Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is the discussion hub for our discussion of the scifi Short Story anthology...

The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination edited by John Joseph Adams

Please comment of each individual story in its own topic in the Mad Scientists Guide discussion folder (Links to each story's topic in the Table of Content below.) You can use this topic for general discussions of the anthology as a whole.


CONTENT
"Professor Incognito Apologizes: An Itemized List" by Austin Grossman (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Father Of The Groom" by Harry Turtledove (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Laughter At The Academy" by Seanan McGuire (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Letter To The Editor" by David D. Levine (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Instead Of A Loving Heart" by Jeremiah Tolbert (-->>DISCUSSION)
"The Executor" by Daniel H. Wilson (-->>DISCUSSION)
"The Angel Of Death Has A Business Plan" by Heather Lindsley (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Homo Perfectus" by David Farland (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Ancient Equations" by L.A. Banks (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Rural Singularity" by Alan Dean Foster (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Captain Justice Saves The Day" by Genevieve Valentine (-->>DISCUSSION)
"The Mad Scientist’s Daughter" by Theodora Goss (-->>DISCUSSION)
"The Space Between" by Diana Gabaldon (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Harry And Marlowe Meet The Founder Of The Aetherian Revolution" by Carrie Vaughn (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Blood & Stardust" by Laird Barron (-->>DISCUSSION)
"A More Perfect Union" by L.E. Modesitt. Jr (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Rocks Fall" by Naomi Novik (-->>DISCUSSION)
"We Interrupt This Broadcast" by Mary Robinette Kowal (-->>DISCUSSION)
"The Last Dignity Of Man" by Marjorie M. Liu (-->>DISCUSSION)
"The Pittsburgh Technology" by Jeffrey Ford (-->>DISCUSSION)
"Mofongo Knows" by Grady Hendrix (-->>DISCUSSION)
"The Food Taster’s Boy" by Ben H. Winters (-->>DISCUSSION)


I found three of these stories available free on-line:

"Professor Incognito Apologizes: An Itemized List" by Austin Grossman @Tor.com.

"The Space Between" by Diana Gabaldon @StrangeHorizons

"Harry And Marlowe Meet The Founder Of The Aetherian Revolution" by Carrie Vaughn @LightSpeed

Excellent, some humorous stories for change. Humor seems to be underrated in SF&F circles. So far I've had quite a few good laughs.

I never used to read introductions & forewords, but I have for the past couple of decades. Quite often I just skim them since they're worthless or wordy. I found this one quite good. It sets the tone well.

Heroes are defined by their opponent. The better the opponent, the more the hero shines as they overcome them. Kirk-Kahn, Luke-Darth Vader, etc.. It's high time we looked at their side of the equation. After all, their mothers like them... probably... maybe...

When this was nominated I considered voting for it instead of my own nomination. I'm about half way through and finding it funny, creative and definitely different. I don't love all the stories, but as anthologies go, this one is a good one.

I enjoyed the "card catalogue" piece of the story intros, particularly the subject categories. I'm always on the fence about the prosier intros though -- sometimes I feel I appreciate the story more coming to it cold. (I usually read book intros after I've finished the book & sometimes I'll do that with stories, too, but I read these intros first.)

It's clearly a well-curated anthology; I don't know that any of the stories would make a personal all-time favorites list, but I enjoyed nearly all of them.

My favorite stories in this anthology all went for a humorous approach to the theme.

"Father Of The Groom" by Harry Turtledove
"Professor Incognito Apologizes: An Itemized List" by Austin Grossman
"Letter To The Editor" by David D. Levine
"Mofongo Knows" by Grady Hendrix
"Rural Singularity" by Alan Dean Foster
"Captain Justice Saves The Day" by Genevieve Valentine
"Rocks Fall" by Naomi Novik

On the other end of the spectrum, I didn't care at all for "The Last Dignity Of Man," "Blood and Stardust" or "We Interrupt This Broadcast". I skipped "The Space Between".

Definitely a mixed bag, but it was a fun look at all the different takes.

I agree it was a bit of mixed bag (what anthology isn't?) but overall I enjoyed it. On the whole I preferred the humorous stories. My favourites were:

Father of the Groom
Professor Incognito Apologizes
Letter to the Editor (loved the sly Superman jabs!)
The Angel of Death has a Business Plan
Homo Perfectus
Harry & Marlowe meet the Founder of the Aetherian Revolution
Rocks Fall

Most of the others were okay, just didn't do much for me. 'The Space between' did irritate me though - I didn't think a story should be in an anthology if you need to read the author's other work to make sense of it.

Shaitarn wrote: "I didn't think a story should be in an anthology if you need to read the author's other work to make sense of it. .."

In that case, you're going to love Epic: Legends of Fantasy. (sarcasm ;)

G33z3r wrote: "Shaitarn wrote: "I didn't think a story should be in an anthology if you need to read the author's other work to make sense of it. .."

In that case, you're going to love [book:Epic: Legends of Fan..."

Well, if I'd known that... :(

You can change your vote. I'm not though, i'm down for the masochism.

That's the reason I'm very careful with the anthologies I pick because more and more these days they tie into existing series. All those giant anthologies fall under that category (Epic, Legends, Rogues, Dangerous Women and many others).

And if I plan to read the series they tie into, then I want to read it in the sequence it was supposed to be read in, and not get spoilers from the short stories.

Well I had a quick look at the authors and I've read stories by most of the authors so shouldn't be too bad. What happened to the days of stand alone anthologies like Thieves World?