This was a good collection. It started strong, maybe tapered off a bit.
The N.K. Jemisin story "Emergency Skin" was worth the price of admission. It was one of those short stories that smacks you upside the head. 1 thing I like about SFF: it does not have to be subtle if it doesn't feel like it! Plus what a great idea! Yes, please, billionaires, please go the stars! Leave the earth for us to repair! JUST GO! Of course, Mme. Guillotine would waste a lot less resources.
The 1st story "The Painter of Trees", by Suzanne Palmer, has a trope that we've seen recently: a society that values effiency above all else, homo economicus on steroids. Not a good look for humanity.
Who knew that knitting would make such a good plot element in an SF story? Thanks, Marie Vibbert, for "Knit Three, Save Four".
The Cixin Liu story, "Moonlight", I had read before. The story is a total tour-de-force time travel story, I enjoyed the reread.
The Tobias S. Bucknell story "By The Warmth of Their Calculus" is a gritty, lo-tech space story. As always, I love his rasta-flavored characters.
The Elizabeth Bear story "Deriving Life", about a sentient, symbiotic cancer, I had read before. Again, I enjoyed the reread.
The Gwyneth Jones story, "The Little Shepherdess", is a good story with an increasingly popular trope - the insatiable hunger of the human race to eat the world. That was just covered in a soon-to-be-blogged non-fiction book I just finished.
"One Thousand Beetles in a Jumpsuit", by Dominica Phetteplace, was a fun read. Very much felt like a story from a new generation of writers, yay!
The Alistair Reynolds story, "Permafrost", was yet another clever time-travel implementation. It's amazing how fruitful that trope is.
And now for something completely different! A dog story, by a dog trainer, "The Work of Wolves", by Tegan Moore. Nice!
The Anne Leckie story "The Justified" I had read before. Still not a big fan after the reread.
The Alec Nevala-Lee story "At The Fall" is interesting in that the world seems to end while a semi-sentient underwater data-gathering robot is just trying to get home with its data. Always amazing to me how easily we anthropomorphize things.
The Ray Nayler story "The Ocean Between The Leaves" seemed to be heading for an ultra-cynical ending, but it did wind up with a little romance in the end.
"The Empty Gun", by Yoon Ha Lee, was so much fun to read that I immediately ordered his 1st novel "Ninefox Gambit".
The Rich Larson story, "Painless", wasn't as kickass has his last few stories have been. A somewhat odd mix of tropes that does work in the end. I ordered his 1st novel, "Annex".
I had meant to start this post & kind of fill it in as I went through these stories, but wound up coming through afterwards, as usual. But, I did do 1 book/1 post, so that is progress.
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