Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown: The Phobos Science Fiction Anthology

Rating:
Summary: A rewarding immersion in other-worldly tale-telling
Review: Collaboratively compiled and edited by Orson Scott Card, Keith Olexa, and Christian O'Toole, Hitting The Skids In Pixeltown: The Phobos Science Fiction Anthology - Volume 2 collects twelve winning stories from the 2nd annual Phobos fiction contest, as judged by seven distinguished individuals including celebrated authors Orson Scott Card and Larry Niven, and NASA astronaut Marsha Ivins. Mind-expanding quality stories, supplemented with a new feature "The Coldest Place" by jury member Larry Niven, make for a rewarding immersion in other-worldly tale-telling. Hitting The Skids In Pixeltown is enthusiastically recommended to every dedicated fan of science fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Cowboys, Yeti, and Opera Singers
Review: If you are hungry for good science fiction, "Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown" will have you drooling like a lion at an antelope buffet. One of the things I love about a good science fiction anthology is the way your brain has to shift gears with each tale, groping around for clues to discover if you are on another planet, in an alternative history, far into a strange future, or still in the here and now. This anthology provides a fantastic range of settings. You've got straight up space opera (in the most literal sense of the words) with "Callus Redux" by Rebecca Carmi, a hard-boiled mystery caper in Eugie Fosters "All in My Mind," a really cool cowboy tale in "The Bear Eater" by Paul Pence, and the tale of a comet hunt told in a Native American folk style by David Levine in "Ukaliq and the Great Hunt." The tone swings from the truly horrific in Kyle David Jelle's "Hidden Scars" to more playful tales like Carl Frederick's Yeti hunt, "The Beast of All Possible Worlds."

Let me single out a couple of favorites. "Hidden Scars" is a deeply disturbing story. Jelle plunges us into an underworld of people who have dark secrets and go to extreme lengths to keep them. You know the story is going to haunt you right from the opening line: "I love women with scars on their wrists." Jelle's cool, unflinching narrator leads us into a tale of the worst possible human behavior. This is outstanding work, and I can't wait to read more from this promising writer.

"The Bear Eater" was the anthology's biggest surprise. Paul Pence tells the the simplest story in the anthology, and the most suspenseful. A trapper in the old West finds himself stalking a beast big enough to eat bears. The story reminded me of the best of Jack London's adventure stories, a gritty life or death struggle of man versus beast, an intense page turner that keeps you guessing what's next. Highly recommended.

Finally, the cover story, "Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown," by Matthew Rotundo, is a nice artistic argument against the coming age when humans will vanish from film-making, replaced by virtual computer generated doubles. This story takes a gamble by attempting to anticipate the near future of film making, when films such at this summer's "Hulk" already seem to be landing with their toes already over the line of that future. I'm not 100% convinced I buy the premise that actual humans on film trump virtual creations--"Finding Nemo" would have been rather silly with actors in scuba gear and fish masks--but the story still works because Rotundo has crafted a bit of virtual magic of his own. His fictional characters instantly seem real, and you want their attempt at making an "honest" film free of digital magic to succeed. This is good, solid, story-telling.

In fact, the whole book is filled with solid stories. Buy a copy. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Cowboys, Yeti, and Opera Singers
Review: If you are hungry for good science fiction, "Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown" will have you drooling like a lion at an antelope buffet. One of the things I love about a good science fiction anthology is the way your brain has to shift gears with each tale, groping around for clues to discover if you are on another planet, in an alternative history, far into a strange future, or still in the here and now. This anthology provides a fantastic range of settings. You've got straight up space opera (in the most literal sense of the words) with "Callus Redux" by Rebecca Carmi, a hard-boiled mystery caper in Eugie Fosters "All in My Mind," a really cool cowboy tale in "The Bear Eater" by Paul Pence, and the tale of a comet hunt told in a Native American folk style by David Levine in "Ukaliq and the Great Hunt." The tone swings from the truly horrific in Kyle David Jelle's "Hidden Scars" to more playful tales like Carl Frederick's Yeti hunt, "The Beast of All Possible Worlds."

Let me single out a couple of favorites. "Hidden Scars" is a deeply disturbing story. Jelle plunges us into an underworld of people who have dark secrets and go to extreme lengths to keep them. You know the story is going to haunt you right from the opening line: "I love women with scars on their wrists." Jelle's cool, unflinching narrator leads us into a tale of the worst possible human behavior. This is outstanding work, and I can't wait to read more from this promising writer.

"The Bear Eater" was the anthology's biggest surprise. Paul Pence tells the the simplest story in the anthology, and the most suspenseful. A trapper in the old West finds himself stalking a beast big enough to eat bears. The story reminded me of the best of Jack London's adventure stories, a gritty life or death struggle of man versus beast, an intense page turner that keeps you guessing what's next. Highly recommended.

Finally, the cover story, "Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown," by Matthew Rotundo, is a nice artistic argument against the coming age when humans will vanish from film-making, replaced by virtual computer generated doubles. This story takes a gamble by attempting to anticipate the near future of film making, when films such at this summer's "Hulk" already seem to be landing with their toes already over the line of that future. I'm not 100% convinced I buy the premise that actual humans on film trump virtual creations--"Finding Nemo" would have been rather silly with actors in scuba gear and fish masks--but the story still works because Rotundo has crafted a bit of virtual magic of his own. His fictional characters instantly seem real, and you want their attempt at making an "honest" film free of digital magic to succeed. This is good, solid, story-telling.

In fact, the whole book is filled with solid stories. Buy a copy. You won't be disappointed.