The New Atlantis and Other Novellas of Science Fiction

Three misses from authors who have done much much better elsewhere.

Wolfe's "Silhouette" follows an officer with unclear responsibilities and relationships on a long-range exploratory/colonization star ship orbiting above a harsh jungle planet. The ship's computer is mad, the crew is plotting mutiny, and our protagonist has developed a relationship with his own shadow that gives him the ability to astrally project. A few moments of good weirdness in shipboard culture are overshadowed by the complete collapse of the plot.

Le Guin's "The New Atlantis" features a woman living in a failing American Empire, where infrastructure is breaking and totalitarian cops are everywhere. Her mathematician husband is suddenly released from the gulag, show more where he completes a theorem allowing for miraculous solar energy before being retaken. Meanwhile, new continents rise from below the ocean, in long passages written from the point of view of angler fish. It feels like a draft for several of her better stories.

The meat of the book is Tiptree's "A Momentary Taste of Being", another long range starship story. This one is better, with some delicious intrigues between factions of the crew and encounters with strange aliens, but I just finished Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, and this remains my least favorite Tiptree; a long story of despicable characters that closes on a disappointing shaggy dog of a moral.

To repeat a lesson from my "read all the Hugos for best novel" project, 70s scifi was bleak. show less

Silhouette was interesting but felt like it erred on the side of being more mystery and not enough meat.
A Momentary Taste of Being was the best.
Le Guin's story was the weakest I felt, surprisingly.

Synopsis:
Silhouette by Gene Wolfe
The New Atlantis by Ursula K. Le Guin
A Momentary Taste of Being by James Tiptree, Jr.

Review: A combination of strange science fiction with a touch of horror. Excellent Vintage Sci-Fi. My first time reading Tiptree although I've read book given the award named after her. I will be reading her again.

a collection of Atlantis stories. They all end wetly.