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Publication
Tor Books (2013), Edition: First Edition, Hardcover, 576 pages
Pages
576
Description
Twenty-First Century Science Fiction is an enormous anthology of short stories--close to 250,000 words--edited by two of the most prestigious and award-winning editors in the SF field and featuring recent stories from some of science fiction's greatest up-and-coming authors. David Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden have long been recognized as two of the most skilled and trusted arbiters of the field, butTwenty-First Century Science Fiction presents fans' first opportunities to see what their considerable talents come up with together, and also to get a unique perspective on what's comingnext in the science fiction field. The anthology includes authors ranging from bestselling and established favorites to incandescent new talents including Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow, Catherynne M. Valente, John Scalzi, Jo Walton, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, and Peter Watts, and the stories selected include winners and nominees of all of the science fiction field's major awards. One ofPublishers Weekly's Best Science Fiction Books of 2013… (more)
Awards
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Physical description
576 p.; 9.25 inches
ISBN
0765326000 / 9780765326003
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User reviews
LibraryThing member aulsmith
A varied and interesting anthology. The stories I read are entered and reviewed separately.
LibraryThing member jkdavies
lots of really interesting short stories in this one
LibraryThing member kgodey
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SCIENCE FICTION features stories from sci-fi authors that have risen to prominence since 2000. All of these stories are new to me (apparently I don't read enough short stories!) and the collection contained a pretty wide spread of subgenre and length of stories.
One thing that
As per my usual anthology review format, I'm not going to talk about all the stories, just the ones I liked most and least. The stories I enjoyed the most:
"INFINITIES" by Vandana Singh
This opening story was set in India (where I'm from), and I was thrilled to read sci-fi written by an Indian writer. I have no idea if this story is objectively good, but it was cozy and familiar and poignant. It involves an old mathematics teacher who dreams of seeing infinity. The sci-fi aspect of the story is pretty subtle.
"EROS, PHILIA, AGAPE" by Rachel Swirsky
Anyone who says science fiction can't pack a deep emotional impact needs to read this story. It offers a fresh new twist on the trope of the robot wanting to be human, but backs it up with the real relationship of a robot, a human and their daughter.
"TIDELINE" by Elizabeth Bear
I've read and loved Elizabeth Bear's fantasy, and now I can't wait to read more of her sci-fi work. A forgotten military robot strikes up a friendship with a feral teenager, but her power is running out. Another moving story.
"EVIL ROBOT MONKEY" by Mary Robinette Kowal
This is a very short story - about two pages long, but it takes as incisive look at genetic manipulation and animal testing, while also managing to be touching.
"THE ALGORITHMS FOR LOVE" by Ken Liu
If pressed, this would probably be my favourite story of the collection. A designer of AI-like dolls is so successful that she starts to lose faith in free will and intelligence itself.
"IKIRYOH" by Liz Williams
An exiled genetically engineered being takes care of a disturbed little girl sent to her by the current goddess-ruler. The world of this story is what made me fall in love with it; the science fiction ideas are incidental, but seemed a little bit more like fantasy.
"SECOND PERSON, PRESENT TENSE" by Daryl Gregory
The protagonist of this story is a teenager who has overdosed on a drug that completely erased her personality. She's spent years being coached to be who she was before, but she just can't seem to do it. I loved the exploration of identity and consciousness, and it was very believable.
"BALANCING ACCOUNTS" by James Cambias
One of the most fun stories in the collection. In this future, there are so many robots that there's a robot society within human society, and our protagonist rocketship/odd job robot is one of them. His latest cargo seems like a lot of trouble, but he needs to make his human owners money, so he takes it on anyway. I imagined the world described to be kind of like the excellent game Machinarium.
--
Other good stories: THE TALE OF THE WICKED by John Scalzi (Scalzi as a writer is kind of like Hugh Grant as an actor - he does the same thing all the time, but does it excellently), ESCAPE TO OTHER WORLDS WITH SCIENCE FICTION by Jo Walton (I need to read her books!), A VECTOR ALPHABET OF INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL by Yoon Ha Lee (a story in encyclopaedia form!), HOW TO BECOME A MARS OVERLORD by Catherynne M. Valente (a story in guide form!), THE GAMBLER by Paolo Bacigalupi (journalism in the future!), THE CALCULUS PLAGUE by Marisa Lingen (memories transmitted virally!), and HIS MASTER'S VOICE by Hannu Rajaniemi (a dog and a cat set out to rescue their master, armed with very cool technology).
The ones I wasn't as thrilled by:
"ROGUE FARM" by Charles Stross
I'm not going to say this was a bad story... I just didn't get it. I wasn't sure why the farm was called a farm; it seemed to just exist so we could be amused at the idea of a farm trundling towards a farmhouse. I didn't understand why the protagonist was so anti-farm even before he knew what it wanted to do (hillbilly joke?). This story wasn't for me.
"THIRD DAY LIGHTS" by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Another story that I was just plain confused by. A sci-fi story involving pocket universes and the future of humanity, but borrows heavily from fantasy tropes. I didn't get the romance, and I didn't get the pocket-universe creatures.
"THE ISLAND" by Peter Watts
This was a well-written and compelling story, but it just made me depressed to read it. The protagonist is a crewmember on a automated starship designed to make space travel gates, but they've been doing it for millions of years and seen civilisations rise and fall countless times, and the AI controlling the ship won't let them stop. In this story, they encounter something that they've never seen before (and that part is awesome!)
--
Overall, this is definitely worth buying. It's a great introduction to a lot of authors, as well as to the staggering breadth of SF.
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One thing that
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struck me about this collection is that more often than not, humanity is portrayed with such pessimism - apparently in the future, we're going to be more and more cold, power-hungry and selfish. Most of my favourite stories in this collection had robot protagonists. As a huge Star Trek fan, my default view of humanity has always been optimistic, so I found the onslaught of cynicism somewhat disconcerting. I wish the editors had varied the tone a little.As per my usual anthology review format, I'm not going to talk about all the stories, just the ones I liked most and least. The stories I enjoyed the most:
"INFINITIES" by Vandana Singh
This opening story was set in India (where I'm from), and I was thrilled to read sci-fi written by an Indian writer. I have no idea if this story is objectively good, but it was cozy and familiar and poignant. It involves an old mathematics teacher who dreams of seeing infinity. The sci-fi aspect of the story is pretty subtle.
"EROS, PHILIA, AGAPE" by Rachel Swirsky
Anyone who says science fiction can't pack a deep emotional impact needs to read this story. It offers a fresh new twist on the trope of the robot wanting to be human, but backs it up with the real relationship of a robot, a human and their daughter.
"TIDELINE" by Elizabeth Bear
I've read and loved Elizabeth Bear's fantasy, and now I can't wait to read more of her sci-fi work. A forgotten military robot strikes up a friendship with a feral teenager, but her power is running out. Another moving story.
"EVIL ROBOT MONKEY" by Mary Robinette Kowal
This is a very short story - about two pages long, but it takes as incisive look at genetic manipulation and animal testing, while also managing to be touching.
"THE ALGORITHMS FOR LOVE" by Ken Liu
If pressed, this would probably be my favourite story of the collection. A designer of AI-like dolls is so successful that she starts to lose faith in free will and intelligence itself.
"IKIRYOH" by Liz Williams
An exiled genetically engineered being takes care of a disturbed little girl sent to her by the current goddess-ruler. The world of this story is what made me fall in love with it; the science fiction ideas are incidental, but seemed a little bit more like fantasy.
"SECOND PERSON, PRESENT TENSE" by Daryl Gregory
The protagonist of this story is a teenager who has overdosed on a drug that completely erased her personality. She's spent years being coached to be who she was before, but she just can't seem to do it. I loved the exploration of identity and consciousness, and it was very believable.
"BALANCING ACCOUNTS" by James Cambias
One of the most fun stories in the collection. In this future, there are so many robots that there's a robot society within human society, and our protagonist rocketship/odd job robot is one of them. His latest cargo seems like a lot of trouble, but he needs to make his human owners money, so he takes it on anyway. I imagined the world described to be kind of like the excellent game Machinarium.
--
Other good stories: THE TALE OF THE WICKED by John Scalzi (Scalzi as a writer is kind of like Hugh Grant as an actor - he does the same thing all the time, but does it excellently), ESCAPE TO OTHER WORLDS WITH SCIENCE FICTION by Jo Walton (I need to read her books!), A VECTOR ALPHABET OF INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL by Yoon Ha Lee (a story in encyclopaedia form!), HOW TO BECOME A MARS OVERLORD by Catherynne M. Valente (a story in guide form!), THE GAMBLER by Paolo Bacigalupi (journalism in the future!), THE CALCULUS PLAGUE by Marisa Lingen (memories transmitted virally!), and HIS MASTER'S VOICE by Hannu Rajaniemi (a dog and a cat set out to rescue their master, armed with very cool technology).
The ones I wasn't as thrilled by:
"ROGUE FARM" by Charles Stross
I'm not going to say this was a bad story... I just didn't get it. I wasn't sure why the farm was called a farm; it seemed to just exist so we could be amused at the idea of a farm trundling towards a farmhouse. I didn't understand why the protagonist was so anti-farm even before he knew what it wanted to do (hillbilly joke?). This story wasn't for me.
"THIRD DAY LIGHTS" by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Another story that I was just plain confused by. A sci-fi story involving pocket universes and the future of humanity, but borrows heavily from fantasy tropes. I didn't get the romance, and I didn't get the pocket-universe creatures.
"THE ISLAND" by Peter Watts
This was a well-written and compelling story, but it just made me depressed to read it. The protagonist is a crewmember on a automated starship designed to make space travel gates, but they've been doing it for millions of years and seen civilisations rise and fall countless times, and the AI controlling the ship won't let them stop. In this story, they encounter something that they've never seen before (and that part is awesome!)
--
Overall, this is definitely worth buying. It's a great introduction to a lot of authors, as well as to the staggering breadth of SF.
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LibraryThing member Stevil2001
his is an anthology of post-2000 sf written by authors who "came to prominence" after 2000. That is to say, they may have published something prior to 2000, but they didn't break through into wider consciousness until after; see for example Charles Stross, whose first publication is all the way
It's been my thesis that large anthologies (and this one clocks in at 572 pages, with over thirty stories) are arguments. In this case, the argument seems to be: "These writers are the future of science fiction." In that case, reading it ten years late lets me estimate how right the editors got it. Did these talents pan out?
Overall, I have to say yes, but sort of with reservations. There's no denying that, say, Mary Robinette Kowal has gone on to be a juggernaut of twenty-first century science fiction. But enjoy as I might her "Lady Astronaut" books, the story included here ("Evil Robot Monkey") didn't grab me—this isn't the reason. (Though given the story was a Hugo finalist, it must have grabbed other people.) Similarly, some of the stories feel like stretches, in that they're sf tales from writers much better known for publishing fantasy or even horror, like Jo Walton's "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction" or Daryl Gregory's "Second Person, Present Tense"; these were two stories I enjoyed a lot, actually, but I wouldn't put either Walton or Gregory in the pantheon of great twenty-first century sf writers, based on what I've read of them at least.
And of course, there are a couple stories I found outright bad... but they're by writers whose work in general I struggled to enjoy yet I cannot deny that those writers are generally popular. I speak here of John Scalzi's "The Tale of the Wicked," which requires all of its main characters to be idiots, and Catherynne M. Valente's "How to Become a Mars Overlord" which at eight pages still had me skimming to get to the end. So I guess the anthology is right to include them: both works read as fairly typical for their writers even if I did not like them. They are a key part of twenty-first century sf. I just wish they weren't.
But of course there are areas where the editors totally get it right. I always like a bit of Vandana Singh, and her story "Infinities" (one of only three rereads for me in the book) is a typically excellent piece of work. I don't think Rachel Swirsky has ever published a novel, but her story "Eros, Philia, Agape" is astounding, a masterful tale of what might it mean for an android to love, and she's an acclaimed writer of short science fiction and fantasy, with two Nebula wins and a number of Hugo and Nebula finalists. Madeleine Ashby is someone I haven't read much of, but I really enjoyed her story "The Education of Junior Number 12" here (another story of androids in love, actually, but very different from the Swirsky) and everything else I have read by her I have enjoyed; she's an incisive writer on the cutting edge of current technology, and now I want to seek our her related novel, vN. Ken Liu is an acclaimed writer of short sf, and though I've personally found his stuff hit or miss, "The Algorithm of Love" is probably the best thing I've read by him, a dark meditation on the implications AI might have for human consciousness.
"A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel" is a pretty typical piece by Yoon Ha Lee: told in the form of a series of encyclopedia entries, so purely exposition, it nonetheless manages to say interesting things about how societies interact, especially with a really strong last line, and it's no wonder he went on to do acclaimed work like Machineries of Empire. Peter Watts is a highly acclaimed writer of hard sf about consciousness, and his story "The Island" here is great on many levels, examining how people think, how machines think, and how something we don't even understand thinks, and how different that might or might not be; dark but highly effective. There's a Cory Doctorow story here, too: "Chicken Little," about a lot of stuff, including immortality, marketing, and rational calculations of risk. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a Doctorow story before, but I thought this was great. So you have a lot of great stuff here by acclaimed writers.
Beyond that, though, you have great stuff from writers I actually had never heard of... but if Hartwell and Nielsen Hayden are making an argument, it's that I should have heard of them, and so I'm prepared to accept that it's not the anthology that's at fault but the universe—or, perhaps, me. I'd never heard of David Moles, but I loved his story "Finisterra" about a gas giant with an Earth-like atmosphere where people build communities on the backs of giant floating life-forms. Similarly, I didn't know Karl Schroeder but found his "To Hie from Far Cilenia" very intriguing, a story about digital communities overlapping with the physical world that we might not even notice unless we learn how to see differently. "The Prophet of Flores" by Ted Kosmatka was fascinating, set in a world where the Earth really was created in 4,000 B.C. but otherwise science is the same, and exploring what implications the discovery of the so-called hobbits of Flores would have. It was expanded into a novel, which I'll have to seek out. These people ought to be the face of twenty-first century sf if they're not.
It's not all great, of course; I've mentioned a couple I didn't like already, and there were some more that I bounced off of, including Stross's "Rogue Farm" (too clever for me, maybe), Marissa Lingen's "The Calculus Plague" (some improbably bad research ethics; where's the IRB?), Paul Cornell's "One of Our Bastards Is Missing" (I love Cornell but have never gotten much out of his Hamilton shorts), Oliver Morton's "The Albian Message" (less a story, more a thought experiment), and Alaya Dawn Johnson's "Third Day Lights" (I just could not be bothered to work out what was actually happening). But most of what was left was usually good, if not great, or among the best short stories I've read in the past year.
One story is a bit tragic: Kage Baker's "Plotters and Shooters" was good fun, a take on Ender's Game where the protagonists are all thirty-year-olds who are stuck in their mothers' basements. But Kage Baker can't be the future of sf, because she unfortunately died at the age of 57 in 2010. It reminded me I really must get around to finishing her Company series, though.
There's a lot of great stuff here; I think this probably has one of the best hit rates for an anthology I've read outside of something like The Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes. Perhaps the real argument here is that "Twenty-first century science fiction is in rude health." If that's the case, then the editors have assembled evidence that demonstrates their conclusions thirty times over.
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back in 1985, but achieved wider acclaim with his 2001 novel The Atrocity Archive. I got the book as a gift back when it came out in 2013, but as is usual for me, did not get around to reading it for another decade. In a way, this was helpful for evaluating the book's "argument."It's been my thesis that large anthologies (and this one clocks in at 572 pages, with over thirty stories) are arguments. In this case, the argument seems to be: "These writers are the future of science fiction." In that case, reading it ten years late lets me estimate how right the editors got it. Did these talents pan out?
Overall, I have to say yes, but sort of with reservations. There's no denying that, say, Mary Robinette Kowal has gone on to be a juggernaut of twenty-first century science fiction. But enjoy as I might her "Lady Astronaut" books, the story included here ("Evil Robot Monkey") didn't grab me—this isn't the reason. (Though given the story was a Hugo finalist, it must have grabbed other people.) Similarly, some of the stories feel like stretches, in that they're sf tales from writers much better known for publishing fantasy or even horror, like Jo Walton's "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction" or Daryl Gregory's "Second Person, Present Tense"; these were two stories I enjoyed a lot, actually, but I wouldn't put either Walton or Gregory in the pantheon of great twenty-first century sf writers, based on what I've read of them at least.
And of course, there are a couple stories I found outright bad... but they're by writers whose work in general I struggled to enjoy yet I cannot deny that those writers are generally popular. I speak here of John Scalzi's "The Tale of the Wicked," which requires all of its main characters to be idiots, and Catherynne M. Valente's "How to Become a Mars Overlord" which at eight pages still had me skimming to get to the end. So I guess the anthology is right to include them: both works read as fairly typical for their writers even if I did not like them. They are a key part of twenty-first century sf. I just wish they weren't.
But of course there are areas where the editors totally get it right. I always like a bit of Vandana Singh, and her story "Infinities" (one of only three rereads for me in the book) is a typically excellent piece of work. I don't think Rachel Swirsky has ever published a novel, but her story "Eros, Philia, Agape" is astounding, a masterful tale of what might it mean for an android to love, and she's an acclaimed writer of short science fiction and fantasy, with two Nebula wins and a number of Hugo and Nebula finalists. Madeleine Ashby is someone I haven't read much of, but I really enjoyed her story "The Education of Junior Number 12" here (another story of androids in love, actually, but very different from the Swirsky) and everything else I have read by her I have enjoyed; she's an incisive writer on the cutting edge of current technology, and now I want to seek our her related novel, vN. Ken Liu is an acclaimed writer of short sf, and though I've personally found his stuff hit or miss, "The Algorithm of Love" is probably the best thing I've read by him, a dark meditation on the implications AI might have for human consciousness.
"A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel" is a pretty typical piece by Yoon Ha Lee: told in the form of a series of encyclopedia entries, so purely exposition, it nonetheless manages to say interesting things about how societies interact, especially with a really strong last line, and it's no wonder he went on to do acclaimed work like Machineries of Empire. Peter Watts is a highly acclaimed writer of hard sf about consciousness, and his story "The Island" here is great on many levels, examining how people think, how machines think, and how something we don't even understand thinks, and how different that might or might not be; dark but highly effective. There's a Cory Doctorow story here, too: "Chicken Little," about a lot of stuff, including immortality, marketing, and rational calculations of risk. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a Doctorow story before, but I thought this was great. So you have a lot of great stuff here by acclaimed writers.
Beyond that, though, you have great stuff from writers I actually had never heard of... but if Hartwell and Nielsen Hayden are making an argument, it's that I should have heard of them, and so I'm prepared to accept that it's not the anthology that's at fault but the universe—or, perhaps, me. I'd never heard of David Moles, but I loved his story "Finisterra" about a gas giant with an Earth-like atmosphere where people build communities on the backs of giant floating life-forms. Similarly, I didn't know Karl Schroeder but found his "To Hie from Far Cilenia" very intriguing, a story about digital communities overlapping with the physical world that we might not even notice unless we learn how to see differently. "The Prophet of Flores" by Ted Kosmatka was fascinating, set in a world where the Earth really was created in 4,000 B.C. but otherwise science is the same, and exploring what implications the discovery of the so-called hobbits of Flores would have. It was expanded into a novel, which I'll have to seek out. These people ought to be the face of twenty-first century sf if they're not.
It's not all great, of course; I've mentioned a couple I didn't like already, and there were some more that I bounced off of, including Stross's "Rogue Farm" (too clever for me, maybe), Marissa Lingen's "The Calculus Plague" (some improbably bad research ethics; where's the IRB?), Paul Cornell's "One of Our Bastards Is Missing" (I love Cornell but have never gotten much out of his Hamilton shorts), Oliver Morton's "The Albian Message" (less a story, more a thought experiment), and Alaya Dawn Johnson's "Third Day Lights" (I just could not be bothered to work out what was actually happening). But most of what was left was usually good, if not great, or among the best short stories I've read in the past year.
One story is a bit tragic: Kage Baker's "Plotters and Shooters" was good fun, a take on Ender's Game where the protagonists are all thirty-year-olds who are stuck in their mothers' basements. But Kage Baker can't be the future of sf, because she unfortunately died at the age of 57 in 2010. It reminded me I really must get around to finishing her Company series, though.
There's a lot of great stuff here; I think this probably has one of the best hit rates for an anthology I've read outside of something like The Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes. Perhaps the real argument here is that "Twenty-first century science fiction is in rude health." If that's the case, then the editors have assembled evidence that demonstrates their conclusions thirty times over.
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