Product Description

Short story collection containing such gems as "Antibodies," "Bear Trap," "Extracts from the Club Diary," "A Colder War," "TOAST: A con report," "A Boy and His God," "Ship of Fools," "Dechlorinating the Moderator," "Yellow Snow", "Big Brother Iron", "Lobsters".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #146937 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 248 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780809556038
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
The title of Stross's provocative new SF collection—a revised, expanded version of a 2002 title of the same name—is a mordant reference to catastrophes at the climaxes of these 11 stories. In "A Colder War," a stand-alone sequel to Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness," monsters from outside space and time are liberated as weapons of mass destruction by Russia and the Middle East. In "Antibodies," a mathematical theorem undermines the foundations of all computer encryption systems, forcing fugitive behavior from the narrator who has depended on the anonymity they hitherto ensured. "Ship of Fools," written in 1995, evokes the epic scale of Arthur C. Clarke's fiction in its projection of dire technological fiascos that rock the world at the turn of Y2K. In Stross's worlds, virtual reality is the new frontier, AI is a fact of life and everyone is fluent in the sometimes impenetrable technogeek-speak that goes with the territory. For all that, his characters are familiar and sympathetic hackers, slackers and opportunists, whose lives have not been improved by their technological expertise, and whose adventures he interweaves seamlessly with the circuitry. (June)
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Customer Reviews

It Always Lands on the Buttery Side.
I am not a short story fan, which is odd, given my mouldering span of attention. But there is something irritating about a tale that is over just when you start to 'get' it. But I am a Charles Stross fan, one who discovered him late, and while desperately waiting for another novel to appear, I decided to try out his shorter output via this retrospective volume selected out by the author himself.

Stross has an incredibly wide-ranging imagination. He writes hard science fiction about very far out ideas. In fact the very first story here, Antibodies, is about a theoretical idea whose very existence can threaten reality. From there we go one to the economics of information in a very virtual universe, the coffee club that ate the world, what H. P. Lovecraft only suspected, and other, equally peculiar tales.

Stross's tongue is always squarely in his check, even as he displays an impressive intellect and a deep understanding of what the world inside a geek's head really looks like. I'm to old to be considered a geek any longer, but it is fascinating to read Stross's own spin on what was interesting about my own generation of 'techies' (the title story). And there is even a delightfully ironic narrative about a Y2K apocalypse cruise.

While I haven't been converted to a short story lover, my faith in one of the odder minds out there producing quality science fiction has been confirmed. This is a writer who first made his mark as a short fiction writer. If you want to see what the fuss is about, with the added pleasure of occasional comments by the author, start here.

Good and varied
Every story is in a different tone, almost in the style of a different classic SF author each time. Highly recommended.

Not his best
I was really disappointed with this one-- It wasn't up to his usual quality. The story "Lobsters" was good, but it was just an excerpt from Accelerando.

I really enjoy Stross, but as a big fan, I have to rate this one "meh"