Federations [Kindle Edition]

In many ways, I've started to come to believe that you can't go wrong with a John Joseph Adams' collection. Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse was incredible, The Living Dead was great, and Federations...? Also very very good.

The "dust jacket description" of this anthology pretty much sums it up... It collects a few different modern takes on the classic science fiction trope: What does it take; what does it mean for a civilization to be interstellar and/or pan-galactic?

My take of Federations, it gets a composite rating of 3.9130 (individual stories below)

* "Mazer in Prison" (Orson Scott Card): 3/5
» About what you'd expect from Card. So it doesn't disappoint but it doesn't exactly thrill, either.
* "Carthago Delenda Est" (Genevieve Valentine): 4/5
* "Life Suspension" (L. E. Modesitt, Jr.): 2.5/5
* "Terra-Exulta" (S.L. Gilbow): 3/5
» Reminds me a bit of that Stephen King piece that opens Wastelands. The letter-writing format is a tough one to write in and I appreciate the effort here. And I don't dislike this piece but it seems... too short? or just that its hand is tipped too early and that kind of blows the ending a bit?
* "Aftermaths" (Lois McMaster Bujold): 4/5
* "Someone is Stealing the Great Throne Rooms of the Galaxy" (Harry Turtledove): 2/5
» Not terribly intriguing, and a little puerile/juvenile. To me... I can see why it was included (for the variety and for the perspective it brings) but it just doesn't do it. Not for me.
* "Prisons" (Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason): 2.5/5
» So much potential, and almost good; but why did I wind up feeling like it needed to be more subversive? (E.g., so many heteronormative relationships!--if the prison revolt leader had been lovers with another man, well now maybe that might have been a little more intriguing.)
* "Different Day" (K. Tempest Bradford): 5/5
* "Twilight of the Gods" (John C. Wright): 4/5
» The Tolkien-esque language can be a little off-putting at first but it really starts to make sense after you get about a third of the way in.
* "Warship" (George R. R. Martin and George Guthridge): 5/5
» I can't imagine why it took so long for Martin to shop this piece--unless Guthridge really brought that much to it. The execution is very spot-on.
* "Swanwatch" (Yoon Ha Lee): 4/5
» I want to like this more. It's beautiful but a bit oblique--and that's fine but somehow it doesn't jump to where it needs to be.
* "Spirey and the Queen" (Alastair Reynolds): 5/5
» Awesome. Did you like Watts' Blindsight? Did you like Sterling's "Swarm"? A little bit like that. (Only robots.)
* "Pardon Our Conquest" (Alan Dean Foster): 3.5/5
* "Symbiont" (Robert Silverberg): 4.5/5
» Highly disurbing; more so than I thought it would be. (Just read this one; skip the introduction.)
* "The Ship Who Returned" (Anne McCaffrey): 4/5
* "My She" (Mary Rosenblum): 4.5/5
» Brilliant. Nicely subversive and almost perfect.
* "The Shoulders of Giants" (Robert J. Sawyer): 2.5/5
* "The Culture Archivist" (Jeremiah Tolbert): 5/5
» This one is funny in the way that "Someone is Stealing..." (vida supra) could/should have been.
* "The Other Side of Jordan" (Allen Steele): 4.5/5
» Serves a little bit as a reminder that one of the things you're going for (when you're going for sci-fi) is the "deep milieu". This has got it. And I love it for it.
* "Like They Always Been Free" (Georgina Li): 4/5
» Very dense; worthwhile.
* "Eskhara" (Trent Hergenrader): 5/5
» The allegory bits are obvious but rather than detract, they make it all very worth while.
* "The One with the Interstellar Group Consciousnesses" (James Alan Gardner): 4/5
» Cute, and a bit novel, but kind of like an artisan soda: not really bad for you but not really necessary but damn tasty but kind of a cloying aftertaste?
* "Golubash, or Wine-War-Blood-Elegy" (Catherynne M. Valente): 4.5/5
» A little on the oblique side but the framing for the story is absolutely killer.

I bought this book purely for Jeremiah Tolbert's story, which did not disappoint, and was surprised to see other authors I liked among the contributors. There were a number of stories that blew me away, and several that really didn't, and the rest were good. Drill-down below...

The Excellent:
"Swanwatch" by Yoon Ha Lee
* Love the structure of this universe.
"Spirey and the Queen" by Alastair Reynolds
* Perfect mixture of "You don't live in this world so I will use enough words so that the things you are seeing will make sense to you" and "I live in this word so my every thought is not a bucket of exposition."
"My She" by Mary Rosenblum
* Superb on all accounts.
"The Culture Archivist by Jeremiah Tolbert
* Funny and explorative with interesting tech. Excited to see a genderless character, but there was one thing that bugged me about it.
"Golubash, or Wine-Blood-War-Elegy" by Catherynne M. Valente
* Her first SF story is epic and brilliant.

The Good:
"Carthago Delenda Est" by Genevieve Valentine
* I think I didn't quite "get" this story, but it worked.
"Life-suspension" by L. E. Modesitt
* Interesting concept executed well.
"Aftermaths" by Lois McMaster Bujold
* More of a feel-good story than a technical masterpiece.
"Twilight of the Gods" by John C. Wright
* Another one I didn't quite "get," not being familiar with Wagner, but it was pretty and internally consistent.
"Warship" by George R. R. Martin and George Guthridge
* Good concept done well, but a little overstated.
"Like They Always Been Free" by Georgina Li
* It's hard to find a good really short story and this one definitely makes the grade, but the intensely personal voice was a little hard for me to follow.
"Eskhara" by Trent Hergenrader
* Good structure and timely concerns.
"The One With the Interstellar Group Consciousnesses" by James Alan Gardner
* Fairly clever, amusing and sweet in a heteronormative romcom sort of way.

The Decent:
"Terra-Exulta" by S. L. Gilbow
* An interesting idea, but the format bugged me and it wasn't subtle enough for its length.
"Prisons" by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason
* I couldn't tell what this one was trying to say, and it felt split somehow.
"Different Day" by K. Tempest Bradford
* Love the concept, but it doesn't really go anywhere.
"Pardon Our Conquest" by Alan Dean Foster
* I didn't get this one, but I may have been missing info from the other works in the milieu I hadn't read.
"The Ship Who Returned" by Anne McCaffrey
* Again, missing context since I haven't read the books.
"The Shoulders of Giants" by Robert J. Sawyer
* Great concept, not enough character development.
"The Other Side of Jordan" by Allen Steele
* Great concept skimmed over in favor of a fairly cardboard love story.

The Not Worth It:
"Mazer In Prison" by Orson Scott Card
* I enjoy much of Card's fiction and dearly love several of his books, but I really didn't need to read this story. It doesn't stand on its own and doesn't contribute much to its contextual works.
"Someone Is Stealing the Great Throne Rooms of the Galaxy" by Harry Turtledove
* If Steve Eley had read this on Escape Pod, I probably would have liked it, but by itself it's kind of thin. Punny, but again, I didn't need to read this.
"Symbiont" by Robert Silverberg
* Silverberg's written a zillion stories, but all the ones I've read seem to take a concept that could be interesting, give it a few quirks--a few good lines, a nice twist, a funny scene--but just not do much with it. This one was not an exception.

This book has quite a diverse array of stories and, yes, most of them fall into the category of space opera. Some of these stories will be passed by without so much as a second glance but the rest of the stories are thought-provoking on many levels. While many of the authors are well known (most contributed excellent examples of their craft) some authors (of whom I had never heard) produced such outstanding stories that I have added more of their work to my reading list.

A few stories are quite disturbing because they make you think rather seriously about how human society might endure the next few thousand years. Others fill you with hope, providing a hopeful peek at what a bright and positive future might be like. Though some of the stories are bland, this is an anthology produced by a group of experienced storytellers and is well worth the read.