Whose Future Is It?

I received an advanced review copy for free.

Two of the 9 authors whose stories have been included in this volume were familiar to me, namely Brian Evenson and Steven Barnes.

It is an anthology of 13 short stories, all science fiction about the future, relating to artificial intelligence. According to the introduction, an alternate future called Cellarius was created as a way to connect writers for the purposes of collaboration. As anthologies go, it set out to accomplish ambitious ends. It is reminiscent of Murasaki, the collaborative collection in the tradition of Harlan Ellison’s loopy SF escapades. Honestly, I prefer unthemed anthologies, or looser themed ones. When multiple writers write tangentially connected stories taking place in the same world I find the results to be a mixed bag.

There was nothing bad about the writing, but the concepts, presented piecemeal, and the world-building, felt a little inconsistent. The main purpose of an anthology, in my mind, is to discover new writers. Their resemblance to other writers is not necessarily part of my considerations, nor is there ability to work in tandem. Take Vandermeer’s unequalled anthology The Weird. The average reader can sample the stories on display, gain a sense of the possibilities inherent in weird fiction, and walk away with a new appreciation. In the anthology I’m reviewing though, it’s almost necessary to read the outline of the world which was given to the contributors as mentioned in the introduction to understand what is going on. Without the introduction, the reader would be left wondering why these writers were submitting to these constraints. Having read the stories, the question is left largely unanswered. Why are they limiting their stories to this world when dystopian settings with AI components would have been a sufficient prompt and impetus for challenging writing?

The overarching outline, to which these stories adhere does not seem novel enough, or imaginative enough, in my opinion, to act as a worthy planting ground for the efforts of those involved.
Maybe it’s my jaded perspective, but I found it difficult to follow the logic in many of the scenes, and impossible to remember the details of character, place and scenario once I set the book down. Brian Evenson remains riveting, and the storytellers give it their all. It felt like watching a slick sci-fi film, well-acted and directed, but lacking a solid cohesion. Therefore, it doesn’t stand out as much as it could have, but there are enough interesting ideas to captivate the casual reader. I'm rating it 3 stars because the contributors put in good effort, though it's not my cup of tea.
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