As with any anthology, this is a mixed bag. Some of the stories are really, really good, but others are more iffy. There wasn't anything I particularly hated though. ( )

A number of these stories were good, but none really rocked my world. Either the setting or central conflict seemed tired or too far-fetched (not really supported by the material, kind of a gee whiz look at me vibe) . A great short story needs to be its own universe, direct, complete and satisfying in some emotional way. ( )

This collection of science fiction and fantasy leans heavily toward the latter, and even most of the SF is of the soft or fanciful sort. It also goes heavy on the humor or at least whimsy. In short, a very lightweight selection. About two thirds of them are decent enough, but more than a few failed to hold my attention. One was completely incoherent.

Here are some of the stories I felt were worthwhile:

"The Man in Grey" by Michael Swanwick: A teen-aged girl slips behind the curtain of reality to discover how the universe really works. Reminiscent of Sturgeon's "Yesterday Was Monday." Affecting ending.

"Fields of Gold" by Rachel Swirsky: A man finds himself in the afterlife surrounded by all his deceased family members--including the wife who may have murdered him. Another touching ending to this one.

"Tidal Forces" by Caitlin R. Kiernan: A tiny but gradually expanding black hole inexplicably appears on a woman's body.

"The Vicar of Mars" by Gwyneth Jones: An alien priest hoping to bring comfort to a woman in her end of life unleashes nightmares. ( )

A collection of sf and fantasy stories.

Andy Duncan's "Slow as a Bullet": told in a sort of pseudo nineteenth century Western style, this is the story of how one lazy man developed gun powder that shot bullets incredibly slowly in order to win a bet.

Caitlin Kiernan's "Tidal Forces": a black hole forms in a woman's stomach and grows ever larger. Weird concept told in a disjointed style, but it works.

Damien Broderick's "The Beancounter's Cat": Starts well (a talking cat adopts a lowly beancounter) but halfway through transforms into a trippy mess that only pretends to be deep.

Kij Johnson's "Story Kit": Sometimes Johnson's risk taking pays off. Here, it doesn't; it's just weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird, pomo ridonculousness.

Michale Swanwick's "The Man in Grey": one of the people who works behind-the-scenes, creating the world for humans to live in, steps "on stage" for a moment to save a girl's life. Interesting concept, told pretty well, though the end is weak.

Nalo Hopkinson's "Old Habits": a ghost forever haunts the mall where he died. He and the other ghosts are starving for sensation. So sad, but interesting.

Gwyneth Jones's "The Vicar of Mars": An alien visits a woman who as come to Mars to die. But even as he tries to give her comfort, her troubles begin to haunt him, as well. Creepy as hell.

Rachel Swirsky's "Fields of Gold": A man dies and finds himself in at a party full of dead people. Eventually he comes to terms with his own wasted life, and goes skipping through the meadow with his beloved dead cousin. Apparently this was also a Twilight Zone episode? Regardless, I didn't like this: Dennis is deeply unpleasant and being inside his head made me depressed.

Eileen Gunn's "Thought Experiment": Ralph Drumm is the first person to discover how to travel through time. But of course he runs into trouble in the past, and of course the changes he makes to history have long reaching consequences. Great, with a particularly fantastic ending. My favorite of the collection.

Jeffrey Ford's "The double of my double is not my double": A man helps his doppleganger kill his doppleganger's doppleganger. Another pointless story with a depressingly annoying main dude character whose life is weird for no reason.

Emma Bull's "Nine Oracles": 9 unnamed modern women who knew the future. The first 7 are good, the last one is full on bad. It's not that #9 is bad, actually, it's that it's clearly a much longer story crammed into two pages, and that basically destroys it.

Peter Ball's "Dying Young": A (genemodded) dragon enters a (future) saloon filled with gunslingers. Years ago, Paul's father was killed by the Doc, who now controls the town because he can fix people up. Paul has to decide whether to help the dragon kill the Doc, thus destroying the semblance of civilization that the Doc maintains, or whether to help the Doc kill the dragon, thus destroying his last hope for justice or vengeance. Cool world, with an actual plot and a nice twist.

Jo Walton's "The Panda Coin": A 10 dollar coin passes hand-by-hand through the economy of Hengist station. Lots of cool tidbits; my favorite were the prostitute-bots, who talk amongst each other only in the preprogrammed phrases they've been given ("Ooh yes, honey") but still manage to have full conversations.

James Patrick Kelly's "Tourists": Mariska nearly died getting from the Moon to Mars, and now she's a minor celebrity. She finds solace with a man gene-modded for the Martian environment, but all he wants is to leave Mars for the stars. I liked the characters and world building, but there were way too many infodumps about things I didn't care about and that the characters had no reason to think about. (No ordinary teenager on a date is going to think about the physics of a sky hook, let's be real.) ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2014/02/review-of-eclipse-four-ed-by-jonathan.h... ( )