Like Fast Forward 2, I picked this up for the Paul Cornell short story primarily. But I'm still not sure what to make of his Major Hamilton stories; I liked "One of Our Bastards is Missing" better than the first one, but this lacked that Cornell spark that I'm so used to. Highlights of the book included Warren Hammond's "Carnival Night" (a hard-boiled space cop story apparently set in the same universe as his KOP novels; I'll have to seek them out), Paul Di Fillipo's "Providence" (a marvelously inventive tale of robots in a post-human society looking for their equivalent to drugs), "The Assistant" by Ian Whates (the story of a cleaning crew in a dangerous corporate world; these are the sorts of people I wish I was), and "Long Stay" by Ian Watson (a strangely surreal narrative about a man trapped in an airport parking lot... forever). Less successful stories for me included "Rescue Mission" by Jack Skillingstead (aliens wanting a man for his mating energy or something is just one of many cliches on display) and "Woodpunk" by Adam Roberts (the best part is the title, and it's not even that clever). I was disappointed by "The Fixation" by Alastair Reynolds and "Artifacts" by Stephen Baxter, as both of them had fabulous ideas but no story to match. And I'm not quite sure what to think of John Meaney's "Necroflux Day", which I enjoyed in spite of not understanding some key parts of it. (Meaney has some novels in the same universe; I'll have to seek those out too.) As you can tell, the types of stories on display here run the gamut that the genre has to offer, and the talent is on the whole rather strong. A strong, enjoyable collection of current sf; I really like these unthemed anthologies.

The Solaris series continues to improve, from 3.3, to 3.4 to a now very good 3.63 for an original anthology. There is very little ordinary here. Also great to see the return of Paul Cornell's Hamilton - this story not being as wildly inventive as the previous outing, and probably only a 4.25, but fine work, anyway, to have two in a row like that.

Alastair Reynolds production quality continues to amaze, too.

Another interesting thing is a couple of stories related to other work. Warren Hammond's SF hardboiled novels now have a short story to go along with them, this time told from the viewpoint of another detective, an antagonist of his protagonist in the two longer works. John Meaney adds another piece to whatever he calls the Tristopolis/Necro books. This one doesn't seem to work as well to me, given the rest are gothich supernatural fantasy noir, whereas this is the story of a small boy learning about his world.

The other notables are Baxter and Abraham, with the rest being mostly decent quality work.

Unfortunately it has been mentioned that Solaris is up for sale, so this might be the last of these volumes. If so, it was a very fine exit.

Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : Rescue Mission - Jack Skillingstead
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : The Fixation - Alastair Reynolds
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : Artifacts - Stephen Baxter
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : Necroflux Day - John Meaney
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : Providence - Paul Di Filippo
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : Carnival Night - Warren Hammond
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : The Assistant - Ian Whates
Solaris Book Of ew Science Fiction 3 : Glitch - Scott Edelman
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : One of Our Bastards is Missing - Paul Cornell
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : Woodpunk - Adam Roberts
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : Minyia's Astral Angels - Jennifer Pelland
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : The Best Monkey - Daniel Abraham
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : Long Stay - Ian Watson
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : A Soul Stitched to Iron - Tim Akers
Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction 3 : iThink Therefore I Am - Ken MacLeod

Male energy hypnosis vegetable planet escape.

4 out of 5

Multiversal mechanism order stealing fix ghosts.

4 out of 5

Brane model universal fuel fear.

4 out of 5

Learning dead people power.

3 out of 5

Recording hit rollover machine.

3.5 out of 5

Baby shocker detection.

3.5 out of 5

Bug bot cleanup.

3.5 out of 5

Human mythbots.

3 out of 5

Queenfold deception Balance rescue.

4.5 out of 5

Gaia glowing neural net.

3.5 out of 5

Cuddlepie is too a person, wedding tackle or not.

3.5 out of 5

Asymmetrical design advantage discovery.

4 out of 5

Bigarse carpak bugs me.

3.5 out of 5

Monster Family fortune foundation.

3.5 out of 5

Store everything, or not. We know.

3.5 out of 5

4.5 out of 5

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