wandering_not_lost's review
2.0
This collection really didn't work for me, not for any one big reason but for a lot of little ones. A few stories did stand out: the sentient underpants were pretty fun and silly, merthings learning individuality was very touching, and the idea of aliens that rely on smell/taste more than sight and sound was very inventive.
I'll admit that I went into this book with a slightly skewed idea about what to expect. I was kind of hoping for serious explorations of weird aliens/different races/different ways of thinking, you know? There was some of that, but there was also quite a few "objects as protagonists" stories that I had trouble getting into because I couldn't help thinking "why would a [whatever] be worried about/feel this?" There was often no real reason behind it...it was just the story's schtick, that it was a story told by a [whatever]. And for the stories that did have some kind of self-aware creature as the protagonist, some of those had their creature acting in pretty human-like ways that felt very familiar, which was a bit of a letdown, given the theme of the anthology. The varied types of protagonists also led to a bit of a mishmash of styles, too: ridiculous comedy, tragedy, mystery, etc. The anthology was only really held together by the fact that their protagonists weren't human, rather than by some sort of theme about nonhumanness.
I'll admit that I went into this book with a slightly skewed idea about what to expect. I was kind of hoping for serious explorations of weird aliens/different races/different ways of thinking, you know? There was some of that, but there was also quite a few "objects as protagonists" stories that I had trouble getting into because I couldn't help thinking "why would a [whatever] be worried about/feel this?" There was often no real reason behind it...it was just the story's schtick, that it was a story told by a [whatever]. And for the stories that did have some kind of self-aware creature as the protagonist, some of those had their creature acting in pretty human-like ways that felt very familiar, which was a bit of a letdown, given the theme of the anthology. The varied types of protagonists also led to a bit of a mishmash of styles, too: ridiculous comedy, tragedy, mystery, etc. The anthology was only really held together by the fact that their protagonists weren't human, rather than by some sort of theme about nonhumanness.
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