Friday, March 24, 2000

Future Perfect...

The premise of the anthology How to Save the World, edited by Charles Sheffield is jokingly put forward that science fiction writers have the best ideas; they just never get to implement them. This collection is a mixed bag; some, like "Raw Terra," weren't interesting enough for me to finish. A major theme of this collection is the law of unintended consequences -- "Choice," "The Meetings of the Secret World Masters," "Souls on Ice," "The Product of the Extremes," and others all show less than utopian outcomes when the solutions are implemented. But for near-future SF, this is a pretty good collection of short stories. 3 1/2 stars.

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