Book 57: Landfalls

Landfalls

Naomi J. Williams

This book offers a realistic imagined version of a circumnavigational voyage helmed by French Commodore Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, in the late 18th century. Reading almost like a novel in stories, each chapter offers a different point of view based on one of the expedition's ports of call, following everyone from the voyage's officers and seamen to those waiting for them at home and those whom the expedition encountered along their travels. The mix of perspectives and storytelling techniques keeps the book fresh and rounds out the story, lending it a sense of realism unmatched by many historical novels, particularly those (like this one) that must, by necessity, fill in numerous gaps from the actual historical record. Williams is a deft writer and the reading experience is as engrossing as it is gently educational; clearly based on serious research, the stories never lose sight of the humanity behind the events, and each is compelling while adding to the tapestry of the whole. Landfalls is an excellent fictional introduction to a relatively unknown scientific pursuit, a well-imagined take on what might have been on an ill-fated journey into the unknown.

Grade: A

Book 56: The Best of Electric Velocipede

The Best of Electric Velocipede

Edited by John Klima

This collection traces the history of The Electric Velocipede through some of the stories and poetry it published during its run. Though the anthology presents itself as a "best of" edition, the individual stories and poems drastically vary in quality (moreso than in most other collections) even if they do tend to improve as the volume proceeds. This book has its gems, as all of its kind do, but ultimately feels somewhat scattered without a sense of theme to guide it. The focus on speculative fiction is evident throughout, but it's difficult to get a handle on which genre a particular story is in as they flit between various fantasy and science fiction tropes. This is perhaps primarily a fault of the offending authors, but the frenetic reading experience could have been improved by more mindful organization (the effect of chronological ordering here results in a lot of disorienting jumps), effective introductory notes, or other ameliorating editorial factors. That said, the collection does have its high points and surely does not lack for variety; I was particularly surprised to find myself drawn in by some of the poetry. The Best of Electric Velocipede does provide a useful introduction to some lesser-known voices in speculative fiction, but its many misfires lead to a wildly uneven reading experience despite the success of its few gems.

Grade: C

Book 55: The Shore

The Shore

Sara Taylor

The first thing to note about this book is its structure; though advertised as a novel, The Shore is a collection of short stories that follow the lives of several generations (particularly women) of a family living on the Virginia Barrier Islands. The stories do link up nicely, even if readers must frequently refer to the family tree that Taylor provides at the front of the book, and certain themes weave their way throughout the collection. The interconnectedness is deliberate and easy to spot, yet feels natural as secondary characters in one story come to the fore in another. Most crucial is the legend of matriarch Medora, whose story is told directly but becomes (understandably) distorted over the generations, in a nice and relatively subtle metafictional nod to the power of story and the peculiarities of family legends. Each story feels complete while connecting to the greater whole, though one story- that of someone who left the islands- seems to be missing, leaving a gap in the otherwise tight mosaic. Other stories, particularly the final quartet, diverge slightly from the previous formula, following characters who are not Medora's direct descendants and only given a more direct connection to the remainder at the end of the book. Individual stories work well in isolation and their variation showcases Taylor's array of skills as she utilizes different narrative voices, tenses, and moods, making the characters come alive and distinguishing them individually and temporally. These stories truly feel like they are taking place in their own times, even if Taylor stumbles a bit in her attempt to include non sequitur plague fiction; this particular effort feels a bit forced and introduces some thematic elements that Taylor fails to exploit usefully. Despite this and some other minor stumbles, The Shore is an intriguing and engrossing portrait of a place, told through the various lenses of a single family and the diverse experiences they have, from poverty to profit and everywhere in between.

Grade: A-

Book 52: Fortune Smiles

Fortune Smiles

Adam Johnson

First and foremost, a content warning: the story "Dark Meadow" centers on a pedophile and treats this character sympathetically; proceed with caution. While I believe that this story effectively accomplishes its goals, reading it is a profoundly disturbing experience, insofar as it plants the reader firmly in this character's mind. Johnson (and, indeed, his editor(s)) may have had good intentions when including this story in the collection, but it is unsavory and would have better been left out.

Otherwise, this is an interesting short story collection that operates primarily in a familiar mode: it consists mostly of "literary" fiction with a few hints of sci-fi-inspired intrigue that are always a little too ashamed to cross over directly into genre writing. This is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but Johnson seems too willing to go along with the traditional strictures of litfic rather than exploring the inventive elements that would otherwise lend this collection some desperately needed originality. Several stories simply fail to capitalize on the author's grand ideas, whether by coming into them with too little interest too late in the story ("Nirvana") or by failing to connect the fantastic elements effectively to the story's other themes ("Fortune Smiles"). Interestingly enough, the most effective stories are the realistically minded "Hurricanes Anonymous" and "George Orwell Was a Friend of Mine", both of which are grounded in strong, compelling characters who carry the narratives even when nothing much is actually happening to or around them; the latter story, especially, is a masterclass in engendering readers' sympathy for an unsavory character, offering as it does an exploration into the idea of the banality of evil without excessive moralizing or unaffected indifference. Overall, Fortune Smiles is full of excellent writing and grapples with several interesting themes, but fails to capitalize on its most intriguing ideas, settling instead for typical aimless litfic fare.

Grade: B-

Book 51: Masked

Masked

Edited by Lou Anders

I may not have read many superhero comics, but I nonetheless find the concept of powered individuals incredibly intriguing and rife with possibilities. Masked collects fifteen stories of superheroes and supervillains with a pleasantly wide variety of styles, subjects, and, yes, superpowers. Though the anthology is a bit uneven, as they tend to be, I appreciated each author's attempt to reinvent a trope that often seems to have worn out its room for originality and growth. The originality never ceased to impress me, particularly in Bill Willingham's "A to Z in the Ultimate Big Company Superhero Universe (Villains Too)". Willingham brilliantly utilizes a nursery rhyme structure to introduce a roster of 26 alphabetically categorized super characters, while simultaneously keeping his story moving at a fine clip. It is a silly conceit, to be sure, but the format feels appropriate and functions as both a (gentle) skewering of and love letter to the genre (which, to be fair, often relies on a good deal of silliness in all of its formats). More serious, but equally enjoyable, is Chris Roberson's "A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows", which introduces The Wraith in an adventure with thematic depth, written in a convincingly journalistic style that befits its mid-1940s setting; I only wish that I could read about more of his adventures. Other stories achieve varying levels of success, but each author offers an interesting take on the idea of the superhero, a draw that makes Masked as compelling as the very ideas it celebrates and thrives on.

Grade: A-

Book 49: Music for Wartime

Music for Wartime

Rebecca Makkai

All short story collections are potentially susceptible to derailment due to inconsistency of subject, theme, style, and/or quality, and it is often difficult to anticipate what awaits when beginning one. This is particularly true of single-author anthologies, even those that do turn out to have a common thread running through their individual components. Comprised partially of stories focusing on Hungarians' experiences during and after World War II and partially of wholly unrelated tales, Rebecca Makkai's Music for Wartime occupies a strange middle ground between thematic unity and narrative diversity. The opening story and three additional "legends" interspersed throughout the collection are ephemeral folk tales set in rural interwar Europe (likely Hungary) that offer some context for those stories that explore the implications of the war, at the cost of making the others seem hopelessly out of place. Despite their individual and collective ability to establish a setting and evoke a particular mood, these efforts to establish a common thread and theme serve more to highlight the collection's incongruities than to unify its disparate pieces into a coherent whole.

Makkai's laudable, if imperfect, attempt to add a wrinkle to the typical anthology format betrays another of the collection's flaws: repetition that fails to construct collective meaning. Several characters seem to be recycled among the war-inspired stories without any overt connections beyond a general connection to the conflict, however far removed. Moreover, these stories are scattered among others featuring such wholly unconnected elements as a traveling circus, a reality television producer, and a time-traveling Johann Sebastian Bach. Without providing stronger connecting tissue or even ensuring their physical proximity, Makkai fails to capitalize on the war stories' potential power. Even though many individual stories shine, both within and outside of the purported theme, the collection lacks the unity it apparently craves. Powerful examinations of vivid characters and compelling philosophical questions are lost amidst the book's attempt at a unified vision that it fails to create. Music for Wartime is an eclectic collection that suffers from its hesitancy to effectively embrace either its shared themes or its more unique elements, resulting in a group of strong stories that buries its own potential.

Grade: B

Book 45: Manhattan Mayhem

Manhattan Mayhem

Edited by Mary Higgins Clark

With yet another mystery anthology under my belt, I suppose it's fair to say that I am prone to reading in genre-driven spurts. This particular collection offers stories set within some of Manhattan's many neighborhoods; disappointingly, however, they cluster around familiar Midtown and Downtown locales that, as a rule, don't provide much in the way of cultural and ethnic diversity. Most of the included authors do, however, take full advantage of their chosen setting, and the collection feels thematically balanced. Stories set in the present day and in bygone times peacefully coexist in an order that flows naturally without forcing too much clustering or narrative whiplash. Though several themes do repeat, including multiple stories set during the World War II era, each author adds enough originality- and writes with enough quality- to maintain the reader's interest throughout the book.

The collection's overall quality is not particularly evident after editor Mary Higgins Clark's opening story, "The Five-Dollar Dress", which is hampered by generally poor writing, a muddled timeline, and at least one disruption of continuity. Clark ultimately redeems herself with superb plotting, even if the details are indeed the devil, and a final twist that is so satisfying that the whole story is worth the occasionally painful experience of actually reading it. Some of the other stories also fall victim to heavy-handedness in either concept or execution or, possibly the worse sin in mystery writing, lead the reader to an obvious conclusion that actually turns out to be the story's ending; sometimes the payoff just doesn't work, even after a suitably enjoyable setup. Happily, Nancy Pickard's "Three Little Words" subverts this trope, lining up its suspects neatly and slowly picking them apart before reaching a genuinely surprising conclusion.

Ben H. Winters also provides a welcome break from the expected with "Trapped!", a play that initially elicited my serious skepticism, none the less so for its focus on, yes, the staging of a play-within-the-play and its inclusion of a character who decides to write the events of "Trapped!" itself as a story. This kind of metafiction, even (or perhaps especially) when attempted in jest and good humor, is rife with potential pitfalls; nevertheless, Winters somehow manages to avoid every single one of them on the way to creating a hilarious send-up that is arguably the collection's best story, and easily the one that I enjoyed the most. I was likewise ecstatic to find a genuine time-travel story (Justin Scott's "Evermore") and even more excited when it turned out to be an excellent use of both science fictional elements and a more traditional heist narrative, both of which I am particularly partial to. Even if Winters and Scott provide welcome counterweights to more traditional detective stories, S. J. Roznan's stands out as an excellent example of the latter, presenting a main character whom I would be happy to follow on subsequent adventures.

The good thus outweighs the bad, and it is easy enough to move on from a somewhat tepid story to a more thrilling neighbor next door. Mary Higgins Clark clearly knows her way around the genre, and has assembled a fitting tribute to the Mystery Writers of America's 70th anniversary. Manhattan Mayhem may exhibit some of the general unevenness that characterizes all short-story collections, but with its range of narrative styles and the remarkably high quality of most of its stories, this anthology offers many enjoyable examples of short-form mysteries that showcase the genre's current breadth and depth.

Grade: A

Book 43: The Best American Mystery Stories 2013

The Best American Mystery Stories 2013

Edited by Lisa Scottoline

One way or another, I've been reading a lot of mystery stories and thrillers recently. The Best American series generally provides a reliably interesting selection of short genre fiction, and the 2013 mystery iteration is no exception to the rule. With a mix of traditional procedurals and literary examinations of crime and its effects on individuals and communities (as well as stories that proudly straddle the lines that some would wish to place between these types of tales), this anthology stands up admirably among its predecessors and peers. Editors Lisa Scottoline and Otto Penzler have ensured that the group is balanced, despite the emergence of certain themes and styles. Many of the stories herein are tinged with regret and/or told in a mournful manner, yet no two authors take the same approach to these and other emotions, highlighting and illustrating the rich complexity of human feelings and experiences and the ways in which crime brings them to the forefront. After reading a large number of these volumes, I am always amazed to discover new takes on the common theme; this year, Kevin Leahy's "Remora, IL" was the biggest surprise. Excellently and appropriately told in the typically tricky first-person plural voice, the story examines the ways in which the arrival of a private prison affects the surrounding small town, tackling the effects of prison culture through a different lens than is usually offered.

Even the more traditional procedurals and whodunnits are unusually successful here, providing as they do a range of vivid settings, compelling characters, and pleasantly confounding solutions. Clark Howard's "The Street Ends at the Cemetery" is a delightful (and surprisingly funny) heist story that somehow manages to maintain its suspense despite the evident spoiler in the title; it's an all-around delight that, I suspect, would be just as entertaining when read a second or third time. Similarly rewarding are historically minded tales from Bill Pronzini and Eileen Dreyer. Pronzini's "Gunpowder Alley" is a locked-room mystery with thoroughly believable late-19^th century atmospherics and a conclusion that, fittingly perhaps, can be guessed before the fictional sleuth makes the same deduction; suffering only slightly from some botched descriptions of the setting (so crucial to the subgenre), it is nonetheless a pleasant throwback in both style and content. Dreyer takes a slightly different approach in "The Sailor in the Picture", which revisits the iconic V-Day celebrations in Times Square with an alternate perspective of a sailor's homecoming with a surprisingly modern sensibility. The story offers its share of suspense and action before seemingly heading for a tidy conclusion, only for the coda to reveal an alternate, yet deliciously satisfying, perspective on the preceding events.

Other stories in contemporary settings illustrate the ever-increasing types of stories that fall under the mystery umbrella, and most of those in this collection do seem to fit the theme. Andre Kocsis displays his innate sense for proper pacing in "Crossing", a thriller about a Vietnam-era deserter who leads a group of mysterious foreigners across the British Columbia-Washington border. Expertly deploying elements of more traditional genre stories, such as false leads and half-hidden truths, as well as tense and occasionally violent interactions between its characters, as well as a patient buildup to a final illustration of the stakes in play, Kocsis shows that a bit of melodrama need not necessarily diminish the power of a good story and that strong characters can thrive within any fictional situation or genre. The quality of individual stories is incredibly variable in these anthologies and may be somewhat dependent on the guest editor's tastes, but this collection indicates that 2013 was a banner year for short crime fiction. Crime and criminality may provide the essential link between the stories in The Best American Short Stories 2013, but each author's unique approach and style ensures that the state of mystery fiction, at least in its short form, is as strong as it has ever been.

Grade: A

Book 40: In the Stacks

In the Stacks: Short Stories About Libraries and Librarians

Edited by Michael Cart

As someone whose two professional jobs have been in academic libraries, how could I possibly pass over In the Stacks when I stumbled across it, and I promise that this is absolutely true, in the stacks? The simple answer is that I couldn't, and I picked it up hoping to find a selection of stories that illustrate and explore some of the inherent variety of my chosen profession. Although some of the authors do engage relevant themes, I was disappointed to find that the authors use librarians and librarians almost incidentally; and while this certainly a valid way to construct a story (I hardly expect every story to laud everything that I happen to find important), this tendency is more than a little disingenuous in a collection whose stated purpose is to collect stories on that theme. Sure, each story includes at least one library or librarian, but only a handful are particularly concerned with their impact or meaning. This is even more baffling when considering that editor Michael Cart deliberately chose preexisting publications, rather than being forced to work with new submissions.

The collection is further limited by a noticeable lack of editorial context: Cart provides no introductory notes, and it can often be difficult to discern when and where, exactly, a particular story is supposed to be taking place. This creates an unpleasant sense of confusion and contributes to the difficulty in distinguishing between many of the stories, even immediately after reading them. Relatively simple solutions, such as an obvious organizing principle, individual introductory notes, or endnotes that actually mention the selected stories, are, alas, absent. Cart somewhat compounds the problem in his introductory remarks, which bafflingly characterize Ursula K. LeGuin's excellent "The Phoenix" as "impossible to classify", despite the fact that it is a relatively straightforward thought experiment that takes place in a vaguely European city that conforms largely to our expectations of reality (even if the setting itself is, strictly speaking, a fictional one). I was, however, pleased to find a traditional detective story (Anthony Boucher's "QL 696.C9"), although it hinges on a supposedly mysterious clue that should be immediately obvious to anyone who has used a college library, let alone worked in one. More entertaining is "Ed Has His Mind Improved" by Walter R. Brooks, which features the droll wit of everyone's favorite talking horse. I even appreciated some of the stories that rely on more stereotypical portrayals of librarians, such as Zona Gale's "The Cobweb", when they featured these characters in a meaningful way. But though some may be wonderful in their own right, they feel woefully out of place here, cheapening the collection and the profession in the process.

Nonetheless, the collection's generally blasé attitude doesn't entirely detract from the power of its best stories, which (perhaps unsurprisingly) tend to be those that focus on librarians' devotion to their work. "The Phoenix" is as powerful a meditation on the librarian's charge as Italo Calvino's now-canonical "A General in the Library", and I appreciate the way that these authors, along with Isaac Babel (whose "The Public Library" is similar, but less subtle), prominently feature libraries and examine the librarians' various roles within their communities. It is surely unsurprising that Ray Bradbury's "Exchange" is easily the best of the lot, gently guiding and then altering the reader's view of the librarian in question, ultimately drawing tears in its simple, understated beauty and appreciation for the very best librarians. And so every short story anthology has a few standout stories at either end of the spectrum, but the greatest failure of this particular attempt is the large number of stories that are instantly forgettable. In the Stacks seems destined to disappoint, both because of the generally underwhelming quality of the stories within and those stories' disappointing lack of engagement with the book's stated theme.

Grade: B-

Book 36: Upgraded

Upgraded: A Cyborg Anthology

Edited by Neil Clarke

All short-story anthologies are, by nature, hit-and-miss propositions; within every collection, be it the work of a single author, a thematic group, or a "best of" collection, each tale will affect each reader differently. Even with that in mind, however, I found the variance within Upgraded to be greater than in many anthologies. I suspect that this may be due, at least in part, to the broad spectrum of stories that fall under its surprisingly vague "cyborg" theme. Indeed, the collection's breadth is its greatest strength, and I appreciated the opportunity to read widely across science fiction subgenres, finding that the hits and misses weren't confined to single styles, themes, or interpretations of who- or what- cyborgs might be. In this way, the collection pleasantly challenged my own assumptions; I encountered brilliant stories in genres that I usually shrug off and found myself disappointed in stories that I would have otherwise expected to love. The collection has it all, from the galaxy-spanning space opera and dystopian cyberpunk nightmares you'd expect to less stereotypical intimate personal monologues and even a wholly satisfying mystery (Ken Liu's "The Regular") that wouldn't feel horribly out of place in a modern detective anthology.

For all of its inherent variety, however, Upgraded isn't constructed in a way that efficiently exploits the stories' similarities and differences. Recycled themes show up erratically and seemingly without purpose, and the vast gulf between adjoining stories often creates an unwelcome sense of whiplash, particularly when stories engaging similar themes (or even similar interpretations of the term "cyborg") appear too closely together. Similarly, I often found that the stronger of two (or more) similar stories was placed first, making the following efforts pale in comparison. Much of this is based on my subjective reading experience, but the collection's sometimes uneven structure seems to invite and encourage the kind of direct comparisons that highlight stories' relative strengths and weaknesses. The best and worst stories may starkly stand out against the background, but the background itself becomes dull and ill-defined in the process. Overall, it is disappointing and distracting to be flung violently between stories that effortlessly immerse readers in the chosen context and those that remain unsettled even after ten or twenty pages.

Much as the stories explore strikingly different interpretations of the technology behind, and the meaning(s) of, the integration of machine and biological parts, there is a significant gap between those that immerse readers immediately and those that rely heavily on the authors' presumption of readers' preexisting familiarity with various tropes. At times, it is difficult to determine who the target audience is: while devoted science fiction fans will certainly find much to love (and to stretch the boundaries of the meaning and possibilities of the genre as broadly constructed, which is not unimportant when considering the background static of the current Hugo debacle), too many stories are unclear even to readers accustomed to the genre's most popular, well-worn conceptions. Likewise, I was impressed by the balance between stories that stressed a gee whiz element, focusing on the technology, and those that focused more narrowly on personal lived experience and/or more broadly on themes as important as the meaning of humanity and the gains and losses engendered by fusing biology and technology. Plenty of the collection's authors are eager to pose the questions and provide a framework for exploring them; thankfully, few become too pedantic in offering answers. Upgraded may be a bit frustrating when considering its harsh transitions and uneven pacing, but its theme is coherent and there is much to be admired within, in the shape of a wide range of quality fictional gems waiting to be discovered by the right readers.

Grade: B

Book 33: The Best American Mystery Stories 2014

The Best American Mystery Stories 2014

Edited by Laura Lippman

Given its consistent high quality, it's almost easy to forget just how good the stories in the annual Best American volumes actually are, even when their relative quality dips for a year or two. Though the 2014 iteration of The Best American Mystery Stories has its fair share of disappointments, including a general sense of unevenness and a potentially poignant absence of actual mystery stories, it does offer a solid selection of excellent crime-centric fiction. The collection's most striking feature, perhaps, is its aforementioned lack of procedurals and, with them, tales that rely on the procurement and decoding of clues, red herrings, and tidy solutions. Even the closest example, Nancy Pauline Simpson's "Festered Wounds", is more of a period piece with a gotcha ending than a proper narrative of detection. Like the other stories in this volume, it is concerned more with philosophical explorations of the myriad causes and effects of crime and criminality than with the particulars of a given event.

This is not, however, to say that these stories do not traffic in suspense, twists, or other traditional genre staples. Joseph Heller's "Almost Like Christmas" and Patricia Engel's "Aida" effectively establish and exquisitely exploit dramatic tension with nearly every word; similarly, Jim Allyn's "Princess Anne" provides a twist ending that is surprising and inevitable in equal measure. Charlaine Harris's "Small Kingdoms", a fun thriller with a wicked sense of ironic, dry humor, may be the collection's most pleasant surprise, coming as it does from an author associated heavily with quite another topic indeed. Most of the contributors do pay tribute, however subtle or unspoken, to the tropes and tricks of more traditional mysteries; these allusions are rendered in different shades of subtlety to varying degrees of success. Likewise, the lofty literary ambitions that are on full display in nearly every story are about as hit-and-miss as they are in less genre-inclined environments. While some authors are able to harness the raw power and indescribable beauty of a perfectly selected turn of phrase, others spend too much time mired in a search for meaning and theme and thus pay too little attention to the intricate details of characterization and plot that ultimately determine the success or failure of any given story- mystery or not. I often found myself craving more action- a criticism that would absolutely apply if I were merely expecting good stories without any preconceived expectations of content.

As refreshing as it is to see an anthology that rewards authors for exploring the literary possibilities of genre fiction, it may be a bit of a stretch to present this collection as a group of excellent mystery stories; rather, it collects excellent stories that deal, however tangentially, with crime. The distinction may seem trivial, but as this series comes ever closer to its parent it may prove to be a distinction well worth considering. Nonetheless, it is encouraging to note that, though they may not be the types of tales expected of such a volume, many of these stories could easily go toe-to-toe with other fiction, in any genre, for sheer quality; despite my qualms about the title's (in)accuracy, the fact that the distinction between the best short fiction and the best short mystery fiction grows increasingly ambiguous every year is, to my mind, a positive development that I hope to see resonate across other oft-maligned literary niches. Insofar as it does contain a selection of stories that revolve around crime and criminality, The Best American Mystery Stories 2014 is a satisfying book, though it may not quite deliver on the promise of its title in conventional ways.

Grade: B+

Book 32: Fiction River: Pulse Pounders

Fiction River: Pulse Pounders

Edited by Kevin J. Anderson

Writing a compelling, well-paced thriller is difficult enough when the intended output is novel-length, and to succeed in shorter formats is nothing short of exceptional. Achieving the proper proportions of characterization, action, and stakes is a delicate balancing act, but the possibilities and rewards are almost limitless when everything clicks. Each of the stories in Pulse Pounders is calculated and crafted to offer a mix of action and intrigue, and editor Kevin J. Anderson has selected a varied assortment of short fiction pieces that showcase a number of different approaches to the genre. Stories utilizing science fiction and fantasy elements are interspersed among more realistic tales of suspense and derring-do, but the combination enhances the reading experience. The collection's strength is enhanced by its intuitive order, which stations similar stories throughout the book rather than piling them together; remarkably, Anderson accomplishes this without inducing whiplash. Certain similarities inevitably arise, as do differences in quality, but Pulse Pounders is remarkably even and entertaining throughout.

Despite the authors' general, and expected, reliance on straightforward prose and their shared tendency to rely on more direct exposition than is strictly necessary, neither do they become bogged down by ill-fitting forays into literary aspiration. Pulse Pounders is intended to entertain, and for the most part it does. Even those stories that are situated within extant or intended series are easily accessible to newcomers, and each conveys its own sense of originality. Those that rely most heavily on elements of speculative fiction are as inviting as the more strictly realistic tales, focusing as they do on adrenaline-fueled plots that fit within the collection's stated theme. In many cases, these elements effectively heighten the tension; the foreboding ending of Peter J. Wacks and Kevin J. Anderson's "Change of Mind" or the emotional impact of Kristine Kathryn Rusch's "Sole Survivor" simply wouldn't be as effective were the stakes not raised by the settings, despite a somewhat cliché approach to some narrative elements. "Fraternization," by Ron Collins, is easily the most emotionally resonant story, due in no small part to the effects of a scientific breakthrough and its effect on the protagonist.

