Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
A splendid set of stories about the future of biological technologies. I had read one of the stories when it appeared in Analog or Asimovs, but the others were new to me. I think I shall enjoy his other books I've bought from Fictionwise.
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I think it'll kind of depend on what else you got from
Brian Stableford. I find he's truly excellent when it comes to social consequences of genetic engineering stuff at novella or shorter length in a way that can only be matched by multiple Hugo/Nebula-awarded
Nancy Kress who also writes along similar themes, but not nearly so great (though still reasonably good, if a little stretched out and contrived) when it comes to expressing the same ideas at novel-length or doing his "gothic decadence" stories.
But aside from that, yes, he's a rather enjoyable mostly-quality writer and I'm glad his work is becoming available in affordable e-book editions (still trying to track down a copy of his
Sexual Chemistry: Sardonic Tales of the Genetic Revolution since the library turfed their last shelf copy
).
As for myself, finished also-well-reputed 70s Tribble™-creator
David Gerrold's classic time-travel paradox novel
The Man Who Folded Himself, which was on sale during the Amazon summer sale.
Well worth every penny, despite some very minor typos (wordsquish and misplaced punctuation), and it comes with a new introduction by
Robert J. Sawyer (one of my favourite Canadian SF authors) and a retrospective afterword by Gerrold himself, as well as some sort of pseudo-philosophical musing by some other guy whose name I didn't recognize.
Marvelously thoughtful and imaginative stuff, highly recommended. And for the Holmesian fanfic spinoff of it, you can read Gerrold's short story "The Fan Who Molded Himself" in his collection
Alternate Gerrolds: An Assortment of Fictitious Lives, currently inexplicably marked down to a
mere 99 cents over at Amazon, and comes with a number of his other excellent and imaginative AU works, including a very funny JFK as Captain Kirk.
Now currently reading my way through
John DeChancie's Castle Perilous series again, which I'm going to see how many volumes I can manage before I get sick of reading them all in a row. That might not actually happen, since as it turns out I kind of like seeing all the different ways the multi-dimensional castle can be invaded by a mysterious party from book to book, like variations on a theme.
Thus far, I'm midway through book 4, which it turns out is one I've read a long time ago and happen to own in paper and vaguely-remembered enjoying enough that I went and splurged on the e-books when Fictionwise had their 60% off coupon. I've completely forgotten how it actually goes, so let's see if the ending/whodunnit can surprise me this time.