pearseanderson's review against another edition

Go to review page

2.0

Altered States is a terrible cyberpunk anthology. I had to read it off and on with Year's Best Weird Fiction Volume 2 to offset how terrible it was. The writing was bland, elementary, undeveloped. There were two—maybe three—good stories in this collection: "Better Than Everything", "Meerga", and perhaps "Extra Credit". The rest ended stories without going anywhere ("Extremum", "Attention Whore"), treated its readers like idiots, or did nothing particularly interesting. A good idea is nothing if it isn't a good story (cough cough "The Electrified Ants"). The book was full of bad worldbuilding/infodumping, almost no notable or interesting characters (a lot of sex-obsessed middle class men), and both of these contributed to having very little weight when someone dies or something goes wrong. If I don't care about anything, or if I'm told to care in a stupid, stupid way, then I won't. And the only emotion I'll feel is disappointment when I finish the story.
I expected a good cyberpunk collection. Very little of it felt cyberpunk. Where's the alleyways, the weird meats, the cool drugs and dense architectures? The opening story, "Mech," and "Meerga" probably had the most cyberpunk stuff, the rest felt contrived or paper-thin.
Let me just end with this: the writing is not vomitosis. It's just not good. I've seen high school sophomores do better dozens of times. I don't want to spend my time reading something that's not only not good, but not what I paid for. That's why it earns two stars.

henryarmitage's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

A few really good stories here and a bunch of OK ones. Some of the stories weren't exactly cyberpunk, but what does cyberpunk mean these days, anyway?

amandar9fa2f's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

What is Cyberpunk?

What better way is there of getting your head around the genre, than to read an anthology by respected authors in the field? To have a variety of takes, rather than the one? This is a collection of previously published short stories and flash fiction.

Here we have cyberwars, teen angst, the criminal underworld and domestic noir. For me, the nearest of future dystopia work the best: the nightmare of our current world, rather than a different world entirely. On the whole, the writing and the individual stories are of a good standard, and the collection works well together. Stand-outs for me were Ex Machina by Cynthia Ward, Better than Everything by Malon Edwards, and Island by Terry Faust.
More...