A review by amandar9fa2f
Altered States: a cyberpunk sci-fi anthology by Cynthia Ward, C.J. Cherryh, Paul Levinson, Malon Edwards, Roy C. Booth, Terry Faust, Jorge Salgado-Reyes, William F. Wu, John Shirley
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.
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.