A review by pearseanderson
Altered States: A Cyberpunk Sci-Fi Anthology by Roy C. Booth, Jorge Salgado-Reyes

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.