The Hard SF Renaissance

by David G. Hartwell (Editor), Kathryn Cramer (Editor)

Something exciting has been happening in modern SF. After decades of confusion, many of the field's best writers have been returning to the subgenre called, roughly, "hard SF" - science fiction focused on science and technology, often with strong adventure plots. Now, World Fantasy Award-winning editors David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer present an immense, authoritative anthology that maps the development and modern-day resurgence of this form, argues for its special virtues and present preeminence - and entertains us with some spectacular storytelling along the way.
Included are major stories by contemporary and classic names such as Poul Anderson, Stephen Baxter, Gregory Benford, Ben Bova, David Brin, Arthur C. Clarke, Hal Clement, Greg Egan, Joe Haldeman, Nancy Kress, Paul McAuley, Frederik Pohl, Alastair Reynolds, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert J. Sawyer, Karl Schroeder, Charles Sheffield, Brian Stableford, Allen Steele, Bruce Sterling, Michael Swanwick, and Vernor Vinge.
"The Hard SF Renaissance" will be an anthology that SF readers return to for years to come.

Contents:
Gene Wars (1991) by Paul J. McAuley
Wang's Carpets (1995) by Greg Egan
Genesis (1995) by Poul Anderson
Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars (1999) by Kim Stanley Robinson
On the Orion Line (2000) by Stephen Baxter
Beggars in Spain (1991) by Nancy Kress
Matter's End (1989) by Gregory Benford
The Hammer of God (1992) by Arthur C. Clarke
Think Like a Dinosaur (1995) by James Patrick Kelly
Mount Olympus (1999) by Ben Bova
Marrow (1997) by Robert Reed
Microbe (1995) by Joan Slonczewski
The Lady Vanishes (1996) by Charles Sheffield
Bicycle Repairman (1996) by Bruce Sterling
An Ever-Reddening Glow (1996) by David Brin
Sexual Dimorphism (1999) by Kim Stanley Robinson
Into the Miranda Rift (1993) by G. David Nordley
The Shoulders of Giants (2000) by Robert J. Sawyer
A Walk in the Sun (1991) by Geoffrey A. Landis
For White Hill (1995) by Joe Haldeman
A Career in Sexual Chemistry (1987) by Brian Stableford
Reef (2000) by Paul J. McAuley
Exchange Rate (1999) by Hal Clement
Reasons to Be Cheerful (1997) by Greg Egan
Griffin's Egg (1991) by Michael Swanwick
Great Wall of Mars (2000) by Alastair Reynolds
A Niche (1990) by Peter Watts
Gossamer (1995) by Stephen Baxter
Madam Butterfly (1997) by James P. Hogan
Understand (1991) by Ted Chiang
Halo (1996) by Karl Schroeder
Different Kinds of Darkness (2000) by David Langford
Fast Times at Fairmont High (2001) by Vernor Vinge
Reality Check (2000) by David Brin
The Mendelian Lamp Case (1997) by Paul Levinson
Kinds of Strangers (1999) by Sarah Zettel
The Good Rat (1995) by Allen Steele
Built upon the Sands of Time (2000) by Michael F. Flynn
Taklamakan (1998) by Bruce Sterling
Hatching the Phoenix (1999) by Frederik Pohl
Immersion (1996) by Gregory Benford

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

960 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2002

About the author

David Geddes Hartwell was an American editor of science fiction and fantasy. He worked for Signet (1971-1973), Berkley Putnam (1973-1978), Pocket (where he founded the Timescape imprint, 1978-1983, and created the Pocket Books Star Trek publishing line), and Tor (where he spearheaded Tor's Canadian publishing initiative, and was also influential in bringing many Australian writers to the US market, 1984-date), and has published numerous anthologies. He chaired the board of directors of the World Fantasy Convention and, with Gordon Van Gelder, was the administrator of the Philip K. Dick Award. He held a Ph.D. in comparative medieval literature.

He lived in Pleasantville, New York with his wife Kathryn Cramer and their two children.

Reviews

[Conspiracychic · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of science fiction stories, as well as the editors' introduction to each story, which frame what the author thought about the genre of hard science fiction (defined so differently by each author). I personally enjoy science fiction stories. I think they're thought-provoking and widen the imagination from the earthbound, to the profound implications of space and technology.

The stories I felt that stood out:

Ted Chiang, Understand - I felt that this was the best story in the book. It's a story about a man who has brain damage and goes from normal intelligence and just keeps getting smarter and smarter. I won't spoil any details, but I will say that a common complaint I have about science fiction stories is that the short story format can distill an idea that needs more space to develop. I don't think this applies to Understand. It's a fully developed idea that feels as though it begins and ends when it's supposed to. Highly recommend that if you read a single story in this anthology, read this one.

