Galactic Empires

November 14, 2016
This hefty anthology of imperial SF covers great space battles, small dramas within an empire, hopeless bureaucracy, and even living space stations, zooming in and out to capture every nuance as protagonists return a lost princess of the empire (Melinda M. Snodgrass’s “The Wayfarer’s Advice”) or rebel against subjugating aliens (Tobias S. Buckell’s “A Cold Heart”). Some stories truly span empires. Brandon Sanderson’s “Firstborn” tells the story of a young man whose only military talent seems to be an uncanny ability to fail spectacularly, and how he uses this weakness to defeat the greatest military strategist the galaxy has ever known. Robert Charles Wilson’s “Utriusque Cosmi” spans eons as a strange force sweeps over the entire universe. Others have a more intimate scope. Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s “The Impossibles” deals with a single case in an interspecies court and what loss or victory might mean to an overworked lawyer. In Ruth Nestvold’s “Looking Through Lace,” a linguist immerses herself in trying to understand a mysterious culture. The diverse array of stories ensures that there’s plenty of interest for any fan of large-scale SF.

December 1, 2016

As editor Clarke points out in his introduction, when most people hear the term galactic empire, they immediately picture Darth Vader and Star Wars. But there is a long history of star-faring empires in the genre, with stories that imagine our human tendencies to explore and conquer among the stars. While some of the writers here consider the human-alien conflict, as in Paul J. McAuley's "Winning Peace," there are other tales about the attempts to communicate and cooperate as recounted in Ruth Nestvold's "Looking Through Lace" and Gwendolyn Clare's excellent "All the Painted Stars." Standouts from authors' established worlds include Ann Leckie's "Night's Slow Poison," set in the universe of her "Ancillary" novels, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch's "The Impossibles," about an overworked lawyer in the world of Rusch's "Retrieval Artists" series. VERDICT The stories gathered here, all of which have appeared elsewhere, show the huge range of possibilities of the chosen theme. Contributors make for a mix of newcomers and seasoned veterans alike, including Aliette de Bodard, Brandon Sanderson, Naomi Novik, Robert Silverberg, and Ian McDonald.--MM

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2017
This anthology, assembled by the publisher and editor of Clarkesworld magazine, collects stories centered on vast and expansive far-future societies. Although some of the stories do feature futuristic civilizations with seemingly feudal political structures, others depict civilizations that are only imperial in the sense of their wide and expansive scope. All of the stories featured in the collection are reprints, many of them from previous anthologies of space-opera or far-future sf stories, with the rest taken from various magazines (including Clarkesworld). Highlights include entries from established names, such as Ian McDonald's Verthandi's Ring and Greg Egan's Riding the Crocodile, as well as entries from relatively newer authors, such as Gwendolyn Clare's All the Painted Stars, Aliette de Bodard's The Waiting Stars, and Yoon Ha Lee's Ghostweight. The stories vary in tone from introspective to breezy and in content from speculative far futures to more traditional space-opera action, making this collection a definite recommendation to any reader looking for a wide range of engaging and enjoyable reading experiences.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)