A 2008 anthology featuring six novellas, all in some way touching on the theme of, you guessed it, galactic empires. I picked this one up because I was feeling a bit nostalgic and thought I might be in the mood for some good old-fashioned space opera, even though that's not something I read very much of these days. I don't know that good old-fashioned space opera is quite the best description for these, actually, although they're certainly closer to that than they are to the kind of modern SF that'd inevitably use the theme of galactic empires to engage in social commentary about imperialism. There is a lot of big, grand sense-of-wonder stuff, which I do like, but, there are also, I fear, a lot of reminders why I don't read too much of this kind of thing these days, anyway.

Some comments on the individual stories:

"The Demon Trap" by Peter F. Hamilton: This one is set in Hamilton's "Commonwealth" universe. I haven't read anything else from this series, although I think I may have one or two relevant works sitting on my TBR shelves. And it was... okay. It's a sort of detective story, in which a couple of police officers are sent to investigate an act of terrorism. The plot didn't do much to hold my attention at first, but there did turn out to be some interesting SF wrinkles to it. Although I'm not sure quite how I feel about all the ideas involved, and there's one particular thing that strikes me as something of a plot hole. There's also a pretty high exposition-to-story ratio here, although at least it's somewhat less clunky than such things often tend to be. I am rather intrigued by the setting, in which one can take commuter trains between stars, thanks to a system of railways and wormholes. That's a pretty nifty idea, and now I'm kind of surprised no one seems to have thought of it before. Still, otherwise it was mostly forgettable.

"Owner Space" by Neil Asher. A ship full of people escaping from their oppressive government makes a run for an area of space controlled by a godlike superbeing who'd probably feel right at home on classic Star Trek. I have mixed feelings about this one, too. It's a little more fun to read than the previous one, if a bit violent. And there's an interesting-seeming alien, even if we really only get a very small glance at it. But making the oppressing government literal Evil Space Soviets is a very strange choice, at least for a story published in 2008, and maybe not one that works terribly well. Plus, there's never any real explanation or character exploration or anything for the godlike superbeing, so he ends up feeling like little more than a deus ex machina contrivance, which is very unsatisfying.

"The Man with the Golden Balloon" by Robert Reed is set inside an unfathomably large, ancient alien spacecraft on a multi-million-year journey around the galaxy, and features a married couple exploring an unmapped area of the ship and meeting a mysterious representative of a shadowy, unperceived empire that exists only in unnamed places. Robert Reed has apparently written multiple stories in this setting; I read one of them in a similar collection to this one a while back and remembered liking it. I'm much less sure quite what to make of this one, especially the ambiguous and somewhat confusing ending, but it's certainty a lot more attention-grabbing than the last two pieces. However much sense it does or doesn't make, there's a very cool sense of scope, and weirdness, and wonder about it. Pity that it's so ridiculously easy to irreparably mar an otherwise decent story by being so afraid of the word "said" that your characters keep "commenting" and "remarking" and "suggesting" and "concluding" things whether those verbs fit the actual dialog or not, an annoying literary tic that always drives me to complete immersion-breaking distraction from the first moment I notice it.

"The Six Directions of Heaven" by Alastair Reynolds. In an alternate universe where the Mongolian Empire conquered the world and then expanded out into space, a government operative is sent to investigate reports that strange vessels have begun appearing from... elsewhere. And after the previous stories, this one felt like a breath of fresh air. It wasn't a five-star knockout or anything, but I was able to enjoy it without any reservations. (Well, all right, except for the one brief but highly disturbing scene of animal cruelty.) It reads so much better than the others, I think, because Reynolds never stops for a single paragraph to spoonfeed us exposition about the world we're in, but rather writes in a way that lets us come to understand it naturally as we go along, with seamless ease. Of course, this is no doubt helped a bit by the fact that the reader can probably be expected to have at least some vague familiarity with the relevant part of history, but even so. This is a hugely underrated and very important skill in SF writing, and Reynolds' mastery of it made this a much better reading experience than it otherwise would have been.

"The Seer and the Silverman" by Stephen Baxter features aliens who abduct humans, humans who want to kill them for it, and a literal attempt to change the laws of physics. It's part of Baxter's Xeelee series, which I've read some other works in. But I have to confess... I enjoyed the first couple of works of Baxter's that I read (most notably The Time Ships), but I've long since gone off him completely. Talk about exposition-to-story ratios: Baxter's often asymptotically approach infinity. And I think he may in fact be an alien, based on his level of understanding he has of how humans actually talk to each other. All right, okay, this one was more readable than some of his stuff, and it has an interesting science-y idea or two in it (that being the main thing that Baxter, at his best, is actually any good at). But it still did very little for me, and the ending is just ridiculous.

"The Tear" by Ian McDonald introduces us to a world whose inhabitants have some kind of ritualized system of multiple personalities, and the aliens who've stopped in their solar system to refuel. It then goes on a long journey from there. McDonald's prose is, I think, a notch or two above the usual bare-bones Hard SF style, and the story is full of a lot of cool ideas, except... Well, all right, it might be too many cool ideas. I quite like SF that throws me into a world without a guidebook and lets me figure it out as I got along, but not so much when every time I start to get my feet under me, there's a sudden time jump and I'm somewhere completely different with a whole new set of weird alien things going on. It doesn't help the confusion levels any when the main character keeps changing names and (supposedly) personalities every time, either. Ultimately, it kind of feels like maybe there's mostly just a bunch of big ideas strung together here without a whole lot of coherence. ( )

One of the six novellas in this collection ("The Tear" by Ian McDonald) got a Hugo nomination. Any of them could have.