The book's pair of time travel tales is excellent, with each successfully navigating the trope's inherent difficulties while providing a thrilling, time-sensitive sequence of events. Thomas K. Carpenter's "Tower One" may not convincingly convey the emotional depth to which it aspires, but its vision of September 11 and overtures toward exploring the nature of regret and the effects of loss and grief are nonetheless compelling. One senses that a truly great story lurks somewhere in the margins, even if it succeeds more as a leaping-off point than as a standalone narrative. Chuck Heintzelman's "Three Strikes" is much more compelling, relying as it does on a countdown that effectively mimics real time without slowing the story down and on flash-forwards that ratchet up the emotional tension. As the book's strongest offering, it provides a more than worthy conclusion. Pulse Pounders may not contain life-altering flights of literary fancy, but it does include a plethora of interesting ideas and thrilling adventures that accomplish their goal of entertaining interested readers.

Grade: A-

Book 26: Astoria to Zion

Astoria to Zion: 26 Stories of Risk and Abandon from Ecotone's First Decade

Edited by Ben Fountain

According to editor Ben Fountain's introduction, the stories in Astoria to Zion are all included (at least in part) for their examinations of the idea of place. Though this stated theme is not always evident in each of the collection's 26 tales, many do explore the varied meanings of physical (or even mental) location and presence, whether as an anchor or as a jumping-off point for further musing. The most successful works are, unsurprisingly, those that are most inextricably linked to their locales and those that embrace plot as a way to move story, characters, and readers alike along the path to a conclusion, however inconclusive. Several authors, however, fall into the quintessential trap of modern literary fiction, refusing to knit their observations into something meaningful and, in the process, forsaking interest for the sake of creating art that, without sustaining the audience's interest, becomes meaningless. This makes the collection somewhat uneven, as runs of two or three engaging stories are inevitably cut short by a dull foray into the worst kind of litfic. As a whole, the balance tips ever so slightly, and ever so precariously, to the good, meaning that the book may be best enjoyed in small doses, as the reader is unsure from one entry to the next what type of experience lies ahead.

It is to Fountain's credit that the collection embraces standout fiction that manages to be both literary and, in a word, interesting, providing a platform for many talented writers to consider how we alter, and are altered by, the places we inhabit, visit, and abandon. I've read Kevin Brockmeier's "The Year of Silence" a few times before, but its inclusion here invited me to revisit it in a different light, allowing it to resonate with me in a way it hadn't before. This, indeed, is the power of a good anthology, where the theme enhances already excellent stories by inviting reconsideration and a providing a particular frame of reference. Likewise, Astoria to Zion's best historical fiction (the stories by George Makana Clark, Miha Mazzini, David Means, and Ben Stroud) works on several levels, asking readers to think deeply about the meanings and ramifications of both temporal and physical location while vividly depicting relatable visions of the past. Nor does the general focus on location inhibit authors from exploring their ideas in variegated ways. Benjamin Percy, Rick Bass, and Kevin Wilson all set their stories in snowy forests, but each tackles it is a unique way; the settings, while similar, evolve in these skilled hands and come to represent something much more than a story's incidental location.

While each of the authors at least nominally relies on a set idea of place, some are more wedded to the concept than others; even the better stories that employ a more tenuous connection to locale, such as Bill Roorbach and Lauren Groff, somehow pay tribute to its importance. Indeed, the collection's least successful offerings are those that feel untethered while struggling to define their settings, motivate their characters, and/or embrace the power and near necessity of plot. Contrast this with its most moving stories, which carry great depth and resonate beyond their final pages; it is no coincidence, I Think, that all rely on movement and change, whether positive or negative. Something happens in these stories, and it happens somewhere, as the book's theme would imply. Astoria to Zion is an interesting microcosm of modern short fiction, with its best stories evenly matched or exceeding the very best of the field and its worst embodying its most unwelcome trends; in the end, its great pleasures exceed, however tentatively, its perilous pitfalls.

Grade: B

Book 23: Hieroglyph

Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future

Edited by Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer

This book is the product of a concerted effort to produce optimistic, forward-thinking, and inspirational science fiction in the vein of some of the genre's most influential past masters. Given all of the recent turmoil surrounding the Hugo Award nominations, I was pleased to note the inclusion of contributions from a diverse array of authors who, unsurprisingly, offered a nice variety of futuristic visions. From the melting polar ice caps to megacities and far-flung extra-planetary colonies, from political science to quantum physics, Hieroglyph's contributors ask readers to imagine what might be possible, if only we put our minds to the task. While some of the stories develop a bit of a didactic edge, the collection feels remarkably balanced; as a whole, it values innovation and creative thinking over the promotion of any particular viewpoint. If certain themes, such as the potential short- and long-term effects of climate change, do recur, I suspect that it is because they loom large in the public imagination and not because the authors or editors have a particular axe to grind. Even when they might, the politics cut both ways; I found myself completely agreeing and vehemently disagreeing with different authors' implications, but each one made me reconsider my position, however dearly held, in a different light. Even those stories that do revolve around similar premises, like the pair involving towers that reach into the upper atmosphere, approach their similar topics from different angles, creating vastly different reading experiences.

Despite its thematic focus on an inventive, mad scientist brand of science fiction, Hieroglyph's great strength is in its authors' impressive versatility. Very few of these tales are straightforward stories of an unambiguously better world, and many grapple with complex ethical and scientific issues as thoroughly as the best works in other genres. Even more interesting is the sheer variety of problems and solutions envisioned by the collection's authors, as well as the range of academic disciplines they utilize in exploring their imagined futures. The book has a wide potential audience, bridging the gap between English majors and particle physicists, and everyone in between. The science is real, yet accessible, and most stories convincingly present both the whiz-bang innovations and the literary elements like plot and characterization. Some authors might concentrate more on their big ideas than on the story at hand, but even then, their ideas are usually enough to sustain the narrative; only one or two offerings seem to drift away, lost in their science without a sufficient human anchor to make them resonate.

In the end, reading this collection- even when its stories become a bit too preoccupied with their own brilliance- is to be excited and electrified by the possibilities it presents, an effect fostered by the editors and deliberately triggered in nearly every story. Each flows naturally into the next, especially when they share few common characteristics; the mental reset required by such juxtapositions feeds into the intellectual energy the book thrives on- and rewards. Hieroglyph proves (much to the chagrin, I suspect, of a certain particularly vocal segment of fandom) that grounded scientific speculation, plot-driven protagonists, and inquisitive, inward-looking, and, yes, literary writing can coexist in science fiction; when they meet, the results can be indistinguishable from magic.

