I'm giving [b:Wireless|5226027|Wireless|Charles Stross|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267357403s/5226027.jpg|5293299] five stars on the strength of the final story, "Palimpsest", alone. It is jaw-droppingly huge in its scope, mind-warpingly complex in its time traveling plot. It is truly science fiction. The other stories range from merely good to well above average (where Stross usually hangs out). ( )

Science fiction is not my favorite genre, mainly because you have to wade through a lot of mediocre writing that is in service to some imaginative concept. In other words, the writing comes second to the ideas. This is the main issue I have with Stross's stories: his ideas are often ingenious, but the way that he unspools his narrative leaves the reader confused and detached. The twisty time travel novella "Palimpsest" is a good example of this - while I liked the idea of an organization of time travellers whose job it is to preserve humanity until the death of the universe, the implications of this mission, while obviously well-thought out by Stross, is not explained very well to the reader. ( )

Not too bad a collection of short stories. There is the odd duff one though ( )

Charlie Stross contributes a well-considered introduction to this collection of his short stories. Though he is better known for his longer-length work, Stross is one of the writers that came up through the UK sf magazine 'Interzone' and so cut his writer's teeth on short stories. Having reviewed the place of the short story format in the history of science fiction, he then goes on to talk about the things he uses short stories for - mainly as a way to experiment with ideas, especially ones that don't justify the time and effort to expand them into novel form (he says).

Which is odd, really. Because at least two stories in this collection - 'Missile Gap' and 'Palimpsest' have so many ideas in them and operate on such a large-scale canvas that you could imagine writers like, say, Harry Turtledove getting a series of doorstop-sized novels out of the ideas thrown off casually in these two pieces. Admittedly, in his afterword to 'Palimpsest', Stross does admit that it might still become a novel, some day. Another story, 'Trunk and Disorderly', an attempt to create a decadent post-human world, written as a P.G. Wodehouse pastiche, became a test run for Stross' novel 'Saturn's Children'; whilst another, 'Down on the Farm', is one of Stross' ongoing 'Laundry' stories, and so in passing reflects a particular take on a peculiar British institution, the Civil Service.

Indeed, many of the stories have a particularly British flavour to them. They also date from the decade up to 2010, so in at least one case ('Unwirer', co-authored with Cory Doctorow), the tech - and, indeed, the underlying legislative landscape that the story relies upon - has generally been overtaken by events and this story in particular feels seriously outdated. I know that it's identified as an alternate history, and there's immense scope for alternate realities based on the passage (or not) of all sorts of proposed legislation, but in this instance the end result is likely only to interest electronic frontier types. (It's one of the stories that doesn't share that British flavour I mentioned earlier, though.)

Throughout, Stross' inventiveness never flags. And I spent more time reading 'Palimpsest', a deep future time-travel intrigue, than I would like to admit to because I wanted to finish it to see how it worked out, so it certainly gripped my attention. Recommended. ( )

My admiration for Charles Stross's writing grows with each new work of his I've read. This collection of short stories is an excellent showcase for the variety that he's capable of, in style, subject matter and underlying ideas. I would strongly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in science fiction as a form.

Brief summaries (without spoilers) of the stories follow.

Missile Gap
What seems to begin as a cold-war space-race story slowly evolves into something quite different, as we discover that the world that these events are taking place on isn't Earth - and isn't even a planet.

Rogue Farm

In a future rural England, a farming family with an intelligent dog has to do battle with wandering sentient farms that want to go to Jupiter. Yes, it is that odd.

A Colder War

A cold-war conspiracy theory story with a difference. Terrible forces are unleashed, going against a tacit agreement that's held between world powers for over a century.

Maxos

A short-short about communication from extra-terrestrials. The payoff should make you smile.

Down On the Farm

As Stross himself says, a part of the Laundry series. In this case involving the agents who were broken in the field and need to be kept part for their own and everyone else's protection.

Unwirer (with Cory Doctorow)

An alternate-future tale in which communications technology are subject to extreme state control, and rogue elements attempt to bypass this.

Snowball's Chance

A pact with the devil story; in this case he has to deal with the not-so-good people of Scotland.

Trunk and Disorderly

A story of a future solar system with humans, androids and evil schemers told in the style of P G Wodehouse. Stross pulls it off, but as he admits in the epilogue and introduction it was harder work than he planned. He had thought to do a novel in this style, but decided to write "Saturns Children" instead.

Palimpsest

The setting involves a kind of police force that can act outside the boundaries of time. An idea that others have explored, but Stross takes the paradoxes involved in changing the past to an extreme and adds in his own flavour of paranoia to the organisation itself. It makes for excellent, if compressed reading. It wants so badly to be a novel, as Stross himself admits. ( )