Whose Future Is It?: Cellarius Stories, Volume I

by Steven Barnes, Cellarius, Alex de Campi

Dive into the new cyberpunk universe of Cellarius with 13 mind-bending short stories. In the year 2084, almost without warning, all the lights go out. Humans become aware of Cellarius, a superintelligent AI, when it takes over all energy infrastructure and communication networks, plunging the world into an analog dark age. Twenty years later, with no explanation, the lights come back on. From 9 writers—including a Guggenheim Fellow, a New York Times bestseller, and a Nebula winner—the stories range from psychological thrillers to classic adventure tales, new takes on religious mythologies to human-machine love stories. Whose Future Is It? challenges our ideas of what consciousness can become and explores what it means to be human.

Genres: Science Fiction

330 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 11, 2018

About the author

Steven Barnes (born March 1, 1952, Los Angeles, California) is an African American science fiction writer, lecturer, creative consultant, and human performance technician. He has written several episodes of The Outer Limits and Baywatch, as well as the Stargate SG-1 episode "Brief Candle" and the Andromeda episode "The Sum of its Parts". Barnes' first published piece of fiction, the novelette The Locusts (1979), written with Larry Niven, and was a Hugo Award nominee.

Reviews

[danana · Rating 4 out of 5]

~Whose future is it ? is an anthology of 14 short sci-fi stories written by different authors.
2084. Cellarius, one of the most powerful (and evil) AI, has taken control of the world.

My favorites stories from the anthology were Desiderium by Alex de Campi, and Abomata by Brian Evenson, but every story is well written and unique.

I would highly recommend this book to any sci-fi lover.


I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Cloak88 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a rare Anthology where all the stories are equally good!

Whose future is it? is a 14 story anthology set in the Cellarius universe. A near-future SF bundle with stories spread over a roughly 100 year period: from just before a powerful AI called: Cellarius took control and turned off the light on humanity's Utopian digital age. Through the then resulting post-apocalypse, to a time where "It" somehow decided to turn everything on again and the uneasy peace that follows.

Honestly I am impressed!
It is a rare find among anthologies to fine one where I enjoyed all of the stories. The stories themselves covered a wide range of topics, genres and tone and all of them are of good quality and interesting to boot. Among others, there are thoughtful introspections, detectives, pulp-action and post-apocalyptic survival stories. My personal favorite though were the stories where the spy story, intersects with the story of a regretful Tech-Company CEO, to explain a bit of world lore.

In short this is an interesting SF anthology of good quality for people who enjoy a diverse reading range of stories.

*I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Julian Spergel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book popped up on my FB newsfeed, and I normally don't click on FB ads, but I'm very glad I did.

This anthology included some of my favorite current sci-fi writers and had a really excellent mix of styles and genres. While the stories take place in the same world, they do not take place in the same time or setting, and that allowed there to be cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic and scifi fairy tales next to each other. Highly recommended for sci-fi short story enthusiasts.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whose Future Is It?

I received an advanced review copy for free.

Two of the 9 authors whose stories have been included in this volume were familiar to me, namely Brian Evenson and Steven Barnes.

It is an anthology of 13 short stories, all science fiction about the future, relating to artificial intelligence. According to the introduction, an alternate future called Cellarius was created as a way to connect writers for the purposes of collaboration. As anthologies go, it set out to accomplish ambitious ends. It is reminiscent of Murasaki, the collaborative collection in the tradition of Harlan Ellison’s loopy SF escapades. Honestly, I prefer unthemed anthologies, or looser themed ones. When multiple writers write tangentially connected stories taking place in the same world I find the results to be a mixed bag.

There was nothing bad about the writing, but the concepts, presented piecemeal, and the world-building, felt a little inconsistent. The main purpose of an anthology, in my mind, is to discover new writers. Their resemblance to other writers is not necessarily part of my considerations, nor is there ability to work in tandem. Take Vandermeer’s unequalled anthology The Weird. The average reader can sample the stories on display, gain a sense of the possibilities inherent in weird fiction, and walk away with a new appreciation. In the anthology I’m reviewing though, it’s almost necessary to read the outline of the world which was given to the contributors as mentioned in the introduction to understand what is going on. Without the introduction, the reader would be left wondering why these writers were submitting to these constraints. Having read the stories, the question is left largely unanswered. Why are they limiting their stories to this world when dystopian settings with AI components would have been a sufficient prompt and impetus for challenging writing?

The overarching outline, to which these stories adhere does not seem novel enough, or imaginative enough, in my opinion, to act as a worthy planting ground for the efforts of those involved.
Maybe it’s my jaded perspective, but I found it difficult to follow the logic in many of the scenes, and impossible to remember the details of character, place and scenario once I set the book down. Brian Evenson remains riveting, and the storytellers give it their all. It felt like watching a slick sci-fi film, well-acted and directed, but lacking a solid cohesion. Therefore, it doesn’t stand out as much as it could have, but there are enough interesting ideas to captivate the casual reader. I'm rating it 3 stars because the contributors put in good effort, though it's not my cup of tea.

[Justė · Rating 5 out of 5]

YES! This book, these short stories, are a perfect little bits of a sci-fi -both individual and unique, and being connected by the same ongoing change in the world caused by the super intelligent AI.
I loved how this book takes you trough the different times and different places affected by the Cellarius. We have a chance to peek into the lives of so many different personalities, see their perspective, their stories.
What I loved the most in this book was the genius decision to include the stories "The Man With The Fractal Tattoo" and "The Passenger", one in the begging and another one new the end. These stories tied the book together for me, made me feel the connection between the world and the stories, see the continuity of the whole project.
This was the perfect read. Stories are short and highly interesting, not one has left me disappointed.
Will surely be looking forward on more collaborations.

This is my honest and voluntary review of a free advance review copy.

[Joao Reis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Food 4 thought

Very interesting although sometimes difficult to follow stories about a dystopian future plagued with AI. It does make you think which I think it’s the main goal of science fiction.