Isaac Asimov's Solar System

By Paul McAuley, Sheila Williams, Nancy Kress

Book Overview

Ace This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0441006981
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Ace
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.6" x 0.8" x 4.4"

Customer Reviews

A solid collection, well-worth your attention

______________________________________________ This anthology takes us on an sfnal tour of our home system, with a story for each planet, plus one for the Sun. It's a solid collection, with no really weak stories, and a couple of outstanding ones. All are reprinted from Asimov's SF magazine. This collection should lay to rest any lingering doubts of whether Asimov's prints hard-SF. Recommended. The stories: The Sun Spider (1987), by Lucius Shepard. Sex, violence & weird behavior on Helios Station. My rating: "B", but YMMV. Previous reprints: Orbit SF Yearbook 1987, David Garnett; World's Best SF 1988, Donald A. Wollheim; Barnacle Bill the Spacer and Other Stories, Lucius Shepard, 1997. Cilia-of-Gold (1994), by Stephen Baxter. Hard-bitten miners meet the eponymous heroine, a native Mercurian. An "A" story, one of the two best here. Previous reprints: Year's Best Science Fiction: Twelfth Annual, Gardner Dozois, 1995; Vacuum Diagrams, Stephen Baxter, 1997. Dawn Venus (1995), by G. David Nordley. Romance amidst a land- rush on a terraformed Venus. Lots of Neat Ideas, a nice Cordwainer Smith reference, and some plausibility problems: A-. Touchdown (1990), by Nancy Kress. A scavenger hunt on a devastated future Earth. Nice but a downer: B+. Previous reprint: The Aliens of Earth, Nancy Kress, 1993. The Difficulties Involved in Photographing Nix Olympica (1986), by Brian Aldiss. A slight and quirky vignette: B. Previous reprint: Best SF Stories of Brian W. Aldiss, 1988. The Very Pulse of the Machine (1998), by Michael Swanwick. A surreal but unconvincing close encounter on Io: "B" for me, but well-liked by others. Previous reprint: The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual, Gardner Dozois, 1999. Ex Vitro (1995), by Daniel Marcus. War-clouds mar a research-station romance on Titan: B or B+, depending on your taste for bleakness. Into the Blue Abyss (1999), by Geoffrey Landis. Explore the world- ocean of Uranus wth miniature rocket-subs! Neat ideas, wooden characters: B/B+ . Second Skin (1997), by Paul McAuley. After the Quiet War, a trade delegation from Earth visits Neptune's satellite Proteus -- but is the war really over? Twisty, tasty and very nice: "A". Previous reprint: The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual, Gardner Dozois, 1998. Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe (1977), by John Varley. A classic Eight Worlds tale from Asimov's premiere issue. Piri is spending his second childhood in the Pacifica disneyland, under construction inside Pluto -- but he can't stay a child forever. Nice, if a bit hokey: A-. Previous reprints: The Barbie Murders, John Varley, 1980 -- a wonderful collection, but hard to find. Get this book back in print! Better yet, how about a "Complete Short Fiction of John Varley"? NESFA, are you listening? -- and in Dozois' recent anthology The Good New Stuff. review copyright 2000 by Peter D. Tillman

Solar quest

This anthology takes us on an SFnal tour of our home system, with a story for each planet, plus one for the Sun. It's a solid collection, with no really weak stories, and a couple of outstanding ones. All are reprinted from Asimov's SF magazine. This collection should lay to rest any lingering doubts of whether the magazine publishes hard-SF. Recommended.