzies here. These stories explore the questions of technology and our future – what happens if technology becomes too big, or if it dies. Like all anthologies, there were some stories I liked, some I didn't care much for, but not because of the writing. Each story is well crafted and well-written. Overall, the tales were very good.

If you don't have a lot of time to invest in reading, anthologies are a good place to go. Each story is complete and is good for a quick read when you don't have time for a novel. If you liked the Terminator movies, you’ll love these stories. They’re a must read for the hard science fiction reader.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 2 out of 5]

An inordinate number of these stories start with the gratuitous exposition of the character's full name. Booooooooooooring.

Okay, so that's just my personal pet peeve. However, only two of the stories held my attention from beginning to end. Two of the others were decent, but not really grabby. The others ... I didn't even come close to wanting to finish them. (The ones that struck me as worthwhile, FWIW, were "The Hum" by Rick Hautala, "Stalking Old John Bull" by Jean Rabe, "Engines of Desire & Despair" by Russell Davis, and "The Historian's Apprentice" by S. Andrew Swann.

I should probably note that I've read a lot of SF, and very few of the stories in here shut off my internal critic. You know, the one that says "Good God I am so tired of stories that tell us the character's full name right off like it's the most important thing in the world" and "Oh, hey, the video game war trope." Someone who doesn't have that issue might get more out of this book.

[Sean Randall · Rating 2 out of 5]

None of these stories really pushed a boundary for me. A shame, as some of the authors have strong credits. A poor selection, I felt.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was good I just didn't care for the ending. Kind of lame in my opinion.