MentatJack reviews Tides

Steven Klotz at MentatJack reviews Tides:

Many short story collections clock in well under 300 pages. Tides is a healthy 483, and nothing really feels just like filler. There’s plenty here that show literary muscles being flexed in preparation for the novels he wrote later, and not always where you’d suspect. In his novels, I can see echos of “Death’s Dreadlocks” and “Something in the Rock,” neither even vaguely science fiction. It’s great to see a writer I’ve come to associate so strongly with science fiction tackle the rest of speculative fiction, particularly when the genres get mixed subtlety and/or creatively, as in “Her,” “In Orbite Medievali,” “Tides,” and “A Green Thumb.” I’d totally read an urban fantasy series based on the character/setting of “Four Eyes.” After the cover art you’ll find my thoughts on the individual stories, which I wrote as I read each story and then edited a bit after reading the entire collection.

Speaking of which, the latest issue of Clarkesworld has an article by Brian Dow, the cover artist of the collection, showing just how much amazing work went into the cover.

Filed under the topic Journal on May 4th 2009 at 12:25 pm. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.