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New Destinies #7
New Destinies #7 Spring 1989
Very Interesting Book
- GenresScience Fiction
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1989
16 people want to read
About the author
Jim Baen
126 books7 followersJim Baen was Editor-in-Chief and publisher of Baen Books, and renowned in the science fiction field for his taste and ability to select authors with strong storytelling ability and steer them to commercial success. Prior to founding of Baen Books, he was the editor of science fiction magazine Galaxy, science fiction editor of Ace Books, and an editor at Tor Books.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 1, 2025
A mixed bag as these types of magazines are (even when they're presented as a mass market paperback instead of a magazine proper).
This particular volume is heavier on the "speculative fact" articles which amount to 30+-year-old outdated laymen's scientific musings. For whatever reason, I find these delightfully quaint, but I understand that may not be the majority opinion. Also in the column of nonfiction, there are a couple of fun pieces recounting war stories from the writing circuit from Larry Niven and Algis Budrys.
The fiction has some good highlights, particularly in the three longer pieces. Dean Ing's Briar Patch presents a novelette borrowed from one of the first two Man-Kzin Wars books and follows it up with a nonfiction piece explaining himself. It's schlock, but it's pretty fun and the nonfiction essay was enough to convince me that he just *is* kind of weird like that, so I guess we can let him slide a bit.
Elizabeth Moon's Welcome to Wheel Days had a nostalgic coziness that is underrepresented in the middle stages of space colonization stories. Good stuff, and I've been meaning to check her work out for a while, so that was good to see.
F. Paul Wilson's Kids is a cyberpunky societal fable that reminded me of Logan's Run if you dropped the false-utopia bits. Or maybe Beyond Thunderdome is a better pull? He's another author where I own a couple of their books, but haven't quite gotten around to reading them yet (god, there are so many at this point). As far as that category goes, I would say this particular story has placed him below Elizabeth Moon on the priority list.
This particular volume is heavier on the "speculative fact" articles which amount to 30+-year-old outdated laymen's scientific musings. For whatever reason, I find these delightfully quaint, but I understand that may not be the majority opinion. Also in the column of nonfiction, there are a couple of fun pieces recounting war stories from the writing circuit from Larry Niven and Algis Budrys.
The fiction has some good highlights, particularly in the three longer pieces. Dean Ing's Briar Patch presents a novelette borrowed from one of the first two Man-Kzin Wars books and follows it up with a nonfiction piece explaining himself. It's schlock, but it's pretty fun and the nonfiction essay was enough to convince me that he just *is* kind of weird like that, so I guess we can let him slide a bit.
Elizabeth Moon's Welcome to Wheel Days had a nostalgic coziness that is underrepresented in the middle stages of space colonization stories. Good stuff, and I've been meaning to check her work out for a while, so that was good to see.
F. Paul Wilson's Kids is a cyberpunky societal fable that reminded me of Logan's Run if you dropped the false-utopia bits. Or maybe Beyond Thunderdome is a better pull? He's another author where I own a couple of their books, but haven't quite gotten around to reading them yet (god, there are so many at this point). As far as that category goes, I would say this particular story has placed him below Elizabeth Moon on the priority list.
August 28, 2012
This was an interesting anthology, a mix of fiction and non-fiction. The story "Briar Patch" by Dean Ing made me want to read more. The final story, "Kids", by F. Paul Wilson, was an interesting view of a society in which illegal children were raised in the sewers by a motherly Jean Harlow clone. There is strength in numbers, a lesson for anyone unhappy with current events.
But, for me, the most fascinating chapter was "Dialogues in the Zoo", an investigation into animal behavior, and especially cat behavior, that demonstrated the influences on the development of the cat-like Kzin character in "Briar Patch". An intriguing look into the mind of an author.
But, for me, the most fascinating chapter was "Dialogues in the Zoo", an investigation into animal behavior, and especially cat behavior, that demonstrated the influences on the development of the cat-like Kzin character in "Briar Patch". An intriguing look into the mind of an author.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews