Starwater Strains

Starred review from June 27, 2005
Unlike his previous all-fantasy short fiction collection Innocents
Aboard
(2004),Wolfe's seventh volume of stellar short stories, written mostly between 2000 and 2005, ranges from haunting horror and biting near-contemporary social commentary to high fantasy and far-future SF, all amply demonstrating his mastery of trademark ironic twists of plot and characterization. Two longer pieces frame the collection. In "Viewpoint," Wolfe postulates a "reality show for real," with "a real government clawing for the money," while "Golden City Far" blends adolescent dreams of love and magic with a talking dog and deeds perilous and poignant. Between them Wolfe includes such minor masterpieces as "Petting Zoo," recounting the memories of better days lived by a man and an aged tofu-eating dinosaur, one of Wolfe's favorite beasts. Wolfe's dead-on ear for dialect shines in little morsels of horror like "The Fat Magician" and the apocalyptic "Mute," both treating humanity's capacity for self-destruction. The wonderful shocker "Pulp Cover" provides an invaluable clue to both this outstanding collection and Wolfe's creativity, that tiny, inevitable wrench when dream gives way to reality, reality to nightmare, and we understand, "It isn't really like that at all." Agent, the Virginia Kidd Agency.

November 1, 2005
Adult/High School -The 20-plus science-fiction stories in this solid collection vary greatly in length, setting, and subject. In -Petting Zoo, - a captive "T-rex" relives old times with a human friend; -Lord of the Land - is a horror story with an ancient Egyptian twist; in -Calamity Jane, - an unusual dog brings increasingly strange gifts to its owner; and -The Boy Who Hooked the Sun - is a mythlike tale set in Atlantis that explains the origin of seasons. Of special interest to teens will be -Viewpoint, - in which reality TV is taken to a future extreme, and -Golden City Far, - in which a high school student's fantastic dreams spill over into his everyday life. Throughout, the writing is perfectly suited to each story -clear and precise, with not a word wasted. Readers may not like all of the tales, but there is something here for everyone who enjoys fantastic fiction." -Sandy Freund, Richard Byrd Library, Fairfax County, VA"

Copyright 2005 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2005
In introducing his seventh hardcover story collection for Tor, Wolfe claims to be in readers' debt. But readers may politely quarrel with this, particularly since Wolfe's command of English makes even the shortest pieces (some short enough to be sent in Christmas cards) avoid slightness. "Calamity Warps" is an agreeable find in the highly felix-centric sf universe: a dog story, and not a shaggy one, either. "Graylord Man's Last Words" is very Dickensian (Wolfe is a Dickens aficionado) though set in the twenty-ninth century (Wolfe is an sf writer, after all). "Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?" has the flavor of the late R. A. Lafferty (who? Wildside Press is reissuing his work, most recently his 1987 novel " Serpent's Egg"). "The Fat Magician" features one of Wolfe's ongoing characters, Sam Cooper. "Game in the Pope's Head" has a historical setting--the London of Jack the Ripper. Wolfe probably does demand serious--as in dedicated, not humorless--readers, and his success implies there are enough of them around.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)