The theme announced by the title sits rather lightly, at least if one has in mind what "galactic empire" customarily implies. We are shown no decadent sovereigns, intrigue-riddled courts, freedom-seeking rebels, psychohistorical crises or other standbys of space opera. Instead, we have a detective story (Peter F. Hamilton, "The Demon Trap"), an encounter with neutral forces on the outskirts of an interstellar war (Neal Asher, "Owner Space"), speculation on whether a real galactic empire would be visible to its subjects (Robert Reed, "The Man with the Golden Balloon"), incursions between parallel universes (Alistair Reynolds, "The Six Directions of Space"), a strange guerrilla raid carried out under supremely hostile conditions (Stephen Baxter, "The Seer and the Silverman"), and the adventures of a provincial caught up in a conflict beyond his ken (or kens, as he is a multiple personality) ("The Tear"). The only constants are vast scales and mind-stretching psychologies.

Having no complaints regarding the stories, let me quibble instead about the editor's introductions. Gardner Dozois must know more about more SF writers than any other living human being, and he can write engagingly. Why, then, must his notes on the authors be so jejune, amounting to little more than scantily annotated lists? It would have been better to say nothing at all, and the contrast between boring fact and super-imaginative fiction is close to intolerable. ( )

Galactic Empires is an SFBC original anthology of science fiction stories about, well, Galactic Empires. Space Opera? Yes, and No. The anthology was edited by Gardner Dozois.

It's an interesting line up, and since there are only six stories (of around novella length), I will touch on each of them separately. As a whole, the stories range in quality from good to superb.

"The Demon Trap". Peter F Hamilton:

A story set in his Commonwealth universe (Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained, Dreaming Void), this story brings back Paula Myo, the investigator originally from the Hive, investigating (doggedly as always) a terrorist attack. The story clearly takes place after the first two novels, since technology has advanced somewhat (even given the conservative culture of this universe). The story works on all levels--revealing more about Myo, revealing more about how the polity of the Commonwealth has evolved, and its a darned good story. And I loved the ending when the culprit gets truly just desserts. The collection started off on a high note.

"Owner Space": Neal Asher

Unlike Hamilton, I've not read any Asher yet, although now I just might. Owner Space tells the story of a few refugees from a very nasty autocracy, with a revenge-bent alien lurking on the side as well. The pursued refugees enter the domain of a very mysterious entity, and the conflicts play out under the aegis and the watchful eye of the "Owner". Some genuinely creepy stuff was tempered a bit by an entity whose powers weren't explained all that well. I thought it was good, but not *very* good.

"The Man with the Golden Balloon" Robert Reed

I've read a previous story set on the Ship, a Starcross (gah, does that date me) vehicle which is traveling across the galaxy. This is another story on that giant vessel, as a married couple explore a long abandoned and unknown area of the Ship, and meet an entity who talks in metaphors and story of a secret Empire, and what happened the last time he interfered in the evolution of a world. It reminded me a lot of Crowley's Great Work of Time in that the story itself is layered and talks about secrets and mysterious agendas, and dances around giving the reader a "big" reveal. And in the ending, Reed has the sting that makes you re-evaluate everything that you've read. I didn't like my previous foray into the Ship universe, this story stands alone very well.

"The Six Directions of Space" by Alistair Reynolds:

This story posits a number of alternate histories and universes, starting with the viewpoint one of a Mongol-dominated Earth expanding into space. An agent for these Mongols is sent to investigate strange happenings on routes between star systems, only to discover the existence of these alternate dimensions. While the sensawunder is here and I eat up this sort of story, this story feels a bit unpolished and unfinished in terms of the characters and the plot. And the denouement and resolution is weak. I'm not sure what went wrong her, this is one of the few times I've been underwhelmed with Reynolds' work. It's not horrible, but its merely "good".

The Seer and the Silverman" is another Xeelee story from Baxter. I have a soft spot for this universe and went through this as if I were fueled on caffeine and speed. I loved learning more about the Ghosts, and there is of course the usual obligatory sidelong references to previous stories set in the Xeelee universe. The story itself is set on "Reef" of habitats on the border between Human and Ghost space, an uneasy cohabitation whose politics and sociology drive the story's plot nicely.

"The Tear" is from Ian McDonald, and is set in a bizarre universe where the inhabitants of a waterworld develop multiple personalities in order to deal with various aspects of reality. We follow Ptey, who develops additional personalities throughout the story, and as contact with the alien Anpreen progresses, he even goes above the normal eight personalities that his people usually develop. McDonald explores the sociology of a person with these multiple mental constructs very well. Not content with just this though, he throws in refugees from a War, Ptey getting exiled, and a big canvas in the final installment as he returns to his world after a long sojourn into space. Sensawunder, big time!

If you are a member of SFBC and like space-oriented SF, I think, like me, you will be quite satisfied with Galactic Empires. ( )