Meeting Infinity

The Universe of Xuya #In Blue Lily’s Wake

by Jonathan Strahan (Editor), Gregory Benford (Contributor), Yoon Ha Lee (Contributor)

Continuing the award-nominated SF anthology series from multiple award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan.

The world we are living in is changing every day. We surf future shock every morning when we get out of bed. And with every passing day we are increasingly asked: how do we have to change to live in the future we are faced with?

Whether it’s climate change, inundated coastlines and drowned cities; the cramped confines of a tin can hurtling through space to the outer reaches of our Solar System; or the rush of being uploaded into some cyberspace, our minds and bodies are going to have to change and change a lot. Meeting Infinity will be one hundred thousand words of SF filled with action and adventure that attempts to answer the question: how much do we need to change to meet tomorrow and live in the future? The incredible authors contributing tho this collection are: Gregory Benford, James S.A. Corey, Aliette de Bodard, Kameron Hurley, Simon Ings, Madeline Ashby, John Barnes, Gwyneth Jones, Nancy Kress, Yoon Ha Lee, Ian McDonald, Ramez Naam, An Owomoyela, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Bruce Sterling and  Sean Williams

The books of the “Infinity Project” trace an arc: from the present day into the far future, and now from the broad canvas of interstellar space to the most intimate space of all - ourselves.


CONTENT
"Rates of Change" by James S.A. Corey
"Desert Lexicon" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
"Drones" by Simon Ings
"Body Politic" by Kameron Hurley
"Cocoons" by Nancy Kress
"Emergence" by Gwyneth Jones
"The Cold Inequalities" by Yoon Ha Lee
"Pictures From the Resurrection" by Bruce Sterling
"Aspects" by Gregory Benford
"Memento Mori" by Madeline Ashby
"All the Wrong Places" by Sean Williams
"In Blue Lily’s Wake" by Aliette de Bodard
"Exile From Extinction" by Ramez Naam
"My Last Bringback" by John Barnes
"Oustider" by An Owomoyela
"The Falls: A Luna Story" by Ian McDonald

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Ebooks, Short Story Collection, Space Opera

441 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2015

Reviews

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This entry in the Infinity anthologies is a conversation about what humanity might become and some of the ways that we may change to meet our futures. Like a couple of the other books in this series, many of the stories do take a grim note and for my tastes, the best of them look further afield then warnings about loss of humanity to finding the persistent elements of humanity after the change.

Standout stories for me include:

"Rates of Change" by James S.A. Corey - Humans are increasingly brains and nervous systems shelled in technology allowing them to trivially change bodies. The story is a mother, deep in mourning for her own long lost human body, who is visiting her son in hospital after a near fatal accident makes it possible that he'll never be able to inhabit a body again.

"Cocoons" by Nancy Kress - Human colonists encounter a planet where the local life facilitates a transformation in some of the humans who live there.

"All the Wrong Places" by Sean Williams - Humanity spreads to the stars by use of teleportation portals that also allow copying. A man looks for a woman that he wishes to reconnect to the end of the universe.

"My Last Bringback" by John Barnes - Humanity has moved on. Viral therapy on fetuses in the womb has created "nubrids", long-lived humans with the brain plasticity of youth throughout their long lives. The last natural humans have nearly passed and many are suffering from degenerative brain conditions. In the story, a very high-profile natural human undergoes a therapy that brings back a disturbing passion from her youth.

"The Falls: A Luna Story" by Ian McDonald - My favorite of this collection features a story set in the same world as New Moon with a psychologist to AIs dealing with the problems of an AI probe being sent to fall into the clouds Saturn while reminiscing about a fall in her own daughter's life.

Notably in the collection is a Aliette de Bodard Xuya story (good, but not among the best of the series) and a story from a personal favorite short story author An Owomoyela which I thought was just ok.

[Andreas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A full review of each story is available at my blog
16 views at a "future shock“, or the impact of profound change on human beings. Most authors developed the topic to post-human stories with social elements. Once again, a terrific lineup of authors including names like Bruce Sterling, Kameron Hurley, Nancy Kress, Ian McDonald, or James S.A. Corey. It is Strahan's fourth anthology installation of what he calls "Fourth Generation of SF" which started with Engineering of Infinity (2010) and was carried on with Reach for Infinity (2014). The anthology series developed an overall very good quality, although I liked the previous volumes better.

Contents:

★★1/2 • Rates of Change • short story by James S. A. Corey • transplanting brains into designer bodies •  review
★★★ • Desert Lexicon • short story by Banjanun Sriduangkaew • survival cyborg troop dies rapidly • review
★★ • Drones • short story by Simon Ing • bees are extinguished and women as well • review
★★★ • Body Politic • short story by Kameron Hurley • cyborg torturer • review
★★1/2 • Cocoons • short story by Nancy Kress • microscopic spiders transform humans into half-zombies • review
★★★ • Emergence • short story by Gwyneth Jones • life-extension, emotional A.I.s, Jupiter moons • review
★★ • The Cold Inequalities • short story by Yoon Ha Lee • A.I. answer to Godwin's "Cold Equations" • review
★★★★ • Pictures from the Resurrection • short story by Bruce Sterling • Mexican ninja-zombie satire • review
★1/2 • Aspects • short story by Gregory Benford • download anchestral knowledge to survive • review
★★★★ • Memento Mori • short story by Madeline Ashby • second hand body agent gets stalked • review
★★★★ • All the Wrong Places • short story by Sean Williams • trying to get back his love in very many places • review
★★★ • In Blue Lily's Wake • short story by Aliette de Bodard • a Xuyan mindship died of the plague • review
★★ • Exile from Extinction • short story by Ramez Naam • escape from Earth • review
★★★★ • My Last Bringback • novelette by John Barnes • one of the last natural borns is expert at curing Alzheimer • review
★★★1/2 • Outsider • short story by An Owomoyela • cyborg slave culture encounters a remnant of the free people • review
★★★★ • The Falls: A Luna Story • short story by Ian McDonald • first generation of moon children and an A.I. suffering from fear of death • review

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in May 2016 and wrote the review then, but for some reason never did the final edit on the review to post i. Posted in February 2017 even though some of it is a bit outdated.

Luckily I already had it out of the library (probably because of Aliette de Bodard’s Xuya story though Ian McDonald’s Luna story was a must read for me too for when I finally read the high-priority book on my kindle) when I started the Sturgeon Award list and saw that one of the stories was from this book, very handy! The line-up of authors is great and I was excited to see the titles of the stories, they all looked good.

Strahan talked in his introduction about author Jack Williamson who was born in 1908 and lived for 98 years and what incredible changes he saw in science and technology over that time. I often thought the same about my grandmother, who was born in 1916 and lived for 96 years. Strahan said that in 2015, when the book was written, the idea of future shock seems obsolete and meaningless. I think he meant that things are changing so quickly that we don’t even notice it anymore. Change is the new norm. So he asked the writers to, “think about the ways in which profound change might impact on us in the future, how humanity might have to change physically and psychologically, to meet the challenges that may be thrown at us in the next fifty, the next hundred, and the next five hundred years and beyond.”

While it’s fun to read so many established authors and it does give these anthologies a more consistent style, I miss the days when anthologies featured more of a mix of the old pros and the new up-and-comers. They were vehicles to get the new people’s names out there as much as to sell established authors’ books. I liked having that way to find new authors. If the editors were able to choose the stories carefully (I didn’t know about kill fees until recently) maybe they could take the risk of soliciting stories from just a few authors who were on the upswing. Strahan does mix things up somewhat more than most editors at least. I think it helps that he was born in Ireland and lives in Australia, he keeps more of a (still Western but somewhat open) world perspective. It would be nice to see more non-American/European/Australian/Caucasian stories too. À la The Apex Book of World SF 1-4 or AfroSF or many other titles that are available now. (You should get those books, they're great.)

A point relevant to me and vision-impaired folk - the font in the printed version of the book is large, not quite as big as in some young adult novels but larger than in most adult books. And the lines are a bit more widely spaced than usual. Both make it much easier to see than many books.

I tried not to be overly critical reading the remainder of the stories in this book, because I read them immediately after having finished the remarkably good slates of Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus nominees for the year (2016). But those stories were really good, I didn’t complain about any of them, though normally the judges really annoy me with their depressing and odd picks. But I didn’t have to adjust my judgement much, the book was quite good.

James S.A.Corey - Rates of Change - Half way through the story I noticed what the title of the story was, which makes my comments make even more sense. A woman who had ovarian cancer was rushed into a new body several years ago, a procedure that wasn’t that common then for most people as it was developed for laborers and others who got injured more often, from what I can understand. She hated the first new body, though it was designed to be as similar to her original as possible. Too many things were off just a little and she was miserable. Eventually she got a third body that she designed it to be totally different and it was a little better after that, but she was never comfortable or happy. Meanwhile, her husband tried a new body to help support her, so he’d know what she was going through, and he loved it. They broke up because of her misery and their growing incompatibility. And then later on her son and the new generation of kids all change bodies just for fun, even into bodies that weren’t entirely human standard (of course). This stunned and horrified her after losing her original body was so traumatic for her. Especially when she was called into the hospital after her son was in a terrible accident in his new form.

So what occurred to me, relative to rates of change, is that she was so miserable in part because she was forced to change to that first body just a few days after being diagnosed with cancer. She never had time to feel sick, didn’t suffer for a long time, wasn’t afraid for a long time, not like many people with serious diseases do. It wasn’t real to her. Whereas I spend a significant portion of every day dreaming about getting a new body, after sixteen years of chronic illness. Maybe there would still be things about it that I’d hate, but I bet there would be more of acceptance of the trade offs, compared to the shock that she felt after that rapid change. Possibly not was the authors meant by the title, but I think it works.

I thought the question about what was human at the end was interesting because it’s going to keep coming up in the future more and more. Of course it’s something that near future fiction is beginning to wrestle with and it needs to, as gene therapy and cloning and all sorts of other interventions begin to be commonplace in current tech and medicine. There are a lot of people who already want to segregate and hate for reasons that are beyond me, I don’t know what they are so afraid of. It’s only going to get harder.

Benjanun Sriduangkaew - Desert Lexicon - She had a very promising career until it was exposed that she had spent a decade threatening, stalking and bullying people online under various names. I can’t support her after the extent to which this was perpetrated. It’s a real shame. Laura J. Mixon won a Hugo Award for her work in exposing and detailing the insanity, look it up if you like. A lot of people debate whether we should separate the art from the artist. I think it depends on the acts and how it makes you feel. I have too much to do to waste my time on someone like this.

Simon Ings - Drones - It was nice to see an author that I wasn’t familiar with, especially in one of these big “popular” books which tend to have only big names these days. Anyway, the story was OK. Post-apocalypse, an avian flu spread by bee killed most of the women and changed most of the world. It was odd and meandering.

Kameron Hurley - Body Politic - I tried to read God's War years ago and despite all of the good elements, I couldn’t get into it and I did not enjoy it the way I wanted to. I know she��s loved in SF Land and I like her essays, but so far I haven’t been able to get on her fiction bandwagon. I was hoping to have a new experience with this story and maybe get interested in trying her new series. But I got dropped down into a story that I thought might be from one of her series because I felt like I was in the middle of an ongoing story where I���d missed too much background to understand what was going on. It was too confusing to be enjoyable. There’s a trick to many short stories, sometimes things have to be undefined or it will be too basic and simple, often things need to be implied or sketched in. But the reader can’t be left to feel stupid or in the dark, they have to be intrigued and thrilled at your cleverness, or even better, never even notice how smoothly you pulled your tricks off. This wasn’t that. It was annoying. And it didn’t have anything to do with the book’s theme other than being vaguely science fiction. From what I’ve seen, she tries so hard to “say something” that it goes too far past being an actually good story. I prefer stories with depth but they have to work on every level or the cleverness isn’t so clever in the end.

Nancy Kress - Cocoons - Never underestimate some humans' ability to fear, hate, and destroy, and others' ability to love and protect. It’s frightening to think about where the power lies in that equation though. Anyway, a good story, hers usually are. And it fit the theme, a small colony on a new planet, the discovery of some kind of parasite that was transforming a some of their people in difficult to understand ways and the various reactions to the discovery by the settlers, government and military.

Gwyneth Jones - Emergence - It was an OK story for the book, but not such a great one as a Sturgeon Award nominee. Though it was nice to see such a great group of non-depressing nominees, usually they’re all downers. It was  one of several that dealt with AIs and freedom vs. slavery, and continuing human lifespans and youthfulness beyond our original span. It was good, but it didn’t strike me as different from a lot of stories I’ve read. Or even a lot of stories I read this week.

Yoon Ha Lee - The Cold Inequalities - It’s funny how often you realize that you’re really enjoying a story, TV show, movie, whatever, immediately, right up front, even when you don’t know what it’s about yet. They have a feeling and a rhythm that just works. This was one of those. The odd thing was that even though it was definitely science fiction (have I read any sci-fi from him before?) it also felt like a fable almost, as if he was recounting a story about a mythical archiveship trip and the fabled Sentinel character that everyone should know about. It had that rhythm of a story well-loved and frequently told, smooth and easy.

Bruce Sterling - Pictures from the Resurrection - “The ninja zombie had been shot, beaten, starved, and left to wither in the Texas sun.” A great opening that got me excited to read the story. Then sadly, it wasn’t at all as fun as the line promised. And it didn’t fit the premise. It was a post-apocalyptic story set in Texas and the zombies were biomilitary drug war Mexican operatives of some sort. Why were they even called zombies? Or ninjas for that matter. It felt like false advertising on every level.

Gregory Benford - Aspects - It was about a splinter of a family from the third book in his Galactic Center saga. It fit this book’t theme, but it didn’t feel like a great independent short story. We joined these people in progress and left them in progress with nothing significant having happened or having been explored during the course of this story. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t a tale that moved me or showed me something about the human condition or something new about where we could be in time. It didn’t feel new at all, with the mechs versus humans war. If they were human at all with their technology-implanted bodies, I think they were. I’m sure the novels have fresh approaches that aren’t in this story, it just didn’t come across so much here.

Madeline Ashby - Momento Mori - People in this story got new bodies and got to choose whether they remembered their past lives or not. What would be the point of going back and starting over if you forget everything you’ve learned, good and bad? Sure, you get a chance to do it all over again and get it right, but you wouldn't know any different so you wouldn't appreciate it any better, assuming you actually get a better life next time without knowing what you learned last time. Just having the chance to forget the painful stuff, was that the point? I sure do get wanting a new body with how badly mine works. The story had some interesting ideas in it. I’m not convinced a lot of the ideas would come to pass even if the tech did play out, but people aren’t always logical. It wasn’t such a great story all around anyway, with the stalker guy who was going to save her from her boring repetitive life because she asked him to three lives ago and the lousy politician husband who’s boyfriend with the rotten tax history was the only nice person in the story. It was eh. But the twist compared to other stories about switching bodies with the forgetting part is what made it unique and I didn’t buy that premise.

Sean Williams - All the Wrong Places - This was a good reminder to always read the bios in the back of the book, even when you think you know the authors. I actually hate when they’re in the back, I shouldn’t have to remember to look, especially when relevant information about the stories is being included. Like that this story is a part of the author’s Twinmaker series, which I’ve been meaning to get to. I don’t even like when the bios are after the stories, I like them up front, but the back of the book is the worst place.

The story was good, about a person who messed up their relationship with a women who then left Earth for the Moon. So they followed her to the Moon, thought they never planned to move to space, but she’d already gone to Mars. And onward and outward across the universe through space and time, thanks to the vagaries of d-mat light speed travel. It was a tale about obsession, an exploration of a potential trajectory of how a technology would be used, and it felt like an introduction to and tour of the universe of this series as well. It was good, not a super impactful story, but enjoyable and well-suited for the book.

Aliette de Bodard - In Blue Lily’s Wake - Normally I love stories in the author’s Xuya universe but I found this one kind of confusing, even knowing the basic concepts of what mindships were, what deeps spaces were, etc. The jeopardy the Blue Lily plague brought to the universe since my last visit was disturbing though. The author keeps moving things along in her universe, always presenting new angles in her stories as well as new ideas. I’m not sure it will be one of the most successful stories in the book because if I found it a bit confusing, readers who aren’t familiar with the series probably would have even more trouble. And I’m not sure some of the ideas would come across as universal as some of the other stories, as opposed to feeling more focused on this particular tale. Like it didn’t really say as much about the transition from near-Earth living to greater universe habitation as many of the earlier stories in the series did. She might have been better off writing another one set farther back in the past to fit this particular book, not that I think she necessarily wanted to go that far back in the chronology at this point. Anyway, all of her stories are good, my standard for her is just set unreasonably high.

Ramez Naam - Exile From Extinction - Humans and AI’s were at war. It was a little predictable, but still relevant. And probably based on a truth. Humans can’t be trusted, especially scared humans. They’re even worse than the greedy ones.

John Barnes - My Last Bringback - A woman living in a time where a shrinking population of natural humans lived alongside the now standard nubrids (new breed), who aged tremendously more slowly, among other advantages. Such as greater brain plasticity. They could put mistakes and sad memories behind them, build in skills and knowledge and keep learning the way that kids do. Apparently the mothers needed to get a virus sequence to cause the babies to be nubrids and no one forced them to do it, despite the clear disadvantages to the old-fashioned kids who had to live alongside the new breed as well. There seemed to be a comparison to anti-vaxers in here, which has a much more compelling public health argument. “Privacy was too important, human rights were too important, the fucking right of fucking jackass parents to raise children no better than themselves was paramount.”

An Owomoyela - Outsider - A culture clash between a colony far out in space that’s adapted and changed due to a long journey in a colony ship, and a human who fled Earth because she and her people refused to change at all. Lots of judgements. And as usual I don’t understand people who are so quick to judge what’s pure and what’s right.

Ian McDonald - The Falls: A Luna Story - Half of the story is about the POV character being a therapist to AIs. They use gender neutral pronouns. And while that isn’t exactly relevant to humans who choose to do so for various reasons, I think that it’s good anytime it’s seen in print, with whatever pronoun options are chosen, because it gets people accustomed to the idea. By the end of one story it becomes natural and simple. Another story about the culture clash between an immigrant mother and a first generation daughter on the Moon, very well done. Definitely held its own for non-series readers, since I haven’t read the first book yet and can barely remember the first short story. It mentions the five families and the mother’s Moonday (the day after which she could no longer go back to Earth because her body had adapted too much to the Moon), but those were the only things I recognized from the other story. It was a very strong story and a good ending for the book, leaving me wanting more from the author and the series.

[Johan Haneveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

8,5 The anthalogies in the Infinity series are always very interesting, belonging to the best SF-anthologies out there, and Jonathan Strahan is to be commended for this project and his care in selecting authors to ask for stories and creating a diverse and entertaining collection around a shared theme. Now that I am in charge of completing an anthology myself I can appreciate the work and thought that goes into a project like this. Refreshingly the stories in the 'Infinity'-anthology's are all in the 'hard SF'-genre, with technological and scientifical speculation, a dash of adventure, but also thoughts about our future as the human species. But not all stories are by hard SF-authors. Which guarantees that there are diverse voices here, stories that explore a subject from different angles, and a fair bit of experimentation. Quite a bit of experimentation in this anthology, actually, as the theme this time is 'future shock' - the way we as humans will cope with the rapid changes in technology coming our way. Just like now already some of us feel adrift in a world of social media, fake news, and algorithms - the developments will only come faster and faster. Because of this theme the focus is mostly on information technology chaning the human experience - giving rise to different modalities, artificial intelligence, clones, people becoming part of a hive mind. Almost always there's a character entering a situation from outside and having to deal with these changes. As is the case when stories try to depict a totally different form of human experience - some stories are not easy to comprehend. I myself tried to write about group minds, and those stories tend to become confusing. An example of the future shock these stories are about ... So, I think some stories would benefit from reading them a second time, with more comprehension. Like the stories by Kameron Hurley and Aliette de Bodard on display here. Not that they're bad - but I was a bit tired when reading them and that hindered my comprehension. Some memorable stories are the action filled 'Desert lexicon' by Benjamin Sriduangkaew - about dissidents forced to undergo change and fight invaders in a desert. I enjoyed the alien world described in 'Coccoons' by Nancy Kress too. The story by Yoon Ha Lee 'The cold inequalities' is a tough one, but I liked it, about a stow away in a digital cargo. 'Aspects' by Gregory Benford had humans fleeing machine intelligences in a tense adventure. 'Exile from extinction' by Ramez Naan has a great twist. 'My last bringback' by John Barnes is a fascinating tale about the last natural human treating Alzheimers in a shrinking population of patients. 'Outsider' by An Owomoyela warns us not to judge too soon, an interesting view of society with different ways of communicating. The rest of the stories was quite good as well. So if you are a 'hard SF'-fan and want to read modern SF stories, the anthology's in the 'Infinity'-series are the way to go!

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started reading this, but after a few stories, I stopped. I just wasn't seeing anything of worth in them. I thought it might be my mood. A week later, I tried again & had the same reaction. I didn't like the stories or felt they were barely OK. I stuck with it & found a few good ones toward the end, but the last story was another I didn't like.

I've put off this review to think about them. The only conclusion I can come to is they're mostly concentrating on settings & their points are banal, at best. I like alien settings, but the SF short story should concentrate on making a point about us, not just on the scenery.

Introduction, Jonathan Strahan
“Memento Mori”, Madeline Ashby
“My Last Bringback”, John Barnes
“Aspects: A Galactic Centre Story”, Gregory Benford
“Rates of Change”, James S.A. Corey
“In Blue Lily’s Wake”, Aliette de Bodard
“Body Politic”, Kameron Hurley
“Drones”, Simon Ings
“Emergence”, Gwyneth Jones
“Cocoons”, Nancy Kress
“The Cold Inequalities”, Yoon Ha Lee
“The Falls: A Luna Story”, Ian McDonald
“Exile from Extinction”, Ramez Naam
“Outsider”, An Owomoyela
“Desert Lexicon”, Benjanun Sriduangkaew
“Pictures from the Resurrection”, Bruce Sterling
“All the Wrong Places”, Sean Williams

[Greg Hullender · Rating 4 out of 5]

Out of sixteen total stories, Meeting Infinity has one outstanding one and four excellent ones, but for some reason it also has six that aren't worth reading. It's above average at both ends of the spectrum. Well-worth reading selectively.

You can read my detailed review on Rocket Stack Rank: http://www.rocketstackrank.com/2015/1...

[Macwolf01 [Elise] · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars 🌟 overall some are amazing and some are okay

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

These are mostly pretty grim stories. All science fiction. Overall score: 3 stars. I prefer more optimism in my guesses at what the future might bring. Not much of that here.

Story notes:
• Rates of Change • novelette by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck [as by James S. A. Corey ].
Previously read. 3.8 stars, but not a reread.

• Desert Lexicon • novelette by Benjanun Sriduangkaew.
Another grim story. 3 stars

• Drones • short story by Simon Ings
3.7 stars, well-written, grim future.

• Body Politic • novelette by Kameron Hurley
Future interrogation. Ugly, distasteful story. DNF

• Cocoons • novelette by Nancy Kress
Mysterious lifeform on an alien planet is taking ove the colonists. Pretty good, 3.7 stars

• Emergence • novelette by Gwyneth Jones
Old woman confronts her options. Good story, 4 stars

• The Cold Inequalities • short story by Yoon Ha Lee
Previously read. Hitchhiker on the archive ship. 3.8 stars

• Pictures from the Resurrection • novelette by Bruce Sterling
Grim story but well-written. 3.2 stars. Not a reread.

• Aspects • novelette by Gregory Benford
New Mech vs. human story, 4 stars, good

• Memento Mori • novelette by Madeline Ashby
New bodies for old, but Anika got stuck. Good story, 3.9 stars

• All the Wrong Places • [Twinmaker] • novelette by Sean Williams
Stalking/true love via interstellar transmat. Repeat to infinity. Pretty good, 3.7 stars.

• My Last Bringback • novelette by John Barnes
Vintage Barnes, horrible but good. Reread sometime.

• The Falls: A Luna Story • [Luna (Ian McDonald)] • short story by Ian McDonald
Previously read, pretty good. 3.8 stars

[No comment = story unread]

Here's a better review and memory-aid:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Xavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

4'5/5
Great anthology. I haven't read the previous ones, but if they are of similar level, I will read them soon.

English review:http://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/201...

Reseña en español:http://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/201...

[Standback]

This anthology just isn't working for me. I'm just not finding these future visions very interesting.

Short fiction is always hit-and-miss, but I've read a bunch of these, including some much-recommended ones, and found them mostly meh.

[Han Whiteoak · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favourite stories in this anthology:

Rates of Change by James S. A. Corey - A mother struggles to accept her child embracing the trend of trying out many different bodies, especially when he has an accident that threatens to leave his consciousness stuck in a machine. Brilliant mixture of tech and emotion.

All the Wrong Places by Sean Williams - Regretting a breakup, the narrator uses teleportation technology to follow his ex-girlfriend from planet to planet, always arriving a little after she leaves. When she starts replicating herself to explore the universe more efficiently, he does the same, resulting in a community of selves all sharing info on sightings of and interactions with her. I love the way this story escalates.

Exile From Extinction by Ramez Naam - In a war between humans and AI, refugees flee Earth to preserve their freedom. Satisfying twist.

[Cori · Rating 3 out of 5]

- rates of change: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
- desert lexicon: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- drone: ⭐️
- body politic: ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
- cocoons: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
- emergence: zero star, really disliked this one
- the cold inequalities: ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
- pictures from the resurrection: ⭐️1/2
- aspects: ⭐️⭐️1/2
- memento mori: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- all the wrong places: ⭐️⭐️
- in blue lily’s wake: ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 (bought for, regretfully not a high of the xuya-verse for me)
- exile from extinction: ⭐️
- my last bringback: ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
- outsider: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- the falls: a luna story: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

cocoons was the standout, runners up outsider, memento mori, and desert lexicon (admittedly i'm biased towards benjanun's writing)

[Joe Karpierz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find that I'm enjoying reading short fiction again. I read a lot of it many years ago when I was young and was just discovering the field. I did read novels, make no mistake. But I cut my teeth on anthologies that introduced me to the finest work of the field, from the various Hugo Winners volumes to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes to Baen's Destinies volumes. That interest waned as I started discovering the classic novels of the field. I tries subscribing to the various print
magazines of the day, such as Galaxy, Analog, F&SF, and eventually Asimov's, but those publications never re-ignited my love of short fiction.

I slowly started coming back into the fold with David Hartwell's Best of the Year anthologies. But the books that have really caught my attention and gotten me back into short fiction are the books in Jonathan Strahan's Infinity Project. The stories in the Infinity Project books are what Strahan terms "core science fiction", which I take to mean stories that are unmistakenly science fiction in the way we all know (and knew) it to be. Good science, engaging characters, and interesting stories.
The latest in Strahan's themed anthology series is entitled MEETING INFINITY. The common element here is how humanity adapts itself to meet the challenges of the rapidly changing universe it lives in. Once again, Strahan has assembled a stellar group of stories written by grizzled veterans as well as newer writers. And in reality, there isn't a bad story in the bunch.

It's tough for me to pick a favorite, since all of them are so good. I suppose I can start out with Gregory Benford's "Aspects", his first story set in the Galactic Center series in many many years. I suppose I was predisposed to like that story, since the Galactic Center books are among my all time favorites. James S.A. Corey's "Rates of Change", which leads off the book, explores the relationship between a mother and her son - as well as his father - as the son makes changes to himself and
takes risks that the mother does not approve of in the least. Nancy Kress gives us "Cocoons", wherein a virus loosed upon an area surrounding a military base is changing people exposed to it to something that may resemble an earlier form of humanity - or maybe it's the next form. Yoon Ha Lee's "The Cold Inequalities" (the title of which seems like it's a riff on "The Cold Equations" from decades ago, given the subject of both stories) relates the tale of an Archivist on what appears to be a generation ship whose duty it is to maintain the integrity of the data archives and what she does when she comes across a stowaway on the ship (hence the connection, however slight, to "The Cold Equations"). Bruce Sterling's "Pictures from the Resurrection" gives us a post-apocalyptic world where "ninja zombies" appear to be the enemy of humanity, but by the end of the story we find out something completely different about them.

Whether those stories are the best is really left up to the reader, because there are more. Madeline Ashby's tale, "Momento Mori", relates a society where people don't necessarily die, they just get new bodies - called re-versioning - and how one woman has to deal with a man from her past as well as a couple from her present. I particularly like "All the Wrong Places", by Sean Williams, about a man who will chase a former lover across all of time and space - literally - to win back her love. Aliette De Bodard's "In Blue Lily's Wake", is a story set in her Vietnamese space opera universe, about a ship that has come down with a lethal virus. Ramez Naam give us "Exile From Extinction", a very basic and straightforward story about a war between humans and AIs, which provides the reader with a nice surprising twist at the end. John Barnes' "My Last Bringback" is a tale both at once heartwarming and chilling, which relates the story of a scientist who is researching a method for bringing people back from Alzheimer's; the catch is that she is a convicted murderer and she's trying to bring herself back.An Owomoyela's "Outsider" is a story about a "natural" woman escaping from an earth where being augmented is the norm, and what happens when she falls into the lap of more augmenteds.

There are other stories here by Kameron Hurley, Simon Ings, Gwyneth Jones, and Bejanun Sriduangkaew, all of which are terrific and are worthy inclusions here. One story that I want to single out, however, is Ian McDonald's "The Falls: A Luna Story". As the title suggests, it is a story set in the universe of McDonald's latest novel LUNA, which is, of course, set on the moon. It is a terrific story about a mother's relationship with her daughter who, not unlike young people today takes way too many risks for her mother's tastes. I've not been much of a fan of Ian McDonald's work over the years. However, this story, as well as another story in the Luna universe, has convinced me that I need to pick up a copy of LUNA. If that novel is as good as these stories have been, I will indeed enjoy it.

As I stated earlier, there is not a bad story in MEETING INFINITY. It's the fourth book of the Infinity Project, and the third which I have read. It may certainly be the best of the group. Another Infinity book is in the works, and if the quality of that book is anywhere near the quality of this one, we're all in for a treat from one of the top anthology editors in the field today. MEETING INFINITY is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in what the future of humanity may look like.

[Jeff Pfeiffer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of the stories were okay, although I hit a plateau somewhere approaching the middle that I just couldn't get through for the longest time, until after I had put it down and read a few other books and short story periodicals. It picked up toward the end, and if you wanted to skip toward the last third of the book, you really wouldn't be missing much. Most of the stories felt half hearted, or simply dragged on with nothing much going on to keep my interest.

I don't like giving anyone's work an unfavorable review, but this anthology just didn't give me enough to warrant much else.

[Charl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of the stories were good, and a couple of them were absolutely wonderful. So good I have to give the book 5 stars. These were my favorites:

"The Cold Inequalities": Wonderful pastiche of/homage to "The Cold Equations".

"Exile from Extinction": This surprised me. I had no idea what the surprise was until it was revealed.

"My Last Bringback": Interesting, hopeful, and grittily believable.

"The Falls: A Luna Story": I'm not sure which was better — Mother's concern for her daughter, or the wonderfully realistic depiction of life on the Moon.

[David Scrimshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any Jonathan Strahan collection is a must-read for a serious science fiction reader and this one is no exception.

Just look at the list of authors. If you don't see more than one name telling you to get ahold of a copy of the book, you're not a serious science fiction reader.

[Andrew Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely worth a try

Every anthology has stories that may not match a particular Person's tastes. This collection didn't much match my tastes, but I have to say technical quality was still above average, as is the value, having close to 400 pages for $4. Def

[Lucía · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is it like to live forever? To enjoy the simple fact of existing as a zombie in the ruins of the earth? or perhaps as a knowledge base that is inherited from family to family?

Maybe it's outlive everyone else and end up alone, maybe it's to be remembered forever.

[Frank Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

NB: I only read 'The Falls: A Luna Story' by Ian McDonald, which was nice. I could do with more stories set in this moon society that are not focused on any of the five dragons - a much more pleasing experience.

[Thistle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm done with these Infinity anthologies edited by Jonathan Strahan. His tastes and mine are just polar opposite. I tried reading the first few stories, but I was forcing myself and didn't enjoy any of them, so DNF.

[Damian Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ok set of short stories

[Josie Boyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very decent anthology, with a few stand outs, and not one bad story in the bunch. All very much worth reading.

[Katharine (Ventureadlaxre) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for "In Blue Lily’s Wake" by Aliette de Bodard.

[Mark Catalfano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked "Exile From Extinction" by Ramez Naam

[Al Menaster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good, weakest in this series so far. Several stories that were weak. But some excellent ones, especially Ramaz Naam's Exile from Extinction.

[Keith West · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before we get started, I’d like to thank Solaris books for the review copy of Meeting Infinity. It’s the fourth volume in the series of anthologies entitled Infinity Project. I’ve not read all of them yet, but for the most part I’ve liked the ones I have read. Strahan’s taste is close enough to mine that I know any anthology he edits is probably going to have more stories I like than dislike.

Having said that, Meeting Infinity probably diverges from my taste more than most of his anthologies, although I did find myself liking the majority of the stories (including a few that I thought went off the rails into heavy-handed sociopolitical messages at the end). It contains 16 stories. They range from near future dystopias to far future scenarios. Here are some highlights:

“Drones” by Simon Ings concerns a future in which pollination is done by hand. Marriage is a highly politicized and economized institution, with most men remaining single. One of the better done dystopias in the anthology.

Nancy Kress almost always delivers, and “Cocoons” is no exception. On an alien planet, the local equivalent of spiders have a bite that causes humans to enter a cocoon and come out as something else, a something that can see the future.

Gregory Benford, another consistent writer, returns to the setting of his novel Great Sky River with “Aspects”, in which a group of humans moves across a planet while hunting and being hunted by a mechanical alien.

A society in which people can reboot their lives and start over in a new body is the setting of “Memento Mori” by Madelaine Ashby. A woman whose job is screening applicants for the re-versioning process encounters a man who knew her in her previous version. She’s completely wiped all memory of her earlier self and has no way of knowing if he’s trustworthy. I especially liked the setup in this one.

The story that most connects with infinity is “All the Wrong Places” by Sean Williams. A man chases his lost love through space and ultimately time, trying to recapture the joy of their earlier romance. This one is part of a larger series that I’d be interested in reading.

“Exile From Extinction” by Ramez Naam tells the story of a refugee fleeing the solar system in the wake of a war between humans and their AIs.

Ian McDonald has gained a reputation through his novels of creating detailed near future worlds and often write short stories set in those worlds that are separate from the novels. “The Falls: A Luna Story” seems to fall into this category. McDonald’s latest novel is Luna: New Moon. I may have to put it on my list. This story concerns a psychiatrist who is treating an AI which will be placed on a probe and dropped into Saturn’s atmosphere, eventually to fall to its death. Juxtaposed with this is the story of her daughter. The daughter takes up increasingly risky hobbies, which culminate in a fall.

The other stories either weren’t to my taste or started strong and switched to preaching to a greater or lesser degree at the end. With two exceptions, and those two stories I actively disliked. They are “Desert Lexicon” by Benjanun Sriduangkaew and “Body Politic” by Kameron Hurley. (I read Hurley’s first novel, and this story reminded me of why I have no interest in ever reading another.) Both stories are bleak dystopias set in wartime which protagonists I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with. They were devoid of hope, wonder, or any sense of adventure or fun, all of which are reasons why I like science fiction.

So to sum up, Meeting Infinity is a good anthology, but not a great one. At least not according to what I look for. YMMV. Strahan is an accomplished editor, though, one whose works I’ll continue to read.

[5t4n5 Dot Com · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can read this for free over at Uncanny .

Once again, we return to the death of a mindship; this time the cause of death is a plague known as Blue Lily.   I've often picked up a book and found, completely by chance, that it reflected what was going on in the real world in quite an uncanny way -- this story being found in Uncanny magazine in this time of a plague known as Covid-19.

I think we could also do so much better if we could just give our diseases much nicer names -- like Aliette has with Blue Lily -- because Black Death, AIDS, SARS, MERS, EBOLA and now Covid-19 doesn't really help with people's mental health during these difficult, anxious and depressing times.   The last thing people need is a disease that sounds like a violent street gang, MS-13, just got more nasty and is coming to get you, yes you, just you!!!

Anyway, this was another story, like Starsong , in that as soon as i got to the end i went all the way back to the beginning and read it all again.   I really didn't understand what had actually happened after the first time through.   I'm not sure how much of this is Aliette portraying the effects of Blue Lily so well in her writing that i was as confused as someone coming into contact with a victim of this plague, or how much my mind kept on being taken away from this story and drawing certain parallels with Homo sapiens' current plague of Covid-19.   Suffice it to say that a second reading in which i paid a lot more attention to what i was reading was much better.

If you need your stories spoon fed to you then this most probably isn't for you as there's all kinds of temporal, spacial and virtual shifts going on and you really have to pay attention.   However, pay attention and you'll be rewarded with a rather good sci-fi, plague story.

And next up, we're going to be Crossing the Midday Gate.

[Mateo Fisher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the concept, short stories with unique visions of the future, but I don't know, didn't click for me. Too many stories didn't grab my attention and I would reach the end thinking to myself, what did I read? Too much future dystopia for my taste. I'm not saying all stories about the future should be uplifting or utopian, but somewhere in between would be nice. For instance, I was hoping to read short stories that were classic problems in future settings.

There were two exceptions though. Memento Mori by Madeline Ashby is a really fun short story about a future where you can have full body implants. I could easily see an expanded version of that story turned into a movie. On the other hand, All the Wrong Places by Sean Williams could never exist in any other medium and is already perfect. This story alone makes the whole thing anthology worth the price. It starts off simple, and crescendos in a heartbreaking way. That said, it might be too sappy for some.

[Peter Hollo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although there are a few stories in here which I didn't even bother finishing (including a couple from authors I usually like), there are also a few that shine very brightly. Strahan is one of the best short-form editors and anthologists out there at the moment, and the Infinity series has produced a lot of great stuff.
The stories here deal with humanity transforming beyond itself.
Particularly notable are Yoon Ha Lee's hallucinatory tale of self-deceiving AI riffing on an old sf story; Kameron Hurley's strange dystopian biopunk eternal war piece; Gwyneth Jones' story of reluctant transcendence; Madeleine Ashby's overly long-lived human palimpsests changing to survive; John Barnes' increasingly unsympathetic narrator curing her own Alzheimer's; Ian McDonald's beautiful Luna-based meditation on love, self-doubt and letting go.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reviewed this book for NetGalley.

A wonderful "fourth-generation" sci-fi anthology, the latest addition to Jonathan Strahan's Infinity Project. I have read a lot of Mr. Strahan's anthologies and this one is as excellent as the others.

"Meeting Infinity" deals with how humanity will be changed by the future. All of the stories reflect people that have experienced some sort of change from the current condition of humanity, some of them in a humorous way and others far more serious. All of them very thought provoking.

A fun read, with a lot great science fiction. Very entertaining and enjoyable!