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Loading... Zima Blue and Other Stories [Night Shade Books]by Alastair Reynolds
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I’ve recently read many science fiction works by Alastair Reynolds, but this was the first collection of his short stories I’ve seen. It is a pretty broad assortment of stories, some more science fiction than others, and a few that are rock “hard”. What I mean by that is that the astrophysics is meticulously explained, far above my ability to comprehend. In fact, he could just be spouting absolute nonsense and not one in a million could call him on it. If you like space opera, or Alastair Reynolds in particular, the majority of these stories will find your favor. I thought the title work, Zima Blue, was particularly poignant.
... noted for big novels that combine storylines strung out across aeons with mind-blowing cosmological theory, and he's just as successful at presenting these concepts in the more constraining form of the short story Is contained inContains
The stories in Zima Blue represent a more optimistic take on humanity's future, a view that says there may be wars, there may be catastrophes and cosmic errors, but something human will still survive. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Not that each story is equally rewarding, mind you. While "Beyond the Aquila Rift," "Enola," and "Zima Blue" are truly brilliant and "Spirey and the Queen" is as giddy a space-opera hoot as any a Golden Age periodical produced, "Hideaway" and "Angels of Ashes" were merely adequate and felt forced and gloomy. "Understanding Space and Time" is comparatively a piece _sui generis_ here, as if Reynolds mixed a Cosmic Cocktail using Douglas Adams' Whiskey and cosmology infodump soda; the musical selections that accompany it are well-chosen, though.
Via Spirey, Reynolds also provides me with a phrase I know I'll be using now and again when she worries about "suffering from acute existence failure." Nice; thanks, Al! ( )