Greg Egan, Wang's Carpets - Others may disagree with my including this particular story in the anthology, but if you're a fan of hard science fiction that examines how other life in the universe may manifest itself, I recommend this interesting take on "intelligent life."

Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain - Others have listed this story and I have to concur. People begin to genetically modify their children in the womb to have the ability to not sleep, to give them an edge in school and the marketplace. The social ramifications are interesting in this story.

Peter Watts, A Niche - A dark story under the sea about two women who have different reactions to the underwater power plant they oversee.

Greg Egan, Reasons to Be Cheerful - A tumor in the brain makes the main character lose part of the brain that controls happiness. A procedure claims it can restore this part of the brain, with existential implications.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aggregate score of individually rated stories... 3.5 (rounding down because of how many were marked "DNF"). I'd like to return to this one some day, finish off the stories that I didn't get to, and give another (more patient) attempt at those I abandoned.

DNF = Did Not Finish
DNS = Did Not Start

• Paul McAuley: "GENE WARS" ★★★☆☆
• Greg Egan: "WANG'S CARPETS" ★★★★☆
• Poul Anderson: "GENESIS" DNF
• Kim Stanley Robinson: "ARTHUR STERNBACH BRINGS THE CURVEBALL TO MARS" ★★★★★
• Stephen Baxter: "ON THE ORION LINE" ★★★☆☆
• Nancy Kress: "BEGGARS IN SPAIN" (skipped)
• Gregory Benford: "MATTER'S END" ★★★☆☆
• Arthur C. Clarke: "THE HAMMER OF GOD" ★★★★★
• James Patrick Kelly: "THINK LIKE A DINOSAUR" ★★★☆☆
• Ben Bova: "MOUNT OLYMPUS" ★★★☆☆
• Robert Reed: "MARROW" DNF
• Joan Slonczewski: "MICROBE" ★★★★☆
• Charles Sheffield: "THE LADY VANISHES" ★★★★☆
• Bruce Sterling: "BICYCLE REPAIRMAN" ★★★★★
• David Brin: "AN EVER-REDDENING GLOW" ★★★★☆
• Kim Stanley Robinson: "SEXUAL DIMORPHISM" ★★☆☆☆
• G. David Nprdley: "INTO THE MIRANDA RIFT" DNF
• Robert J. Sawyer: "THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS" ★★★☆☆
• Geoffrey A. Landis: "A WALK IN THE SUN" ★★★☆☆
• Joe Haldeman: "FOR WHITE HILL" DNF
• Brian Stableford: "A CAREER IN SEXUAL CHEMISTRY" DNS
• Paul McAuley: "REEF" DNS
• Hal Clement: "EXCHANGE RATE" DNS
• Greg Egan: "REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL" DNS
• Michael Swanwick: "GRIFFIN'S EGG" DNS
• Alastair Reynolds: "GREAT WALL OF MARS" DNS
• Peter Watts: "A NICHE" DNS
• Stephen Baxter: "GOSSAMER" DNS
• James P. Hogan: "MADAM BUTTERFLY" DNS
• Ted Chiang: "UNDERSTAND" DNS
• Karl Schroeder: "HALO" DNS
• David Langford: "DIFFERENT KINDS OF DARKNESS" DNS
• Vernor Vinge: "FAST TIMES AT FAIRMONT HIGH" DNS
• David Brin: "REALITY CHECK" DNS
• Paul Levinson: "THE MENDELIAN LAMP CASE" DNS
• Sarah Zettel: "KINDS OF STRANGERS" DNS
• Alien Steele: "THE GOOD RAT" DNS
• Michael Flynn: "BUILT UPON THE SANDS OF TIME" DNS
• Bruce Sterling: "TAKLAMAKAN" DNS
• Frederik Pohl: "HATCHING THE PHOENIX" DNS
• Gregory Benford: "IMMERSION" DNS

As an aside: I need to re-read the introduction; each story opened with a little editorial note that seemed to circle the drain around a variety of political implications with "Hard SF". This was weird to me because my (admittedly naïve?) opinion about "Hard SF" before reading this book was that it was all about the science, and thus those authors did their best to divorce their stories from political implications. Granted, that's an effectively-impossible task for anyone, at any time, in any field -- but I suppose I had a strong fantasy going there. Regardless, of the stories I did read (and finish!) I felt like both ends of the political spectrum (and the flavors in between) were well-represented. But that puts the whole exercise (of reading this anthology) into a different light.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Partial reread of landmark collection. Full TOC: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?2...
Excellent long review by Greg L. Johnson: https://www.sfsite.com/05a/re151.htm
Good story-by-story review: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...

An excellent anthology, 4+ stars. Not to be missed, for fans of short SF. Best read (or reread) over some weeks, perhaps. 960 pages!

Standout stories this time:
Think Like a Dinosaur • (1995) • novelette by James Patrick Kelly. What to do with your duplicate (which is the original), when you're teleported across the universe. Good story, shaky premise? 4/5
The Lady Vanishes • (1996) • short story by Charles Sheffield. Puzzle story about a real invisibility cloak. 3.5/5
A Career in Sexual Chemistry • (1987) • novelette by Brian Stableford. 4/5
Reasons to Be Cheerful • (1997) • novelette by Greg Egan. 5/5, one of his great stories.
For White Hill (1995), novella by Joe Haldeman. 4.5/5, one of his best. Far-future romance on a war-ruined Earth. 2019 reread.

Suck Fairy strikes:
Understand • (1991) • novelette by Ted Chiang. Superman via intelligence booster. Didn't hold up well to reread. 2.6/5

Remembered greats, not reread this time:
Bicycle Repairman • (1996) • novelette by Bruce Sterling. 5/5, one of his best.
A Walk in the Sun • (1991) • short story by Geoffrey A. Landis. 4.6/5
Reef • [The Quiet War] • (2000) • novelette by Paul J. McAuley. A pretty grim story. 4.5/5
Griffin's Egg • (1991) • novella by Michael Swanwick. 5/5
Fast Times at Fairmont High • (2001) • novella by Vernor Vinge. 4.7/5
Taklamakan • (1998) • novelette by Bruce Sterling. 5+/5, another great story

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

“We’re not building a future, we’re building weapons.”

Much better-than-average SF anthology, which is admittedly a low bar. Most of the stories engage the mind as well as the emotions of the reader with a variety of characters and plots. Published in 2002. A monolithic worldview.

“Hey, wait—if you’re dead, then how can you be here?” “Because I’m not here, silly. I’m a fig-newton of your overactive imagination.”

Many stories represent the best of their respective authors. Unfortunately, even here there’s some sloppy science. Certainly the cream of the last two decades of the twentieth century. From a certain point of view. (see below)

‘School was a place where mostly they taught you stuff that had nothing to do with the real world. Jonathan secretly reckoned that quadratic equations just didn’t ever happen outside the classroom.’

When are people being political? When they declare—time and again—they’re not political. That applies here, though not so overt and insulting as the rants from both sides now.

“Fast, cheap, and out of control.” “Exactly, man. If this stuff ever got loose in the real world, it would mean the end of everything we know.”

[Res · Rating 1 out of 5]

Most of the stories fall into two categories that I have no patience with -- man-vs.-nature adventure stories and Concepts thinly clad in character and plot. Stories I did enjoy:

Nancy Kress's novella version of "Beggars in Spain" -- the one where gene therapy makes it possible for children to be born who don't need to sleep, and a political/moral philosophy holds that all good is generated by individuals trading their best efforts. Not quite as good as I had expected it to be, to tell the truth, but in this company, I quite enjoyed it.

Joe Haldeman's "To White Hill" -- the one where the artists are brought to a dead Earth to do a memorial, and then trapped there by action of the enemies who killed off all life on the planet. The enemy is kind of mcguffiny, and I'm afraid I don't have enough familiarity with the Shakespeare sonnet it's supposed to be based on to see the perfect correspondence, but the characters seemed real to me, the various cultures were well drawn, and the insights on art were believable.

James Patrick Kelly's "Think Like a Dinosaur" -- the one where the aliens called 'dinosaurs' oversee a technology that allows humans to transfer their consciousness to another body in a faraway place -- but then the existing body has to be killed. Terrific moral crisis, unfolding with both the standard fiction kind of suspense and the good puzzle-story kind of suspense.

Greg Egan, "Reasons To Be Cheerful" -- my favorite in the entire book, the one where the kid gets a brain tumor that causes him to be happy all the time, and when they burn out the tumor they burn out all his happiness receptors and he lives for a while without them, and then a new technology allows him to replace them. I couldn't tell you why this guy reads as a real character to me -- he has almost no interaction with anyone -- but his understanding of his own feelings, and his puzzling to make sense of how happiness can be real and whether it matters, really moved and excited me.

[Lance Schonberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long, very long.

And not always in a good way.

But mostly.

There are 41 stories in this volume, 12 of them novelette length, and 7 of them novellas. At 960 pages, there’s a lot of SF here, and most of it enjoyable. Most of it also published in the 1990s, but since this collection was published in 2002, that shouldn’t be surprising. If Mr. Hartwell were still with us, I wonder what kind of volume of Hard SF he might have put together using the first decade or so of the 21st century.

As it is, he gathered a group of good stories. Yes, there were a few that didn’t quite work for me or were only okay, but only one I actually disliked and more because I found the concept and the structure of the people and society a little on the ridiculous side.

For standout stories, I’ll give five, alphabetically by title:

An Ever-Reddening Glow by David Brin
Bicycle Repairman by Bruce Sterling
Immersion by Gregory Benford
Into the Miranda Rift by G. David Nordley
Reasons to be Cheerful by Greg Egan

It’s not lost on me that four of these fall into the longer ranges. Of course, the stories on the lower end of my enjoyment spectrum fall into the longer group as well. A couple of those were really hard to finish, dragging on for a ridiculously long time. Marrow springs to mind as the foremost in this group, something that later ballooned into a novel with two sequels plus a gigantic collection of short stories.

But better to dwell on the positive, because there’s a lot positive here, and the author list is almost a who’s who of 1990s and early 2000s SF. A little more gender balance would be nice, but the quality of the writing is high.

Overall rating: 3.5 stars, which I’ll probably round up to four. It’s a well put together anthology with a lot of variety built in. If you like SF, there will be something in here you’ll enjoy.

It’s possible, even probable, I’ll up doing short reviews for the novellas in this collection, too. Seems to be a growing trend for me in the last year or so.

[Vera Brook · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read collection of hard science fiction from the 1980s and 1990s! Mostly US and UK, and mostly written by men (with a few precious exceptions), so not very diverse in many respects. But WOW, did these stories blow me away! Highly recommended for all hard SF fans.

First, if you're writing hard SF, as I am, it's really humbling to see the amazing ideas from genetics, neuroscience, physics, robotics, virtual reality, space travel, etc. etc. that these writers are weaving into edge-of-the-seat tales. Thirty or forty years ago!! And they are not just cool, thought-provoking science & tech either. They're character-driven, brilliantly plotted, and incredibly well written. There is also a nice range of length: from pretty short stories to lengthy novellas.

(For full disclosure: Some of the stories were pretty demanding, and maybe 2 out of 40 or so just weren't my thing. But that's it. I read the whole monster 960-page volume, and reread several pieces multiple times. Good stuff!)

Here are some of my favorites, in no particular order:
"Different Kinds of Darkness" by David Langford
"Beggars in Spain" by Nancy Kress
"Think Like a Dinosaur" by James Patrick Kelly
"A Walk in the Sun" by Geoffrey A. Landis
"Gene Wars" and "Reef" by Paul McAuley
"Immersion" and "Matter's End" by Gregory Benford
"Fast Times at Fairmont High" by Vernor Vinge
"Understand" by Ted Chiang
"The Good Rat" by Allen Steele

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even if you don't like every story in the collection, the weight and range of this volume makes it another winner. A great cross-section of the subgenre. See also The Ascent of Wonder.

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for hard SF. I keep it handy and re-read the ones I like and re-read the ones I forgot. I'm rarely disappointed.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Been looking forward to finishing this book (again) for so long! I first read it on a Kindle, and couldn't figure out how to identify the author of a story half-way through it. So I bought this massive used paperback copy, and re-read all 960 pages of good old hard science-fiction, so I could identify authors whose other works I wanted to seek out.

Some authors had more than one story in the anthology. My ratings below are in the format

(number of thumbs-up/total number of stories)

The stories that did not get a thumbs-up were not necessarily bad, but were not all that good, either. Then I sorted from highest "scores" to lowest.

Clear winners...

Greg Egan (2/2) - and his "Reasons to be Cheerful"? Wow!
Stephen Baxter (2/2)

Worth checking out...

Frederik Pohl (1/1) - that's right, the granddaddy of SF! And apparently I had never read any of his stuff, and this story blew me away! I have to go out and buy an old copy of Gateway immediately (old copy because I want that classic cover with the two spaceships chasing each other...and a laser beam lancing out from one.)
Joe Haldeman (1/1) - and I have to add that this story, "For White Hill," really stuck with me. Far, far future stuff, somewhat akin to Vinge's "Marooned in Realtime" but more poetic. Amazing stuff.
Poul Anderson (1/1)
James Patrick Kelly (1/1)
Robert Reed (1/1)
Joan Slonczewski (1/1)
Charles Sheffield (1/1) - been meaning to read one of his novels, but...how to choose?!
David Brin (1/1) - No surprise here. Actually (1/2) but his second "story" isn't really a story, but a humorous editorial piece he did for Nature magazine...in the form of a story(?!) Too meta and too short to count. (1/1!)
Peter Watts (1/1) - Of course!
Vernor Vinge (1/1) - Of course! Consider Fire Upon the Deep, Deepness in the Sky, Marooned in Realtime: All hard SF novels, with heart! Reading "Fast Times at Fairmont High" in this anthology after years away from it was still great. It was still fresh, plausible, and surprising (partly thanks to my unreliable memory). And now I'm even somewhat familiar with the locations mentioned. That added an interesting dimension.
Sarah Zettel (1/1) - space science fiction and psychological science...fiction? A very good story.
Karl Schroeder (1/1) - I recall recording a comment that this was really good stuff.
Hal Clement (1/1)
Alistair Reynolds (1/1)
Paul McAuley (1/1)
Ted Chiang (1/1)
David Langford (1/1)
Michael Flynn (1/1)
G. David Nordley (1/1)
Geoffrey A. Landis (1/1)

What to do with these two? Usually I like an author or I don't...

Bruce Sterling (1/2) - "Taklamakan" was freakishly unique, moody, disturbing, and compelling. Probably one of the most interesting stories in the whole anthology.
Gregory Benford (1/2) - "Immersion" was insightful and tense, and might make you think about human society differently. The end was a little Hollywood-esque, but, hey, this is the age of Andy Weir (and I'll have you know I'm the guy who coined the phrase "Weirtrope").

Alas, not everyone got a thumbs-up, even some rather famous writers.

Allen Steele (0/1) - this one almost got a thumbs-up, I think. Almost.
Michael Swanwick (0/1) - his "Griffin's Egg" had promise, and was entertaining enough. The ending just seemed...non sequitur?
Arthur C. Clark (0/1) - I've also tried Rendezvous with Rama and got 50% of the way through, but nothing interesting had happened. Could be because I had already read Ringworld...twice. I liked 2010, and I think I tried to read another sequel (2061?) but when it took one character 20-odd pages to rent a boat (a seagoing boat, not a space boat), I put it down.
James P. Hogan (0/1)
Ben Bova (0/1)
Paul McAuley (0/1)
Nancy Kress (0/1)
Brian Stableford (0/1)
Robert J. Sawyer (0/1)
Paul Levinson (0/1) - What the f-...? Nah! I'll stick to being polite.

And then there's this guy, in a class of his own...

Kim Stanley Robinson (0/2) - I've also *tried* to read his Mars series. His writing...it's just not for me. (Is that polite enough?)

Time for me to raid a few used bookstores!

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here are the stories that most stood out:

* "Beggars In Spain" by Nancy Kress
* "Marrow" by Robert Reed
* "Sexual Dimorphism" by Kim Stanley Robinson
* "Into the Miranda Rift" by G. David Nordley
* "The Shoulders of Giants" by Robert J. Sawyer
* "For White Hill" by Joe Haldeman
* "A Career in Sexual Chemistry" by Brian M. Stableford
* "Reasons to be Cheerful" by Greg Egan
* "Understand" by Ted Chiang

[Shaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two and a half stars

This anthology is nearly a thousand pages and it took me something like 16 months to get through it. There were a lot of stories in here that I didn't find particularly memorable at the time I read them and it's been months since I read many of them, so it's hard to review. But here it goes, some stories that I liked and recall something about. Incidentally, I don't actually want to get into what is and isn't hard SF but don't take the title too much to heart.

Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress: I have read the entire trilogy that arose from this novella but it was good to read this and in some ways I guess I wish I had just read the novella and left it at that.

Reasons to Be Cheerful by Greg Egan: This was great, it's probably my favourite in this anthology.

Griffin's Egg by Michael Swanwick: Pretty interesting story and well told.

Understand by Ted Chiang: Not Chiang's best, but still fascinating. This was a reread but I didn't really remember it.

Fast Times at Fairmont High by Vernor Vinge: I enjoyed this quite a bit.


There were a few other rereads in this, though I refused to put myself through the trauma of Niche by Peter Watts for a second time. Ultimately, I'm not exactly sorry I read this anthology, but I wish I had gotten more good stories out of it.

[Devon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great honk, this is the longest friggin' book ever.

LIST OF SHORT STORIES & RATINGS:

