Play Book Tag discussion

The Forward Collection is 6 short stories by various authors that examine some aspect of the future. Although published separately, I put them together for the prompt.

Ark by Veronica Roth (5 Stars)-Far and away my favorite of the stories. Ark examines a common sci-fi trope (humans leaving Earth for another planet after Earth is no longer habitable), from a different perspective. The story follows a scientist as she helps prepare specimens of plant life for the 'Ark' in the last days before Earth's destruction.

Summer Frost by Blake Crouch (2 Stars)-This was definitely my least favorite. This also takes a common sci-fi trope (an AI that becomes more self aware than planned), but unfortunately, doesn't really do anything new with it. I spent most of the story yelling at the protagonist "haven't you seen a SINGLE sci-fi movie?!"

Emergency Skin by NK Jemisin (4.5 Stars)-Another take on what happens after humans leave an uninhabitable Earth. I loved the twist this one took, and the narrative choice was definitely different and worked for the story.

You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles (2.5 Stars)-Amor Towles was the only author from this collection that I had read before, which wasn't actually helpful, since I wasn't a huge fan of A Gentleman in Moscow. This story was...ok. Nothing much happened, honestly, but the journey was interesting. Definitely the least memorable of the stories.

The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay (4 Stars)-This one was really weird and uncomfortable, but oddly compulsively readable. It's kind of hard to summarize without massive spoilers.

Randomize by Andy Weir (4.5 Stars)-This was the story I was most excited to read. It's about high tech casino scammers of the future. It was a fun story, but unfortunately it had like 3 pages of technical gobbledygook, which is a lot in a story that's only 27 pages long.

Overall, I enjoyed more stories than I didn't, and I now have some new authors to seek out.

Great Review. I love collections that introduce me to new authors. I'm really rather annoyed at myself that I didn't read more mixed author collections this month. NK Jemison is an author I really want to try.

I love your comment about the common sci-fi trope about AIs. Perhaps the story needs to be repeated for a younger generation that never heard of HAL, the Terminator, etc. Otherwise some young programmer might inadvertently create a T-800 and destroy the world. 🤖😀

NancyJ wrote: "Great Review. I love collections that introduce me to new authors. I'm really rather annoyed at myself that I didn't read more mixed author collections this month. NK Jemison is an author I really ..."

Part of the reason I chose this collection was because I have had books from all of these authors on my TBR for awhile, but none of them were ones I was super enthused about. I figured this would be a good way to give the authors a bit of a trial run. There's definitely been a shifting of my book priorities as a result, ha.