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Best of British Science Fiction 2021
Donna Scott has scoured magazines, anthologies, webzines and obscure genre corners to discover the very best science fiction stories by British and British-based authors published during 2021. Two dozen stories, varying greatly in subject matter and style, from superb technological mystery to conflict on very alien worlds, from sweet, sad stories symptomatic of the tense times we have lived through to tales optimistic for better times to come, and even a dash of wry humour here and there for good measure.
Donna Scott is a director and recent chair of the BSFA, as well as being a distinguished poet, writer, and stand-up comedian. Donna is also a free-lance editor who has worked behind the scenes for a number of major publishers over the course of several years.
Contents
Introduction – Donna Scott
Distribution – Paul Cornell
Stealthcare – Liz Williams
Down and Out Under the Tannhauser Gate – David Gullen
Me Two – Keith Brooke and Eric Brown
The Andraiad – Tim Major
Bloodbirds – Martin Sketchley
Going Home – Martin Westlake
Okamoto’s Lens – A.N. Myers
Love in the Age of Operator Errors – Ryan Vance
Stone of Sorrow – Peter Sutton
Henrietta – T.H. Dray
A History of Food Additives in 22nd Century Britain – Emma Levin
The Trip – Michael Crouch
The Ghosts of Trees – Fiona Moore
The Opaque Mirror of Your Face – Russell Hemmell
More Sea Creatures to See – Aliya Whiteley
The End of All Our Exploring – Gary Couzens
How Does My Garden Grow? – David Cleden
Girls’ Night Out – Teika Marija Smits
Bar Hopping for Astronauts – Leo X. Robertson
In Aeturnus – Phillip Irving
A Spark in a Flask – Emma Johanna Puranen
A Pall of Moondust – Nick Wood
About the Authors
Acknowledgements
Donna Scott is a director and recent chair of the BSFA, as well as being a distinguished poet, writer, and stand-up comedian. Donna is also a free-lance editor who has worked behind the scenes for a number of major publishers over the course of several years.
Contents
Introduction – Donna Scott
Distribution – Paul Cornell
Stealthcare – Liz Williams
Down and Out Under the Tannhauser Gate – David Gullen
Me Two – Keith Brooke and Eric Brown
The Andraiad – Tim Major
Bloodbirds – Martin Sketchley
Going Home – Martin Westlake
Okamoto’s Lens – A.N. Myers
Love in the Age of Operator Errors – Ryan Vance
Stone of Sorrow – Peter Sutton
Henrietta – T.H. Dray
A History of Food Additives in 22nd Century Britain – Emma Levin
The Trip – Michael Crouch
The Ghosts of Trees – Fiona Moore
The Opaque Mirror of Your Face – Russell Hemmell
More Sea Creatures to See – Aliya Whiteley
The End of All Our Exploring – Gary Couzens
How Does My Garden Grow? – David Cleden
Girls’ Night Out – Teika Marija Smits
Bar Hopping for Astronauts – Leo X. Robertson
In Aeturnus – Phillip Irving
A Spark in a Flask – Emma Johanna Puranen
A Pall of Moondust – Nick Wood
About the Authors
Acknowledgements
340 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 9, 2022
80 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Donna Scott
12 books15 followersDonna Scott is a writer, poet, stand-up comic, and editor.
She is the BSFA-Award-winning editor of NewCon Press's Best of British Science Fiction series and founder of The Slab Press.
She is the BSFA-Award-winning editor of NewCon Press's Best of British Science Fiction series and founder of The Slab Press.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 9, 2022
This is another wonderful selection of British Science Fiction. I love the breadth and depth of the stories. I found the first story hard to get into, but sailed through the next one. There is an amazing variety of tales. Something for everyone. I was especially grateful for the author bios provided at the end which allow me to find more by my favorites. I'm grateful to LibraryThing from whom I won an advance copy of this fine book in exchange for my honest review. I was greatly entertained!
September 18, 2022
Here are twenty-three stories that appeared in various publications last year, collected for your delectation and delight because they represent ‘The Best Of British Science Fiction 2021’. The writers are ‘British or British-based’ but the work may have been published in foreign magazines and anthologies, usually American. Here are some stories I liked.
‘Distribution’ by Paul Cornell has a government operative named Shan Tiree going out into the sticks to check on an old scientist called Dr. Kay. I think Dr. Kay is meant to be the villain but it’s Shan, the self-righteous bureaucrat with limitless legal authority hypersensitive to the slightest cultural offense, who scares the crap out of me. I can see her coming in all our futures.
‘Me Two’ by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown is the story of Danny Madison, a nice middle-class London boy growing up after World War II who, on alternate days, is Cristina Velásquez, a poor girl living in Barcelona. One morning, he wakes up as Danny, the next as Cristina. It’s always been that way. It took him a while to find out this wasn’t the same for other people. The story is a fantasy really but authors Brooke and Brown find a scientific rationale for it and the characters’ dilemma is interesting. The emphasis is on different circumstances rather than gender, so it’s not pandering to current controversies. To my surprise, I liked it.
Martin is a quiet piano-tuner living in a small mining town and playing the organ in church on Sundays. He has a wife and a daughter but he is a machine. A very complex machine. I loved the quiet tone of ‘The Andraiad’ by Tim Major and it reinforced Asimov’s idea that a robot or android would make an excellent husband and a fine human being generally.
In ‘Bloodbirds’ by Martin Sketchley, Nikki works for Vanguard, finding and killing humans who carry, unknowingly, the embryos of the Quall. That alien race came to Earth, enhanced humans with biotechnology to fight wars for them, then got fed up with human resistance and left, leaving the technology behind and the embryos. Nikki’s bloodbirds can detect the alien presence and she kills the carrier. All is going well until she falls in love. There’s a hook, an infodump, a flashback to the body of the story and a perfect twist. Super.
‘Okamoto’s Lens’ by A.N. Myers is a weird story about a camera that once belonged to a famous Japanese performance artist that takes very odd photos. It’s also a Covid lockdown story with family tensions. It captures the reader effectively but if it’s Science Fiction at all, it’s pretty far out.
Peter Sutton lives near me in the Wurzel west country of England, so it’s appropriate that he writes about a farmer. In ‘The Stone Of Sorrow’, Matthew is trying to keep his family together and his farm going and neither is easy. His father has become a useless alcoholic and given up. His younger brother is severely disabled. Another brother was conscripted for the war and died mysteriously in training. The others help out as best they can but the farm’s soil is so depleted that crops won’t grow. Can he be saved by signing up for an experiment with a big corporation using new robot farm machinery? It’s his only hope. A gripping, tragic story set in a believable dystopian future.
‘The End Of All Our Exploring’ by Gary Couzens is the story of Barbara, born in 1948 and aged fifteen in 1963 when Kennedy was shot. She meets a tall man named Adam in the street who assures her she will remember that day. Later, she finds him in the reference section of the library researching television programs, especially ‘Doctor Who’. As the story is in an SF anthology, it soon becomes obvious to the reader that Adam is a time traveller. This cosy, domestic milieu doesn’t fit my usual notion of what SF should be but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Perhaps it’s just the nostalgia.
Two other stories challenged my old-fashioned notions. In ‘How Does My Garden Grow’ by David Cleden, Elke is on an intergenerational ship where every resource has to be recycled for future use, there being no more available until they reach their destination. One concession is a soul garden where some crew members can grow small plants on shelves. When such luxuries have to be scrapped to save the mission, Elke doesn’t like it. There are consequences. In ‘The Ghosts Of Trees’ by Fiona Moore, a woman working on a terraforming project based on an old atom bomb site doubts the value of her mission.
When I was a lad, many Science Fiction short stories were about Man colonising other planets. He was generally white, middle-class, well-educated and purposeful, rather like the chap who wrote the story. Like most young readers, I was pretty gung-ho for the conquest of space by clean-cut American engineers and looking forward to holidays on moonbase. Not only didn’t that happen, alas, but the tone of Science Fiction has changed to one of pessimism about humanity. More realistic, no doubt, but disappointing. Even so, both these stories make you think.
Humans suck. You’re better off with a robot and you get one in ‘A Spark In A Flask’ by Emma Johanna Puranen. On Moonbase, working hard is SPARC, the Self-Sufficient Primordial Atmospheric Robotic Caretaker. Long departed humans set up an experiment to simulate the conditions of early Earth’s atmosphere in flasks. Each one holds some combination of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, methane, carbon monoxide and ammonia and might produce life.
‘The Best Of British Science Fiction 2021’ is a mixed bag, as usual, and showcases the various types of stories in the genre that are being published in our time. Short stories, like drama in general, are becoming more intense and more emotional. All of it is well-written. There’s quite a lot of first-person present tense narration which can sometimes make it feel more like doing your English literature homework than having fun. However, it’s still better to read one solid idea compressed into a short story than plough through ten thick volumes following a hero’s journey. Quicker, too.
‘Distribution’ by Paul Cornell has a government operative named Shan Tiree going out into the sticks to check on an old scientist called Dr. Kay. I think Dr. Kay is meant to be the villain but it’s Shan, the self-righteous bureaucrat with limitless legal authority hypersensitive to the slightest cultural offense, who scares the crap out of me. I can see her coming in all our futures.
‘Me Two’ by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown is the story of Danny Madison, a nice middle-class London boy growing up after World War II who, on alternate days, is Cristina Velásquez, a poor girl living in Barcelona. One morning, he wakes up as Danny, the next as Cristina. It’s always been that way. It took him a while to find out this wasn’t the same for other people. The story is a fantasy really but authors Brooke and Brown find a scientific rationale for it and the characters’ dilemma is interesting. The emphasis is on different circumstances rather than gender, so it’s not pandering to current controversies. To my surprise, I liked it.
Martin is a quiet piano-tuner living in a small mining town and playing the organ in church on Sundays. He has a wife and a daughter but he is a machine. A very complex machine. I loved the quiet tone of ‘The Andraiad’ by Tim Major and it reinforced Asimov’s idea that a robot or android would make an excellent husband and a fine human being generally.
In ‘Bloodbirds’ by Martin Sketchley, Nikki works for Vanguard, finding and killing humans who carry, unknowingly, the embryos of the Quall. That alien race came to Earth, enhanced humans with biotechnology to fight wars for them, then got fed up with human resistance and left, leaving the technology behind and the embryos. Nikki’s bloodbirds can detect the alien presence and she kills the carrier. All is going well until she falls in love. There’s a hook, an infodump, a flashback to the body of the story and a perfect twist. Super.
‘Okamoto’s Lens’ by A.N. Myers is a weird story about a camera that once belonged to a famous Japanese performance artist that takes very odd photos. It’s also a Covid lockdown story with family tensions. It captures the reader effectively but if it’s Science Fiction at all, it’s pretty far out.
Peter Sutton lives near me in the Wurzel west country of England, so it’s appropriate that he writes about a farmer. In ‘The Stone Of Sorrow’, Matthew is trying to keep his family together and his farm going and neither is easy. His father has become a useless alcoholic and given up. His younger brother is severely disabled. Another brother was conscripted for the war and died mysteriously in training. The others help out as best they can but the farm’s soil is so depleted that crops won’t grow. Can he be saved by signing up for an experiment with a big corporation using new robot farm machinery? It’s his only hope. A gripping, tragic story set in a believable dystopian future.
‘The End Of All Our Exploring’ by Gary Couzens is the story of Barbara, born in 1948 and aged fifteen in 1963 when Kennedy was shot. She meets a tall man named Adam in the street who assures her she will remember that day. Later, she finds him in the reference section of the library researching television programs, especially ‘Doctor Who’. As the story is in an SF anthology, it soon becomes obvious to the reader that Adam is a time traveller. This cosy, domestic milieu doesn’t fit my usual notion of what SF should be but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Perhaps it’s just the nostalgia.
Two other stories challenged my old-fashioned notions. In ‘How Does My Garden Grow’ by David Cleden, Elke is on an intergenerational ship where every resource has to be recycled for future use, there being no more available until they reach their destination. One concession is a soul garden where some crew members can grow small plants on shelves. When such luxuries have to be scrapped to save the mission, Elke doesn’t like it. There are consequences. In ‘The Ghosts Of Trees’ by Fiona Moore, a woman working on a terraforming project based on an old atom bomb site doubts the value of her mission.
When I was a lad, many Science Fiction short stories were about Man colonising other planets. He was generally white, middle-class, well-educated and purposeful, rather like the chap who wrote the story. Like most young readers, I was pretty gung-ho for the conquest of space by clean-cut American engineers and looking forward to holidays on moonbase. Not only didn’t that happen, alas, but the tone of Science Fiction has changed to one of pessimism about humanity. More realistic, no doubt, but disappointing. Even so, both these stories make you think.