Paul McAuley -- Gene Wars (***)
Greg Egan -- Wang's Carpets (***)
Poul Anderson -- Genesis (*)
Kim S. Robinson -- Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars (**)
Stephen Baxter -- On the Orion Line (**)
Nancy Kress -- Beggars in Spain (***)
Gregory Benford -- Matter's End (**)
Arthur C. Clarke -- Hammer of God (did not read, already read the novel)
James P. Kelley -- Think Like A Dinosaur (****)
Ben Bova -- Mount Olympus (did not read)
Robert Reed -- Marrow (did not read, will read the novel instead)
Joan Slonczewski -- Microbe (*)
Charles Sheffield -- The Lady Vanishes (***)
Bruce Sterling -- Bicycle Repairman (**)
David Brin -- An Ever-Reddening Glow (***)
Kim S. Robinson -- Sexual Dimorphism (*)
G. David Nordley -- Into the Miranda Rift (***)
Robert J. Sawyer -- The Shoulders of Giants (***)
Geoffrey A. Landis -- A Walk in the Sun (**)
Joe Haldeman -- For White Hill (***)
Brian Stableford -- A Career in Sexual Chemistry (*)
Paul McAuley -- Reef (**)
Hal Clement -- Exchange Rate (did not read)
Greg Egan -- Reasons to Be Cheerful (did not read)
Michael Swanwick -- Griffin's Egg (**)
Alastair Reynolds -- Great Wall of Mars (***)
Peter Watts -- A Niche (****)
Stephen Baxter -- Gossamer (**)
James P. Hogan -- Madam Butterfly (*)
Ted Chiang -- Understand (***)
Karl Schroeder -- Halo (*)
David Langford -- Different Kinds of Darkness (**)
Vernor Vinge -- Fast Times at Fairmont High (**)
David Brin -- Reality Check (**)
Paul Levinson -- The Mendelian Lamp Case (**)
Sarah Zettel -- Kinds of Strangers (**)
Allan Steele -- The Good Rat (**)
Michael Flynn -- Built Upon the Sands of Time (*)
Bruce Sterling -- Taklamakan (***)
Frederick Pohl -- Hatching the Phoenix (**)
Gregory Benford -- Immersion (****)

[Luke Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

(review is about "Think like a Dinosaur")

I bought this after remembering the outer limits episode... which was awesome (not quite the level of "time enough to read" but still pretty good.)

Much like 'time enough to read' I feel that the television episode may have been better than the book. I mean, it was a brilliant concept, don't get me wrong, but the execution left something to be desired, I think.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, full disclosure... I didn't finish this. I liked it, but there are just so many great venues for short sci-fi these days: Tor, Lightspeed Magazine, Escape Pod, and many, many more.

When I get a hankering for science fiction, I'm generally more excited by a specific book or author than I am about the next story in a collection. What I read was good, but I was ready to move on.

[Guy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorite books. If you're looking for poetic language and character development, this book isn't for you. If you enjoy thought provoking, imaginative scientific concepts then you will enjoy this. I loved about 90% of this book, and I thought that the philosophical implications of several stories were quite profound.

[David Danko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tired crap that I have read too many times in the past in other compilations. I feel that this ebook was a total waste of my money and time.

I have read all these stories in other anthologies; sometimes more than once. What a ripoff. These end are expensive!!!

[Michael Mangold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short story anthologies are sometimes thought to be easier reads, but the toughest part of any book for me is always the beginning, where the task of wrapping my head around the characters, the setting, and the premise of the story requires special attention. The Hard SF Renaissance is a collection of 43 stories--that's 43 beginnings spanning 960 pages of hard science fiction.  In short, reading this book requires a commitment.

Thankfully, the commitment is abundantly rewarded.  David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer have deftly curated this collection encompassing significant contributions to hard SF from the late 1980s through the first few years of the new millennium.  Their author biographies highlight significant works and provide context for each story in this sub-genre of late-twentieth-century hard SF.  The editors' insightful commentaries are braided together with the (largely) enjoyable tales to create a gestalt worthy of an undergraduate 15-credit study.

So what are the standouts?  As a Greg Egan fan I have to begin with his story "Wang's Carpets."  This work was later expanded to create Egan's foundational novel "Diaspora," where software-generated humans explore the galaxy and discover their naturally-occurring computational cousins. Keeping with the hard-SF principle of non-relativistic space travel, the resulting epic timespans produce beings of ancient lifetimes, yet their very human foibles keep these godlike characters relatable.  They strive for the pursuit of knowledge, yet have become entrenched in tribal factions concerning their beliefs on life's meaning and the purpose of the universe.

Nancy Kress' "Beggars in Spain" is another story I place near the top of the heap.  I was first introduced to Kress' writing in her big-idea novel "Steal Across the Sky," a tale of spiritually-aware aliens tampering with human evolution.  "Beggars" wins kudos for asking a question that many fail to ponder because they simply assume the answer lies in the mystical realm of religion: what are we to do about the poor?  Kress provides an exploration for rational answers to the question by asking two more: what do the productive owe the unproductive, and what do the poor offer society beyond their need?  The world Kress has built pushes these definitions further with new genetics that eliminate the need for sleep.  Those who choose to be "sleepless" are gifted with productivity gains over their idle brethren.  Late in the story Kress offers an answer to these questions that is an unsatisfying copout in my view, but merely asking these questions during an era when altruism is used as a de facto synonym for morality is refreshing and brave.

There are a few duds, including too many in this straight-male dominated field where Tourette's-like outbursts of impropriety are sprinkled among otherwise mundane prose.  No, the reader is not always eager to discover the titillation level of the main character.  Here's an especially corny example from David Nordley's "Into the Miranda Rift:"

"One does not escape from a black hole, and once I fell beneath her event horizon and we merged into a singularity..."

Ugh.

Moving on to a broader criticism.  As much as I consider myself a fan of science fiction I have always preferred to read recently-written works because even the classics don't age well.  For stories released in the 1990s one telltale sign of stale futurism is references to fiber optics.  Their mention is seemingly compulsory.  To continue picking on Nordley:

"The fiber optic line we have been trailing for the last three days no longer reached the surface either."  Yes, Uranus' moon Miranda is festooned with fiber optics!  To bring it all home I'll mention that "Miranda" is not just the name of Uranus' moon, but is also the name of a main character.  Take a second look at the story's title with this new information and try not to raise an eyebrow.

Back to the positive.  My absolute favorite part of the book is it's penultimate story, Frederik Pohl's "Hatching the Phoenix."  This story is a first-person narrative of Klara, an industrialist whose power, wealth,  scientific curiosity, and joie de vivre are only exceeded by her love for the orphaned children she guardians on her "little island off Tahiti."  She is Auntie Mame in space.

Klara has funded a research project to witness the supernova which produced the Crab Nebula, hoping to observe any life, possibly intelligent, that has been hinted at under initial observation.  To do this requires accelerating the telescope to relativistic speeds and catching up to the the supernova's bow shock, capturing light which left the system prior to the star's explosion.  Even though faster-than-light travel violates a core tenet of hard SF, the rest of the science behind this effort is solid, with a black hole's gravitational lensing being used in conjunction with Klara's telescope.

This is a big-idea story that makes no sacrifices in the depth of its characters.  Klara's shipmind, the artificial intelligence that runs her vessel and acts as a personal assistant/therapist/foil is modeled after Hypatia of Alexandria, regarded as being humanity's first female scientist (or, as Hypatia herself notes, "the first that we know about.")  Some of the story's best dialogue comes from the crossing of wits between Klara and Hypatia, with Hypatia being perhaps my favorite AI characterization I've ever encountered.  She'd eat Hal's lunch (after having served it with her surrogate servo-butler).

Taken together with the other 42 stories in the collection, along with the editors' well-researched author biographies, I have broadened my knowledge and appreciation of the genre substantially, all while enjoying the effort.  I have little doubt that you would, too.  Highly recommended.

[Ronald Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology of 41 short stories and the associated author bios has been an enjoyable course in “hard SF” tradition and appreciation. And all that in addition to some wonderful short fiction, especially: “Wang’s Carpets” by Greg Egan; “Genesis” by Poul Anderson; “On the Orion Line” by Stephen Baxter; “Beggars in Spain” by Nancy Kress; “Think Like a Dinosaur” by James Patrick Kelly; “Marrow” by Robert Reed; “Bicycle Repairman” by Bruce Sterling; Into the Miranda Rift” by G. David Nordley; A Career in Sexual Chemistry” by Brian Stableford; “Exchange Rate” by Hal Clement; “Griffin’s Egg” by Michael Swanwick; “A Niche” by Peter Watts; “Understand” by Ted Chiang; “Halo” by Karl Schroeder; “Fast Times at Fairmont High” by Vernor Vinge; “Built Upon the Sands of Time” by Michael F. Flynn; “Hatching the Phoenix” by Frederik Pohl; and “Immersion” by Gregory Benford.

[Robin Leysen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of stories inside, some a bit long. Some I skipped, others were wonderful. Wouldn't link hard scifi to politics myself though, as I vaguely recall this is how the authors define hard scifi.

I wish I'd written down some feedback per story, for myself. Would've made a review more proper.

[Andrew Bell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The way hard science fiction writers tend to view humanity troubles me, so I tend to read science fiction like this almost as a sort of intellectual horror, because of its cold view of the universe and human psychological imperatives.

[Erik Rühling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why did the editor feel the need to point out the writers' politics in every introductory statement? Otherwise a good collection, some stories 'harder' than others.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a real weakness for space opera. Mostly excellent stories - which is high praise for an anthology.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marvelous anthology, one of the very best.

[Carl Palmateer · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with all anthologies you get a mix of good and not so good. This one seemed a bit on the light side to me thus the long time to finish as it did not keep my interest.

[Bob Finnen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed it

A very good collection of stories, I liked some better than others, but that's to be expected, glad I bought it.

[Ebenmaessiger · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Gene Wars," by Paul Macauley (1991): 7.75
- radical honesty time: am I too stupid for sci-fi? seems possible, I mean, why wouldn't I be, non-science person I am? I guess I'm here to judge literary merits, or at least the way in which the hard sci-fi elements are translated to the lay reader--in which case, sure, good here. I liked the clear way in which our protagonist was both implicated in the dystopia around him and differentiated all at the same time, even coming, at the end of his own life, to see himself as the noble hero of his own story. Or, new theory, I'm on a train and distracted and not the best at coherently ingesting short speculative fiction at the moment].

"Wang's Carpets," by Greg Egan (1995): 9.5
- About as good, about as impressive a work as I can imagine this genre creating. And there, I don’t mean simply ‘Hard SciFi,’ so much as the general Very-Not-Humans genre, which need not be SF, necessarily (thinking of Karin Tidbeck’s deep fantasy tale in the Time Travelers book [in which an alt-universe jaded aristocracy are arbitrarily killing pages with lawn croquet balls and more], or the Michael Moorcock one in the same collection), although it is often most relevant to the so-called far-future sci-fi works, especially those dealing with post-humanism. Here, all of that is combined with the general ‘Hard’ thing, although edged throughout, and at all times, by an, if not literary, deeply humane sense of how to extrapolate emotion and response outwards from our own subjective spot. The STORY: several cloned post-humanists search for the first signs of alien life, finding what at first appears to be an interesting, if very primitive, single-cell based life form, before realizing that, in fact, it’s much more complex, and strange, than they could have imagined. All of this progresses against the backdrop of a thorough, subtle, and very skilled fleshing-out of the nature of post-human life for these beings as individuals and, more broadly, as members of post-human societies. The story is chock full of treasures along this way, such as the wonderful, and main, human-based fulcrum in the story, which is basically all about nihilism and human existential angst, even extant among now-immortal, now-near-omniscent groups. What this does, then, is take the quite literally inexplicable and make it explicable, whereas others get away with just detailing the ways in which this is actually not relatable at all (i.e. that Tidbeck, whose story I remember feeling cold to the touch and completely alien for being so devoid of humanity, although that was largely the point). Here, though, in this perfectly small story, in retrospect, the shifts turn on petty squabbles and academic points of contention.

"Genesis," by Poul Anderson (1995): 8.75
- Anderson is fast becoming one of my favorite pulp writers—less because he transcends the mode than that he perfectly captures it; and here – from the bravura opening to the quick-sketch faux secondary world fantastika – he’s straining at the ends of all the registers (often more successfully in some than others). As always, his frontier libertarianism come clean through, and neither adds nor detracts more than a date (1995, in this case).

[Quis Ut · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is kinda perpetually on my 'currently reading' shelf even though I think I've read all the stories at least once already. It's a wonderful selection, a couple of stories that stand out are Poul Anderson's Genesis which is a history of various other-earths that exist as simulations with various variables like affinity to science/religion, complexity of simulation...etc tweaked, with very interesting results. Just finished Bruce Sterling's Bicycle Repairman which is a simple story about a young bicycle repairman that gets caught up in some exploits of his ex-roommate's that entangle him with a nasty government employee. Sterling, a renowned cyberpunk author, does an excellent job of subverting some of the tropes of the genre he helped to create. Kim Stanley Robinson's Sexual Dimorphism is about human and dolphin interbreeding. It would be short sighted for me to claim the quality of a work is proportional to the degree with which it adheres to modern scientific understandings, but the plausibility of many of these 'hard' speculative stories makes them even more compelling.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of good authors in this anthology, but it suffers from a few flaws as hard Sci fi. Everyone has their own idea about what hard Sci fi is. Some feel a story just has to be scientifically accurate to be hard. I think a real hard Sci fi story has to not only be accurate, the story has to hinge on the science. Too few of the stories here do that. Many of them seem to owe more of a heritage to the subjective Sci fi that abandoned hard Sci fi, so it's an uneasy mix. And for some reason that is unclear to me, the editors explicitly excluded cyberpunk or cyber Sci fi from hard Sci fi. The volume therefore lacks some of the most vital hard Sci fi of the 80s and 90s.

[Lazysmokier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Однозначно стоит прочитать эту книгу любому любителю фантастики! В книге представлены рассказы на очень разнообразные темы – от исследования спутников Плутона, до генетических войн на земле, от виртуального многомерного исскусственного мира, до электронного протеза человеческих эмоций. Все рассказы являются своеобразными мысленными экспериментами на тему, что было бы если человечество пошло тем или иным путем развития. Поскольку сборник посвящен твердой научной фантастике, все события и "изобретения" авторов кропотливо продуманы и тщательно согласованы с текущим состоянием науки.

Для меня этот сборник стал своеобразным списком авторов, которых стоит читать еще