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Incarceration
INCARCERATION
The word conjures up images of jail cells, steel bars, guards, chain gangs, prison stripes and more.
In this anthology seventeen authors tell tales of possible future incarceration
Genetic Engineering to create a new breed of prison guards.
Viral Engineering to create a medically induced coma that can be programmed for a specific length of time.
Prisoners who volunteer to be human Guinea Pigs to receive early releases – if they survive.
A “Fun House” that helps people to move past their prejudices and pre-conceived ideas of others.
These and other forms of imprisonment are available for you to explore – from a safe distance – in these pages. Some are indictments of the system, with those who are not-guilty punished for something they didn’t do. Some offer harsh punishments for what seems like only a minor infraction and others explore the human side of imprisonment in unique ways. Join us – we promise you’ll be released at the end of each story.
Featuring stories Rebecca McFarland Kyle, David Boop, Melodie Bolt, Dean Anthony Brink, Dawn M Sooy, A. L. Sirois, David B Riley, Lauren C Teffeau, Andrew M Seddon, Cheryl Toner, S. D. Matley, Catrin Sian Rutland, Frank Montellano, Gerry Griffiths, Liam Hogan, Lyn Godfrey, and R. Joseph Maas
The word conjures up images of jail cells, steel bars, guards, chain gangs, prison stripes and more.
In this anthology seventeen authors tell tales of possible future incarceration
Genetic Engineering to create a new breed of prison guards.
Viral Engineering to create a medically induced coma that can be programmed for a specific length of time.
Prisoners who volunteer to be human Guinea Pigs to receive early releases – if they survive.
A “Fun House” that helps people to move past their prejudices and pre-conceived ideas of others.
These and other forms of imprisonment are available for you to explore – from a safe distance – in these pages. Some are indictments of the system, with those who are not-guilty punished for something they didn’t do. Some offer harsh punishments for what seems like only a minor infraction and others explore the human side of imprisonment in unique ways. Join us – we promise you’ll be released at the end of each story.
Featuring stories Rebecca McFarland Kyle, David Boop, Melodie Bolt, Dean Anthony Brink, Dawn M Sooy, A. L. Sirois, David B Riley, Lauren C Teffeau, Andrew M Seddon, Cheryl Toner, S. D. Matley, Catrin Sian Rutland, Frank Montellano, Gerry Griffiths, Liam Hogan, Lyn Godfrey, and R. Joseph Maas
- GenresShort Stories
186 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 19, 2017
6 people want to read
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Various
455k books1,334 followersVarious is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).
If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.
Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.
If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.
Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 8, 2017
This anthology of 17 science fiction stories, each by a different author, is another of the quality short fiction collections, mostly in the speculative genres, that have been produced by WolfSinger Publications in recent years, and another one of which I received a copy of as a gift from my friend Andrew M. Seddon, who has a story included. Besides Andrew, editor Carol Hightshoe and Rebecca McFarland Kyle are also familiar names from earlier WolfSinger titles, as editors and/or contributors. (A check of previous anthologies that I've read from this publisher shows that Lyn Godfrey and S. D. Matley have also been represented before, though I didn't specifically remember their work.) The present collection is so new it has no other reviews on Goodreads as yet, so it's particularly satisfying to be able to give it a favorable one!
In this case, though, "favorable" doesn't imply pleasant reading and feel-good stories. The organizing theme of the book is a look at some kind of imprisonment, almost always in the context of the correctional system (Hightshoe and her husband, who contributes 1-2 sentence introductions to each story, have both worked in corrections as deputy sheriffs, which prompted the idea), seen through the lens of science fiction, usually extrapolating from present trends in society to paint a picture of how these might shape the "justice" systems of the future. (And the quotation marks are well advised.) These tend to be dark, grim stories, generally utterly bleak and devoid of any note of hope (the title of Godfrey's flash fiction "Here Lies Hope" is indicative). Often the protagonists (who may not be genuinely guilty of any criminal behavior at all) are thrust into situations that could be described as starkly horrific. But the stories are mostly extremely well-crafted for emotional effect, and so gripping that once you begin one, you have to finish it.
As in much dystopian fiction (which is definitely what this is), the utterly pessimistic depiction of the triumph of tyranny and injustice provides a galvanizing motivating force for the reader to want to oppose, with every fiber of his/her being, the forces driving us towards the kinds of futures depicted here. The typical canard thrown at speculative fiction by its detractors is that it's "escapist," but nothing of that sort applies here. On the contrary, readers who want to bury their heads in the sand like ostriches and ignore (assuming they even know about, because the media won't tell them!) the ongoing gradual transformation of the U.S. and the rest of the West into brutal police states run for the benefit of an elitist oligarchy, in which constitutional rights and the rule of law are relics of the past, can find plenty of distractions in the real world's "news;" but this collection will rub their noses in it. And it rightly points to dangers that cloak themselves both in the rhetoric of the Right (with its obsession with profit, "privatization," and cost-cutting, in tales like Kyle's "Research Project" and Cheryl Toner's "The Sponsor Trials") and of the Left, with its run-amok "political correctness" and goal of a drug-stoned citizenry, as seen in Dean Anthony Brink's "The San Francisco Fun House" and Melodie Bolt's nauseating "Green Matter," respectively.
My favorite story here was Andrew's "Malicide," which is one that doesn't deal directly with imprisonment in a literal sense (but there's more than one kind!), and which, though dark, is characteristically one that manages a note of hope. (I beta read an earlier version of this a couple of years ago; but he's transformed it here into something that's exponentially more powerful and meaningful; I think it's one of the best stories he's ever written!) "As Bad as It Gets" by A. L. Sirois is another standout story, particularly reminiscent of Philip K. Dick in some respects. R. Joseph Maas' "The Truth" is especially evocative and gut-wrenching. There are so many layers of deception in David Boop's far-future "A Taste of Freedom" that it's actually hard for the reader, by the story's end, to be definitely sure how much of what went before was a lie and how much wasn't, which takes away something of the impact (though it's still very ugly and disturbing); "The Sponsor Trials" leaves, IMO, too many unanswered questions about key elements of the plot, and I still don't understand the last sentence of Matley's "The Auditor." But these are minor criticisms overall.
Some stories have a certain amount of bad language, and a few contain uses of the f-word. Given the milieu, this isn't necessarily gratuitous. There's no explicit sex, and not a lot of reference to sex at all, though it's alluded to in a couple of stories.
Bottom line: I would highly recommend this, both to science fiction short story fans who like SF that's more about social science than technology (technological advances are depicted, but this is soft SF, where the technology simply exists to serve a premise and isn't explained or extrapolated from real technology.) and to those who have a concern about the real-life justice system and a conviction that it needs serious reform. For the latter, this could be profoundly thought-provoking. The authors don't set forth a program for change, and it isn't the obligation of fiction writers to do so. But they might well prompt readers to think about programs for change on their own.
In this case, though, "favorable" doesn't imply pleasant reading and feel-good stories. The organizing theme of the book is a look at some kind of imprisonment, almost always in the context of the correctional system (Hightshoe and her husband, who contributes 1-2 sentence introductions to each story, have both worked in corrections as deputy sheriffs, which prompted the idea), seen through the lens of science fiction, usually extrapolating from present trends in society to paint a picture of how these might shape the "justice" systems of the future. (And the quotation marks are well advised.) These tend to be dark, grim stories, generally utterly bleak and devoid of any note of hope (the title of Godfrey's flash fiction "Here Lies Hope" is indicative). Often the protagonists (who may not be genuinely guilty of any criminal behavior at all) are thrust into situations that could be described as starkly horrific. But the stories are mostly extremely well-crafted for emotional effect, and so gripping that once you begin one, you have to finish it.
As in much dystopian fiction (which is definitely what this is), the utterly pessimistic depiction of the triumph of tyranny and injustice provides a galvanizing motivating force for the reader to want to oppose, with every fiber of his/her being, the forces driving us towards the kinds of futures depicted here. The typical canard thrown at speculative fiction by its detractors is that it's "escapist," but nothing of that sort applies here. On the contrary, readers who want to bury their heads in the sand like ostriches and ignore (assuming they even know about, because the media won't tell them!) the ongoing gradual transformation of the U.S. and the rest of the West into brutal police states run for the benefit of an elitist oligarchy, in which constitutional rights and the rule of law are relics of the past, can find plenty of distractions in the real world's "news;" but this collection will rub their noses in it. And it rightly points to dangers that cloak themselves both in the rhetoric of the Right (with its obsession with profit, "privatization," and cost-cutting, in tales like Kyle's "Research Project" and Cheryl Toner's "The Sponsor Trials") and of the Left, with its run-amok "political correctness" and goal of a drug-stoned citizenry, as seen in Dean Anthony Brink's "The San Francisco Fun House" and Melodie Bolt's nauseating "Green Matter," respectively.
My favorite story here was Andrew's "Malicide," which is one that doesn't deal directly with imprisonment in a literal sense (but there's more than one kind!), and which, though dark, is characteristically one that manages a note of hope. (I beta read an earlier version of this a couple of years ago; but he's transformed it here into something that's exponentially more powerful and meaningful; I think it's one of the best stories he's ever written!) "As Bad as It Gets" by A. L. Sirois is another standout story, particularly reminiscent of Philip K. Dick in some respects. R. Joseph Maas' "The Truth" is especially evocative and gut-wrenching. There are so many layers of deception in David Boop's far-future "A Taste of Freedom" that it's actually hard for the reader, by the story's end, to be definitely sure how much of what went before was a lie and how much wasn't, which takes away something of the impact (though it's still very ugly and disturbing); "The Sponsor Trials" leaves, IMO, too many unanswered questions about key elements of the plot, and I still don't understand the last sentence of Matley's "The Auditor." But these are minor criticisms overall.
Some stories have a certain amount of bad language, and a few contain uses of the f-word. Given the milieu, this isn't necessarily gratuitous. There's no explicit sex, and not a lot of reference to sex at all, though it's alluded to in a couple of stories.
Bottom line: I would highly recommend this, both to science fiction short story fans who like SF that's more about social science than technology (technological advances are depicted, but this is soft SF, where the technology simply exists to serve a premise and isn't explained or extrapolated from real technology.) and to those who have a concern about the real-life justice system and a conviction that it needs serious reform. For the latter, this could be profoundly thought-provoking. The authors don't set forth a program for change, and it isn't the obligation of fiction writers to do so. But they might well prompt readers to think about programs for change on their own.
April 21, 2019
This collection of stories out together by someone inexperience in corrections chills and challenges, raising questions about justice and retribution. Not all are about the imprisoned in a variety of futures (and what can go wrong). Some deal with the consequences for the innocent in several speculations about future systems for correction (or revenge). Plenty of morals to ponder, especially the conclusion that there will never a perfect way to deal with criminals, only Brett and worse. Mon
This collection of stories put together by a compiler with experience in corrections both chills and challenges, raising questions about justice and retribution. Not all are about the imprisoned in a variety of possible futures (and what can go wrong). Some deal with the consequences for the innocent in several speculations about future systems for correction (or revenge). Plenty of morals to ponder, especially the conclusion that there will never a perfect way to deal with criminals, only better and worse. Most of these tales are about 'worse'.
This collection of stories put together by a compiler with experience in corrections both chills and challenges, raising questions about justice and retribution. Not all are about the imprisoned in a variety of possible futures (and what can go wrong). Some deal with the consequences for the innocent in several speculations about future systems for correction (or revenge). Plenty of morals to ponder, especially the conclusion that there will never a perfect way to deal with criminals, only better and worse. Most of these tales are about 'worse'.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews