The New Space Opera 2

UGH. This is not what I'd call space opera - it's also not what I'd call anything I want to read. An amazing variety of utterly depressing concepts. Immortality that means you can't see much and you can't do anything - in two very different stories. Obeying the gods even after you're sure they're either non-existent or trying to destroy you - and that's one of the cheerful ones, the narrator manages to live a normal life after the adventure. A complex spacefaring multi-species culture that instantly collapses on encountering a 'superior' being - one with better grasp of a tech they already have, and a different view of the world. Does going through zer's transporter-equivalent change everyone that much? Sheesh. A nihilistic ex-agent, show more who will sacrifice everything for - what? She doesn't much care about living.
Had to return it to the library without finishing it - no regrets. Maybe I like _old_ Space Opera rather than this 'new' stuff (they discuss the distinction without explaining it in the foreword). Depressing, pointless, and completely uninteresting to me. show less

Of the nineteen stories in this anthology, eleven are by authors I always read with relish. Six more are by writers I will read again when the chance arises. Only a couple were not to my taste.
Bottom line: For me, this was an excellent anthology of short stories.

Not nearly as enjoyable as the first volume. Many of the stories were trying too hard, either weird or inscrutable, or deliberately dated and sexist, which isn't nearly as cute as the author's seem to think.

The Alastair Reynolds story was pitch perfect - long, but excellent. I was disappointed in Simmons' contribution - I feel that he let his love of literature get away from him and the story became about references to Shakespeare rather than anything else. Other than those two, it was an okay read for me, personally - I'm more into hard sci fi or character novels than space opera ideas - but fans of the genre should appreciate the breadth of the selection.

A worthy followup to the first New Space Opera anthology; like the first volume, the editors give you all the information you need to track down more stories by the authors you like. The stories are all engaging, and range from swashbuckling space piracy to galaxy-spanning wars to grim murder investigations. If you know someone who needs to catch up on recent trends in science fiction, the two volumes in this series are a great starting point.

I probably picked this up because I wanted to read some current short science fiction and saw that John Scalzi had an entry. Since I did not sit down and read it cover to cover, it looks like it took me about three years to get through it. As is typical for an anthology, some of the stories were pretty good, some not so much. I can't think of one that knocked my socks off. But most were worth the read.

Mostly excellent stories here, though there were a couple I didn't care for. Doctorow's riff on some "Star Trek" cliches was a blast!