okaylib's review
3.0
Anthologies are, it will come as no surprise, often a mixed bag. Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy is no exception, but its variety of concepts and worlds kept me on my toes throughout all 23 of these stories.
Not only is SFF a broad genre, it’s two of them. And that was my favourite thing about this collection. I had literally no idea what to expect when I flipped the page and moved on to the next story. One minute I’d be reading about a deer-headed, magical-truffle shop owner, and the next I was thrown in the story of a sleeping-pill addicted blackjack dealer.
One of my favourite stories in the collection was “The Art of Failure,” by Robert Dawson. It follows a heavily indebted, spacefaring linguist making first contact with a potential new trading partner planet. I’m an absolute sucker for science fiction that explores linguists, and now I’m convinced that no SFF anthology is complete without a piece that tackles this theme.
I also enjoyed: “Babybox,” by Simon Martel (explores modern motherhood); “The Discovery of Plants,” by E. E. King (some Annihilation plant-people shit goes on in here); and “Alison’s Bluff,” by Noah Chinn (smart woman + poker table = haha, silly men).
While many of the stories were fun, I had difficulty connecting to quite a few of them. Not all the themes were exactly to my taste, and some of the writing styles just didn’t click with me. But with an expansive collection like this one, this isn’t surprising.
I also would have loved to see more diversity in perspective and authorship. Many of these stories fall into typical tropes of Western SFF. And there’s nothing exactly wrong with this, but for a collection that has such possibility for range, it would have been nice to read work that challenged Eurocentric tropes and included more underrepresented voices.
But on the whole, I’m certain there’s something in here for everyone. Summer of Sci-fi & Fantasy is a romp through time and space that I think pairs well with the season (and probably a cerveza or two).
Not only is SFF a broad genre, it’s two of them. And that was my favourite thing about this collection. I had literally no idea what to expect when I flipped the page and moved on to the next story. One minute I’d be reading about a deer-headed, magical-truffle shop owner, and the next I was thrown in the story of a sleeping-pill addicted blackjack dealer.
One of my favourite stories in the collection was “The Art of Failure,” by Robert Dawson. It follows a heavily indebted, spacefaring linguist making first contact with a potential new trading partner planet. I’m an absolute sucker for science fiction that explores linguists, and now I’m convinced that no SFF anthology is complete without a piece that tackles this theme.
I also enjoyed: “Babybox,” by Simon Martel (explores modern motherhood); “The Discovery of Plants,” by E. E. King (some Annihilation plant-people shit goes on in here); and “Alison’s Bluff,” by Noah Chinn (smart woman + poker table = haha, silly men).
While many of the stories were fun, I had difficulty connecting to quite a few of them. Not all the themes were exactly to my taste, and some of the writing styles just didn’t click with me. But with an expansive collection like this one, this isn’t surprising.
I also would have loved to see more diversity in perspective and authorship. Many of these stories fall into typical tropes of Western SFF. And there’s nothing exactly wrong with this, but for a collection that has such possibility for range, it would have been nice to read work that challenged Eurocentric tropes and included more underrepresented voices.
But on the whole, I’m certain there’s something in here for everyone. Summer of Sci-fi & Fantasy is a romp through time and space that I think pairs well with the season (and probably a cerveza or two).
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