kw: book reviews, science fiction, fantasy, anthologies
Landscapes is Kevin J. Anderson's show-off collection. A writer of great range, he stretches his muscles here (sometimes, quite literally) to present stories from all over the map...a big map, megaparsecs across. Actually, few of the SciFi stories here are space opera. He likes to mess with time even more, and other stories are sideways "what-if" that could happen anywhere, or straight, hard-SF near-future extrapolations.
Fourteen stories are billed as Science Fiction, seven as fantasy, and his "The Great Outdoors" section consists of two essays and a "backpacking on a new planet" mini-epic. Two of the fantasy pieces are really horror. "Santa Claus is Coming to Get You" shows how to leave just enough to the reader's imagination...including the ending.
I'll skip my traditional ideas list, and let two examples suffice (too many of the core ideas also give away the point).
"The Bistro of Alternate Realities" is the cream of the time travel stories. A researcher who travels to "nearby" parallel worlds has learned to hook up with a number of her alternate selves. But the truism that we often give ourselves the worst advice is even truer when there are a handful of "ourselves".
"TechnoMagic" takes Clarke's dictum—"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"—to make an end run around the Alien Among Us theme.
I've just added Anderson to the list of authors whose books I look for.
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