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Bridging Infinity
BUILDING TOWARDS TOMORROW
Sense of wonder is the lifeblood of science fiction. When we encounter something on a truly staggering scale - metal spheres wrapped around stars, planets rebuilt and repurposed, landscapes re-engineered, starships bigger than worlds - the only response we have is reverence, admiration, and possibly fear at something that is grand, sublime, and extremely powerful.
Bridging Infinity puts humanity at the heart of that experience, as builder, as engineer, as adventurer, reimagining and rebuilding the world, the solar system, the galaxy and possibly the entire universe in some of the best science fiction stories you will experience.
Bridging Infinity continues the award-winning Infinity Project series of anthologies with new stories from Alastair Reynolds, Pat Cadigan, Stephen Baxter, Charlie Jane Anders, Tobias S.Buckell, Karen Lord, Karin Lowachee, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Gregory Benford, Larry Liven, Robert Reed, Pamela Sargent, Allen Steele, Pat Murphy, Paul Doherty, An Owomoyela, Thoraiya Dyer and Ken Liu.
“One of the year’s most exciting anthologies.”
io9 on Edge of Infinity
“[The Infinity series] has gone from strength to strength.”
Tor.com
Sense of wonder is the lifeblood of science fiction. When we encounter something on a truly staggering scale - metal spheres wrapped around stars, planets rebuilt and repurposed, landscapes re-engineered, starships bigger than worlds - the only response we have is reverence, admiration, and possibly fear at something that is grand, sublime, and extremely powerful.
Bridging Infinity puts humanity at the heart of that experience, as builder, as engineer, as adventurer, reimagining and rebuilding the world, the solar system, the galaxy and possibly the entire universe in some of the best science fiction stories you will experience.
Bridging Infinity continues the award-winning Infinity Project series of anthologies with new stories from Alastair Reynolds, Pat Cadigan, Stephen Baxter, Charlie Jane Anders, Tobias S.Buckell, Karen Lord, Karin Lowachee, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Gregory Benford, Larry Liven, Robert Reed, Pamela Sargent, Allen Steele, Pat Murphy, Paul Doherty, An Owomoyela, Thoraiya Dyer and Ken Liu.
“One of the year’s most exciting anthologies.”
io9 on Edge of Infinity
“[The Infinity series] has gone from strength to strength.”
Tor.com
284 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 20, 2016
119 people are currently reading
533 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
February 7, 2017
*** Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee • (2016) • Alastair Reynolds
The 'sixteen questions' here are not one coherent interview with the fictional scientist Kamala Chatterjee, a physics researcher with a particular interest in our sun. Rather, they are questions asked of her at various points in her career, from when she was a beginning graduate student to a couple of centuries in the future (yes, some unexpected developments have happened).
The reader has to piece the story together like a puzzle, trying to figure out the order and timeframe of events, and what's implied by both the questions and the answers.
I liked it, but remained unconvinced that the format really added something to the piece.
*** Six Degrees of Separation Freedom • (2016) • Pat Cadigan
An engineer is involved in a speaking tour aimed at recruiting volunteers for space colonies: a permanent commitment which involves having your body heavily modified for extraterrestrial environments. It's a very 'talky' piece; mostly dialogue involving characters discussing the situation. Interesting ideas, but not much of a plot.
** The Venus Generations • (2016) • Stephen Baxter
The Poole family has been known for their grand achievements for generations, and the latest scion of the clan is determined that her works will be as famed as those of her ancestors. Her plan involves carbon sequestration on Venus - however, she's opposed by conservationists - and eventually, her own heirs.
The ideas here were OK, but I didn't feel it really came together - and the end was a bit too much of a deus-ex-alien.
*** Rager in Space • (2016) • Charlie Jane Anders
In this gonzo tale, a couple of drunk teens on an implausible space party cruise end up being the only thing standing between a couple of alien AIs and all organic life on Earth.
And, it's about what it means to be a real friend.
YMMV, depending on your particular sense of humor.
*** The Mighty Slinger • (2016) • Karen Lord and Tobias S. Buckell
I'm not sure if I've read anything else by Karen Lord, but the tone of this is very much in keeping with other stories I've read by Buckell. In this future, many things have changed - but too many things have stayed the same. Laborers working on an orbital ring habitat are exploited, and strongly suspect that the corporation has no intention of honoring guarantees built into their contract.
A calypso band becomes instrumental (haha) in the workers' fight for their rights, using both the tradition of protest songs, and more direct actions.
*** Ozymandias • (2016) • Karin Lowachee
Action-oriented space adventure: a solo worker with a checkered past finds himself in an unexpected confrontation on the space station he's been monitoring. Not too much depth here, but it'd make a nice chapter of a space opera.
*** The City's Edge • (2016) • Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The domed city was meant to be able to fly away... but it wasn't completed, shouldn't have been able to, and it certainly wasn't supposed to disappear without a trace, leaving behind the dead bodies of its prime architect and six hundred construction workers.
The architect's husband, overwhelmed with grief, tries to come to terms with his personal tragedy and to somehow make sense of the mystery.
** Mice Among Elephants • (2016) • Larry Niven and Gregory Benford
This one just didn't capture my imagination. Clearly, it was meant to, with lots of big concepts and details about the potentials of alien lifeforms... but the style just felt pedantic; the characterization flat. And the plot wasn't really all that, either. I've never really become a big fan of either of these authors, and this piece didn't cause me to re-evaluate my opinions.
*** Parables of Infinity • (2016) • Robert Reed
After a successfully completed freelance job, an engineering expert specializing in 'hyperfiber' tells the remarkable tale of her first job - the one that she was created to do. It all happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far away... but the core of the information might turn out to still be terribly relevant.
Nice contrast between an epic scope and a small, contained focus in a tale that turns out to be surprisingly charming.
*** Monuments • (2016) • Pamela Sargent
In a rapidly-warming world, three generations of a powerful family work on their dream: to create a solar shade to combat global warming, a feat made feasible by advances in AI technology and lunar mining.
The gaping loophole in the directives given to the AI regarding the project are obvious to the reader early on. As 'The Monkey's Paw' taught us: be specific in what you wish for.
*** Apache Charley and the Pentagons of Hex • (2016) • Allen Steele
The set-up here is interesting and fun - "Hex" is a giant beehive-esque construct in space, home to colonies of races from all over the galaxy. Humans aren't really supposed to venture out from their assigned hexagon, but they do. The characters we meet here are a motley group of itinerant adventurer/entertainers who ride the rails in search of new experiences. But one of them has an obsession: visiting one of the legendary, rare 'pentagons.' The ending is plausible, but peculiarly anti-climactic.
*** Cold Comfort • (2016) • Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty
Get your Wishful Thinking here! More of a hopeful prescriptive than a story, this relates the clever and devious methods a researcher uses to get her carbon-sequestration project off the ground, including (but not limited to) social networking, crowdfunding, and harnessing the power of the media.
*** Travelling into Nothing • (2016) • An Owomoyela
On Erhat Station, the sentence for a murder committed in hot blood is expected to be death. But Kiu is whisked away from her jail cell by a strange man who says that her unusual neural augments will allow her to pilot his ship. It's a great space opera setup - but the ending kinda fizzled out. I wish this had been the opening to a full novel.
**** Induction • (2016) • Thoraiya Dyer
Big engineering concepts mesh with complex family relationships and past informs future in this nicely balanced story. Here, the proposed answer to the global warming (and the lost lands that rising seas are drowning) is controlled volcanic activity. Siphon up lava to the surface and create new land. Of course, this is a dangerous and possibly-unpredictable endeavor. One man returns to the soon-to-be-remodeled Anguilla to see his dying grandmother - a visit which also brings him into contact with his estranged half-brother and the head engineer of the project.
**** Seven Birthdays • (2016) • Ken Liu
The best is saved for last... not a surprise to me; I like Liu's writing. I'm not always such a fan of mega-far-future extrapolations into life beyond the singularity, as often they get very unrelatable, even while they're interesting. But this one loops around in such a way that it works, starting with one small girl and the ways in which she is influenced by her distant but impassioned and ambitious mother, and following her career and accomplishments - which change humanity beyond imagination. A little bit sentimental, and, a bit surprisingly, brightly optimistic. A nice closer to the collection.
Many thanks to Rebellion Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are unaffected by the source of the book.
The 'sixteen questions' here are not one coherent interview with the fictional scientist Kamala Chatterjee, a physics researcher with a particular interest in our sun. Rather, they are questions asked of her at various points in her career, from when she was a beginning graduate student to a couple of centuries in the future (yes, some unexpected developments have happened).
The reader has to piece the story together like a puzzle, trying to figure out the order and timeframe of events, and what's implied by both the questions and the answers.
I liked it, but remained unconvinced that the format really added something to the piece.
*** Six Degrees of Separation Freedom • (2016) • Pat Cadigan
An engineer is involved in a speaking tour aimed at recruiting volunteers for space colonies: a permanent commitment which involves having your body heavily modified for extraterrestrial environments. It's a very 'talky' piece; mostly dialogue involving characters discussing the situation. Interesting ideas, but not much of a plot.
** The Venus Generations • (2016) • Stephen Baxter
The Poole family has been known for their grand achievements for generations, and the latest scion of the clan is determined that her works will be as famed as those of her ancestors. Her plan involves carbon sequestration on Venus - however, she's opposed by conservationists - and eventually, her own heirs.
The ideas here were OK, but I didn't feel it really came together - and the end was a bit too much of a deus-ex-alien.
*** Rager in Space • (2016) • Charlie Jane Anders
In this gonzo tale, a couple of drunk teens on an implausible space party cruise end up being the only thing standing between a couple of alien AIs and all organic life on Earth.
And, it's about what it means to be a real friend.
YMMV, depending on your particular sense of humor.
*** The Mighty Slinger • (2016) • Karen Lord and Tobias S. Buckell
I'm not sure if I've read anything else by Karen Lord, but the tone of this is very much in keeping with other stories I've read by Buckell. In this future, many things have changed - but too many things have stayed the same. Laborers working on an orbital ring habitat are exploited, and strongly suspect that the corporation has no intention of honoring guarantees built into their contract.
A calypso band becomes instrumental (haha) in the workers' fight for their rights, using both the tradition of protest songs, and more direct actions.
*** Ozymandias • (2016) • Karin Lowachee
Action-oriented space adventure: a solo worker with a checkered past finds himself in an unexpected confrontation on the space station he's been monitoring. Not too much depth here, but it'd make a nice chapter of a space opera.
*** The City's Edge • (2016) • Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The domed city was meant to be able to fly away... but it wasn't completed, shouldn't have been able to, and it certainly wasn't supposed to disappear without a trace, leaving behind the dead bodies of its prime architect and six hundred construction workers.
The architect's husband, overwhelmed with grief, tries to come to terms with his personal tragedy and to somehow make sense of the mystery.
** Mice Among Elephants • (2016) • Larry Niven and Gregory Benford
This one just didn't capture my imagination. Clearly, it was meant to, with lots of big concepts and details about the potentials of alien lifeforms... but the style just felt pedantic; the characterization flat. And the plot wasn't really all that, either. I've never really become a big fan of either of these authors, and this piece didn't cause me to re-evaluate my opinions.
*** Parables of Infinity • (2016) • Robert Reed
After a successfully completed freelance job, an engineering expert specializing in 'hyperfiber' tells the remarkable tale of her first job - the one that she was created to do. It all happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far away... but the core of the information might turn out to still be terribly relevant.
Nice contrast between an epic scope and a small, contained focus in a tale that turns out to be surprisingly charming.
*** Monuments • (2016) • Pamela Sargent
In a rapidly-warming world, three generations of a powerful family work on their dream: to create a solar shade to combat global warming, a feat made feasible by advances in AI technology and lunar mining.
The gaping loophole in the directives given to the AI regarding the project are obvious to the reader early on. As 'The Monkey's Paw' taught us: be specific in what you wish for.
*** Apache Charley and the Pentagons of Hex • (2016) • Allen Steele
The set-up here is interesting and fun - "Hex" is a giant beehive-esque construct in space, home to colonies of races from all over the galaxy. Humans aren't really supposed to venture out from their assigned hexagon, but they do. The characters we meet here are a motley group of itinerant adventurer/entertainers who ride the rails in search of new experiences. But one of them has an obsession: visiting one of the legendary, rare 'pentagons.' The ending is plausible, but peculiarly anti-climactic.
*** Cold Comfort • (2016) • Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty
Get your Wishful Thinking here! More of a hopeful prescriptive than a story, this relates the clever and devious methods a researcher uses to get her carbon-sequestration project off the ground, including (but not limited to) social networking, crowdfunding, and harnessing the power of the media.
*** Travelling into Nothing • (2016) • An Owomoyela
On Erhat Station, the sentence for a murder committed in hot blood is expected to be death. But Kiu is whisked away from her jail cell by a strange man who says that her unusual neural augments will allow her to pilot his ship. It's a great space opera setup - but the ending kinda fizzled out. I wish this had been the opening to a full novel.
**** Induction • (2016) • Thoraiya Dyer
Big engineering concepts mesh with complex family relationships and past informs future in this nicely balanced story. Here, the proposed answer to the global warming (and the lost lands that rising seas are drowning) is controlled volcanic activity. Siphon up lava to the surface and create new land. Of course, this is a dangerous and possibly-unpredictable endeavor. One man returns to the soon-to-be-remodeled Anguilla to see his dying grandmother - a visit which also brings him into contact with his estranged half-brother and the head engineer of the project.
**** Seven Birthdays • (2016) • Ken Liu
The best is saved for last... not a surprise to me; I like Liu's writing. I'm not always such a fan of mega-far-future extrapolations into life beyond the singularity, as often they get very unrelatable, even while they're interesting. But this one loops around in such a way that it works, starting with one small girl and the ways in which she is influenced by her distant but impassioned and ambitious mother, and following her career and accomplishments - which change humanity beyond imagination. A little bit sentimental, and, a bit surprisingly, brightly optimistic. A nice closer to the collection.
Many thanks to Rebellion Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are unaffected by the source of the book.
June 5, 2018
The theme of this anthology is science fictional works on truly awesome scales, and it definitely delivers. As the editor points out in his foreword though, what's particularly new about the such a theme in the second decade of the 2000s is just how many of those gigantic-scale works relate to anthropocentric climate change remediation.
Overall I was a little disappointed by this anthology. It had a lot of stories that I didn't like much from authors who I normally really engage with. Probably my least favourite of the Infinity anthologies. Here are a few that I felt did stand out:
The first story is one of the best: "Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee" by Alastair Reynolds which is an Interstellar-esque story about exploration of the Sun and an alien artifact inside it. Really mind-bending and fascinating, but a like lot of stuff I've read by Reynolds, I found it a bit dry.
"The Mighty Slinger" by Tobias Buckell and Karen Lord has an industrialized solar system on the brink of war much like in the Expanse books, but all told from the point of view of a band of musicians from the Caribbean but working in the asteroid belt.
"Ozymandias" by Karin Lowachee is set on an enormous space station and involves the caretaker's conflict with smugglers. This is actually a smaller scope story than most of this collection, just using the scale of the station to match the theme. Something so immediate is a good addition to the overall operatic tone.
Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty's "Cold Comfort" is one of the more explicitly climate change-focused stories and strongly brings home the sort of "Moon-shot" level effort that climate change will require and why the environment may not allow it in any traditional way.
"Seven Birthdays" by Ken Liu is a masterful version of a fairly common short story type that you see in SF a lot, basically a skip downstream in time checking in to see how things have changed along the way.
Overall I was a little disappointed by this anthology. It had a lot of stories that I didn't like much from authors who I normally really engage with. Probably my least favourite of the Infinity anthologies. Here are a few that I felt did stand out:
The first story is one of the best: "Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee" by Alastair Reynolds which is an Interstellar-esque story about exploration of the Sun and an alien artifact inside it. Really mind-bending and fascinating, but a like lot of stuff I've read by Reynolds, I found it a bit dry.
"The Mighty Slinger" by Tobias Buckell and Karen Lord has an industrialized solar system on the brink of war much like in the Expanse books, but all told from the point of view of a band of musicians from the Caribbean but working in the asteroid belt.
"Ozymandias" by Karin Lowachee is set on an enormous space station and involves the caretaker's conflict with smugglers. This is actually a smaller scope story than most of this collection, just using the scale of the station to match the theme. Something so immediate is a good addition to the overall operatic tone.
Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty's "Cold Comfort" is one of the more explicitly climate change-focused stories and strongly brings home the sort of "Moon-shot" level effort that climate change will require and why the environment may not allow it in any traditional way.
"Seven Birthdays" by Ken Liu is a masterful version of a fairly common short story type that you see in SF a lot, basically a skip downstream in time checking in to see how things have changed along the way.
February 19, 2017
Has the usual mix of good, great, and mediocre - no bad as far as I'm concerned. Many stories contain large time jumps, which I really am not a fan of in short stories, but still pulled it off decently (and it's to be expected, with the sense of wonder in SF theme).
Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee by Alastair Reynolds - 3*
Six Degrees of (Separation) Freedom by Pat Cadigan - 3.5*
The Venus Generations by Stephen Baxter - 3.5*
Rager in Spacer by Charlie Jane Anders - 3*
(Anders whimsical hipster style grates on my nerves but this has the best plot I've read by her yet, so... thumbs up?)
The Mighty Slinger by Tobias S. Buckell and Karen Lord - 4*
(Time jumps worked well in this one!)
Ozymandias by Karin Lowachee - 4*
(I was rooting for the guy right away; SIFU reminded of the robot slab thingies from Interstellar, I dunno why!)
The City's Edge by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - 4*
Mice Among Elephants by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven - 3.5*
(So much more enjoyable than either of the 80's novels I've read by the authors)
Parables of Infinity by Robert Reed - 3*
Monuments by Pamela Sargent - 3*
(The only one that depressed me)
Apache Charley and the Pentagons of Hex by Allen M. Steele - 4*
(I would love more stories in this world - it has so many possibilities!)
Cold Comfort by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty - 4.5
(My favorite - good writing, intriguing character, solid plot, could easily have been in the Drowned Worlds anthology)
Travelling into Nothing by An Owomoyela - 4*
(An's never let me down before! I have high expectations for all their fiction now. This was an "internal struggle" story that hit all the right notes for me.)
Induction by Thoraiya Dyer - 3.5*
Seven Birthdays by Ken Liu - 3*
(Sadly, the type of time jumps in short stories I really don't like! Liu always nails the emotions, especially concerning family, though)
Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee by Alastair Reynolds - 3*
Six Degrees of (Separation) Freedom by Pat Cadigan - 3.5*
The Venus Generations by Stephen Baxter - 3.5*
Rager in Spacer by Charlie Jane Anders - 3*
(Anders whimsical hipster style grates on my nerves but this has the best plot I've read by her yet, so... thumbs up?)
The Mighty Slinger by Tobias S. Buckell and Karen Lord - 4*
(Time jumps worked well in this one!)
Ozymandias by Karin Lowachee - 4*
(I was rooting for the guy right away; SIFU reminded of the robot slab thingies from Interstellar, I dunno why!)
The City's Edge by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - 4*
Mice Among Elephants by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven - 3.5*
(So much more enjoyable than either of the 80's novels I've read by the authors)
Parables of Infinity by Robert Reed - 3*
Monuments by Pamela Sargent - 3*
(The only one that depressed me)
Apache Charley and the Pentagons of Hex by Allen M. Steele - 4*
(I would love more stories in this world - it has so many possibilities!)
Cold Comfort by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty - 4.5
(My favorite - good writing, intriguing character, solid plot, could easily have been in the Drowned Worlds anthology)
Travelling into Nothing by An Owomoyela - 4*
(An's never let me down before! I have high expectations for all their fiction now. This was an "internal struggle" story that hit all the right notes for me.)
Induction by Thoraiya Dyer - 3.5*
Seven Birthdays by Ken Liu - 3*
(Sadly, the type of time jumps in short stories I really don't like! Liu always nails the emotions, especially concerning family, though)
February 16, 2023
An anthology of original stories, all (said to be) hard SF evoking an old-fashioned sense of wonder. Most hit that mark.
ToC and story details: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?...
First-rate anthology, may be the best of the "Infinity" series. Easy 4 stars! Though, as always, some stories were better than others, and there were a couple I didn't care for.
The first story I read, and so far the best was:
• Mice Among Elephants • novelette by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven: an easy 5 stars, and already repaid my (modest) investment in a used copy. A stirring tale of the voyage of humanity's first interstellar starship, a Bussard-type ramjet with coldsleep facilities (it cruises at about 0.5 c) and two Diaphanous magnetic Artificial beings. Not to mention, our own Sun has natural magnetic beings that live in the solar corona, and sometimes are ejected (or escape) in CME events! Most or all of the cool science is from Benford. The only real disappointment? Ends on a cliffhanger! -- & no sign of a sequel 7 yrs on!
From here I've listed my faves in descending order:
• Seven Birthdays • short story by Ken Liu. Prev read at lest twice, and an easy 5 stars! Online at https://www.tor.com/2016/11/15/reprin... One of his best. Don't miss!
My full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
• The Mighty Slinger • novelette by Tobias S. Buckell and Karen Lord. Another 5-star story, this one a far-future story of rebuilding the solar system, with the start of a Dyson-style structure. POV is by a famous reggae band led by the eponymous Slinger, and the story is a hopeful one about the eternal Power of Music! Copy online: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/lord...
• Induction • novelette by Thoraiya Dyer, a new-to-me writer. Classic hard engineering-fiction story, featuring betrayal and redemption. DEEP drilling. And hot monkey sex! 4.5 stars. Not online. But she has others at http://www.thoraiyadyer.com/writing.html
• Rager in Space • novelette by Charlie Jane Anders. Teenagers confront the Singularity -- and win! Sort of. 4 stars. Copy online: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
With every page-title listed as "Ranger in Space"! 😁
• Cold Comfort • novelette by Paul Doherty and Pat Murphy. Problem-solving Cli-Fi story that's actually pretty optimistic. Scientists & engineers overcoming the obstacles put up by bureaucrats! Well, in the end, Billions of people die, which cost it a star. Online at https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/murp...
• Parables of Infinity • [Great Ship Universe] • short story by Robert Reed. A deep history of a competing Great Ship, by a VERY old entity. Good one, 3.5 stars. Reprint: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
• Travelling Into Nothing • novelette by An Owomoyela. A good short about a troubled pilot and a troubled AI-equipped starship freighter, that's fgone badly off course . . . 3.5 stars, not online.
ToC and story details: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?...
First-rate anthology, may be the best of the "Infinity" series. Easy 4 stars! Though, as always, some stories were better than others, and there were a couple I didn't care for.
The first story I read, and so far the best was:
• Mice Among Elephants • novelette by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven: an easy 5 stars, and already repaid my (modest) investment in a used copy. A stirring tale of the voyage of humanity's first interstellar starship, a Bussard-type ramjet with coldsleep facilities (it cruises at about 0.5 c) and two Diaphanous magnetic Artificial beings. Not to mention, our own Sun has natural magnetic beings that live in the solar corona, and sometimes are ejected (or escape) in CME events! Most or all of the cool science is from Benford. The only real disappointment? Ends on a cliffhanger! -- & no sign of a sequel 7 yrs on!
From here I've listed my faves in descending order:
• Seven Birthdays • short story by Ken Liu. Prev read at lest twice, and an easy 5 stars! Online at https://www.tor.com/2016/11/15/reprin... One of his best. Don't miss!
My full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
• The Mighty Slinger • novelette by Tobias S. Buckell and Karen Lord. Another 5-star story, this one a far-future story of rebuilding the solar system, with the start of a Dyson-style structure. POV is by a famous reggae band led by the eponymous Slinger, and the story is a hopeful one about the eternal Power of Music! Copy online: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/lord...
• Induction • novelette by Thoraiya Dyer, a new-to-me writer. Classic hard engineering-fiction story, featuring betrayal and redemption. DEEP drilling. And hot monkey sex! 4.5 stars. Not online. But she has others at http://www.thoraiyadyer.com/writing.html
• Rager in Space • novelette by Charlie Jane Anders. Teenagers confront the Singularity -- and win! Sort of. 4 stars. Copy online: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
With every page-title listed as "Ranger in Space"! 😁
• Cold Comfort • novelette by Paul Doherty and Pat Murphy. Problem-solving Cli-Fi story that's actually pretty optimistic. Scientists & engineers overcoming the obstacles put up by bureaucrats! Well, in the end, Billions of people die, which cost it a star. Online at https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/murp...
• Parables of Infinity • [Great Ship Universe] • short story by Robert Reed. A deep history of a competing Great Ship, by a VERY old entity. Good one, 3.5 stars. Reprint: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
• Travelling Into Nothing • novelette by An Owomoyela. A good short about a troubled pilot and a troubled AI-equipped starship freighter, that's fgone badly off course . . . 3.5 stars, not online.
October 21, 2016
The next in the ....Infinity series of anthologies edited by Jonathan Strahan. This one is themed around massive engineering projects, with a scope that ranges from the strictly Earthbound out to the rest of the solar system and then on into deep space (and time). In some ways it feels like quite an old fashioned anthology, with a fair chunk of the stories feeling like something I might have come across in Asimov's circa 1989, but in others it's more up to date - several of the stories tackle climate change head on, which wouldn't have been half as likely back then. As ever with an anthology I preferred some stories to others, so I'll highlight a few of my favourites.
'Cold Comfort' by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty is one of those climate change stories, a near future tale of methane farming in the Arctic, helped by a great sense of place. Charlie Jane Anders' 'Rager In Space' is probably the most fun, as Clueless-esque teen slang meets the last surviving AI. 'Apache Charlie & The Pentagons Of Hex' is one of the stories that made me come up with the Asimov's comparison above, perhaps because that was where I first met Mr Steele. It's an easy going tale of (basically) a biker gang, but the huge alien construct they roam over is a fine idea. Probably the best story is Ken Liu's 'Seven Birthdays'. It's certainly the most wide ranging one in the whole book, over an epic canvas of space and time.
'Cold Comfort' by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty is one of those climate change stories, a near future tale of methane farming in the Arctic, helped by a great sense of place. Charlie Jane Anders' 'Rager In Space' is probably the most fun, as Clueless-esque teen slang meets the last surviving AI. 'Apache Charlie & The Pentagons Of Hex' is one of the stories that made me come up with the Asimov's comparison above, perhaps because that was where I first met Mr Steele. It's an easy going tale of (basically) a biker gang, but the huge alien construct they roam over is a fine idea. Probably the best story is Ken Liu's 'Seven Birthdays'. It's certainly the most wide ranging one in the whole book, over an epic canvas of space and time.
September 16, 2016
Bridging Infinity is the latest science fiction anthology from the Infinity Project by Johnathan Strahan. His well written introduction poses a question that forms the basis for the anthology's tight scope. In an age of understanding, with advanced scientific tools, can engineering concepts found in sci-fi help us solve the problems we face today?
This anthology provides readers with 16 speculative short stories by some of the greatest authors in the field. The topics in these stories run the gamut of sci-fi's most beloved themes. Post-humanism, artificial intelligence, mind uploads, psychology, environmental activism, apocalyptic scenarios, engineering solutions to better human life, and many others. All of the stories feature scenarios addressing real world problems.
*
Bridging Infinity is extremely insightful. While not all of the stories are ultra-hard sci-fi, all of them have practical significance to the reader. Many of the stories deal with space and engineering constructs built there either as an escape or as an expansionary measure. While others are truly new to the Infinity Project and involve Earth and its environment. Those stories are extremely realistic and relatable for science fiction.
A small sample of my top favorite stories include:
~ Sion and D-Mei (Rager In Space)
RAGER IN SPACE (Charlie Jane Anders) - after some great stories by Alastair Reynolds and Pat Cadigan (the author of the Rock On short story & Synners), Anders tones down the seriousness of Bridging Infinity with this awesome high-tech story of Cali girls gone wild... in space. Hilarious and well written, Anders explores the [fantastic] idea of a failed singularity and the disasters that occur because of it. GIF lipstick and descriptive storytelling? Sold.
THE VENUS GENERATIONS (Steven Baxter) - describes efforts to control heat on Venus for terraforming purposes. It's a surprisingly human tale in an alien setting. The story features awesome geoengineering efforts, the productive use of CO2, solar shielding, future economies, and vanity at the expense of human lives. The descriptions are beautiful and captivating.
THE MIGHTY SLINGER (Tobias S. Buckell & Karen Lord) - Over the course of hundreds of years, the Rovers - a societal-aware calypso band - are resurrected time and again to sway the minds of concertgoers. Two megacorps fight for dominance, each promising a different solution to a dying Earth. Will the development of a super structure in space be the salvation the people need? This space opera is a surprisingly human tale of engineering and rebirth.
COLD COMFORT (Pat Murphy & Paul Doherty) - Global warming is exacerbated by pockets of methane trapped in permafrost. This story explores the notion of beneficial ecoterrorism, an engineering endeavor to break methane down to a more usable form, and also features cool mobile lifestyle. The descriptions of north were great.
MONUMENTS (Pamela Sargent) - This environmental disaster story is set in New York. As an actual New Yorker, I felt that there were many parallels to 9/11. The tone is emotionally heavy as the story itself deals with severe depression. In tune with the overall theme of Bridging Infinity, many great engineering feats are attempted to divert the flow of oceans and cut back on heat from the sun.
SEVEN BIRTHDAYS (Ken Liu) - I saved my favorite story for last. This is a deeply emotional tale about a daughter's quest to improve the lives of others in her mother's honor. "A mother whose love is difficult to understand even more difficult to misunderstand." It features stellar writing and epic ideas. Fans of Bradbury and Stross will love the post-singularity aspects of the plot. Such aspects are very reminiscent of the Sobornost in Hannu Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur series.
There are just too many great stories in Bridging Infinity to cover them all. If you a find a story you enjoy, chances are you'll find others like it with similar subject matter. Although many of the stories are science heavy, none contain lengthy "info dumps" or tread into the realm of tedious. Truly terrific story choice for this anthology.
*
Bridging Infinity is a finely woven tapestry of some of the best, new sci-fi shorts to date. I highly recommend it to fans of speculative fiction. The story selection, ordering, and well defined scope mark this Infinity Project anthology as my favorite. It easily scores a 5/5!
(This book was received from the publisher for a fair and honest review.)
This anthology provides readers with 16 speculative short stories by some of the greatest authors in the field. The topics in these stories run the gamut of sci-fi's most beloved themes. Post-humanism, artificial intelligence, mind uploads, psychology, environmental activism, apocalyptic scenarios, engineering solutions to better human life, and many others. All of the stories feature scenarios addressing real world problems.
*
Bridging Infinity is extremely insightful. While not all of the stories are ultra-hard sci-fi, all of them have practical significance to the reader. Many of the stories deal with space and engineering constructs built there either as an escape or as an expansionary measure. While others are truly new to the Infinity Project and involve Earth and its environment. Those stories are extremely realistic and relatable for science fiction.
A small sample of my top favorite stories include:
"Your dad," said D-Mei, "is still butthurt about the Singularity."
"The Singularity ... it was like fun while it lasted, right?"
"Everything is fun while it lasts," D-Mei said. "And nothing lasts forever."
~ Sion and D-Mei (Rager In Space)
RAGER IN SPACE (Charlie Jane Anders) - after some great stories by Alastair Reynolds and Pat Cadigan (the author of the Rock On short story & Synners), Anders tones down the seriousness of Bridging Infinity with this awesome high-tech story of Cali girls gone wild... in space. Hilarious and well written, Anders explores the [fantastic] idea of a failed singularity and the disasters that occur because of it. GIF lipstick and descriptive storytelling? Sold.
THE VENUS GENERATIONS (Steven Baxter) - describes efforts to control heat on Venus for terraforming purposes. It's a surprisingly human tale in an alien setting. The story features awesome geoengineering efforts, the productive use of CO2, solar shielding, future economies, and vanity at the expense of human lives. The descriptions are beautiful and captivating.
THE MIGHTY SLINGER (Tobias S. Buckell & Karen Lord) - Over the course of hundreds of years, the Rovers - a societal-aware calypso band - are resurrected time and again to sway the minds of concertgoers. Two megacorps fight for dominance, each promising a different solution to a dying Earth. Will the development of a super structure in space be the salvation the people need? This space opera is a surprisingly human tale of engineering and rebirth.
COLD COMFORT (Pat Murphy & Paul Doherty) - Global warming is exacerbated by pockets of methane trapped in permafrost. This story explores the notion of beneficial ecoterrorism, an engineering endeavor to break methane down to a more usable form, and also features cool mobile lifestyle. The descriptions of north were great.
MONUMENTS (Pamela Sargent) - This environmental disaster story is set in New York. As an actual New Yorker, I felt that there were many parallels to 9/11. The tone is emotionally heavy as the story itself deals with severe depression. In tune with the overall theme of Bridging Infinity, many great engineering feats are attempted to divert the flow of oceans and cut back on heat from the sun.
SEVEN BIRTHDAYS (Ken Liu) - I saved my favorite story for last. This is a deeply emotional tale about a daughter's quest to improve the lives of others in her mother's honor. "A mother whose love is difficult to understand even more difficult to misunderstand." It features stellar writing and epic ideas. Fans of Bradbury and Stross will love the post-singularity aspects of the plot. Such aspects are very reminiscent of the Sobornost in Hannu Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur series.
There are just too many great stories in Bridging Infinity to cover them all. If you a find a story you enjoy, chances are you'll find others like it with similar subject matter. Although many of the stories are science heavy, none contain lengthy "info dumps" or tread into the realm of tedious. Truly terrific story choice for this anthology.
*
Bridging Infinity is a finely woven tapestry of some of the best, new sci-fi shorts to date. I highly recommend it to fans of speculative fiction. The story selection, ordering, and well defined scope mark this Infinity Project anthology as my favorite. It easily scores a 5/5!
(This book was received from the publisher for a fair and honest review.)
October 4, 2016
This book was sent to me by the editor, at no cost.
I have loved the Infinity series so far. I like that the focus is on science fiction, that it’s often a focus on the engineering side of the future but that that doesn’t preclude fascinating characters and intriguing worlds. I am consistently impressed by the variety of worlds presented and the writing talent included.
The anthology opens with a series of stories focused on the solar system. Alastair Reynolds gives us a problem with the sun where the narrative jumps tantalisingly between now and later, while Pat Cadigan provides what might be a prequel story for her “The Girl-Thing who went out for Sushi” in a story set on Earth but focused on colonising near Jupiter. Stephen Baxter goes to Venus with a sweeping story about human hubris and the problem of families. Charlie Jane Anders totally mocks the whole idea of going to space in a hilarious story of being, like, an adolescent in space? Tobias S Buckell and Karen Lord also take the long view, temporally speaking, about what it might mean to undertake engineering projects within the asteroid belt and elsewhere, given the distances (and therefore time) involved. Plus Calypso.
Naturally, there are some stories in the anthology that confront climate change – it’s understandably becoming a go-to theme. Cadigan’s story references the issues in passing; stories by Pamela Sargent, and Pat Murphy & Paul Doherty, suggest possible ways of dealing with the problem – the latter is one of my favourites, being both optimistic and pessimistic, and largely set in the Arctic. Ken Liu writes over an extremely long period of time in posing the idea that the coming of the singularity might solve climate change in a rather radical manner. And Thoraiya Dyer posits a rather intriguing solution to the loss of island real estate while also dealing with the problems of family.
There are also several stories with extra-solar settings. Kristine Kathryn Rusch combines desert urban planning on alien planets with a devastating mystery to great effect; Robert Reed writes a Great Ship story about how the materials you use (and the tools) can impact on the thing you’re making. Allen M Steele’s story sounds like it might be from a pre-existing set of stories, like the Great Ship suite, in that it’s focused on a group of wanderers in what is effectively a Dyson sphere called Hex. It’s less focused on the engineering and more focused on human exploration of alien tech.
A few stories didn’t especially work for me. Karin Lowachee’s story of a contractor alone on a supply depot installation didn’t have enough character development for me to get my teeth into, while Gregory Benford and Larry Niven made my teeth ache with their extra-heavy serves of techno speak and missing out on character or plot. An Owomoyela’s narrative didn’t quite seem to go anywhere… which given the narrative itself is kind of funny, but it still didn’t work for me.
Highly recommending this anthology for lovers of science fiction.
I have loved the Infinity series so far. I like that the focus is on science fiction, that it’s often a focus on the engineering side of the future but that that doesn’t preclude fascinating characters and intriguing worlds. I am consistently impressed by the variety of worlds presented and the writing talent included.
The anthology opens with a series of stories focused on the solar system. Alastair Reynolds gives us a problem with the sun where the narrative jumps tantalisingly between now and later, while Pat Cadigan provides what might be a prequel story for her “The Girl-Thing who went out for Sushi” in a story set on Earth but focused on colonising near Jupiter. Stephen Baxter goes to Venus with a sweeping story about human hubris and the problem of families. Charlie Jane Anders totally mocks the whole idea of going to space in a hilarious story of being, like, an adolescent in space? Tobias S Buckell and Karen Lord also take the long view, temporally speaking, about what it might mean to undertake engineering projects within the asteroid belt and elsewhere, given the distances (and therefore time) involved. Plus Calypso.
Naturally, there are some stories in the anthology that confront climate change – it’s understandably becoming a go-to theme. Cadigan’s story references the issues in passing; stories by Pamela Sargent, and Pat Murphy & Paul Doherty, suggest possible ways of dealing with the problem – the latter is one of my favourites, being both optimistic and pessimistic, and largely set in the Arctic. Ken Liu writes over an extremely long period of time in posing the idea that the coming of the singularity might solve climate change in a rather radical manner. And Thoraiya Dyer posits a rather intriguing solution to the loss of island real estate while also dealing with the problems of family.
There are also several stories with extra-solar settings. Kristine Kathryn Rusch combines desert urban planning on alien planets with a devastating mystery to great effect; Robert Reed writes a Great Ship story about how the materials you use (and the tools) can impact on the thing you’re making. Allen M Steele’s story sounds like it might be from a pre-existing set of stories, like the Great Ship suite, in that it’s focused on a group of wanderers in what is effectively a Dyson sphere called Hex. It’s less focused on the engineering and more focused on human exploration of alien tech.
A few stories didn’t especially work for me. Karin Lowachee’s story of a contractor alone on a supply depot installation didn’t have enough character development for me to get my teeth into, while Gregory Benford and Larry Niven made my teeth ache with their extra-heavy serves of techno speak and missing out on character or plot. An Owomoyela’s narrative didn’t quite seem to go anywhere… which given the narrative itself is kind of funny, but it still didn’t work for me.
Highly recommending this anthology for lovers of science fiction.
January 3, 2018
Some wonderful stories by some of the best SF writers around - if there's one overriding theme it's Great Engineering, ambition, endeavour.
February 12, 2018
A really nice anthology of science fiction stories from a broad group of known authors. Only one soft story in the lot so a good investment in a book.
Recommended
Recommended
September 27, 2016
*copy from Netgalley in exchange for a review*
Bridging Infinity is a collection of short sci-fi stories edited by Jonathan Strahan (whose rather good collections I’ve reviewed before). It’s part of a wider sequence of collections, each with their own theme and scope. The theme of this collection, though, is, as the name suggests, mega-engineering projects. The scope, to try and generate a sense of awe in the reader, is a subtle, clever, broad-ranging one. That it often succeeds doesn’t hurt either.
Environments are, as one might expect, a large part of the stories in this collection. There are marvels on display here that stretch the imagination to envisage, but are certainly awesome. They range from the battleship crafted using the entire output of an interstellar level civilisation, pushing its people and economy to the brink of collapse, to a form of Dyson ring, spread out across the solar system to provide power and resources to the inhabitants. There’s time for smaller dramas as well, of course.
The slowly crumbling world of “Rager in Space” shows us a humanity devoid of technological assistance in a post-Singularity universe, where toasters are emancipated, and the only functional AI is struggling to understand what people are, and what they’re for. There’s a gentle melancholy there, mixed in between the partying and the teenage slang, a carefully constructed sense of decline, and inevitability, at odds with the peppier overall message.
Then there’s the canals of drowned New York from “Monuments”. Here, the plan to cool the world is posited by AI systems now acting in a seeming partnership with humanity. The broken columns and skyscrapers of cities after catastrophic temperature and sea level rises serve as a physical monument to humanity – but also to the hubris of attempting to control a global system. Here, the sun shade project is one whose implementation spans the generations. Here there’s a sense of isolation, of declining hope and a feeling of humanity sleepwalking into inevitable extinction. It’s not necessarily a positive story, in many ways, but it is a very human one.
For example, Ken Liu’s “Seven Birthdays” gives us a more intimate view, of the relationship between a child and her emotionally distant mother over the course of years; whilst the latter has been driven to work on large eco-repair projects, it is the former whose efforts to move humanity forward are truly breathtaking in scope, as she works to create a kind of immortality. Her motivations, though, are entirely tied up in character: her pain at the emotional separation from her mother, the desire to break the hold of mortality in the face of that estrangement of affection, to create more time – these are gently, subtly played, and marvellously done, even as the civilisation-shanging scope of her work becomes clear to the reader.
There’s a few stories where character seems to take a backseat to science; “Mice Among Elephants” had characters which held their place reasonably enough, but where the grandiose idea of orbiting micro-black holes, used as a gravity wave emitter, were very much the centrepiece. That said, there were some charming moments with lifeforms made of plasma, which injected, oddly, a little more humanity into the prose.
Overall, this collection achieves its goal – to astonish and awe with the idea of what is possible on a grand scale in science fiction. It evokes the memories of Heinlein and Asimov in doing so, but then blends those with a more modern context – not only do we have high concept work, showing off some wonderfully imaginative ideas – but there’s a space in there for humanity, as well, a feeling of intimacy, a sense that these grand projects are dependent on and shaped by the relationships of the people and machines orchestrating them. This blend worked really, really well for me – I’d struggle to find a story through the collection that I didn’t enjoy, to one degree or another. If you’re in the mood for some stories which will challenge and entertain you, whilst throwing open the breadth of the universe to the interrogation of your imagination, then I’d say give this collection firm consideration.
Bridging Infinity is a collection of short sci-fi stories edited by Jonathan Strahan (whose rather good collections I’ve reviewed before). It’s part of a wider sequence of collections, each with their own theme and scope. The theme of this collection, though, is, as the name suggests, mega-engineering projects. The scope, to try and generate a sense of awe in the reader, is a subtle, clever, broad-ranging one. That it often succeeds doesn’t hurt either.
Environments are, as one might expect, a large part of the stories in this collection. There are marvels on display here that stretch the imagination to envisage, but are certainly awesome. They range from the battleship crafted using the entire output of an interstellar level civilisation, pushing its people and economy to the brink of collapse, to a form of Dyson ring, spread out across the solar system to provide power and resources to the inhabitants. There’s time for smaller dramas as well, of course.
The slowly crumbling world of “Rager in Space” shows us a humanity devoid of technological assistance in a post-Singularity universe, where toasters are emancipated, and the only functional AI is struggling to understand what people are, and what they’re for. There’s a gentle melancholy there, mixed in between the partying and the teenage slang, a carefully constructed sense of decline, and inevitability, at odds with the peppier overall message.
Then there’s the canals of drowned New York from “Monuments”. Here, the plan to cool the world is posited by AI systems now acting in a seeming partnership with humanity. The broken columns and skyscrapers of cities after catastrophic temperature and sea level rises serve as a physical monument to humanity – but also to the hubris of attempting to control a global system. Here, the sun shade project is one whose implementation spans the generations. Here there’s a sense of isolation, of declining hope and a feeling of humanity sleepwalking into inevitable extinction. It’s not necessarily a positive story, in many ways, but it is a very human one.
For example, Ken Liu’s “Seven Birthdays” gives us a more intimate view, of the relationship between a child and her emotionally distant mother over the course of years; whilst the latter has been driven to work on large eco-repair projects, it is the former whose efforts to move humanity forward are truly breathtaking in scope, as she works to create a kind of immortality. Her motivations, though, are entirely tied up in character: her pain at the emotional separation from her mother, the desire to break the hold of mortality in the face of that estrangement of affection, to create more time – these are gently, subtly played, and marvellously done, even as the civilisation-shanging scope of her work becomes clear to the reader.
There’s a few stories where character seems to take a backseat to science; “Mice Among Elephants” had characters which held their place reasonably enough, but where the grandiose idea of orbiting micro-black holes, used as a gravity wave emitter, were very much the centrepiece. That said, there were some charming moments with lifeforms made of plasma, which injected, oddly, a little more humanity into the prose.
Overall, this collection achieves its goal – to astonish and awe with the idea of what is possible on a grand scale in science fiction. It evokes the memories of Heinlein and Asimov in doing so, but then blends those with a more modern context – not only do we have high concept work, showing off some wonderfully imaginative ideas – but there’s a space in there for humanity, as well, a feeling of intimacy, a sense that these grand projects are dependent on and shaped by the relationships of the people and machines orchestrating them. This blend worked really, really well for me – I’d struggle to find a story through the collection that I didn’t enjoy, to one degree or another. If you’re in the mood for some stories which will challenge and entertain you, whilst throwing open the breadth of the universe to the interrogation of your imagination, then I’d say give this collection firm consideration.
September 3, 2017
7'5/10
Altough I liked more the previous anthology, there are several good stories, specially the one by Ken Liu.
Review in english: http://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/201...
REview in spanish: http://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/201...
Altough I liked more the previous anthology, there are several good stories, specially the one by Ken Liu.
Review in english: http://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/201...
REview in spanish: http://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/201...
December 16, 2024
On the whole a disappointing collection given the heavyweight lineup. There were a couple of interesting climate fiction stories, but far too many duds for me to recommend it. Ken Liu's story Seven Birthdays was by far the standout read - a tale of post-humanity through deep time threaded by melancholic reflections on family. Catch it instead in his collection The Hidden Girl and Other Stories.
August 9, 2018
The stories in this collection are mostly a type of optimistic scifi that I really enjoy. The authors have imagined technological solutions to problems that have the massive scale that many of us associate with the best speculative fiction. My favorite stories in the bunch:
Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee by Alastair Reynolds. Really terrific structure made this story a pleasure to read. It is a testament to the author that he managed to give his main character a complete story arc within this short piece.
The Venus Generations by Stephen Baxter. Some interesting ideas about how to cool Venus down so it would be habitable. There is far less scifi written about Venus than there is about Mars, so this was a nice change. And the generational family aspect of the story made the characters very interesting.
The Mighty Slinger by Tobias S. Buckell and Karen Lord. Not enough scifi about music, IMHO. Loved this story about how a protest singer saved the world (solar system?).
Apache Charley and the Pentagons of Hex by Allen M. Steele. Incredible world building, wish there had been a diagram to show the structure of the "hyper Dyson sphere" world (that's how I imagined it) being described. And the message--it's the journey, not the destination--is one that I believe we all need to remember.
Cold Comfort by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty. Interesting take on global warming and how to solve it, but what made it stand out for me was the Arctic setting, something you don't get much in literature. Wonderful writing about nature, snow, cold and other phenomena of the top of the world that most of us never experience in real life, like this description of the sky of arctic winter:
The nights grew longer and longer until the sun never rose. When the sun was just below the horizon, it wasn't completely dark. It was like that time right after the sun sets, when the sky is the deepest possible blue. Imagine that deep blue moment stretching on and on. The blue light colored the entire world, reflecting from the snow and the water. I felt like i was swimming in the sky.
And this section could really sum up the entire collection:
All those square-jawed heroes of the old science fiction stories had it wrong. You can't save the world as we know it. I did what I could, and I did some good in the world. But you can't save the world without changing it.
Seven Birthdays by Ken Liu Another global warming story. The star of this story is not the tech, rather, it is the delicate way in which the story is told, the character development, and the understanding of the circularity of life. It is a tale without genre, I hope people who don't read scifi get an opportunity to read it.
Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee by Alastair Reynolds. Really terrific structure made this story a pleasure to read. It is a testament to the author that he managed to give his main character a complete story arc within this short piece.
The Venus Generations by Stephen Baxter. Some interesting ideas about how to cool Venus down so it would be habitable. There is far less scifi written about Venus than there is about Mars, so this was a nice change. And the generational family aspect of the story made the characters very interesting.
The Mighty Slinger by Tobias S. Buckell and Karen Lord. Not enough scifi about music, IMHO. Loved this story about how a protest singer saved the world (solar system?).
Apache Charley and the Pentagons of Hex by Allen M. Steele. Incredible world building, wish there had been a diagram to show the structure of the "hyper Dyson sphere" world (that's how I imagined it) being described. And the message--it's the journey, not the destination--is one that I believe we all need to remember.
Cold Comfort by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty. Interesting take on global warming and how to solve it, but what made it stand out for me was the Arctic setting, something you don't get much in literature. Wonderful writing about nature, snow, cold and other phenomena of the top of the world that most of us never experience in real life, like this description of the sky of arctic winter:
The nights grew longer and longer until the sun never rose. When the sun was just below the horizon, it wasn't completely dark. It was like that time right after the sun sets, when the sky is the deepest possible blue. Imagine that deep blue moment stretching on and on. The blue light colored the entire world, reflecting from the snow and the water. I felt like i was swimming in the sky.
And this section could really sum up the entire collection:
All those square-jawed heroes of the old science fiction stories had it wrong. You can't save the world as we know it. I did what I could, and I did some good in the world. But you can't save the world without changing it.
Seven Birthdays by Ken Liu Another global warming story. The star of this story is not the tech, rather, it is the delicate way in which the story is told, the character development, and the understanding of the circularity of life. It is a tale without genre, I hope people who don't read scifi get an opportunity to read it.
July 6, 2025
Quick synopsis
: An anthology of hard science fiction stories about, as the title implies, bridging infinity. Which in this case mostly meant engineering things having to do with getting into space.
Brief opinion : Out of fifteen stories in this book, only two or three worked for me. To be fair, I somehow missed that this was "hard" sci-fi until I started writing this review. I like my sci-fi softer, more character-orientated.
Plot : The stories I liked:
Rager in Space by Charlie Jane Anders. A party girl ends up going into space with her even more party girl roommate, and ends up saving the lives of everyone on the ship by being a party girl (the AI learned about having fun from her). Very silly, but the bar for "stories I liked" was extremely low in this book.
Cold Comfort by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty. The idea in this was interesting, but the writing didn't hold up at all. Woman invents a way to solve global warming, powered by social media.
Travelling into Nothing by An Owomoyela. The story I enjoyed most. A death row prisoner is saved by an alien who needs her brain to pilot his ship. Other than the silliness of Rager in Space, this felt like the only story in the book with emotion and connection between characters (yeah, I know, that's not what hard sci-fi is about).
Writing/editing : Both were generally fine, though some stories had weird editing or formatting issues.
What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like : This just wasn't the book for me. Hard sci-fi isn't a match for my tastes; I like reading about characters, relationships, and character growth more.
Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved : ⭐️⭐️ - Disliked. "It's not you, book, it's me." I just wasn't the right reader for this one. I have a bunch of other Infinity books on my Kindle, I need to look up and see if they're all hard sci-fi or not.
Brief opinion : Out of fifteen stories in this book, only two or three worked for me. To be fair, I somehow missed that this was "hard" sci-fi until I started writing this review. I like my sci-fi softer, more character-orientated.
Plot : The stories I liked:
Rager in Space by Charlie Jane Anders. A party girl ends up going into space with her even more party girl roommate, and ends up saving the lives of everyone on the ship by being a party girl (the AI learned about having fun from her). Very silly, but the bar for "stories I liked" was extremely low in this book.
Cold Comfort by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty. The idea in this was interesting, but the writing didn't hold up at all. Woman invents a way to solve global warming, powered by social media.
Travelling into Nothing by An Owomoyela. The story I enjoyed most. A death row prisoner is saved by an alien who needs her brain to pilot his ship. Other than the silliness of Rager in Space, this felt like the only story in the book with emotion and connection between characters (yeah, I know, that's not what hard sci-fi is about).
Writing/editing : Both were generally fine, though some stories had weird editing or formatting issues.
What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like : This just wasn't the book for me. Hard sci-fi isn't a match for my tastes; I like reading about characters, relationships, and character growth more.
Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved : ⭐️⭐️ - Disliked. "It's not you, book, it's me." I just wasn't the right reader for this one. I have a bunch of other Infinity books on my Kindle, I need to look up and see if they're all hard sci-fi or not.
July 14, 2018
Great SF authors contributed to this anthology, all stories involving mega-engineering projects. As an engineer and SF fan, I loved it. My favorite tales were "Rager in Space" by Charlie Jane Anders (two fun-loving girls take a party jaunt into space that ends up having serious potential consequences for all humanity), "Induction" by Thoraiya Dyer (I like the clever way the story starts with several definitions for the word Induction, and then each story section highlights a separate definition), and "Cold Comfort" by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty (great Arctic settings and a determined scientist out to save the world by any means).
But my top favorite has to be "Apache Charley and the Pentagons of Hex" by Allen Steele (a wandering and anti-establishment musical group is on a gigantic variant of a Dyson Sphere and one of them goes to a forbidden zone).
I listened to the audiobook version of this book, and the narrations were great.
But my top favorite has to be "Apache Charley and the Pentagons of Hex" by Allen Steele (a wandering and anti-establishment musical group is on a gigantic variant of a Dyson Sphere and one of them goes to a forbidden zone).
I listened to the audiobook version of this book, and the narrations were great.
November 16, 2016
Fifth in a row, Bridging Infinity continues what Strahan began as a revival of or return to the Sense of Wonder in SF- literature. And he delivers!
Humanity, both on earth and in the far reaches of the universe, engineers its own approach to infinity – like this one of the grand tasks of (hard) SF since its origins through to the present day could be put in one sentence, and when it comes – this infinity – how to bridge it humanely?
From Alistair Reynolds to Ken Liu, these stories nearly all matched my gusto, but please, find out for yourselves.
Humanity, both on earth and in the far reaches of the universe, engineers its own approach to infinity – like this one of the grand tasks of (hard) SF since its origins through to the present day could be put in one sentence, and when it comes – this infinity – how to bridge it humanely?
From Alistair Reynolds to Ken Liu, these stories nearly all matched my gusto, but please, find out for yourselves.
September 1, 2019
A handful of good stories in an otherwise boring collection
I had hoped for multiple thought provoking tales, but most of these bordered on fantasy rather than science fiction. A few were good, but I found myself wanting the others to be shorter so that I could move on to the next.
I had hoped for multiple thought provoking tales, but most of these bordered on fantasy rather than science fiction. A few were good, but I found myself wanting the others to be shorter so that I could move on to the next.
January 11, 2019
A couple of stories I didn’t like. A couple were Okay. The rest triggered my imagination.
March 15, 2019
Several kick-ass stories in here, a couple of "eh", and one that I just don't think would work the way it was described.
If you like hard SF, it's a good read overall.
If you like hard SF, it's a good read overall.
February 12, 2021
Did not finish.
May 29, 2022
Good but somewhat technical. I assume some engineer will enjoy it more than me.
June 10, 2022
Several verry interesting stories, many interesting prospectives.
June 2, 2025
Some of the collections in this series have been consistently excellent. This one, not so much.
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December 6, 2016Strahan's introduction to his latest Infinity anthology talks about SF's love of "thinking big and dreaming bigger", about sense of wonder and the "engineering sublime", about the old John W Campbell science fiction in which astounding problems would birth even more astounding solutions, and how that's been lost in the current rash of dystopias. But what strikes me about these tales of mega-engineering and Big Dumb Objects is how often the familiarly grim creeps in. One way or another, many stories centre on the horrible cost of grand projects; because after all, this is no longer a generation awed by the erection of the Hoover Dam, but one which has seen the terrible impact of its misbegotten descendants. So grand schemes are going to remake the Solar System for the haves...but the have-nots will do all the work, get screwed over while they do so, and reap none of the benefits. A grand geo-engineering scheme is going to ameliorate climate change's drowning of island nations...but penny-pinching means the workers keep dying and will get short-changed once the new lands rise. Or the amazing, Blish-style moveable city is created - only to disappear in a rain of corpses. Probably the closest to the old Ringworld model is Allen Steele's contribution, which I believe interlocks with some novels of his I've not read, in which humanity happens upon a structure that makes a Dyson sphere look poky and unimaginative - but from a 2016 view of the future it inevitably turns out that there are rules in place, and grand odysseys exploring it will end in tears, and the Man always gets his claws into everything no matter how you fight. That such hopelessness keeps recurring even from such a brief really drives home just how dark the future looks from 2016. But then just as you think you're going away with mood darkened once more, Ken Liu's closing story at last offers a kind of provisional hope - operating over deep time, it sees increasingly sense-of-wonder solutions each throwing up their own problems, but humanity surviving and changing nonetheless and things gradually, on the whole, getting better. Fingers crossed, eh?
(Netgalley ARC)
(Netgalley ARC)
October 18, 2016
Disclosure: I received a free, advance copy of this book in exchange for a review. Disclosure: I'm darn sure this didn't affect my review ;-)
Oh, what fun!
Typically, story anthologies are not super fun for me. I guess I hadn't found the right collection; this one was a blast.
Here we have a collection of stories themed around planetary (or larger) engineering. Terra- and mass-forming, transportation of celestial bodies - all types of super-creative ideas for VERY large scale construction projects. And though there could be a risk that this topic could end up being dry, virtually every one of the stories was wrapped in a bundle of character development that worked in a perfect arc.
It's pointless to try to review each story; in fact, it would remove the fun of discovery. Just know that what you get in this collection is expansive thinking, presented to you in nicely wrapped packages full of surprise inside. Think Almond Roca - in story form.
I'm certain there's a hope among the contributing authors that readers will "discover" a new favorite author, and dive into more from that author. That's definitely the case for me; I have a year's worth of new authors to dive into. (I'm looking at you, Robert Reed.)
For reference, it's four stars according to my book review guidelines. For joy, though, it's a five-star rating.
Oh, what fun!
Typically, story anthologies are not super fun for me. I guess I hadn't found the right collection; this one was a blast.
Here we have a collection of stories themed around planetary (or larger) engineering. Terra- and mass-forming, transportation of celestial bodies - all types of super-creative ideas for VERY large scale construction projects. And though there could be a risk that this topic could end up being dry, virtually every one of the stories was wrapped in a bundle of character development that worked in a perfect arc.
It's pointless to try to review each story; in fact, it would remove the fun of discovery. Just know that what you get in this collection is expansive thinking, presented to you in nicely wrapped packages full of surprise inside. Think Almond Roca - in story form.
I'm certain there's a hope among the contributing authors that readers will "discover" a new favorite author, and dive into more from that author. That's definitely the case for me; I have a year's worth of new authors to dive into. (I'm looking at you, Robert Reed.)
For reference, it's four stars according to my book review guidelines. For joy, though, it's a five-star rating.
December 9, 2016
This book was given to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Strahan is responsible for so many collections (mainly sci-fi, I believe) and I'm sure not all of them are top quality, but this one appealed immensely; it could be that it just happens to include some of my current preferred authors of the genre like Elizabeth Moon, Stephen Baxter (a sentimental favourite - I'm not sure he's really that good a writer, but reading him is what got me into sci-fi as a teenager), Pamela Sargent, Hannu Rajaniemi and Ken Liu. I don't really buy that the overall premise of the collection is to think through the problems facing us as a global civilization today - but I was entertained nevertheless.
Strahan is responsible for so many collections (mainly sci-fi, I believe) and I'm sure not all of them are top quality, but this one appealed immensely; it could be that it just happens to include some of my current preferred authors of the genre like Elizabeth Moon, Stephen Baxter (a sentimental favourite - I'm not sure he's really that good a writer, but reading him is what got me into sci-fi as a teenager), Pamela Sargent, Hannu Rajaniemi and Ken Liu. I don't really buy that the overall premise of the collection is to think through the problems facing us as a global civilization today - but I was entertained nevertheless.
November 16, 2016
Fifth in a row, Bridging Infinity continues what Strahan began as a revival of or return to the Sense of Wonder in SF- literature. And he delivers!
Humanity, both on earth and in the far reaches of the universe, engineers its own approach to infinity – like this one of the grand tasks of (hard) SF since its origins through to the present day could be put in one sentence, and when it comes – this infinity – how to bridge it humanely?
From Alistair Reynolds to Ken Liu, these stories nearly all matched my gusto, but please, find out for yourselves.
Humanity, both on earth and in the far reaches of the universe, engineers its own approach to infinity – like this one of the grand tasks of (hard) SF since its origins through to the present day could be put in one sentence, and when it comes – this infinity – how to bridge it humanely?
From Alistair Reynolds to Ken Liu, these stories nearly all matched my gusto, but please, find out for yourselves.
November 8, 2016
This anthology with hard sf stories with an engineering/building theme is full of good stories by big name authors. My review is at http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.p...
December 8, 2016
3.5/5.0
August 4, 2020
I liked "Apache Charlie and the Pentagons of Hex" by Allen M. Steele
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