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Mitigated Futures
Twelve science fiction stories about the oncoming future, each of them representing a possible glimpse of what could be just around the corner... or much further down the corridor. These stories previously appeared in places like Clarkesworld Magazine, The Year's Best SF, Subterranean Magazine, and in various anthologies. They deal with the future of war, our climate, and technology's effect on our lives.
Length: 7 hours and 5 minutes
Length: 7 hours and 5 minutes
8 pages, Audible Audio
First published January 1, 2013
3 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
About the author
Tobias S. Buckell
214 books465 followersBorn in the Caribbean, Tobias S. Buckell is a New York Times Bestselling author. His novels and over 50 short stories have been translated into 17 languages and he has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Prometheus and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Author. He currently lives in Ohio.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 22, 2023
I'm only one story in, but I'm already happy. This is what I fell in love with SF for. Concise stories that explore a What If, provide a Sense of Wonder, do some World-Building, and let me feel the punch, give me something to think about, and give me a reason, no, a need, to read the next story....
So, yeah, A Militant Peace, four stars.
Lonely Islands, too short, 3 stars. Neat idea, but I just needed Buckell to take it somewhere. I can keep going in my imagination after I turn the page, but not far enough without more from him. What does he envision to replace cars for moving heavier things, or elderly & disabled people?
The Rainy Season, perfect, 4 stars. Very plausible sort of dystopia, but, as we know, we're living in one now, according to older SF's predictions. People are still squabbling with family and having dreams of a better life, as we've been doing so since before Lucy.
Mirror, Mirror, I can't quite decode. What did Kiri do exactly, and what is the narrator saying to the person they're talking to? But even if I did understand it, I think I wouldn't like it. I'm just not into cosmetics, plastic surgery, celebrities.
Press Enter to Execute, can't rate. I have a personal, visceral antipathy to intrigue & assassination plots. But it seems quite clever. If you want revenge on spammers, read it.
Mitigation, 3.5 stars, great What If, the intrigue oversimplified.
A Game of Rats and Dragon, 3.5 again, reads like a mashup of cyberpunk and solarpunk, but is framed by the real... and no matter how wondrous the digital, we still need to eat, shit, love irl....
Resistance, barely 3*, more like an essay than a story, and several jarring typos too.
The Universe Reef, 0* because it's the seed of a story, that's all. I *think* it would make an interesting novella, or a setting for an interesting epic.
Placa del Fuego, can't rate, not for me, I'm so tired of street urchin caught up in interstellar intrigue, but it did seem very well done, with a Sense of Wonder about the aliens & wormholes.
Love Comes to Abyssal City, um, 4* fascinating sample of a what would be an excellent longer work about the Cities.
A Jar of Goodwill, 4* even though I don't know what is in the jar.
Overall, I found it most disturbing that there were *still* typos, even after the acknowledgements recognized ppl who had found some. But I guess we all found the stories so engrossing we overlooked them....
So, yeah, A Militant Peace, four stars.
Lonely Islands, too short, 3 stars. Neat idea, but I just needed Buckell to take it somewhere. I can keep going in my imagination after I turn the page, but not far enough without more from him. What does he envision to replace cars for moving heavier things, or elderly & disabled people?
The Rainy Season, perfect, 4 stars. Very plausible sort of dystopia, but, as we know, we're living in one now, according to older SF's predictions. People are still squabbling with family and having dreams of a better life, as we've been doing so since before Lucy.
Mirror, Mirror, I can't quite decode. What did Kiri do exactly, and what is the narrator saying to the person they're talking to? But even if I did understand it, I think I wouldn't like it. I'm just not into cosmetics, plastic surgery, celebrities.
Press Enter to Execute, can't rate. I have a personal, visceral antipathy to intrigue & assassination plots. But it seems quite clever. If you want revenge on spammers, read it.
Mitigation, 3.5 stars, great What If, the intrigue oversimplified.
A Game of Rats and Dragon, 3.5 again, reads like a mashup of cyberpunk and solarpunk, but is framed by the real... and no matter how wondrous the digital, we still need to eat, shit, love irl....
Resistance, barely 3*, more like an essay than a story, and several jarring typos too.
The Universe Reef, 0* because it's the seed of a story, that's all. I *think* it would make an interesting novella, or a setting for an interesting epic.
Placa del Fuego, can't rate, not for me, I'm so tired of street urchin caught up in interstellar intrigue, but it did seem very well done, with a Sense of Wonder about the aliens & wormholes.
Love Comes to Abyssal City, um, 4* fascinating sample of a what would be an excellent longer work about the Cities.
A Jar of Goodwill, 4* even though I don't know what is in the jar.
Overall, I found it most disturbing that there were *still* typos, even after the acknowledgements recognized ppl who had found some. But I guess we all found the stories so engrossing we overlooked them....
December 26, 2022
A lot of good stories that had me thinking, at first they seemed to be nothing but net sadly it couldn't keep up and started to drop, the worst of it is Placa Del Fuego, it stoped me from reading the book to the end. I would give it 3.5 just because of it, the rest are good, especially the war story had me thinking that yeah that could happen.
July 19, 2022
"So he lied to me." My voice remained flat.
"He left out truths that would have made you less willing to come."
"He lied."
from A Jar of Goodwill
"He left out truths that would have made you less willing to come."
"He lied."
from A Jar of Goodwill
December 21, 2024
Loved this collection...so many cool stories
July 29, 2023
Love this so much, some quite thought provoking stories making me think.... add good writing and cool stories of possible near futures we are going towards if nothing changes.
Endless diffirent stories and some quite plausible and some not. Good and some quite engaging, despite some clearly being not my philosophy in life.
Endless diffirent stories and some quite plausible and some not. Good and some quite engaging, despite some clearly being not my philosophy in life.
November 7, 2024
the future of society, one ruled by branding and advertising, one with impressive technological progress, in a set of not necessarily connected short stories. they can be seen as separate, or as pieces of a bigger picture, various angles of view, for the state of the world and things and people (not necessarily human) in it (most of the stories from "Mitigated Futures", published 2013, have a reference to the "Xenowealth" world, a novel series written by the author, with the first 4 books published 2006-2007-2008-2014).
the stories are very complex in their details, it felt very easy to miss a passing mention of something, apparently small, but with huge implications on understanding the state of depicted society better.
it all felt like a big warning sign for us and what we do to the world.
i thought the collection was very good, even if some of the parts felt overwhelming in meaningful details, and some a bit too jumbled (i would have liked for some of the stories to have a bit more of an intuitive feel and give me a vague sense of where the idea is going…or maybe those details just got lost on me :) …).
you get bursts of high tension action, descriptive passages which don’t take up a lot of space, just remain relevant, and philosophical introspection, definitely in the same collection, and often in the same story.
i honestly thought this was going to be one of those books which pop up like shrooms copying others before them, playing to the “gamer into space war action” audience without much substance, just for an adrenaline fix and to pass the time, but WOW, this was very good.
i liked some of the stories more than others, but most i thought were very good.
ratings per story:
- “A Militant Peace” - the future of war, in a world of advertising and sponsorships 4/5
- “Lonely Islands” - “progress” in the age of algorithmic, automated production, somehow felt sadder than the rest 4/5
- “The Rainy Season” - the world evolved, doom and gloom all around (including psychedelic poisonous storms), humans and their relationships remain the same 4/5
- “Mirror Mirror” - a horror-scape of a “mirror” world, in which a pair of glasses changes how reality looks based on what people wish to advertise, in general or about themselves, longer legs, airbrushed faces, extra information and other enhancements, “everyone is seeing a world that doesn’t exist as part of their digital experience” (inspired by faked profiles online and people wearing makeup; in reality, things are not what they are faked to look like; title inspired by “Snow White” and the queen, hungry for beauty, always looking to the mirror to assure her she dominates the land, in a superficial way, for her ego), everyone who doesn’t join in looks less defined through the glasses “fuzzy at the edges” and others don’t focus on them, really good story 5/5
- “Press Enter to Execute” - the assassin of spammers gets a lot of jobs and a great hardcore reputation, in the future where spam filters get so incredibly smart, they decide to hire an assassin to reduce processor workloads, very funny 5/5
- “Mitigation” - a mix of access to information, monopolies, humanity’s impact on the environment and the future of resources, as a short action story, i thought it was a bit too jumbled 3/5
- “A Game of Rats and Dragon” - inspired by “Dungeons and Dragons” and the community around the game, meaninglessness “virtual” wars and all the dramas around them, finally turning relevant 4/5
- “Resistance” - manipulation, government, leadership 4/5
- “The Universe Reef” - humans spreading like sea sponges’ “spores”, did not feel like a compliment :), humanity is killing the coral reef and ocean life, well, here we have an alien species seeking metal who invaded and created a massive growing “stone” “reef” around everything it found, karma and universal fight-back, which humans only see as an opportunity to “explore” and use further, who cares about those oceans, just as some keep saying now that coral is just a stone…funny and tragic 5/5
- “Placa del Fuego” - regular environmental disasters are just normal weather people fight with in their everyday lives 4/5
- “Love Comes to Abyssal City” - interesting “star crossed” lovers story, when they pick to be together the world falls apart, quite funny 5/5
- “A Jar of Goodwill” - alien worlds, morality, restrictions of living and working in space, in a future with almost unimaginable technological progress, a bit more upbeat, which is funny, considering the details of genocide on mental independence 5/5
overall a good, interesting collection.
