2024 the best of kim review

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(as of Dec 14, 2024 17:27:18 UTC - Details)

Adventurers, scientists, artists, workers, and visionaries - these are the men and women you will encounter in the short fiction of Kim Stanley Robinson. In settings ranging from the sunken ruins of Venice to the upper reaches of the Himalayas to the terraformed surface of Mars itself, and through themes of environmental sustainability, social justice, personal responsibility, sports, adventure, and fun, Robinson's protagonists explore a world which stands in sharp contrast to many of the traditional locales and mores of science fiction, presenting instead a world in which Utopia rests within our grasp.

From Kim Stanley Robinson, award-winning author of the Mars Trilogy, the Three Californias Trilogy, the Science in the Capital series, The Martians, and The Years of Rice and Salt, comes The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson. These 22 stories, including the Nebula Award-winning "The Blind Geometer" and World Fantasy Award winner "Black Air", represent the best of Kim Stanley Robinson.

Reviewer: Frank Conner
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Excellent Collection
Review: This is a fun collection of Robinson stories. He is a great writer and each story is unique and an enjoyable read.

Reviewer: Gary Land
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: But when I like him, I really like him
Review: Well, I am a fan! Having said that sometimes he gets beyond me..... But when I like him, I really like him! I think he uses the short story to play around with mixed results. I still think the Mars Trilogy is one f the best science fiction ever written.

Reviewer: Cissa
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Well-written
Review: These stories are a good introduction to KSR's writing. They cover many of the things he discusses in more detail in his longer books.I very much enjoyed the casual "alternative history" that appeared in many of the stories; it was well-thought-out... and yet not the main point of them.KSR tends to be a thoughtful writer, and these stories showed that. Even the ones with a fair amount of action were measured in their pacing.I'm a KSR fan, so I've read mayber half of these stories before. Still, I enjoyed reading them again, and they rewarded that. I was very interested in reading the other ones which I had not previously read- and I'll want to re-read those, too, in a few months.The writing is very solid, and the plots well-paced, even when they don't go where one might think they were going. The people in them seem very real.(And as someone who adopted and "tamed" 3 feral cats- Stella broke my heart.)

Reviewer: Driller
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Anti-war agenda collection, but well presented and written. Engaging. LEaves one with points to ponder.
Review: Somewhat pedantic collection of anti-war stories, some of which just barely qualify as SF. Were it not for the author's excellent skills and engaging style, it would be mediocre. As it is, this utopic collection is somewhat short sighted but nevertheless manages to make the point for peace over war.

Reviewer: harold l. greene
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Brilliant collection
Review: Incredible. over-the-top reading experience! As you sink into the complex minds of the lead characters, you will be confronted with the awesome potential of the future seen through the eyes of fully developed characters who are always forced to choose between morality, survival, spirituality, alien oppression, and other complex issues. Inside the mind of the bombardier over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an alternate future; inside the mind of a blind scientist on the edge of a world-changing discover; inside the minds of hijacked, brain-wiped miners enslaved under the surface of the moon, and inside the mind of the author as he unwinds for you the hows and whys of some of his stories. A brilliant collection of some of the finest SF thinking I've seen in a long, long time.

Reviewer: andrew
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: outside of the beautifully arranged words
Review: KSR is the master of poetic prose. However, some of these stories left me feeling there wasn't much "story" outside of the beautifully arranged words. Sometimes the narration is only in service of exploring philosophy. That's not necessarily a bad thing, KSR is an adept guide at swimming in the waters of the mind, but beware: although there ARE many great sci-fi stories here, some of these stories are not in that genre. So, don't go into this looking for the sci-fi element in every story (as I was), just enjoy the stories on their own merit.

Reviewer: Rachel
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Absolute requited Robinson
Review: Wonderful and surprising images that I will take with me forever. This is the best collection of short stories I have come across. I was expecting science fiction knowing his work from the Mars series, and like that trilogy, he writes about people, interesting people with unique situations, and relationships, both internal and external. If you are looking for hard sci fi there are only a couple in here that you may consider that genre, I would say the rest are considered alternate history, or just darn good fiction. His reimaginings are eloquent and thoughtful. Just great stuff.

Reviewer: Josette G
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Win for Lovers of Short Stories
Review: These are short stories first, literature first, and science fiction second. There are elements of science fiction in most of the stories (not all), but they are secondary to the characters. The prose is excellent and the characters engaging, the plots thoughtful. The further into the book, the better the stories were. Kim Stanley Robinson has produced not genre fiction, but stories of depth, snapshots into lives that touch you, make you think. If you like straight forward science fiction, you may not like them. If you like well-written short stories, you will enjoy most of these whether you are a science fiction fan or not.

Reviewer: battbooks
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Frankly some stories are a bit strange but that may be my particular likes in reading i.e. bias towards sci-fi.