PhilipDunwody

classic Sci fi at its best

Revisado: 02-07-22

I love these anthologies. The production is excellent and all the narrators top notch. I wish it was cheaper what with the stories all being public domain, but the production makes up for the price...somewhat.
If you can take poor narration and production values you can fund all these stories for free on Librivox.
Frankly, all these anthologies should be accessible for free with the Audible subscription.
in any event, you can't beat the classics.

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sci-fi noir opening

Revisado: 01-10-22

The blurb explains things well enough, but it doesn't say how this story is merely an opening for a much deeper plot we only glance here. The setting is excellent for the noir style which is a bit of a departure for Correia. He plays it quite well regardless and has developed a wide open story.

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An absolute classic

Revisado: 11-29-21

If you enjoy D&D than you will be familiar with much that is of Jack Vance's creation. These and the later stories of The Dying Earth are world building at its utmost quality. Vance not only creates a setting of fantastic depth but peoples it with a culture that is amazingly imaginative and supernally appropriate.
Everyone should read this book if only to experience Vance's facility with the English language. The fact that the Dying Earth is among the greatest of all story settings is not like icing on the cake - it is as though you get more cake than one human could eat in one pass.

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Linguistic scifi

Revisado: 08-06-21

Don't let that throw you. It's still very exciting and steeped in a space opera style universe. But the crux of the plot is Language and if you haven't learned six this book will open your eyes to how you are and the way you think is defined by the Language you know.

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mix of disturbing and interesting

Revisado: 01-06-21

Honestly, I've only made it to the second story where the narrator (an insane sociopath) fantasizes about implanting zippers in a living woman so she becomes a puppet whose senses he can control. The first story is fun and thought provoking, but I thought it best to warn others that the authors preface about his desire to write disturbing is not just copy. The writing is excellent the narrative is well paced. I imagine at least half the stories are to my taste. I recommend you be prepared.

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Whacky Sci-Fi Insult to Everyone

Revisado: 12-06-20

I won't bother trying to explain or examine the content. It speaks fully for itself. I wish Correia had stuck it to trump and the granola eating 'science' worshippers, but whatya gonna do? Some of Correia's politics bleed in a bit, but it's totally worth for the ride.
Love me song competent nonsense in the evening.

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For the fans

Revisado: 10-19-20

I enjoyed this production and if it is free for you I would suggest you listen. But if you need to spend a credit, just get the novel. This story adds some information and makes some interesting changes, but the story suffers for the exposition. Some of the decisions, especially how to illustrate the mind game, were rather poor in my opinion. How they could've done it better I've no idea, but the novel is superior. It also feels like this story just glances at Valentine and Peter who play such a significant role in the novel.
I am a huge fan of the Enderverse. If you are too, this is worth a listen. If this is your entry to the series or you've read books besides Ender's Game, get the novel. Don't even listen to this until you've read/listened to the novel.

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just after The Game

Revisado: 10-09-20

If you ever wanted a story that follows Ender's exploits directly after winning the Bugger/Formic War - this is the novel for you.
I also find this one of the closest stories to Ender's Game in that we experience Ender and his machinations against an 'unspoken' enemy and at a Time of no great remove from the original novel. I definitely prefer this to 'Speaker' simply because it deals with the same Timeframe and has Ender resolving interior conflicts from his experience in the original. It is not absolutely necessary that you read the original before this book but it will certainly heighten the experience. Beside that I would recommend the original to any and everyone as a matter of course and recommend this to anyone that enjoyed 'Ender's Game', anyone of the other books in the Ender universe, or finely crafted science fiction in the YA vein. I would never ascribe to any of Card's novels the YA moniker, but this novel does focus on young adult characters so I will make the association because it applies by exact definition. Enjoy

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Clever combination of contemporary literary univer

Revisado: 09-24-20

I'm a little surprised there isn't more crossover fiction between these two classic realms. Doyle makes suggestions of otherworldly forces and Lovecraft makes such forces well concealed and difficult to perceive. It is a perfect milieu for a protagonist like Sherlock Holmes. The story reaches too far too fast though, engaging the deepest secrets of Lovecraft's world without a proper preamble. It also does a disservice to both authors. To Doyle by not challenging Holmes or really giving a exposition of his method and to Lovecraft by not making use of his wonderful tone of unseen and unknowable threat. No, the characters stumble directly into the knowing of terrors that were once myth and quickly adapting to a laughingly mundane version of Lovecraft's 'realities'. There is so much available flesh to both universes but the story cuts to the bone with little detail.
It is an entertaining enough story no doubt. If you are not a devotee of either author and enjoy a turn of the century tale of supernatural mystery, by all means, enjoy. If you are familiar with the authors - do not look to this as anything but a story that uses the constructs of better authors.
(I also really dislike it when the narrators do no due diligence on pronunciation. I realize the language is fictitious, but it has a century of pronunciation standards. And that is nothing compared to the mispronounciation of English words.)

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two-thirds excellent

Revisado: 09-21-20

Only the last two stories were known to me from other audible anthologies. Both are fantastic. Unfortunately about a third of the other stories are confused, lacking in conclusion or reason. These are not prosaic abstractions written in an aesthetic sense rather than a narrative. They are just poor narrative with unsympathetic or vague characters and unresolved or unexplored conflict. It also struck me how many characters embraced or embodied a non-traditional sexuality. It makes little enough difference - unless, course, it is of a narrative imperative - but it caused me to double check the selection criteria. I suppose the topic is very 'in' right now. It should mean nothing to a seasoned reader of speculative fiction...or anyone else for that matter.
Recommended to those that have exhausted the supply of sci-fi anthologies on Audible and want their purchase or credit to offer a reasonable length. i.e. over fifteen or so hours.

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