Will the Last Person To Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun?

Rating:
Summary: A Free Sample
Review: This collection of short stories, with a few notable exceptions, has very little substance. This does not mean it is a bad book. Rather, think of it as a showcase, an author demonstrating the moods, voices, and genres he is capable of. It is designed to be very easy to read... with no insoluble concepts and no especially challenging ideas, it can be digested with ease by the average citizen and truly let them know if they would enjoy Resnick's novels. I would normally give a book of this type a six or seven, but two stories in this book do not conform to the "Free Sample" style. These stories (Kirinyaga and For I Have Touched The Sky) are deeper and more meaningful than the stories that surround them. If the reader is truly buying this book for a free sample, he should ignore these stories, for they contain questions about cultural integrity and the effetcts of colonialism that quite belie the rest of the book.

Rating:
Summary: Variety of stories keeps the book interesting.
Review: This is the book that introduced me to Resnick, and it's a great introduction. Resnick demonstrates a variety of styles and tones in this anthology, from the hysterical "Revenge of the Sugar Plum Fairies" to the deeply serious "Kirinyaga" stories. You can be sure there's a story here for you no matter what type of story you're in the mood for.