Lena’s
Comments
(group member since Nov 17, 2014)
Lena’s
comments
from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.
Showing 1,881-1,900 of 7,890
The Omnibot Incident by Ernest Cline ★★★☆☆
“I just met you this morning, and you’re already one of my best friends.”
This was a charming story of little boy whose mother died. He has lost hope and the ability to connect to the people who love him. To reach the boy his father and uncle contrive to build him a friend he will accept until the child can (re)gain the ability to love and trust.
Executable by Hugh Howey ★★☆☆☆ This was just a story fragment and not one that evoked the imagination.
Eighty Miles An Hour All the Way to Paradise by Genevieve Valentine ★★☆☆☆ There was no enough backstory. There was not enough current story. The primary emotion was simple exhaustion.
I would like to commend you on your nod to the much maligned Butlarian Jihad. And then I will freak out a little that that malevolent monstrosity is the fountainhead of your affection.
The Specialist’s Hat (1998) by Kelly Link ★★★★☆
Spooky twin story. Haunted house story. Dead poet story. Ghost story. Layers my friends, this little onion was stinking great... even if the end is nebulous.
Lulluby by Anna North ★★★☆☆ A just ok haunted house story that could have gone anywhere, everywhere, but didn’t.
As everything overlaps in my reading life here is a cool robotics quote from Alastair Reynolds’ Blue Remembered Earth: ‘Look, in a thousand years, the difference between people and machines… it’s going to seem about as relevant as the difference between Protestants and Catholics: some ludicrous relic of Dark Age thinking.’
Oh yes, they are short and fun. And that reminds me of another reread I would enjoy. I have four of them I think, Tor gave them away a few months ago, and I’ve only read the first three - Joy!
Lol maybe. But their reticence reminded me of Murderbot. Like there are so many things more interesting than murder and power. Small moments that can be spread out lasting ages and therefor mean more. An unexpected caring forming along with independent intelligence.
That’s the way it seemed at first but then, a new day, everyday. This could be the best day of your life.
Cycles by Charles Yu ★★★★★
That was an emotional journey! The story started deadpan with the promise of violence, then turned humorous, but ended so heartwarmingly I was verklempt...
talk amongst yourselves...
I need a minute.
The forward was particularly good: Surgical robots are poised and waiting in hospitals, their needles glistening. We live in a world teeming with monsters made real.
Complex God by Scott Sigler ★★★½☆
“The girl with the God complex had become just that: God.”
I enjoyed this robotic post-apocalyptic take on George R. R. Martin’s The Sandkings. The ending was perfect, right on the edge of awe and terror.
Graeme, it’s great to see you here again!
I am mildly ashamed that I liked it.
You’re right, that story was darkness and friction.
Yellow and Red (1998) by Tanith Lee ★★★★☆
“... it looked as if it was sitting square on Gordon’s shoulders, with its tail coming down his collar, and its arm-things round his throat, and its face pressed close to his, as if it loved him and would never let go.”
I enjoyed this story of a family cursed by a monster long ago captured on film. Just because a camera cannot capture your soul does not mean it will not capture something else.
The Stiff and the Stile (1997) by Stepan Chapman ★★★★☆ That was an adorably strange short story featuring a mutant trash goblin. It’s a nursery rhyme for The Addams Family.
Finished! Thank you everyone for chatting fungi stories with me!https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I read/reviewed 19/22 stories that averaged out to 3.05, which I will round down to two stars for the DNF’s and my overall disappointment. The best thing about this anthology was the editor using it as experience to write Mexican Gothic, the best fungi story I read this month.
Cordyceps Zombii by Ann K. Schwader A nice poem I won’t rate.
Gamma by Laird Barron ★★★☆☆ That was a long suicide note from someone with a terrible childhood, an animal abuser father.
