Nick GeversCritiques

This was an amazing anthology. If you've got any love, or interest in, the steampunk genre, get this anthology. If you already read steampunk, this one will jump to the front of your favorites. If you haven't read steampunk, but you're kinda curious, this is the perfect introduction. There are examples in this anthology of what the genre can do when in the hands of truly talented writers. (ya... I'm talking to you Mr. Vandermeer)

I debated if I wanted to give it less than three stars, but in the end there is enough in the book to warrant at least a look. This is certainly not a "definitive" anthology, but it does have some good gems in it. The problem is it also has some pretty bad duds, and you have to sort them out. If you kept up with status updates as I read it, you will see that I found the book overall hit and miss. Some stories were really good, and others were not. When the book "worked," it was good. When it did not, I wanted to drop it. So, what worked for me:

*The first story, which kind of reminded me a bit of an early Heinlein.

*The Company story (I think that was Kage Baker's). It does capture a bit of the steampunk feel and scene, and it was good enough that I may seek out other novels in the The Company series.

*"Petrolpunk" was probably my favorite if not one of my favorites in the series.

*And "American Cheetah" gave an interesting look at one of the American presidents, with robots.

*Other stories varied. The wife revenge tale was interesting for the twist it offered, but I was not particularly thrilled with it (in other words, it was ok).

So read it, but keep your expectations in the average range. I told you the stories that worked for me. You may find others work better for you, so to speak. It is a decent anthology, and it has some good examples of steampunk. But it is not definitive.

As with many anthologies this is a little bit of a mixed bag, although on the whole the stories are excellent. The opener, 'Steampunch' by James Lovegrove, is for me far the weakest effort. Each of the other stories either presents an original take on the genre - 'The Lollygang Saves the World on Accident', 'Static', Petrolpunk - or, like Margo Lanahan's 'Machine Maid' use the tropes of the genre to excellent and chilling effect.

Well worth a read as an introduction to Steampunk and perhaps some unfamiliar authors.

Steampunk is far and away one of my favorite escapist genres to explore. The playful Victorian aesthetics aside, there is something quite freeing in the retro-futuristic landscape of the worlds it encompasses. It allows for us to play in a setting where things were perhaps a bit more stifling for anyone that wasn’t a white, upper class man, and oftentimes show women who are going against the grain a bit. More recently, a subgenre of steampunk has emerged, that takes the ideas of steampunk, and focuses it less on scienes and gadgets and more on the Gothic horror literature of the Victorian era. This genre is aptly called dreadpunk.

Ghosts By Gaslight is a collection of steampunk horror fiction, falling squarely into the perimeters of dreadpunk. Naturally, I was very excited to see so many things I loved come together into one collection of short stories, as Gothic horror has such a unique charm for me. But did Ghosts By Gaslight manage to meet my hopeful expectations? Unfortunately, the answer is a very strong no.

Full review: https://thebechdelscream.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/ghosts-by-gaslight/

THIS IS THE SUMMER OF LOVE: A "Postscripts" New Writers Special, edited by Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers, is an anthology of horror stories from PS Publishing in the UK. This particular anthology contains only new authors, and it consists of some of the most imaginative writing I’ve ever read.
From demons in the desert to prisoners locked in cells, almost every story will have you wide-eyed with astonishment.
Skip the last two stories – there isn’t much in the way of horror there. But DO read every other story!
I am very impressed with this new group of authors.

I am a fan of short stories, and of themed anthologies as a rule, and this was a very good one. While it's being presented as a book of Steampunk stories, it seems many of the contributing writers have only a rudimentary understanding of Steampunk as a set of aesthetics, which is what I think makes the collection so very interesting. Fantasy writers not known for their Steampunk aesthetic try their hand at some 19th Century Ghosts Stories with terrific results. Gene Wolfe has the very compelling "Why I Was Hanged", and John Harwood gives us "Face to Face" and darkly disturbing exploration of the Myth of the Fatal Book (one of my favorite tropes). And Peter Beagle's "Music, When the Soft Voices Die" was equal parts terrifying and heartbreaking.

Another reason I tend to like themed anthologies, is that it is a way I often discover new readers. "Kiss Me Deadly" introduced me to Caitlin Kittredge's "Iron Codex" series, and "The Eternal Kiss" gave me Holly Black's *tremendous* "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown". "Ghosts by Gaslight", too, introduced me to new (to me) writers from whom I am anxious to hear more: Theodora Goss (her "Christopher Raven" was lovely. Part allegory, part cautionary tale), and Margo Lanagan to name only two.

I was also interested to see how the Victorian tropes were used throughout -- authors made great use of both travelogues and correspondance.

I recommend this for lovers of dark and elegant stories -- there is not much here to truly keep you up at night, but sometimes an elegant shiver is what I want more.

In writing class, all aspiring writers are told to avoid 3 big clichés. Never describe your main character by having them look at themselves in a mirror. Never make your character a perfect Mary Sue. And never base your stories around dreams.

The Book of Dreams is an eloquent "up yours!" by Nick Gevers to that last piece of advice; a short chapbook composed of 5 stories, all of them based in (if not entirely composed of) the realm of Oneiros. It's an excellent short collection and I highly recommend it.

*** - "The Prisoner" by Robert Silverburg - The first, and probably weakest, of the bunch. Silverburg's short story about a man plagued by nightmares of another man trapped in his dreams is well written and fun to read, but the payoff is predictable and a bit of a letdown. For all the buildup, the revelation should have been something more.

**** - "Dream Burgers at the Mouth of Hell" by Lucius Shepard - A cynical story about an up and coming screenwriter who discovers the true source of Hollywood's success and inspiration, and the price he'll have to pay to get it. Extremely well written, funny, and totally unpredictable.

**** - "Testaments" by Jay Lake - A bleak tale of the dreams of prophecy of conquerors throughout history, and of their victims, including the conquerors themselves. A good story with excellent, but deliberately oblique prose. Not exactly sure of the author's theme by the end. Felt like a story I'd need to read a few times to fully understand. Not that that's a bad thing.

***** - "Rex Nemorensis" by Kage Baker - The best of the bunch. A story that is both horrifying and heartbreaking at once, about an old veteran of the Vietnam war who searches and finally finds a new purpose, and a new god, in his dreams of the jungle. This is my first exposure to Baker's work, and short as it is, it still makes me lament the fact that she died suddenly of cancer earlier this year. A real loss to the field.

***** - "86 Deathdick Road" by Jeffery Ford - Runner up for best of the bunch. A story that begins with a visit to the smartest man in the world and then somehow devolves into a battle with killer owls, before ending with a lament to lost love. An excellent choice for wrapping up the anthology. By turns hilarious, horrific, bizarre, and forlorn, it's almost like a--well, do I really need to say it?

This was an amazing anthology. If you've got any love, or interest in, the steampunk genre, get this anthology. If you already read steampunk, this one will jump to the front of your favorites. If you haven't read steampunk, but you're kinda curious, this is the perfect introduction. There are examples in this anthology of what the genre can do when in the hands of truly talented writers. (ya... I'm talking to you Mr. Vandermeer)

This was an amazing anthology. If you've got any love, or interest in, the steampunk genre, get this anthology. If you already read steampunk, this one will jump to the front of your favorites. If you haven't read steampunk, but you're kinda curious, this is the perfect introduction. There are examples in this anthology of what the genre can do when in the hands of truly talented writers. (ya... I'm talking to you Mr. Vandermeer)

It's entirely likely that there's something interesting in this book somewhere, but my overwhelming apathy (and the absurd number of books I have checked out right now) forces me to give it up.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1967012.html

This is a set of ten short stories from PS Publishing's PostScripts magazine sent to BSFA members three years ago, which I have only now got around to reading.

It wouldn't really have moved me o take out a subscription. The clear majority of the stories in the anthology are horror rather than sf, and frankly gave me bad dreams last night. Only one of the ten is by a woman (Lisa Tuttle). Of the more sfnal stories, I had read Peter Hamilton's "Footvote", with his trademark misogyny and Europhobia, in a Dozois anthology; the only other one that made much of an impact on me was Stephen Baxter's "Eagle Song", which also has familiar themes from that author (grand sweeping historical montages, incomprehensible aliens) with some originality of format but ending the story only halfway through. Sorry if this sounds grumpy - this came for free, and sometimes you get what you pay for.½

The compliation of suspense stories couldn't really be categorized as 'steampunk'. If anything they had wonderful steampunk elements that transcended the stories to a higher level. However, some stories fell behind to some of their counterparts. But overall, it's a nice collection.½

For the most part, a wonderfully atmospheric collection, leaning more toward the supernatural than the steampunk.

This collection includes stories from Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Ramsey Campbell and Gene Wolfe.

Most are not SF but are fantasy or horror; the best of which is Lisa Tuttle’s Closet Dreams where a young girl dreams of her incarceration by a man she calls the monster.

Of the out and out SF Eagle Song by Stephen Baxter concerns messages from Altair which recur at time intervals that decrease in powers of three from 7510 BC to 2210 AD. While clearly not our own history it parallels that closely, so the phrase “hippy chick” and the use of helicopter gunships in Vietnam supposedly in 1967 jarred a little. Footvote by Peter Hamilton relates the consequences of a private venture opening a wormhole to another planet and Gene Wolfe’s Comber is set on a world where cities drift on tectonic plates.

The writing throughout all the stories cannot be faulted but the fantasy and horror didn’t do too much for me.

The book - one of the most recent in the Postscripts series of anthologies - contains short stories encompassing a range of genres from SF, Fantasy and Horror through to mainstream but mostly in the speculative realm. There are too many stories to consider individually but the standard is high. Even if not all are entirely successful the book contains very few duds. One of the most effective tales is the title story, by Lucius Shepard, about a plot by a famous movie star to enravel his associates in the - perhaps simulated - murder of his girlfriend. Eric Brown’s The Human Element works well even if it re-visits one of his early themes, the relationship between an artist and his work. All the contributions are worth reading though I found Bully by Jack Ketchum too predictable. The Forever Forest by Rhys Hughes was curiously old fashioned, as if the author was trying too hard to convey otherness; it reads as if it might have been written in the 1950s. There’s also a story, Osmotic Pressure, by someone called Jack Deighton, which contains a fair bit of (arguably necessary?) information dumping.

This is a bunch of new science fiction stories exploring that age-old question: Is mankind alone in the universe?

A husband and wife laying outside on a clear night talk about aliens. Among the husband’s speculations are that aliens home in on a psychological signal given off by one person alone. That is why sightings are always in rural areas, and never in the city. The aliens could be here already, but out of phase with humanity.

A moderately-famous writer penned a series of stories about a human and his alien sidekick. In a dream, or delusion, the alien comes to life and tells him the truth about the universe. An alien scout is sent to Earth to offer it membership in the Galactic Community. Watching some electromagnetic transmissions, he/she/it is horrified by the state of present-day Earth society. Aliens can show up in the strangest places; inside a brown dwarf star, inside the human eye and as parasitic blobs that attach themselves to humans, and seem to thrive on human philosophical paradoxes. Throughout the galaxy, various alien species are uplifted to sentience seemingly in the blink of an eye.

Mankind has a hard enough time communicating with non-human intelligence here on Earth, so how is Man supposed to recognize a message from an alien intelligence? Aliens might also show themselves through graffiti-like tags in e-books in a supposedly invulnerable digital library. In present-day Rome, a humanoid figure all in black appears at a certain spot, with absolute regularity, about every ten and a half years. Perhaps it is an alien out of phase with humanity. A homeless woman can’t escape the feeling that one of her six physical senses has disappeared.

These are not just SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) stories. They do a very good job of showing that aliens can appear almost anywhere. They will keep the reader entertained, and are really worth reading.

Ever since I started wanting to be a professional SF writer, I'd been reading The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, one of the standards of the industry. But when I received a copy of the Postscripts anthology, a sort of FSF across the pond, I was taken aback.

Where has this publication been all my life?

In recent days, the stories featured in FSF have been lackluster, leading eventually to my ceasing procuring copies (though still sending them submissions, in a hope to liven up things for them). Postscripts, on the other hand, is a breath of fresh air to those who are sick of the stagnant breath of stories about robots, by robots, and for robots, as well as pseudo-avant-garde stories that are more accurately described as "lazy-author-didn't-want-to-write-an-ending."

But, I digress. Postscripts is amazing, and this being a PS issue, it, too, is amazing. The run-down:

Balfour and Meriwether in The Adventure of the Emperor's Vengeance by Daniel Abraham

This is a steampunk story that involves quite an alternate history of Egypt, and the secret order of Jews sworn to protect against what happened in Cairo. I'm not sure if it's part of a larger series, but it could very well be such. Balfour and Meriwether bring to mind a Victorian-era Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. (4/5)

The Famous Cave Paintings on Isolus 9 by Chris Beckett

I wasn't big on this tale, about an adventuring travel writer of an uncle in the future who likes to take stabs at present-day organized religion, both directly and metaphorically. In the end, the story felt like it was written just to down-talk said religion(s), and felt quite empty aside from that. (3/5)

The Portrayed Man by Justin Cartaginese

Cartaginese has proven that Gaiman is not the only writer capable of writing believable, yet bizarre stories about neighboring worlds and a duo of strange gentlemen who bridge it with less-than-admirable intentions. As such, our hero in this story is uninterested in life, and as such, gets a body double to take care of his job, his relationship, and pretty much his entire life. The double does it just like he would, only better. (4/5)

A Life Clichéd by David N. Drake

If I'm not mistaken, this is Drake's first piece of published fiction. At least, it's the first I've found recorded. It's essentially a two-page joke, but funny, nonetheless. (3.5/5)

The World Breaks by Scott Edelman

The World Breaks is a dark epistolary in which some unknown event happens, sending the world into chaos. A small midwesternish town doesn't want to evacuate their precious home, and as such stands up to authority. Each letter is written as a "If you're reading this, I'm dead," sort of letter. I'm not sure what to take away from the fact that I was reading them. (3.5/5)

The Warlock and the Man of the World by M. K. Hobson

Some authors write Steampunk, which takes place in a 19th century-style world that has achieved an industrial revolution. Hobson, though, has taken the same era, only shifted hemispheres and replaces steaming with demons. Warlock is a wild-west story about a town inhabited by men and demons alike. When there's a demon murder, a warlock (who presides over demonic affairs) and a lawyer/minister (who presides over human affairs) must determine the guilt and punishment of the murderer. But she's a little more than meets the eye. Hobson has written or will write more in this world, which is a rather interesting take on the old west style of writing. (4/5)

Bigger than the Beetles by Andrew Hook

A story set in Japan with toy frogs that expand in water. Not a literary masterpiece, but otherwise enjoyable. (3.5/5)

Enemy of the Good by Matthew Hughes

Set in Hughes' Old Earth universe (is there anything of his that isn't?), in which professional thief and troublemaker Luff Imbry is stranded in the middle of nowhere, and must deal with the demands of an ascetic religious order, during which he meets the perfect Imbry, who attempts to challenge his self worth. I like Hughes' stories, as they are complex and witty, and do a nice job of holistically connecting the aspects of the story in the end, leaving you satiated with one tale, but later craving another. (4.5/5)

Meeting Mr Tony by Tim Lees

This story is part of a larger series involving a Doctor Who-ish uncle who tries to use science and reason to solve all of his problems, including his desire to spend less time with his wife. In the midst of discovering a way to move through space without actually moving through space, he also discovers his wife is falling in love with the man he set her up with. But, is he not human? If you chop him with an axe, does he not bleed? Find out... (4/5)

Famous People by Ron Savage

This story didn't really have too much of an SFF element to it, other than a mother of a character whose diary another character of the story is reading having the ability to "breathe life" into stillborn children. It's a realistic tale, though, about celebrity and the cost thereof. (3/5)

The Cacto Skeleton by David T. Wilbanks

A reminder to take your meds! Otherwise, you'll have to chase down that skeleton that was once buried in your yard. (3.5/5)

The Red King's Sleep by Marly Youmans

Inspired by a dream, and reads like a dream. Like Finnegans Wake Lite, as written by a fantasy author. (3/5)

Best in Show: Enemy of the Good - The more I read of Mr. Hughes, the more I like his stuff.

I was disappointed with this book. Calling the book "definitive" is a stretch, but I was willing to let that pass. What truly disappointed me is the poor quality of the stories. Poorly written, clichéd, and heavy-handed are all terms that come to mind. To me the term steampunk brings to mind the works of Tim Powers and James Blaylock. I have enjoyed the works of both of those authors [I never liked Jeter, too Gnostic for my taste], and I hoped for more of the same. My hopes were dashed. I would never have purchased this book.

That being so, let me look briefly upon the two stories within this volume that I did enjoy.

Steampunch - James Lovegrove

There is just something about Mars that makes it a good place for a penal colony. Lots of authors have done this, it just seems right. Of all the stories in this volume, this one had the best look and feel.

The Lollygang Save the World on Accident - Jay Lake

Madcap, with the sense of a larger world that the story is embedded within. Only remotely steampunk, but I still liked the story.

I do not plan on ever reading anything by the authors in this collection, so it has basically failed to do its job. Life is just too short to read bad books.

Solid, enjoyable anthology. I tend to be skeptical of anything called "definitive," but it's highly worth reading, anyway.

Steampunk as a genre is something I find generally hard to be impressed with. I love the aesthetic quality of it, but many of the stories have left me cold. That is not to say I don't enjoy some of its finer examples, but in many cases the idea of steampunk seems to overpower the execution of it.

This is, however, a decent collection of stories, with a couple of standouts, a bulk of good, and a couple I barely made it through. The two stories I enjoyed the most were also the last: Jeff VanderMeer's Fixing Hanover and Jeffrey Ford's The Dream of Reason. Overall not a bad collection, but not something that I am likely to revisit anytime soon.½

See full review on my blog.

I received Extraordinary Engines through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme. I’ve been a fan of the Steampunk genre since I read The Difference Engine many years ago.

The first story is Steampunch by James Lovegrove, the story of the rise and fall of a steam powered boxer related by a veteran denizen of the Martian penal colony. I enjoyed this one, a very Victorian flavour coupled with some unusual steampunk devices.

Next up is Static by Marly Yeomans, set in a world permeated by static electricity and a protagonist who reminded me somewhat of Estella in Great Expectations (not that I’ve read it, mind you).

The third story is Speed, Speed the Cable by Kage Baker, features a secret society who aim to guide the world towards a more advanced future through fair means or foul. The cable of the title is the transatlantic telegraph line which is attacked by saboteurs.

Ian R. MacLeod is next with Elementals, beings conjured out of the Aether by a not as mad as he seemed scientist, but at what cost to humanity?

The fifth story is Machine Maid by Margo Lanagan – woman begins to regret moving to a new home, a ranch in the Australian outback, her only company from day to day a domestic clockwork robot called Clarissa. Driven by boredom she starts to investigate the inner workings of the robot which horrify her somewhat puritanical nature.

In Lady Witherspoon’s Solution by James Morrow, is written as a journal describing exploring scientists happen upon a secluded island peopled, apparently, by Neanderthals. After gaining their trust one of the scientists is presented with a second journal and we are transported to Victorian England to discover the shocking truth behind these creatures.

Next is Hannah by Keith Brooke which is part detective story, part Frankenstein tale. Perhaps the least ’steampunky’ of the stories in this volume.

Adam Roberts is one of my favourite SciFi authors, his contribution to the volume is Petrolpunk. It seems like he was playing one of those free association games as he jumbles in a bunch of sci-fi tropes, including steampunk, parallel worlds, eco-warriors, mind controlling aliens, then shakes them around a bit to see what emerges. In the end I think there was a bit too much in it to fit as it all felt a little hurried towards the end, might make a nice novella though.

The ninth story is American Cheetah by Robert Reed where we meet a steam powered Abraham Lincoln, captured in algorithmic form from the original by a ’soul-catcher’ machine, who is working as a sheriff in small town America. After some reflections on the nature of mind, freedom and what it is to be human the story moves into all action Tombstone mode with the imminent arrival of notorious, steam-powered outlaw James-Younger Gang.

Fixing Hanover by Jeff VanderMeer (for Jay Lake) starts with a broken automaton washing up on a remote beach where an army weapons scientist as hidden for many years from the horrors he created. Once he starts repairing the automaton a return to horror becomes inevitable.

Having had a story for Jay Lake, we now have one by the man himself – The Lollygang Save the World on Accident – it’s more straight Cyberpunk than Steampunk, but enjoyable nonetheless. The Lollygang are a bunch of techno-urchins surviving on petty crime on a steam powered space station.

Finally we have Jeffrey Ford’s The Dream of Reason, a short ‘mad scientist who’s demons become real’ story.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, particularly Steampunch, Machine Maid and American Cheetah. I have since been seeking out full length novels by a number of these authors at my local bookshops.½

I agree with the other reviewers that this book was decent, but not fantastic. The faux-Victorian accents were difficult to wade through, but the underlying stories were good with workmanlike prose and plot structure. I'd recommend this book to anyone looking for something to read on a plane, or for people that are big short-story fans.

Alternate history is one of my favorite subgenres in Science Fiction, and it is a subgenre that lends itself as well to the short story as to the novel. The sting in the tail in realizing just where the divergence lies in a story's world and how it lies changed with our own often works better in a short story than the expanse of a novel. An AH novel explores an alternate history at length; a story is about the sting in the tail.

So I read Other Earths, a collection of new AH stories, with eagerness. Edited by Jay Lake and Nick Gevers, Other Earths includes stories by authors well versed in the genre, including Stephen Baxter, Paul Park and Robert Charles Wilson.

Like all anthologies, though, anthologies can all too often be very uneven in their quality. The very variety of the authors presented here means, necessarily, stories with wildly divergent styles, aims, and themes. Paul Park's story, "A Family History", has an almost dream like quality to it that is very alike to his Roumania novels. It is very different than the rigorous "The Unblinking Eye" by Baxter, which is really a puzzle story wrapped in the trappings of an alternate history. Liz William's "Winterborn" adds an element of fantasy to the alternate history.

And so all of the stories range in this way. What this meant for me, though, and likely will mean for you is that while you will undoubtedly find stories here you will like, its just as certain there are stories in this set of 11 stories that you will dislike, perhaps intensely.

It is a good line up of authors in the book, however, and if you are at all interested in Alternate history, I do recommend the book to you.½

(Amy) And now, the first of the two steampunk anthologies of 2008, which we bought on the same day. I've not read the second of them yet, but I'll link back here when I do. Really, it's Alistair that's the steampunk fan in the house, but I got around to this one before he did. Fan or no, I enjoyed it. It helps that I have a taste for literature of manners, and Regency overtones, and period works in general, of course.

I found "Static" (Marly Youmans) and "Lady Witherspoon's Solution" (James Morrow) particularly fascinating, and "Machine Maid" (Margo Lanagan) was delightfully appalling. I thought "American Cheetah" (Robert Reed) was interestingly quirky, but it didn't really catch my fancy.

Really, I found no one of the stories to be less than worth the read, which is unusual for me in an anthology of any sort. Recommended.
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/zenos-library/2009/04/extraordinary_engines_n... )