Humans suck. You’re better off with a robot and you get one in ‘A Spark In A Flask’ by Emma Johanna Puranen. On Moonbase, working hard is SPARC, the Self-Sufficient Primordial Atmospheric Robotic Caretaker. Long departed humans set up an experiment to simulate the conditions of early Earth’s atmosphere in flasks. Each one holds some combination of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, methane, carbon monoxide and ammonia and might produce life.
‘The Best Of British Science Fiction 2021’ is a mixed bag, as usual, and showcases the various types of stories in the genre that are being published in our time. Short stories, like drama in general, are becoming more intense and more emotional. All of it is well-written. There’s quite a lot of first-person present tense narration which can sometimes make it feel more like doing your English literature homework than having fun. However, it’s still better to read one solid idea compressed into a short story than plough through ten thick volumes following a hero’s journey. Quicker, too.
February 21, 2024
In her introduction to this collection of twenty-three stories taken from various sources, editor Donna Scott wonders about the shadow the Covid pandemic will cast over Science Fiction. Though few of the submissions to her had addressed it directly she sees its influence as being present in subtler ways - isolation being one of the themes. The book’s contents cover a relatively wide spectrum of SF tropes (the generation starship seems to be making a comeback, though time travel continues to be somewhat out of vogue.)
As to the stories themselves….
In ‘Distribution’ by Paul Cornell a local authority operative investigates a man who has divided his consciousness among parts of himself that he now keeps in tubes.
'Stealthcare' by Liz Williams focuses on an insurance assessor investigating possible fraud in a future where health is expensively monitored by interactive wrist band.
‘Down and Out Under the Tannhauser Gate’ by David Gullen centres on an old soldier eking out her existence by the interstellar gate where she was the only human survivor of the last battle and waiting for her chance to pass through to its imagined delights.
The superbly written 'Me Two' by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown is a poignant tale relating the connection, from first awareness(es) to death, of a consciousness switching daily between Danny Madison in London and Cristina Velásquez in Barcelona.
In Tim Major’s 'The Andraiad,' Martin is the andraiad replacement for a man who committed a violent crime, and is determined to be a better person than his predecessor.
The action of 'Bloodbirds' by Martin Sketchley occurs after the Qall have come, used humanity as humans had used other animals, and then gone again, leaving inside people cells which will form Qall embryos, emerge with little warning, and devastate their erstwhile host. Nikki is an Angel, part of the Vanguard who hunt down these surrogates. Then she meets a possible surrogate man who treats her kindly.
In 'Going Home' by Martin Westlake a Russian scientist is in effect conscripted to investigate mysterious fragments found in the area where Tunguska was struck by a meteorite . Or was the devastation there caused by a conflict between angels?
Spookily atmospheric, 'Okamoto’s Lens' by A N Myers centres on the eponymous lens which acts a bit like Bob Shaw’s slow glass, only in reverse. It can capture images of the future.
Set in Leith, 'Love in the Age of Operator Errors' by Ryan Vance explores the illicit use of memory technology to access the experiences of the narrator’s lost boyfriend.
'Stone of Sorrow' by Peter Sutton combines two new technologies, an experimental system for regenerating farm soil and a top secret army transportation system in a story whose focus doesn’t stray from concern for its characters.
Bearing some tonal resemblances to Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon, 'Henrietta' by T H Dray features a retired plastic-eating artificial life-form which wants to see a sunrise.
The light-hearted 'A History of Food Additives in 22nd Century Britain' by Emma Levin does what its title promises. The entry for 2150 is especially sardonic.
'The Trip' by Michael Crouch has a professor and a newly qualified former student undertake an archaeological expedition on a new planet, where they make a mind-expanding discovery.
'The Ghosts of Trees' by Fiona Moore. A plant researcher working in the Nevada desert on plants suitable for use on Mars sees the ghosts of trees, specifically the trees in the footage of 1950s nuclear test explosions.
Russell Hemmell’s 'The Opaque Mirror of Your Face' is narrated by a faceless cyborg, part of a human spinal fluid harvesting team, who steals - down to the seventh dermal level - the face of a young woman to use as his own. Her revenge is not what you might expect.
Aliya Whiteley’s 'More Sea Creatures to See' features aliens who, unbeknownst to humans, are slowly replacing them in order to turn Earth into a theme park.
Remarkably effective at evoking memories for those of a certain age, 'The End of All Exploring' by Gary Couzens is a hymn both to all those unrecorded 1960s TV moments forever lost to the ether and to the man who comes back in time to record them.
David Cleden’s 'How Does My Garden Grow?' is set on a generation starship whose occupants are obsessed with keeping the recycling ratio as high as possible.
'Girls’ Night Out' by Teika Marija Smits relates an experience of “bottled” memories by hybrids who are used to do the unpleasant jobs necessary for wider society to function.
'Bar Hopping for Astronauts' by Leo X Robertson finds a former astronaut who has been locked into his space suit for twenty years having to come to terms with the modern world.
'In Aeturnus' by Phillip Irving sees a man trapped in a never-ending cycle of regeneration and disposal.
Emma Johanna Puranen’s ‘A Spark in a Flask’ is set in a moonbase abandoned to robot caretakers supervising a series of experiments set up to engender life. The protocols are not set to cater for the project’s success.
A tale about the survivor of an airlock accident having to overcome her fears, the elegantly allusively titled 'A Pall of Moondust' by Nick Wood references other SF stories set on the Moon as well as the Arthur C Clarke story its title echoes.
In summary, there is nothing remarkably new here but all are good examples of the genre, many illustrating what it is best suited to explore, the human condition under stress.
As to the stories themselves….
In ‘Distribution’ by Paul Cornell a local authority operative investigates a man who has divided his consciousness among parts of himself that he now keeps in tubes.
'Stealthcare' by Liz Williams focuses on an insurance assessor investigating possible fraud in a future where health is expensively monitored by interactive wrist band.
‘Down and Out Under the Tannhauser Gate’ by David Gullen centres on an old soldier eking out her existence by the interstellar gate where she was the only human survivor of the last battle and waiting for her chance to pass through to its imagined delights.
The superbly written 'Me Two' by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown is a poignant tale relating the connection, from first awareness(es) to death, of a consciousness switching daily between Danny Madison in London and Cristina Velásquez in Barcelona.
In Tim Major’s 'The Andraiad,' Martin is the andraiad replacement for a man who committed a violent crime, and is determined to be a better person than his predecessor.
The action of 'Bloodbirds' by Martin Sketchley occurs after the Qall have come, used humanity as humans had used other animals, and then gone again, leaving inside people cells which will form Qall embryos, emerge with little warning, and devastate their erstwhile host. Nikki is an Angel, part of the Vanguard who hunt down these surrogates. Then she meets a possible surrogate man who treats her kindly.
In 'Going Home' by Martin Westlake a Russian scientist is in effect conscripted to investigate mysterious fragments found in the area where Tunguska was struck by a meteorite . Or was the devastation there caused by a conflict between angels?
Spookily atmospheric, 'Okamoto’s Lens' by A N Myers centres on the eponymous lens which acts a bit like Bob Shaw’s slow glass, only in reverse. It can capture images of the future.
Set in Leith, 'Love in the Age of Operator Errors' by Ryan Vance explores the illicit use of memory technology to access the experiences of the narrator’s lost boyfriend.
'Stone of Sorrow' by Peter Sutton combines two new technologies, an experimental system for regenerating farm soil and a top secret army transportation system in a story whose focus doesn’t stray from concern for its characters.
Bearing some tonal resemblances to Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon, 'Henrietta' by T H Dray features a retired plastic-eating artificial life-form which wants to see a sunrise.
The light-hearted 'A History of Food Additives in 22nd Century Britain' by Emma Levin does what its title promises. The entry for 2150 is especially sardonic.
'The Trip' by Michael Crouch has a professor and a newly qualified former student undertake an archaeological expedition on a new planet, where they make a mind-expanding discovery.
'The Ghosts of Trees' by Fiona Moore. A plant researcher working in the Nevada desert on plants suitable for use on Mars sees the ghosts of trees, specifically the trees in the footage of 1950s nuclear test explosions.
Russell Hemmell’s 'The Opaque Mirror of Your Face' is narrated by a faceless cyborg, part of a human spinal fluid harvesting team, who steals - down to the seventh dermal level - the face of a young woman to use as his own. Her revenge is not what you might expect.
Aliya Whiteley’s 'More Sea Creatures to See' features aliens who, unbeknownst to humans, are slowly replacing them in order to turn Earth into a theme park.
Remarkably effective at evoking memories for those of a certain age, 'The End of All Exploring' by Gary Couzens is a hymn both to all those unrecorded 1960s TV moments forever lost to the ether and to the man who comes back in time to record them.
David Cleden’s 'How Does My Garden Grow?' is set on a generation starship whose occupants are obsessed with keeping the recycling ratio as high as possible.
'Girls’ Night Out' by Teika Marija Smits relates an experience of “bottled” memories by hybrids who are used to do the unpleasant jobs necessary for wider society to function.
'Bar Hopping for Astronauts' by Leo X Robertson finds a former astronaut who has been locked into his space suit for twenty years having to come to terms with the modern world.
'In Aeturnus' by Phillip Irving sees a man trapped in a never-ending cycle of regeneration and disposal.
Emma Johanna Puranen’s ‘A Spark in a Flask’ is set in a moonbase abandoned to robot caretakers supervising a series of experiments set up to engender life. The protocols are not set to cater for the project’s success.
A tale about the survivor of an airlock accident having to overcome her fears, the elegantly allusively titled 'A Pall of Moondust' by Nick Wood references other SF stories set on the Moon as well as the Arthur C Clarke story its title echoes.
In summary, there is nothing remarkably new here but all are good examples of the genre, many illustrating what it is best suited to explore, the human condition under stress.
December 21, 2022
Loved every story in this collection! Standouts for me (it's hard to choose!): Emma Levin, Liz Williams, Paul Cornell, Nick Wood, Teika Marija Smits. Congratulations to everyone.
January 3, 2023
Good stories
Very enjoyable read...not too many hard sci-fi concepts or long boring descriptions, which I appreciate, and all stories were well written.
Very enjoyable read...not too many hard sci-fi concepts or long boring descriptions, which I appreciate, and all stories were well written.
April 8, 2023
Great Short stories
I read ever story in this book. Each was engaging and unique. Recommended to my family and friends. Anyone who enjoys sci-fi, will enjoy!
I read ever story in this book. Each was engaging and unique. Recommended to my family and friends. Anyone who enjoys sci-fi, will enjoy!
February 22, 2023
Molto disuguale
[Disclaimer: Ho ricevuto il libro grazie al programma Early Reviewer di LibraryThing] Questa raccolta deI migliori racconti di fantascienza britannica del 2021 è se possibile ancora più variegata di quella dell'anno precedente. Lasciamo perdere il racconto di apertura, che non sono proprio riuscito a comprendere. Ma anche nel resto del libro ho trovato alcuni racconti molto belli e altri francamente modesti, che non mi hanno detto nulla. Il voto finale tiene conto del fatto che ovviamente i gusti personali sono diversi e in fin dei conti di testi simpatici ce ne sono. I miei preferiti:
▪ Me Two, Keith Brooke e Eric Brown: variante sul tema delle "vite separate"
▪ The Andraiad, Tim Major: può una macchina essere più umana della persona che rimpiazza? 914953255
▪ The Stone of Sorrow, Peter Sutton: poetico.
▪ Henrietta, T.H. Dray: alieno sì, ma non troppo.
▪ The End of All Our Exploring, Gary Couzens: il concetto è subito chiaro, ma scritto in modo meraviglioso.
▪ A Spark in a Flask, Emma Johanna Puranen: anche questo molto poetico.
[Disclaimer: Ho ricevuto il libro grazie al programma Early Reviewer di LibraryThing] Questa raccolta deI migliori racconti di fantascienza britannica del 2021 è se possibile ancora più variegata di quella dell'anno precedente. Lasciamo perdere il racconto di apertura, che non sono proprio riuscito a comprendere. Ma anche nel resto del libro ho trovato alcuni racconti molto belli e altri francamente modesti, che non mi hanno detto nulla. Il voto finale tiene conto del fatto che ovviamente i gusti personali sono diversi e in fin dei conti di testi simpatici ce ne sono. I miei preferiti:
▪ Me Two, Keith Brooke e Eric Brown: variante sul tema delle "vite separate"
▪ The Andraiad, Tim Major: può una macchina essere più umana della persona che rimpiazza? 914953255
▪ The Stone of Sorrow, Peter Sutton: poetico.
▪ Henrietta, T.H. Dray: alieno sì, ma non troppo.
▪ The End of All Our Exploring, Gary Couzens: il concetto è subito chiaro, ma scritto in modo meraviglioso.
▪ A Spark in a Flask, Emma Johanna Puranen: anche questo molto poetico.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews