New Legends

by Greg Bear (Editor), Robert Silverberg, Gregory Benford

A collection of original hard science fiction works includes the writings of such authors as Ursula K. Le Guin, Gregory Benford, Poul Anderson, Robert Silverberg, George Alec Effinger, Mary Rosenblum, and Greg Egan.

Genres: Science Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy

378 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1995

About the author

Greg Bear was an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work covered themes of galactic conflict (Forge of God books), parallel universes (The Way series), consciousness and cultural practices (Queen of Angels), and accelerated evolution (Blood Music, Darwin’s Radio, and Darwin’s Children). His last work was the 2021 novel The Unfinished Land. Greg Bear wrote over 50 books in total.

(For a more complete biography, see Wikipedia.)

Reviews

[Peter Tillman]

Review solely for Gregory Benford's great autobiographical essay "Old Legends," on the real-life influences of SF on working scientists, at Los Alamos, the Rad Lab and elsewhere. His many conversations with Edward Teller, and occasional ones with Freeman Dyson are remarkable, as is his account of the legendary Citizens Advisory Council, that met at Larry Niven’s house and promoted anti-missile defense (“Star Wars”). Essential reading, and as good as I remembered. 10 stars! Copy online at https://www.gwern.net/docs/radiance/2...

If you have any interest in the long relationship between science fiction and actual science -- which goes back a very long ways, at least to Aristotle -- you need to read this essay. And read it again, and again. Great stuff: might well be Benford's best work.

[Gwern]

Moved to gwern.net.

[Kaus Wei]

While there are some very good stories in this volume, I found most to be middling fare, with a very 90's feel to them, that did a lot to prevent me from becoming immersed. There was also a lone story that I did not like due to the characters, whom I thought were horrible people, and deserving of each other. Overall, I would recommend borrowing over buying, and selective over complete reading.

Elegy 2/5
A Desperate Calculus 2/5
Scenes From A Future Marriage 1/5
Coming Of Age In Karhide 2/5
High Abyss 2/5
Recording Angel 2/5
When Strangers Meet 2/5
The Day The Aliens Came 2/5
Gnota 3/5
Rorvik's War 3/5
Radiance 2/5
Old Legends 2/5
The Red Blaze In The Morning 4/5
One 3/5
Scarecrow 2/5
Wang's Carpets 4/5

[Anthony L]

The problem with most SF anthologies is that they tend to be a very mixed bag of mostly bad stories with only a couple of gems. The bad stories usually do not have any good SF ideas and are heavily laden with descriptions of things. And you are supposed to get the gist of the story hopefully through the fog. An example is Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula K Le Guin. I don't get the hype behind this author. Her stories are so overloaded with alien descriptions, alien terms and alien names that when you strip them all out, what you get is just an ordinary tale with no "science fiction" in it. And hardly any originality behind the fog of words.
Radiance by Carter Scholz is another particularly bad one. You get lots of difficult to follow conversations and improperly formed sentences with no verb. After ploughing through the really awkwardwwriting, I have no idea what is the point of it all. You need infinite patience trying to figure out what the story is about.

[Gordon]

All anthologies are a mix, but this one was unusually strong. Here are my ratings for the individual stories:
Elegy (M Rosenblum) 4
A Desperate Calculus (S Blake) 4
Scenes From a Future Marriage (J Stevens-Arce) 3 - OK, but I don't get why this is SF
Coming of Age in Karhide (U Le Guin) 5
High Abyss (G Benford) 3
Recording Angel (P McAuley) 4
When Strangers Meet (S Orin-Lyris) 3
The Day the Aliens Came (R Sheckley) 3
Gnota (G Abraham) 4
Rorvik's War (G Landis) 4
Radiance (C Scholz) 2
Old Legends (G Benford article) 3
The Red Blaze Is the Morning (R Silverberg) 4
One (G A Effinger) 4
Scarecrow (P Anderson) 4
Wang's Carpets (G Egan) 4

[Zeke W.]

A beautiful book with many amazing stories, this anthology of "hard" science fiction is easily one of my favorite books to date. With a variety of themes, from brain surgery using squid neurons to the concept of a higher power developing in lonely robots, these stories are wonderfully written and have some of the most complex and intriguing concepts I've ever learned of. Rorvik's War, an immersing and intriguing story, is easily one of my favorites, with the experiences of the main character and his confusion perfectly reflecting into the reader.

[Tim Hicks]

Hard SF, and the stories have aged surprisingly well for a 1995 book, stories likely written 1994 or earlier so they are 20 years old.

Good variety, some now-famous authors (I forget whether they were famous then).

But if you don't like hard SF you won't like this.

Especially the last one, good old makes-yer-brain-hurt Greg Egan.

[David C. Mueller]

An OK collection of hard science fiction short stories from the mid-1990's. My favorite stories from this anthology were: the sensitive "Coming of Age in Karhide" by Ursula LeGuin and the outstanding "Wang's Carpets" by Greg Egan. I will be looking for more works by Greg Egan.

[Heron]

Excellent collection. Highly recommended.

[bluetyson]

New Legends by Greg Bear (1995)

[M.E.]

With a couple of exceptions, largely Clarion formula pieces.