made me want to go and see what the other novels, collections and series from the author are about.
the stories are very complex in their details, it felt very easy to miss a passing mention of something, apparently small, but with huge implications on understanding the state of depicted society better.
it all felt like a big warning sign for us and what we do to the world.
i thought the collection was very good, even if some of the parts felt overwhelming in meaningful details, and some a bit too jumbled (i would have liked for some of the stories to have a bit more of an intuitive feel and give me a vague sense of where the idea is going…or maybe those details just got lost on me :) …).
you get bursts of high tension action, descriptive passages which don’t take up a lot of space, just remain relevant, and philosophical introspection, definitely in the same collection, and often in the same story.
i honestly thought this was going to be one of those books which pop up like shrooms copying others before them, playing to the “gamer into space war action” audience without much substance, just for an adrenaline fix and to pass the time, but WOW, this was very good.
i liked some of the stories more than others, but most i thought were very good.
ratings per story:
- “A Militant Peace” - the future of war, in a world of advertising and sponsorships 4/5
- “Lonely Islands” - “progress” in the age of algorithmic, automated production, somehow felt sadder than the rest 4/5
- “The Rainy Season” - the world evolved, doom and gloom all around (including psychedelic poisonous storms), humans and their relationships remain the same 4/5
- “Mirror Mirror” - a horror-scape of a “mirror” world, in which a pair of glasses changes how reality looks based on what people wish to advertise, in general or about themselves, longer legs, airbrushed faces, extra information and other enhancements, “everyone is seeing a world that doesn’t exist as part of their digital experience” (inspired by faked profiles online and people wearing makeup; in reality, things are not what they are faked to look like; title inspired by “Snow White” and the queen, hungry for beauty, always looking to the mirror to assure her she dominates the land, in a superficial way, for her ego), everyone who doesn’t join in looks less defined through the glasses “fuzzy at the edges” and others don’t focus on them, really good story 5/5
- “Press Enter to Execute” - the assassin of spammers gets a lot of jobs and a great hardcore reputation, in the future where spam filters get so incredibly smart, they decide to hire an assassin to reduce processor workloads, very funny 5/5
- “Mitigation” - a mix of access to information, monopolies, humanity’s impact on the environment and the future of resources, as a short action story, i thought it was a bit too jumbled 3/5
- “A Game of Rats and Dragon” - inspired by “Dungeons and Dragons” and the community around the game, meaninglessness “virtual” wars and all the dramas around them, finally turning relevant 4/5
- “Resistance” - manipulation, government, leadership 4/5
- “The Universe Reef” - humans spreading like sea sponges’ “spores”, did not feel like a compliment :), humanity is killing the coral reef and ocean life, well, here we have an alien species seeking metal who invaded and created a massive growing “stone” “reef” around everything it found, karma and universal fight-back, which humans only see as an opportunity to “explore” and use further, who cares about those oceans, just as some keep saying now that coral is just a stone…funny and tragic 5/5
- “Placa del Fuego” - regular environmental disasters are just normal weather people fight with in their everyday lives 4/5
- “Love Comes to Abyssal City” - interesting “star crossed” lovers story, when they pick to be together the world falls apart, quite funny 5/5
- “A Jar of Goodwill” - alien worlds, morality, restrictions of living and working in space, in a future with almost unimaginable technological progress, a bit more upbeat, which is funny, considering the details of genocide on mental independence 5/5
overall a good, interesting collection.
made me want to go and see what the other novels, collections and series from the author are about.
July 8, 2013
Awesome collection of short stories. Very imaginative, very speculative, and quite well written. It's rare ( to find a collection for me anyway) to find a collection of short stories and like every single one of them. Most of them made me stop and think, which is what I'm looking for from this type of fiction. Best (in my opinion) story was A Militant Peace, which stood the whole military sci-fi thing on it's head nicely. If I had to pick my least liked story, it would be Placa Del Fuego, but only because it's set in the author's Xenowealth series which I haven't read. (But am going to getting started on after this.) All in all, it was very very enjoyable, and I recommend it to SF fans, or anyone who like to think about what they're reading.
December 13, 2013
Great and varied collection of science fiction futures, some nearer than others, hitting on themes of climate change, corporate rule and unanticipated emergent properties of technology. It's all good stuff and well-written. I liked each of these stories, though since my favourite 'Placa Del Fuego', ties in with Buckell's Xenowealth series of novels, I guess I'll be following up with his longer fiction next.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews