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The Tor edition of Metatropolis was released last week, and it’s a book very much worthy of entering its third incarnation. The edition pictured above was released by Subterranean Press last summer and this collection started as a production for Audible in 2008. I bought both of those previous versions.

The stories in this collection share a world. It’s a world where ubiquitous computing, augmented reality and other technologies have enabled the implementation of experimental social structures. These are NOT, as is stated in more than one story, utopias, but practical systems that might eventually offer a better way of life for their participants.

In the Forests of the Night by Jay Lake

This works fairly well as a straightforward spy story. It also does a great job of introducing many of the ideas and technology shared by all the stories. More so than the other stories it makes clear that there are powers in this world other than the city states that dominate this collection. Traditional governments and large corporations still exist, but they’re on no more than an even footing with the “civilization 2.0″ that’s popping up like mushrooms in this future. This story draws many parallels between political structures of the last century and the social networks of now. I find it quite interesting how at there seems to be a scale (network size or population) where the ideas really mesh.

Stochasti-City by Tobias S. Buckell

This takes the idea of the Mechanical Turk and has a field day with it. I’d not thought about how terrorism and urban warfare could be viewed through this lens. The story touches on these ideas, but it gets REALLY good when a combination of flash mobs and social engineering bring a city to its knees. Three cheers for jump starting a sustainable future, using loop holes in international law. The character arc of the protagonist was more of a hockey stick than an arc, but overall the story was strong enough to stand on its own.

The Red in the Sky is Our Blood by Elizabeth Bear

This story REALLY got me thinking about how many sustainable ideas are difficult to achieve without the existence of a capitalist/industrial structure to build off of. This is the stuff that GREAT science fiction is made of. The story itself involves the protagonist’s introduction into a meritocratic society. The events of the story bring into question the viability of the particular social experiment that nonetheless triumphs in the short-term. This story is the pragmatically optimistic heart of the collection.

Utere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis by John Scalzi

This was a simple story, told with the humor I’ve come to expect from Scalzi. Here we have a city where you are either gainfully employed or deported and the privileged slacker that has to learn the consequences of his actions. I like the speculative elements – genetically engineered livestock used for significantly more than food and the very real question of how to introduce any type of technology into a society with out the resources to make use of it. I found the story itself startlingly predictable, yet oddly satisfying.

To Hie from Far Cilenia by Karl Schroeder

This was unquestionably my favorite of the lot. The main plot follows an Eastern European investigator attempting to track down some stolen nuclear material. The investigation leads into a series of nested alternate reality games that make extensive use of the augmented reality glasses we’ve seen in other stories. To an extent this story is an allegory which describes the theme of the entire collection. This story appeals to the MMO gamer in me, the part of me that loves a good mystery and the part of me that gets frustrated by the very concept of geo-political borders. This is what you’d get if the China Miévile that wrote The City & The City tried his had at cyberpunk.

Final Thoughts

I’d have loved to see Bacigalupi or Doctorow’s take on this world as they seem to have written more about these ideas than the authors in the collection. I guess that’s another way of saying read them if you like this and vice versus. The audio production was top notch across the board. I highly recommend this collection, particularly to fans of near future science fiction.

• Best Fan Writer goes to Cheryl Morgan.
• Best Fan Artist goes to Frank Wu.
• Best Fanzine goes to Electric Velocipede
• Best Semiprozine goes to Weird Tales.
• Best Related Book goes to Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded, John Scalzi
• Dramatic Presentation: Long Form goes to Wall-E
• Dramatic Presentation: Short Form goes to Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog, Joss Whedon
• Best Editor: Long Form goes to David G Hartwell
• Best Editor: Short Form goes to Ellen Datlow.
• Our brand new category, Best Graphic Story, presented by Neil Gaiman, goes to Girl Genius, Kaja and Phil Foglio.
• Best Professional Artist goes to Donato Giancola
• Best Short Story goes to “Exhalation”, Ted Chiang
• Best Novelette goes to “Shoggoths in Bloom”, Elizabeth Bear
• Best Novella goes to “The Erdmann Nexus”, Nancy Kress
• And finally, Best Novel goes to The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman

I’ll update a bit later with some links.

I like the afterward that gives an small insight into Pratt’s head, and I LOVE the teaser at the end of the chapter, which makes it really feel like a serial:

(Come back next week for physical violence, booze, nudity, and Marla’s first direct encounter with magic.)

The entire package is more than worth a small donation, which is how Pratt is funding this literary endeavor. If you like what you read and can’t wait a week, you can probably find most of the Marla Mason books in your local bookstore. I know Blood Engines has gone into a 5th printing! The first book is available free online from various sources, including this post. I’ve reviewed all 4 and highly recommend them:

• Blood Engines
• Poison Sleep
• Dead Reign
• Spell Games

• Crystal Nights and Other Stories by Greg Egan
• Scenting the Dark and Other Stories by Mary Robinette Kowal
• Metatropolis by John Scalzi
• Collected Stories by Lewis Shiner
• Screaming Science Fiction by Brian Lumley

Authors I’ve reviewed

• Tobias Buckell on Sly Mongoose
• Cory Doctorowon Little Brother
• Jay Lake on his novel Green

– So far I’ve only read short fiction by Jay Lake, but I look forward to dipping into his novels. It’s particularly neat that he wrote numerous stories in same setting as Green.

• T. A. Pratt on Dead Reign
• Margaret Ronald on Spiral Hunt
• Scott Sigler on Infected
• Greg van Eekhout on Norse Code
• David J. Williams on Mirrored Heavens

Other Interesting Big Ideas

• John Joseph Adams on Federations

– an anthology of stories in the vein of Star Trek but by names famous outside of the media-tie-in world. This keeps trying to rearrange my to-read pile.

• Marie Brennan on Midnight Never Come
• Greg Egan on Incandescence
• C. C. Finlay on the Traitor to the Crown series
• Jim C Hines on The Stepsister Scheme
• Nancy Kress on Dogs
• Tom Levenson on Newton and the Counterfeiter
• Sarah Prineas on The Magic Theif: Lost
• Robert J. Sawyer on WWW: Wake
• Lewis Shiner on Black and White
• Catherynne Valente on Palimpsest

Turns out I have a lot of catching up to do reading Big Idea posts, but this should be a good jumping off point. Sifting through posts on Whatever, I also came across the Big Idea Guidelines, which is cool.

I’m taking the Pacific Surfliner from Los Angeles to San Diego in the morning to check out Mysterious Galaxy. I’ve been wanting to check out this bookstore for a while and Greg’s signing was the perfect excuse. Below you’ll find links to all the books I’ve reviewed (and related books):

• Tobias Buckell
  • Crystal Rain
  • Ragamuffin
  • Sly Mongoose
  • Tides From The New Worlds
• Cory Doctorow
  • Little Brother
• Kay Kenyon
  • Bright of the Sky
  • A World Too Near
  • City without End
• Richard K. Morgan
  • Altered Carbon
  • Broken Angels
  • Woken Furies
• Vickie Pettersson
  • Touch of Twilight
• Tim Pratt
  • Blood Engines
  • Poison Sleep
  • Dead Reign
  • Spell Games
• Margaret Ronald
  • Spiral Hunt
• Benjamin Rosenbaum
  • The Ant King: and Other Stories
• John Scalzi
  • Zoe’s Tale
• Matthew Wayne Selznick
  • Brave Men Run
• Scott Sigler
  • Infected
• Charles Stross
  • The Atrocity Archives
• Greg van Eekhout
  • Norse Code
• David J. Williams
  • The Mirrored Heavens
  • The Burning Skies
• Sean Williams
  • The Crooked Letter

• Paolo Bacigalupi
• Elizabeth Bear
• Ilsa Bick
• Michael Bishop
• Desirina Boskovich
• Tobias Buckell
• Marie Brennan
• Michael Chabon
• Ted Chiang
• Cory Doctorow
• Neil Gaiman
• Joe Haldeman
• Jim C. Hines
• J.C. Hutchins
• N.K. Jemisin
• Kij Johnson
• Kirsten Imani Kasai
• Kay Kenyon
• John Kessel
• Dean Koontz
• Mary Robinette Kowal
• Jay Lake
• Yoon Ha Lee
• China Miéville
• Michael Moorcock
• Richard Morgan
• Stephenie Meyer
• Eric Nylund
• Shannon Page
• Tim Pratt
• Cat Rambo
• Jennifer Rardin
• Robert Reed
• Mike Resnick
• Lezlie Robyn
• Margaret Ronald
• Ben Rosenbaum
• Brian Ruckley
• Geoff Ryman
• Lilith Saintcrow
• John Scalzi
• Ken Scholes
• Ekaterina Sedia
• Scott Sigler
• Neal Stephenson
• Charles Stross
• Tricia Sullivan
• Michael Swanwick
• Rachel Swirsky
• Greg van Eekhout
• Jeff Vandermeer
• Joss Whedon
• Matt Wallace
• David Williams
• Sean Williams

I love the cover art by John Harris, even though I must admit that it was the Hugo Nomination that bumped Zoe’s Tale to the top of my reading list. I’ve followed John Scalzi’s blog for a while and am a proud owner of copy number 263 of Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded. However, I’d not actually read one of his novels until I picked up Zoe’s Tale. Reading Scalzi’s Thoughts on Zoe’s Tale assured me that it would work as a stand alone read, and I’d have to agree.

When writing a science fiction story, one of the first questions an author has to ask is whether or not there will be extraterrestrial life. Many great galaxy spanning epic series have dealt with a universe in which all life in the galaxy could be traced back to earth. Asimov’s Foundation, Robot and Galactic Empire novels come to mind. Even when there are aliens, often we’ll encounter only a handful of races in an entire series. In this relatively short novel, we interact directly with a 1/2 dozen races and more are referred to by name. Still more (over 400) are implied. The feeling I get is that the majority of these races are at war with each other over the galaxy’s finite resources. (heh, SF really isn’t about the future, is it?) Into this is thrust a teenage girl, with a penchant for peacemaking.

Zoe Boutin Perry was the soul survivor of a space station caught in the middle of a battle between 2 alien races. (Bear with me, I’ve not read any of the other Old Man’s War novels) By a twisted chain of events, she becomes central to a treaty between humanity and a genetically engineered race called the Obin. Remarkable and privileged in many ways, Zoe is mostly a typical teenage girl. She likes music, she’s sarcastic, she blushes when her boyfriend writes her poetry, and she obviously keeps a good journal, if her voice as narrator is any indication. The feature that sets her apart, is that she REALLY doesn’t like to see people fight. Early in the story, with the help of her new best friend, Gretchen, she stops what could have been a rather large brawl between boys from 2 different colonies. As the the threats in the books grow in scale, her negotiation skills get honed even further. Her arc from carefree child to manipulator of one of the most ancient races in the galaxy is an amazingly smooth progression.

The pace of the story felt very much like I was reading the entries in a journal, often with explicit indicators of how much time had passed in the white space between sections of text. Early on the power of teenage gossip gave a VERY good tool to let the narrator describe events that she hadn’t directly witnessed. Used sparingly this helped bridge important segments of the story. Other than the space ships and the aliens and the associated explosions, I’d have to say that my favorite word in Zoe’s Tale was “unhugged.” Scalzi uses it as a tool to indicate when a hug actually ends in a long section of dialog. There’s a lot of intense situations that result in needed hugs and I was delighted by this small detail. I’m impressed with the work Scalzi put into this novel. It’s a good read, with a good message, and a spectacular introduction to not just Scalzi, but science fiction.

Best Novel
(639 Ballots / Bulletins)

• Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK)
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK) – videos of Gaiman reading the entire book over the course of a book tour.
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; HarperVoyager UK) Free Download – MentatJack Review
• Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
• Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi (Tor)

Best Novella
(337 Ballots / Bulletins)

• “The Erdmann Nexus” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008) — read online
• “The Political Prisoner” by Charles Coleman Finlay (F&SF Aug 2008) – Read Online
• “The Tear” by Ian McDonald ( Galactic Empires)
• “True Names” by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow ( Fast Forward 2) — Read Free, Listen Free, MentatJack Review
• “Truth” by Robert Reed (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008) – read online

Best Novelette
(373 Ballots / Bulletins)

• “Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s Jan 2008) — Read Online
• “The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi ( Fast Forward 2) — Read Online
• “Pride and Prometheus” by John Kessel (F&SF Jan 2008) — Read Online
• “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” by James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s Feb 2008) — Read Online
• “Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s Mar 2008) — Read Online

Best Short Story
(448 Ballots / Bulletins)

• “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Jul 2008) — Read Online
• “Article of Faith” by Mike Resnick (Baen’s Universe Oct 2008) – Read Online – listen on EscapePod
• “Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal ( The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two) Read Online
• “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang ( Eclipse Two) Read Online – listen on EscapePod
• “From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled” by Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s Feb 2008) – read online

[edit 2009-03-23] I found the Pride and Prometheus link via Joe Sherry’s Blog
[edit 2009-03-24]Thanks to John Ottinger over at Grasping for the Wind for links to some of the short stories.
[edit 2009-04-14]Thanks to Realms of Speculative Fiction for a few more novella links and the last short story I was missing. Also thanks to Joe Sherry for the Graveyard Book link.