Tom Carlson (tomcarlson) - , reviewed on 10/18/2009 + 25 more book reviews

Extreme Science Fiction is a nice collection of extreme science fiction, hence the title. I love short stories and it's an unfortunate reality that authors don't make much from them. So I'm always glad for nice collections like this one. Still, it's a great way to find new authors. (Well, new to me, anyway.)

Many of the stories are great. A few are merely good. I don't think there was a truly bad one in the lot. The main weakness is in the ordering. The collection is ordered from least extreme to most extreme. But, frankly, the most extreme stories were those kind of far-future, humanity-transcending-itself blather that just don't thrill me. For that genre, these were really good. But there's a clear drop-off about halfway through where the stories start to lose their impact. Oh, gee, another story about Pan-Humanity at the end of the Universe. Still, none of them were bad. It wasn't a chore to read through them by any means.

But all is forgiven by the last story. It's a delightful little tale with a great ending. Even if the last half of the collection doesn't thrill you, it's worth it for the end.

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