Grade: A

Book 18: Super Stories of Heroes & Villains

Super Stories of Heroes & Villains

Edited by Claude Lumière

Despite my very spotty knowledge of traditional superhero comics, I'm a sucker for a good superhero (or supervillain) story. For me, much of the appeal lies in the genre's embrace of the outlandish in its quest to explore what it means to make the choices we do; these stories are far removed from the black-and-white characterizations that once drove the comics, and many stories unapologetically tackle difficult moral questions head-on. The stories embody the collapsing distinctions between science fiction, fantasy, and mainstream fiction; even seemingly mundane heroes like Sherlock Holmes display an aptitude for superhuman achievements, and in these postmodern times heroes, villains, and those who fall in between appear in a variety of guises. Super Stories of Heroes & Villains, while focusing on humans (or, rarely, suspiciously humanoid aliens) who have enhanced physical and/or mental abilities, offers far more variety than newcomers might expect. Herein are stories that construct heroes built on familiar paradigms, resurrect some recognizable comic book stalwarts, and deconstruct and reexamine the ways in which we seem to expect the superpowered to behave. It is this diversity that makes the collection so compelling, a product of the included authors' impressive imaginations and editor Claude Lumière's decision to showcase pieces from an array of genres and thematic approaches. The stories are, by turn, triumphant and tragic, the protagonists heroic and haunted, and the reader is greeted with new perspectives on every page.

Thematic anthologies like this one can easily become repetitive, relying on retreads of a common theme, and Lumière's selections reflect both his extensive familiarity with and his enthusiasm for the superhero subgenre. Though his introductions to the collection and to the individual stories are often clumsy at best, his selections are generally accessible to readers who are approaching this type of story for the first time. Even "Übermensch!", "The Nuckelavee: A Hellboy Story", and "The Death Trap of Dr. Nefario", which rely most heavily on preexisting literature, will reward those with the most basic passing familiarity with the traditional canon. Lumière does, I believe, err in including Win Scott Eckert's essay and Jess Nevins's "The Zeppelin Pulps"- the former would be far better suited to a passing reference in the collection's introduction and the latter only makes sense because of the editor's wink and nudge in his preface- and, moreover, exacerbates the problem by placing them back to back. Even so, he generally avoids clumping similar stories, and the book largely preserves a nice, consistent momentum from one selection to the next.

This is all to say very little of the stories themselves; so many of them are outstanding by so many different measures that it would almost require a story-by-story analysis to properly rate the collection. Even the less successful stories, not coincidentally those that are least directly engaged with the superhero theme, at least force the reader to critically reconsider the subgenre. Stories like "Grandma", "The Biggest", and "The Rememberer" share a rich melancholy tone and a devotion to realism, insofar as superheroes can be realistic, that balances some of the more traditional swashbuckling adventures, and the collection has triumph and tragedy in nearly equal measure. Together, the book's stories encompass a complete narrative arc, from glorified origin stories and dazzling mid-career highs to meditations on the fleeting nature of youth, health, and fame, as well as plenty of stories that fall in between. And all of this in an array of vividly imagined settings and impossibly inventive abilities assigned to protagonists, villains, sidekicks, and bit players alike, as each author took a basic, nebulous concept and applied their own interpretation, interest, and skill. Super Stories of Heroes and Villains includes a few miscues, but the overwhelming majority of its stories are of the highest quality, a testament to the full range of vibrant possibilities inherent in some of the oldest tropes in speculative fiction.

Grade: A-

Book 16: Hall of Small Mammals

Hall of Small Mammals: Stories

Thomas Pierce

Having heard that this collection featured a story that includes a resurrected mammoth as a protagonist, I was immediately sold on the expectation of a collection of science fiction-tinged tales with a literary sensibility. Though, alas, Pierce's fantastical inclinations are largely limited to the book's first two stories, Hall of Small Mammals does offer a satisfying lineup of stories exploring human connection and isolation in their many forms. Intentionally or by accident, Pierce has pieced together a collection with common questions and common themes at its core. Each of the book's stories traffics heavily in metaphor, often with similes to spare. While this layered sense of meaning usually contributes to a sense of depth, there are a few stories that feel a bit empty, and several seem to be making the same point in much the same manner. Pierce sometimes offers too little plot to sustain his thematic ideas ("Why We Ate Mud", "Saint Possy"), which is a shame seeing as more meandering stories like "Grasshopper Kings," "Felix Not Arriving," and "Hot Air Balloon Ride for One" are some of the collection's most moving. These stories may require additional reflection to fully appreciate, but they both invite and reward the effort. Most of the collection consists of these sparse stories, well-executed for the most part but largely forgettable after the moment has passed.

And then there's "Videos of People Falling Down," a series of loosely connected vignettes joined by the title's promise and, for my money at least, the collection's runaway success and easily its best story. Despite the possible kitsch implied by the premise, Pierce takes his characters and their various predicaments absolutely seriously (but not without a hint of humor), constructing a story that somehow finds love, loss, despair, and hope in the act of falling. Pierce manages to convey the humanity of his subjects, exploring not only what it is that made them fall- and the aftermath that these videos often forget to mention- but also what it is that draws us to their plights. The story is a large gamble that pays off big, and it is perhaps unsurprising that the author's forays into the fantastic, tentative as they are, are the collection's strongest offerings. The strangely heartbreaking "Shirley Temple Three" effectively uses extinction as a metaphor for an empty nester's loneliness, and a profound story about emotional connection emerges from "The Real Alan Gass" despite its clumsy, half-imagined version of the Theory of Everything.

"More Soon" is a surprisingly effective story that uses the slightest touch of science fiction- in the shape of an unexplainable, highly contagious, yet ultimately contained virus- to explore the ways in which we find, or don't find, closure after the deaths of those who are, for one reason or another, important to us. Unlike some of the collection's other stories, this one grabbed me immediately, its hints of humor massaging its harsh truths, much as in life. Thomas Pierce may leave a bit to be desired in some of his fiction, and the collection certainly has moments that feel overwrought, over-thought, and understated, moments of anticipation and potential that aren't quite realized. Yet Hall of Small Mammals is, by and large, a satisfying group of stories that hint at ways of understanding, or at least considering, some of the larger truths of our existence.

Grade: B+

Book 14: The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure

The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure

Edited by Lawrence Ellsworth

Well, with a title like that, how was I supposed to let this book pass me by? All told, I'm glad I didn't, although the 19th-century prose and occasional alien sensibilities made it slower going than I perhaps expected from a book purportedly all about adventure. It is evident from his general and story-specific introductions that editor Lawrence Ellsworth is devoted to the swashbuckling adventures popular throughout much of the 19th and early 20th centuries and that he is well-read (or at least well-informed), although I was alarmed at the proportion of the biographies that focused on authors other than the ones at hand and remain a bit skeptical about his skill as an anthology editor. I also found myself disappointed at the large number of extracts from novels and longer narratives; having read the climaxes of several stories, I'm now unsure whether I'll bother to read the preliminaries. Though Ellsworth generally chooses self-contained stories within longer works, a lack of established context sometimes contributes to a general sense of indifference and incompletion.

Likewise, while all of the stories do fit, more or less, into a swashbuckling paradigm, Ellsworth does little to define the characteristics that these stories and, more importantly, their characters, are meant to embody. He often sings the praises of swashbucklers, in all of their many forms, and his enthusiasm is obvious, but doesn’t offer satisfactory explanations of his chosen parameters. As a reader with only a vague sense of this era's adventure literature, I would appreciate more context: why, for example, does the collection include so many English-language stories set in France? This lack of visible deliberation and oversight, combined with a story order that appears haphazard and more or less random (except for the fact that few similar stories appear back-to-back), can make the book a bit of a whiplash experience as readers are jolted from one paradigm to another unexpectedly and seemingly without rhyme or reason. Readers are left to reset and quickly adapt to new settings, moods, and themes with each new story; this could, perhaps, have been avoided with a clearly defined organizational scheme, whether chronological, geographic, or thematic.

As a rule, most of the stories display the fundamental characteristics one might expect from the era's literature, such as a weighted exposition-to-action ratio and a particularly well-defined sense of honor. I was a bit disappointed to find little moral ambiguity in these tales- as many swashbucklers do, by definition, adopt a slightly more lax view of the rule of law- but did appreciate those stories that did allow their heroes the slightest bit of outlaw stature. Taken as a whole, the book offers an excellent demonstration of the authors' moral codes, and modern readers with a certain sense of irony will appreciate the great pains the authors take to ensure that their heroes are entirely morally upstanding, regardless of their actions or the circumstances. The plots, however, might leave its more seasoned readers a bit wanting; in many cases, I was able to plot most or all of a story's developments and twists well before they occurred, and I found many to be no more action-packed than other works from the same era.

Nonetheless, and despite an over-reliance on pre-Revolutionary France that isn't satisfactorily explained, the collection does include a pleasant array of stories that take place in locales both expected (England, Renaissance Italy, the pirate-laden Caribbean) and surprising (India). The book includes requisite, but pleasing, cameos by Robin Hood and Zorro, as well as a number of other expected tropes that are quite satisfying here, in their proper context. While I was disappointed with a lack of an Arthurian adventure, which seems to me to fit the category, I was pleased with the various authors' abilities to make their chosen settings come alive. In the majority cases, I felt myself transported across space and time, and while I only occasionally felt the kind of heart-racing tension that the stories must have elicited in their own eras, I thoroughly enjoyed most of these adventures. The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure is a bit lacking in context and, perhaps, editorial oversight and deliberation, but it is a satisfying collection that offers plenty of excitement, well-placed poetic interludes, and an adequate introduction into the literature that defined the golden age of swashbucklers.

Grade: B+

Book 13: Get in Trouble

Get in Trouble: Stories

Kelly Link

I have heard no small amount of praise for Kelly Link and her latest collection of short stories, from both professional reviewers and personal friends, and I felt that I had little choice but to pick it up when I saw it at the public library. And boy, I'm glad I did: I was rewarded with a reading experience that absolutely lives up to the hype. Link's ability to subtly combine the familiar and the fantastic is utterly sublime, and there is even a similar quality of detachment inherent in "The Lesson," the collection's only story that firmly takes place in our (known) reality. The remaining stories vary in their fealty to strict realism, from fairly believable worlds with a slight twist to strange futures with advanced technology, yet each contains at heart a fierce display of humanity. Moreover, Link knows exactly how and when to deploy exposition, often holding certain facts at bay to create a sense of detachment, a slight fog that readers will be pleased to become lost in. The resulting sense of mystery, combined with no small amount of wonder at the worlds she manages to immerse herself and her readers in, makes it obvious that Link is an absolute master of her craft.

There is no single common theme that unites the stories in Get in Trouble, but most rely at least in part on the surprising power of half-truths, dwelling on both the truths and the lies that are inherent in them. Whether her characters omit essential pieces of information to lighten themselves of a burden ("Summer People", "Origin Story"), overtly construct alternate identities and truths ("Secret Identity"), or lie to themselves to avoid confronting uncomfortable truths ("I Can See Right Through You"), they are held captive to the strange areas that arise between fact and fiction, much as Link herself straddles the line. Even those stories that are more overtly and thoroughly fantastic- such as "Valley of the Girls", "The New Boyfriend," and "Two Houses"- keep one foot solidly planted in the familiar, whether it be the painfully familiar hormonal pangs of adolescence or the uncertainty of life and truth itself in the age of postmodernism.

There is a latent power in Link's stories that isn't always evident at the outset; she gradually sinks your claws into you until you find, suddenly, that you are completely immersed in the worlds of her imagination. It is a subtle process that, I suspect, lends her stories much of their power. While many of these tales may immediately seem to jettison the reader into completely unfamiliar territory, their inner logic comes gradually to the fore, until even the most disorienting among them can become the most powerful ("Valley of the Girls" took me a while to figure out, but is the story that has made the deepest lasting impression on me). These aren't so much twist endings as logical outgrowths of the tenuous bonds that connect Link's worlds to our own, and it is an absolute pleasure to get lost in worlds that are as remarkably rich as those in many novels. Ultimately, much of what makes Kelly Link such a powerful and engrossing writer is the atmosphere that she creates within and between her stories, and I am eager to discover her back catalog and to read whatever she comes up with next. Link is, in short, impossibly good, and Get in Trouble has a certain indescribable quality about it, a combination of wonder and sadness that allows Link to touch on profound truths with shocking depth in continually surprising ways.

Grade: A

Book 7: The Best American Mystery Stories of the 19th Century

The Best American Mystery Stories of the 19th Century

Edited by Otto Penzler

With much of the 20th century now covered by a number of his mystery anthologies, editor extraordinaire Otto Penzler has recently turned his attention to the century that spawned the genre as we know it today. His introductions indicate that the collection is meant to introduce readers to the wide range of crime stories that were published throughout the 1800s, meaning that the stories do vary somewhat according to various measures of quality, but they run a surprising gamut from the overly moralizing products one expects of the early decades to the standard (but always pleasant) Holmesian detective stories and darkly ambiguous morality plays. The stories offering straightforward narratives of crimes and the resulting punishments do form the majority, but those that deviate from the script stand out more sharply because of it. Even the more formulaic stories can linger past their final pages, and the most basic among them often provide useful context for the others, if nothing else. Penzler may not have selected the best stories, per se, but his individual story introductions make it clear that the books represents his honest attempt to include the most significant works of short crime fiction from the era in which it came into its own. I am hardly an authority on either the genre or the time period, but as a casual observer I thought that the collection had a nice variety and balance: it was a pleasant- and welcome!- surprise not to read 30-odd variations on the exact same theme.

The book's chronological arrangement scheme, based on each story's earliest publication date, is both the obvious and, I believe, the correct choice. The exceptions- two "riddle stories" whose sequels are reprinted with the originals in this volume and Poe's two stronger Dupin stories- make sense, and the 200-page gap between the two (wholly unrelated) Mark Twain tales is forgivable by their vast differences in tone, theme, and structure. The benefit, of course, is that the reader can appreciate the ongoing development of crime fiction- and, indeed, fiction and language at large- throughout the years, sensing the patterns of influence and echoes that resonate throughout the collection. According to his introductory statements, Penzler deliberately included examples of less accomplished (but nonetheless popular) series like the Allan Pinkerton or Nicholas Carter stories, as well as the first known examples of such important tropes as the detective, ballistic evidence, thumbprint evidence, and the serial criminal. What the collection may therefore lack in overall quality is thus compensated by the overall narrative that emerges. Even when the stories do tend toward the formulaic, there is usually some compelling element to draw demanding and less discerning reader alike, often offering welcome insight into everyday life that cannot be found elsewhere in contemporaneous fiction and/or nonfiction. And while most stories take a predictable line toward morality, gender roles, and general cultural norms and taboos, some are shockingly dark- for their own or any other era. The Best American Mystery Stories of the 19th Century may be a slight misnomer, but it presents a pleasant variety of crime fiction that functions as a worthy introduction to the period and place.

Grade: A

Book 6: Man v. Nature

Man v. Nature

Diane Cook

I don't know what drew me to this collection, but I am so very happy that I found it. From start to finish, Man v. Nature offers an intense, challenging reading experience that routinely floored me with its ideas and impressed me with the raw power with which author Diane Cook conveys them. I usually start with the positive, but there's so much of it in this book that I'll offer a brief negative statement: some of the middle stories- the more realistic ones, perhaps not coincidentally- show less verve than the others. Though "Girl on Girl" is undoubtedly powerful, it was more difficult to follow than many of its more fantastically-minded counterparts, its characters and their interactions as complex and unknowable as real teenage girls are. Likewise, while "Meteorologist Dave Santana" initially shows potential, it is content to merely exist and resolve itself within the typical, boring litfic paradigm that Cook successfully plays with- and expands- throughout the rest of the book. Even so, these stories- and perhaps "Flotsam", "A Wanted Man", and "The Mast Year" from the more fantastically-minded cohort as well- do testify to the depth and range of Cook's talent; their conceits are intriguing, but not as fully developed or explored as those in the other stories. Then again, perhaps they are disappointing because the collection's other entries are so incredibly, relentlessly good.

I knew from the very beginning that I would love this book. Cook has a way of stretching the bounds of reality, writing stories that are remarkably believable despite the surreal element that usually drives their plots. It is somehow easy to imagine the unnamed (but no less terrifying) threat that chases a group of high-powered executive types (the very aptly titled "It's Coming"); the woman whose husbands are progressively well-suited to a terrifying (but, again, largely unseen and unexplained) world that has devolved into pure, violent chaos ("Marrying Up")- and the pitch-black implication of its final sentences; or even the interactions between three buddies who somehow end up stranded on a popular, familiar lake, where their lifelong bonds show signs of previously unacknowledged strain ("Man v. Nature"). The latter story is thoroughly realistic- if one takes it at its word, which upon reflection may not, in fact, provide a proper understanding of it despite its purportedly omniscient narrator- but it is devastating in its consequences, its spool of revelations coming undone at an unnervingly steady pace.

Cook's themes are rarely far from sight, but even when they are blindingly obvious, she strikes with a chilling, deadly aim. Despite its unapologetically heavy-handed use of The Obvious Hammer, I can't recall reading a more evocative, harrowing, and (likely) true metaphor of the paralyzing fear that must possess new mothers than that which forms the backbone of "Somebody's Baby." It is clear from the beginning precisely what Cook aims to do, but her suburban landscape and gossipy neighbors are drawn with such precision that their nonchalance is devastating and effective, borne out by a twist that suggests that mothers- and all parents, really- suffer from a greater fear than the one that is initially explored. The theme is obvious and constant, but the story rings true, proving both that somewhat fantastic elements need not limit a story's litfic-friendly emotional impact and that literary-minded fiction need not be aimless, pedantic, or boring. Cook effectively tells these boundaries to go directly to hell, and her stories show her love for her craft and her keen eye for all of the emotions and interactions that make us human, from the majestic to the mundane.

Man v. Nature's most effective stories are those that most wholeheartedly embrace and revel in the possibilities of science fiction, immediately and almost irrevocably immersing readers in their dystopian settings, carefully revealing contextual information at a pace and level of detail that neither bog down the stories with unnecessary asides nor leave unacquainted readers in the lurch. These short stories are as richly imagined and presented as those in many novels, and though I craved more as I finished "Moving On", "The Way the End of Days Should Be", and "The Not-Needed Forest", they each tell a complete story; it is rather, each story's larger paradigm that I wanted to explore further. Moreover, each leaves off at just the right moment, lingering on a pivotal moment between resolution and the unknowable future before leaving readers and characters alike to ponder what comes after the action. Even when the conclusions seem clear, the collection revels in the kind of uncertainty that defines our lives in mundane and trying times alike.

Cook may approach her genre-tinged fiction with a litfic mind, but in doing so she approaches the short story in a different way, offering a unique perspective that teases out truths about human emotions that can only emerge when we are stretched beyond our breaking points and must confront the uncomfortable, the uncanny, and the inevitable. She throws herself completely into each situation, each locale, each character, and is sometimes as cruel as she is compelling, though neither author nor stories seem to revel in such cruelty. These stories are shocking, heartbreaking, raw, and inescapably human; I expect that they will stick with me for a long time to come. Man v. Nature is a brilliant collection that absolutely hits the mark.

Grade: A