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The Year's Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction
This is an unabridged audio collection of the best of the best science fiction prose originally written in 2008 by current and emerging masters of the genre as narrated by top voice talents. Exhalation, by Ted Chiang, tells the story of a world totally unlike Earth where mechanical men use the gas argon as air, replacing their lung tanks daily from an underground well. Exhalation won both the 2009 British Science Fiction Association Award for best story and the 2009 Locus Award for the best short story. The Ray-Gun: A Love Story, by James Alan Gardner, tells the story of a boy who discovers a ray-gun that affects his life in unanticipated ways, both good and bad. This story won the 2009 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. In Stephen Baxter s Turing s Apples two brothers reluctantly work together to decode an alien signal picked up by a radio telescope on the far side of the moon. In a homeage to H.P. Lovecraft, a black naturalist, just before World War II, investigates the biology of shoggoths (blobs of jelly) on the New England coast in Elizabeth Bear s Shoggoth s in Bloom. A scientist slowly goes mad trying to prove that the distant stars are made of diamond and that matter is just light slowed down in Jeffrey Ford s The Dream of Reason. In Kij Johnson s 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss, a woman buys a traveling monkey show that pretty much runs it self as all the monkeys know what they re doing. A steel company will do what it takes to prevent two scientists from releasing the secret of making carbon nanotubes in The Art of Alchemy by Ted Kosmatka. In Paul McAuley s The City of the Dead, the town constable in a settlement on a planet in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way befriends a woman who researches dangerous hive rats. A genetically enhanced psychopathic secret agent battles the Rebirths for the survival of the human race in Robert Reed s Five Thrillers. Finally, in Fixing Hanover, by Jeff VanderMeer, a man reluctantly repairs the remains of a mechanical man that washed up on a beach and may be a link to his enigmatic past.
Audio CD
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 24, 2022
Eh. Obviously Exhalation is amazing but I've read that already.
October 5, 2012
One short thought on this whole collection: its imaginative, entertaining, diverse, and absolutely worth your time. Those are vague praises since they apply to a book of ten very different works, but the following are some mini-reviews on the stories that struck me strongest.
“The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” by James Alan Gardner
An excellent anthology opener, and an excellent rebuttal of the “show, don’t tell” rule. A young boy discovers an alien ray-gun and believes he’s drafted into a life of superheroism. He obsesses over preparing for this life, though he never steps out of his bubble to lead it, and life begins to pester him, particularly through a charming girl. Both his romantic affection for her and the call to arms of the gun are delivered with exaggerated devotion that is alternately funny and excruciatingly accurate to the mind of a teen. None of it is told in the moment; all of it is relayed as a speedy description of past events flittering in and out of his perceptions. The capper are the opening and closing focuses on what the gun must be (and that no character knows), which is so deliberately alien as to actually tell you it won’t tell you anymore because you can’t understand it. Literally, it tells you that you can’t understand. Pitch-perfect exposition.
“The Dream of Reason” by Jeffrey Ford
My kind of mad science! This follows a series of experiments to prove that the stars are made of diamonds, that light can be slowed down into matter (perhaps into still more precious diamonds), and the underpinnings of how our universe came to be. If you can’t follow that logic, don’t worry – Ford’s entire story is an absurd ride down preposterous paths tread rationally. We seek empirical proof that the universe is built on circles, training a girl’s mind into circular patterns through word repetition and make-out sessions (makes the tongue go circular). It’s a speedier, quirkier Just-So Story of arcane labs. One of my favorites in the collection.
“The City of the Dead” by Paul McAuley
The most conventional story in the collection up until this point and it slots in well. We follow a World War 3 veteran getting sucked into intrigue over alien spacecraft out in a badlands, poised between mercenaries’ threats and her loyalty to her friend. The story is studded with heart – for even though she gets a goon chewed up by mutant rats, we’re also treated to her drunken posse, nursing a stray dog, and willingness to risk herself to save a friend who may just be crazy and really have no alien data. Being more streamlined and about punchy entertainment than the previous three stories, it brings a little relief, counterpointing its strengths against those that preceded it.
“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson
Extremely short, told in twenty-six sequential entries, some of them only sentences long. It’s about an act of monkeys who can vanish, and the lady who buys the act and fails to comprehend how it can work. Like Gardner’s The Ray-Gun, this is a crucible story where the outlandish element puts mundane existence into stark relief. Unlike Gardner’s The Ray-Gun, it eschews transitions, each entry focusing intensely on how the act was that night, or existential worries keeping her up late into the night until she begs the lead monkey to show her how it works, or how a relationship blossoms on the side. There are no wasted words; there is only uncomprehended oddity, be it personal or fantastic. Piercingly written, my forefingers twitched with typing envy during a few of the passages.
“Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear
One pleasure of collections like this is reading fiction that emerges from various approaches to science. For instance, Bear introduces us to the unusual aquatic animals with no nervous systems (shoggoths) through the eyes of one of America’s first black scientists, on an excursion to study them during World War 2. He is simultaneously studying the mystery of how such creatures could operate, and pondering his place in a world at war. Should he serve a country that has done many evils? Could the shoggoths help – and would it be right to compel them? The story is heavy with provocative themes, at one point descending into a dialogue on the political activists of the day, yet is also somehow quaint without utterly condescending. The rhetoric, jargon, and boisterous excitement for exploration feels different from the modern temperament for biology. Even though our protagonist is conflicted, perhaps unable to decide the course of his life outside of a scientific pursuit, there is a zest for experience that lingers.
“The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” by James Alan Gardner
An excellent anthology opener, and an excellent rebuttal of the “show, don’t tell” rule. A young boy discovers an alien ray-gun and believes he’s drafted into a life of superheroism. He obsesses over preparing for this life, though he never steps out of his bubble to lead it, and life begins to pester him, particularly through a charming girl. Both his romantic affection for her and the call to arms of the gun are delivered with exaggerated devotion that is alternately funny and excruciatingly accurate to the mind of a teen. None of it is told in the moment; all of it is relayed as a speedy description of past events flittering in and out of his perceptions. The capper are the opening and closing focuses on what the gun must be (and that no character knows), which is so deliberately alien as to actually tell you it won’t tell you anymore because you can’t understand it. Literally, it tells you that you can’t understand. Pitch-perfect exposition.
“The Dream of Reason” by Jeffrey Ford
My kind of mad science! This follows a series of experiments to prove that the stars are made of diamonds, that light can be slowed down into matter (perhaps into still more precious diamonds), and the underpinnings of how our universe came to be. If you can’t follow that logic, don’t worry – Ford’s entire story is an absurd ride down preposterous paths tread rationally. We seek empirical proof that the universe is built on circles, training a girl’s mind into circular patterns through word repetition and make-out sessions (makes the tongue go circular). It’s a speedier, quirkier Just-So Story of arcane labs. One of my favorites in the collection.
“The City of the Dead” by Paul McAuley
The most conventional story in the collection up until this point and it slots in well. We follow a World War 3 veteran getting sucked into intrigue over alien spacecraft out in a badlands, poised between mercenaries’ threats and her loyalty to her friend. The story is studded with heart – for even though she gets a goon chewed up by mutant rats, we’re also treated to her drunken posse, nursing a stray dog, and willingness to risk herself to save a friend who may just be crazy and really have no alien data. Being more streamlined and about punchy entertainment than the previous three stories, it brings a little relief, counterpointing its strengths against those that preceded it.
“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson
Extremely short, told in twenty-six sequential entries, some of them only sentences long. It’s about an act of monkeys who can vanish, and the lady who buys the act and fails to comprehend how it can work. Like Gardner’s The Ray-Gun, this is a crucible story where the outlandish element puts mundane existence into stark relief. Unlike Gardner’s The Ray-Gun, it eschews transitions, each entry focusing intensely on how the act was that night, or existential worries keeping her up late into the night until she begs the lead monkey to show her how it works, or how a relationship blossoms on the side. There are no wasted words; there is only uncomprehended oddity, be it personal or fantastic. Piercingly written, my forefingers twitched with typing envy during a few of the passages.
“Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear
One pleasure of collections like this is reading fiction that emerges from various approaches to science. For instance, Bear introduces us to the unusual aquatic animals with no nervous systems (shoggoths) through the eyes of one of America’s first black scientists, on an excursion to study them during World War 2. He is simultaneously studying the mystery of how such creatures could operate, and pondering his place in a world at war. Should he serve a country that has done many evils? Could the shoggoths help – and would it be right to compel them? The story is heavy with provocative themes, at one point descending into a dialogue on the political activists of the day, yet is also somehow quaint without utterly condescending. The rhetoric, jargon, and boisterous excitement for exploration feels different from the modern temperament for biology. Even though our protagonist is conflicted, perhaps unable to decide the course of his life outside of a scientific pursuit, there is a zest for experience that lingers.
August 31, 2012
Five Thrillers
This is my favorite as it surprised me through the ending. In some ways it is a shorter telling of 'The Use of Weapons' by Iain M Banks, without nearly as much drama in the telling. However Reed's protagonist remains convinced of his purpose all the way to the bitter end. There hasn't been such a hard-headed assassin such as this character since Colonel Jessup. Except nobody carts this hero away. With what we have been dealing with in covert arts literature, with the inevitably burned out and dissolute assassins employed to the extreme a la Jason Bourne, here is finally one with humankind's best interests at heart who never wavers. Thus we know him to be psychopathic, and ourselves all too willing to go quietly into oblivion.
The Dream of Reason
Brilliant concept, to show the scientistic and the parallels between the possession of world changing ideas and madness. Really fun to read having just finished 'The Invention of Air'.
26 Monkeys
Not much science in this fiction. Felt like summer fiction.
The Art of Alchemy
This one's a great movie script. It has beauty, brains, intrigue, money, power and a BMW. It's about an invention so revolutionary that the world's most powerful corporation lives in fear of its discovery and the two young lovers that find it.
City of the Dead
This is the most well rounded of the stories, I think. It has just the right quality of feminine heroism. A woman sheriff on a distant planet finds a mad woman anthropologist who has studied a colony of hive rats all of her life. Deep in that colony of cat-sized creatures with deadly claws and ant-like efficiency is an artifact that alien overlords are interested in. They hire thugs to fetch it against the treaty that makes this a neutral planet, and so the sheriff investigates what's going on with her strange hermetic friend.
Turing's Apples
This is a better Contact story than Contact, and delivers a nice set of lessons in basic speculation about matters of SETI than any other I've encountered. The great twist is that it is much like Martin Amis' 'The Janitor of Mars'. Sweet read.
Shoggoths in Bloom
A moral tale of unexpected dimensions, SIB takes one through the investigations of a mild-mannered black American scientist who stumbles on the extraordinary biology of a creature that is much more than anyone imagines. When is the perfect slave the most powerful thing in the world, and what is the cost of freedom?
Exhalation
The most uplifting of all the tales, Exhalation is the wonderous side of scientific discovery told from an alien perspective. It is the sort of essay that, my dear reader, speaks to you as I do, on a rational journey of the mind that captures the spirit of the soul by considering at length the nature of the beauty, complexity and tragedy of our very existence. It is the story of thermodynamic entropy, the recognition of the heat death of a universe and the nobility of facing it with reason.
Fixing Hanover
A personal story of alienation, the greatest engineer of his age tries to escape the weapons of his invention. Alas. Oh well. Spoiled that one.
The Ray-Gun: A Love Story
Every teenager should read this story. It is absolutely perfect.
This is my favorite as it surprised me through the ending. In some ways it is a shorter telling of 'The Use of Weapons' by Iain M Banks, without nearly as much drama in the telling. However Reed's protagonist remains convinced of his purpose all the way to the bitter end. There hasn't been such a hard-headed assassin such as this character since Colonel Jessup. Except nobody carts this hero away. With what we have been dealing with in covert arts literature, with the inevitably burned out and dissolute assassins employed to the extreme a la Jason Bourne, here is finally one with humankind's best interests at heart who never wavers. Thus we know him to be psychopathic, and ourselves all too willing to go quietly into oblivion.
The Dream of Reason
Brilliant concept, to show the scientistic and the parallels between the possession of world changing ideas and madness. Really fun to read having just finished 'The Invention of Air'.
26 Monkeys
Not much science in this fiction. Felt like summer fiction.
The Art of Alchemy
This one's a great movie script. It has beauty, brains, intrigue, money, power and a BMW. It's about an invention so revolutionary that the world's most powerful corporation lives in fear of its discovery and the two young lovers that find it.
City of the Dead
This is the most well rounded of the stories, I think. It has just the right quality of feminine heroism. A woman sheriff on a distant planet finds a mad woman anthropologist who has studied a colony of hive rats all of her life. Deep in that colony of cat-sized creatures with deadly claws and ant-like efficiency is an artifact that alien overlords are interested in. They hire thugs to fetch it against the treaty that makes this a neutral planet, and so the sheriff investigates what's going on with her strange hermetic friend.
Turing's Apples
This is a better Contact story than Contact, and delivers a nice set of lessons in basic speculation about matters of SETI than any other I've encountered. The great twist is that it is much like Martin Amis' 'The Janitor of Mars'. Sweet read.
Shoggoths in Bloom
A moral tale of unexpected dimensions, SIB takes one through the investigations of a mild-mannered black American scientist who stumbles on the extraordinary biology of a creature that is much more than anyone imagines. When is the perfect slave the most powerful thing in the world, and what is the cost of freedom?
Exhalation
The most uplifting of all the tales, Exhalation is the wonderous side of scientific discovery told from an alien perspective. It is the sort of essay that, my dear reader, speaks to you as I do, on a rational journey of the mind that captures the spirit of the soul by considering at length the nature of the beauty, complexity and tragedy of our very existence. It is the story of thermodynamic entropy, the recognition of the heat death of a universe and the nobility of facing it with reason.
Fixing Hanover
A personal story of alienation, the greatest engineer of his age tries to escape the weapons of his invention. Alas. Oh well. Spoiled that one.
The Ray-Gun: A Love Story
Every teenager should read this story. It is absolutely perfect.
February 8, 2013
Very well produced and read. The stories range from quite good to extremely good.
Ted Chiang’s “Exhalation” is brilliant. It's five-star material, as is VanderMeer’s “Fixing Hanover” and Reed’s “Five Thrillers”.
Honorable mention goes to James Alan Gardner's “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story”... a really simple, elegant and good story.
I will certainly buy the next collection.
Ted Chiang’s “Exhalation” is brilliant. It's five-star material, as is VanderMeer’s “Fixing Hanover” and Reed’s “Five Thrillers”.
Honorable mention goes to James Alan Gardner's “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story”... a really simple, elegant and good story.
I will certainly buy the next collection.
December 17, 2015
Excellent collection of stories. Ted Chiang is again brilliant with "Exhalation". "26 Monkeys, And Also the Abyss" brought a big smile to my face, and the other stories were all engaging. As I listened to this, my only problem was the reading. The audio hissed every time the reader finished a word or sentence. Still worth listening to each of these stories.
May 8, 2015
"The Art of Alchemy" is the best story in the collection, with a chilling ending.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews