Mirrorshades

Rating: 3 / 5 🌟

Of all the stories, I especially enjoyed “Petra”, “Stone Lives”, and “Red Star, Winter Orbit”. The other stories were fine. I typically think anthologies are helpful for getting an idea of whether one wants to read more of a particular author’s work. Interestingly, I enjoyed William Gibson’s contributions in this anthology far more than his other works. In the co-authored “Red Star, Winter Orbit”, I finally found the Gibson I’ve been wanting to read.

The blurbs before each story are well done and I walked away wanting to read more from Greg Bear and Paul Di Filippo.

The stories range in length from ~30 pages to 110+ (the first “Freezone” piece).

I am quick to DNF books I don’t enjoy. I considered marking this DNF: the stories I liked weren’t enough to make the entire anthology compelling reading. Ultimately, I read it all because it’s on my r/fantasy bingo card and I have just over a week to go.

(As I noted here, I skipped the “Freezone” excerpts as I prefer to read the novel in its entirety.)