PW & Booklist Review THE BEST OF KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

John Joseph Adams | July 27th 2010 at 12:28 pm

Publishers Weekly

The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson [starred review]
Edited by Jonathan Strahan, Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $27.95 (400p) ISBN 978-1-59780-184-3

Robinson’s award-winning novels (the Mars Trilogy, Galileo’s Dream) often unjustly overshadow his brilliant short stories, an error that this impressive collection will do much to correct. “Venice Drowned” chronicles Carlo Tafur’s heartbreak as he saves Venice’s treasures from the rising waters by selling them to foreigners. The profound and profoundly emotional “Lucky Strike” describes one man’s struggle with his conscience during WWII. A family faces a variety of uncertainties at the onset of a new ice age in “Glacier,” and the title character of “The Blind Geometer” works his way through a mathematical mystery that may prove lethal. Robinson is equally at home in the furthest reaches of the cosmos and among scotch-swilling NASA scientists stuck in traffic, and every story pivots around a different fascinating idea that will hit readers right in that “sense of wonder” SF sweet spot. (Aug.)

Booklist

The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson. Robinson, Kim Stanley (author) and Strahan, Jonathan (editor).
Aug. 2010. 400p. Night Shade, hardcover, $27.95 (9781597801843).

This valuable introduction to the versatile author’s short fiction starts with “Venice Drowned” and goers on through such other classics as “Black Air,” “The Lucky Strike,” “Escape from Kahmandu,” and “Prometheus Unbound, At Last.” Perhaps less well-known will be “Remaking History,” “Zurich,” “Muir on Shasta,” and “The Tympanist of the Berlin Philharmonic, 1942.” Robinson has provided short notes on all the stories, none of them long discussions on himself. No such are needed, as Robinson’s gifts (supported by extensive travel and knowledge of history) speak for themselves. The only caveat is that larger collections may well have most of these pieces already, but even they may find it prudent to offer this bonus to beginning readers of Robinson.

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