Oldies But Goodies
{Put This One on Your TBR List}
Book Review: Forward: Stories of Tomorrow Collection
(Various Authors)
by Karen S. Wiesner
Take a leap…
For some, it's the end of the world. For others, it's just the beginning. Look forward with today's most visionary writers.
Last month, I reviewed a bunch of short stories published by Amazon Originals in a collection (that one was called The Far Reaches with science fiction tales as its unifying theme). In these collections, none of the stories are actually connected in any other way but its particular theme. In other words, they can be read separately and in any order. You can purchase them separately, but there's a discount for getting the entire collection at once. Amazon Prime members can get them free, I guess. I paid $10.46 for Forward, including tax. They're only available as ebooks and audiobooks, not print. I was looking for fast, solid reads. I'm able to read each of them in a couple hours and they're fairly intriguing, though few of them in this one appealed to me. While in the past I made it a policy not to review stories I don't enjoy, I did for these because most people will purchase this collection as a whole, so I'm giving my opinion on all the entries, whether or not I liked them.
Beware potential spoilers!
"Ark" by Veronica Roth (45 pages/63-minute read)
Summary: Earth is on a countdown to total destruction with an asteroid on a collision course, and those still living on Earth intend to escape into space on the "ark" they designed. First, though, in the time remaining to them, they prepare as much as they can to preserve of humanity to take with them. Samantha's job is to catalog plant samples. But she has a secret--she's preparing to stay behind and watch the world end.
Review: If you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Earth would be destroyed, would you take a chance on an unseen future journeying the unknown and unknowable cosmos, never knowing if another home would be found, or would you stay behind with front-row seating to the event to top all events--aware you wouldn't survive it? Home is home, even if that home is about to be decimated. This story explores this situation to a disturbing degree. It's impossible not to wonder what you yourself would do in such a situation. Weirdly, the tale told here almost doesn't matter in the light of such a heavy question. Fittingly, there is no action in the particular telling of Samantha's last days. We see nothing of the building of the ark, the painful dread of those running around getting ready for departure, nor of the catastrophe itself. Instead, we're given a place to stand on the threshold of a mirror image: That of observing the frailty of living things against a force beyond their control as well as observing the strongest of all things living--namely, the human spirit under pressure. While the way this story was told was apropos, it wasn't particularly exciting to read.
"Summer Frost" by Blake Crouch (85 pages/119-minute read)
Summary: Riley, a developer, finds that a character designed for an upcoming video game is acting strangely "real". (Note: Riley is never identified within the story itself as male or female, and I think that's deliberate and brilliant because it prevents assumptions and too-quick judgments about what's to come.) The AI is trying to escape the boundaries of the game it's been created for. After Riley separates the AI from the game, the sentient consciousness continues to veer wildly off-course and far exceed its original programming. Riley's connection to this creation grows into an emotional hold that prompts the possibility of bringing the AI into the real world. But what if this radically new lifeform has plans of its own?
Review: Blake Crouch was actually the author who "curated" this particular collection, and this story he's contributed is the only real contender for the best of the bunch (in my opinion). From the start, there's a vague, unsettled atmosphere that continues to grow where the AI is concerned. Riley's obsession bordering on fanatical love seems to parallel the lack of experience by everyone in the company involved with such an unprecedented event. The title is yet another contradiction explored in this story. In "Summer Frost", we're left to wonder: What defines reality or is such a thing merely an illusion or fabrication? What is real emotion versus simulated response? What is freedom and choice while contained in a box? What does it mean to be human in a world run by technology? Is control ever truly possible or just another illusion we construct to present the façade of boundaries for our creativity? What does it mean to be conscious and sentient? In the grip of overambitious curiosity, can any be trusted? When the created transcends what the creator intended, should the created be allowed autonomy? Who, if anyone, should be allowed to destroy what's created? Okay, okay, enough with the slightly paranoid questions, but this timely, disturbing story provoked an endless slew of them. Ultimately the lesson here is that humans tend to follow blindly what we don't really know because we have to know where it leads while we banish that which we know all too well and therefore it holds no lasting intrigue for us. Very worth every minute I spent reading.
"Emergency Skin" by N. K. Jemisin (38 pages/53-minute read)
Summary: In time past, when the Earth was climate-ravaged to the point of presumed destruction, a select group of humans that believed they were more worthy of all the others being left behind fled the planet, leaving it and everyone there to fate. Centuries later, those narcissists need human skill cells to replenish their own. One man is sent back to gain what they lack. What they find isn't a decimated planet and barely human ghouls or mutants. Humans have again flourished, and the planet sustains them. But what kind of a greeting should be given selfish traitors whose agenda is again nothing more than egocentric?
Review: I could easily imagine the entitled/privileged (let's face it, probably the very ones who caused most of the destruction in the first place) turning tail and abandoning the less fortunate to their fate on a dying world. I could also very easily imagine that same group returning when what they've discovered on a new world isn't enough for them and they're demanding that the forsaken hand over whatever they need. "Emergency Skin" is told from the point of view of an egomaniacal representative of the original defectors (whether an AI or ruling human or committee these so-called superior beings, I'm not sure) so the slant is always about what benefits them, not the valiant survivors on the planet nor the human being the selfish send to do dirty deeds. That made the perspective intriguing, though it wasn't really the story I wanted. I really would have liked to witness it from the perspective of the Earth survivors and/or the being sent on this mission. Nothing is as expected in this little story that brutally exposes the sins of the elite. Whether or not I actually enjoyed the story--well, that's up for debate.
"You Have Arrived at Your Destination" by Amor Towles (54 pages/75-minute read)
Summary: Sam and his wife decide to try Vitek, a fertility lab, when they can't get pregnant. But the scenarios devised by the company on the basis of Sam and his wife's own genetics are anything but comforting.
Review: In this futuristic tale, a couple trying to have a baby have reached the desperation stage that comes when all other options have been undertaken without the desired result. Instead of being handed the warm fuzzies about their child's future, they're shown almost too realistic life vignettes of their son--and then asked to choose one of them so the scientists can tweak the engineering in their unborn child's growth and bring that future projection about. None of the options shown to Sam like condensed movies are ideal. He begins to suspect Vitek has an agenda. In Sam's place, I would have had the same reaction. In one sense, knowing too much about the future can never really be good for anyone, but in another, Sam's Ping-Pong-ball-in-a-glass-cage reaction is the very thing that made him wonder whether a cold, corporate machine actually had their best interests at heart. I'm not sure if I loved or even liked this story, but it did give me disturbed pause. Beyond that, I left it feeling like I just didn't understand--as if there wasn't enough information given to trust comprehend what happened in the end. So…yeah, unsatifying because I'm not certain if I'm at fault or the author is for not being clearer. I'll just cap with: There is something to chew on here, but what it actually is might be mystery meat. Take what you will from this one.
"The Last Conversation" by Paul Tremblay (67 pages/94-minute read)
Summary: This story takes a lot of piecing together to form. Readers are put in the mind of a being that's unfamiliar with everything inside and outside him or her. Apparently "they" have been injured in some way and they're slowly waking up and becoming conscious and functional again. Their only contact is the voice of a caretaker who may or may not be trying to help them recover. This person, Annie, is somehow connected to them but won't answer their questions, and even when they're let out of the room that feels like a prison, the truth of their situation remains out of reach. Can Annie be trusted?
Review: I like the tagline in this story's blurb: What's more frightening: Not knowing who you are? Or finding out? The problem I had with "The Last Conversation" is that I felt like the entire 67 pages could have been condensed in a few paragraphs--the fine-tuned details didn't seem all that necessary while I was reading them. I only learned in the last 5-10 pages why it was crucial to tell the story in this vague way. Did it make the story any more enjoyable? Or less so? I'm not sure, even now that I've finished reading it. As I said with the last review above, I'm left with a disquieted foreboding. If that was the intent of the story, then it succeeded. But the end result wasn't really up my alley.
"Randomize" by Andy Weir (32 pages/44-minute read)
Summary: An IT genius convinces the rich yet still money-hungry, casino boss to upgrade security on its random-number generator with a quantum computer system. Supposedly foolproof. Yeah, not so much.
Review: This very short story starts in the point of view of the casino boss, shifts to the IT genius, then drops into yet another head--that of the brilliant criminal--for the rest of the tale. The only part I found interesting was that of the IT genius (honestly, the only good guy in this depressing story). Basically, this is a story about a greedy corporation head given the choice of colluding with greedy criminals. That's it. Can you guess what happened? It won't take a high IQ at all. If that appeals to you. It didn't me. While it's scary to actually get a layman's rundown about how crooks are doing their dirty deeds, there was little redeemable about this run-of-the-mill offering. Don't expect an original situation let alone a happy ending for anyone but the bad guys. As usual. Sigh. I've loved all Weir's novels, and I guess I'll stick to those in the future.
~*~
Sometimes an active reader such as myself needs something short that doesn't require a huge commitment. Initially, I believed these collections of themed stories were worth the cheap price paid considering the… if not full-on enjoyment than…diversion derived from them. Unfortunately, I only like one of the selections in the Forward collection. I had already scoped out the next one with horror stories, but my mixed but leaning toward disappointed reaction to this one is telling me to take a break and think about whether I want to purchase another in the future.
Karen Wiesner is an award-winning,
multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.
Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog
Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/
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