possibilityleft's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
scottishben's review against another edition
2.0
A collection of stories written as kickstarter style campaigns. The book is actually more fun and creative than it sounds with several of the stories making me laugh out loud and one or two evoking other feelings as well. The joke and concept wears a bit thin though and this might have been partly because of extra content from it exceeding its funding requirement but it did feel like there were more stories in the collection than there needed to be. Normally this would be a silly critisism of a collection as if you dont like a story or want there to be fewer just dont read them all but in this one where it was unclear which writers would and wouldnt be able to rise to the challenge of doing something funny, original or ideally both with the format it was hard to know which ones to read and which to skip.
The other problems are simply it is hard for the fictional to be more interesting than the real as crowdfunding is in its early stages of evolution. It is interesting and amusing to see some projects get huge amounts of funding (the potato salads of the world) and also to see how some projects engage or fail to engage with their potential backers - when all this is fictionalised it often ends up being less interesting. Also the format is very restrictive and often really good writers were only able to produce something bland that didnt stand out from the others.
The story that launched the collection is quite good and is worth reading here or in Lightspeed and there are some good stories in here but often they failed to be as funny or meaningful as they wanted to be. I do not see the fault with the editor here - he managed to get a diverse and potentially interesting range of writers to work on the concept and equally they did a solid and sometimes very effective job of writing the stories - ultimately though the concept was not enough to hold together and entertain fully over the course of the book.
Still an easy read and if you like humor, crowdfunding and are less fussy than I am you might get some fun out of this.
The other problems are simply it is hard for the fictional to be more interesting than the real as crowdfunding is in its early stages of evolution. It is interesting and amusing to see some projects get huge amounts of funding (the potato salads of the world) and also to see how some projects engage or fail to engage with their potential backers - when all this is fictionalised it often ends up being less interesting. Also the format is very restrictive and often really good writers were only able to produce something bland that didnt stand out from the others.
The story that launched the collection is quite good and is worth reading here or in Lightspeed and there are some good stories in here but often they failed to be as funny or meaningful as they wanted to be. I do not see the fault with the editor here - he managed to get a diverse and potentially interesting range of writers to work on the concept and equally they did a solid and sometimes very effective job of writing the stories - ultimately though the concept was not enough to hold together and entertain fully over the course of the book.
Still an easy read and if you like humor, crowdfunding and are less fussy than I am you might get some fun out of this.
gizmoto16's review against another edition
4.0
I got this on Humble Bundle and expected it to be pretty silly. I thought I would read a few vignettes and then get bored with it. But I was pleasantly surprised. It kept my interest throughout with pretty interesting ideas. And some were very funny, but others were surprisingly emotional and some disturbing. A couple brought tears to my eyes. Definitely worth a read.
siobhanward's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
4.0
So for some reason when I got this I start it was a collection of real Kickstarter projects so I was disappointed when I read the first few and it wasn't actual projects, just made up ones. I ended up putting the book down for like five years because it took me a while to realize that it was a short story anthology written as Kickstarters. Duh. Not sure why I couldn't figure that out earlier.
Anyway, once I realized that I really enjoyed a lot of the stories. The only gripe I had is that similar stories were grouped together (brain/consciousness transfer stories, time travel stories) which made the book feel repetitive at points. However, most of the stories were great with some strong stand outs - in particular, I loved Carmen Maria Machado's (though I also loved her book In the Dream House so it's not shocking I liked other works by her).
Anyway, once I realized that I really enjoyed a lot of the stories. The only gripe I had is that similar stories were grouped together (brain/consciousness transfer stories, time travel stories) which made the book feel repetitive at points. However, most of the stories were great with some strong stand outs - in particular, I loved Carmen Maria Machado's (though I also loved her book In the Dream House so it's not shocking I liked other works by her).
bibliochild's review against another edition
4.0
A series of short sff stories told in the form of Kickstarter proposals. Probably best not to read this all in one sitting as the novelty might wear thin, but the authors did get quite creative within format, especially the "updates" and user comments (btw check whether the project actually got funded or not at the beginning and keep that in mind as you read).