21 Nov, 2023
Blatant Self-Aggrandizement
1996’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection is the thirteenth volume in Gardner Dozois’ Best Science Fiction of the Year anthology series. The anthology was also published under the title The Best New Science Fiction: 10th Annual Collection, which seems pretty confusing.
8 Jun, 2021
Blatant Self-Aggrandizement
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2001’s The Precipice is the first volume in Ben Bova’s Asteroid Wars series, which in turn takes place in his interminable Grand Tour setting.
The Precipiceis also the very first book I was paid to review. I suspect the reason my review garnered me a place as one of the SFBC’s first-readers was less due to any insight I offered and more because I had the book read and the review submitted less than a day later. Twenty years and six thousand nine hundred plus reviews later, how does The Precipice stand up?
Heartbroken over the death of his former lover, former President Jane Scanwell (who died while assisting refugees from a natural disaster), Dan Randolph sets out to save the 21st century1 Earth from climate change and civilization itself from the short-sighted bureaucrats, self-serving politicians, deranged conservatives of the New Morality, and (of course!) the witless masses who enable the activities of the preceding factions.
Rather conveniently, no sooner has Randolph resolved to fix a broken world than malevolent businessman and compulsive horn dog billionaire Martin Humphries arrives in Randolph’s office to offer the means to do just that. There is, of course, a catch.