Jun 20, 2008 01:27 PM
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Tue Feb 9
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A terrifically interesting new anthology called Seeds of Change hits bookstores this summer, featuring original stories from nine scifi authors dealing with near-future scenarios where the world completely changes. Essentially, it's a political take on the idea of the singularity and it features two of my favorite smartypants authors, Tobias Buckell and Ken MacLeod. Edited by F&SF editor John Joseph Adams, Seeds of Change deals with everything from voting to U.S. oil companies in Africa. Contributor Blake Carlton describes the anthology as dealing with how "fiction can be a mode of social change."
According to Publisher's Weekly, the anthology features:
Near-future paradigm shifts in everything from race relations (in Ted Kosmatka's vivid and moving “N-Words,” where cloned Neanderthals encounter violent hatred from Homo sapiens) to the morality of uploaded consciousness (in Blake Charlton's clumsy but charming “Endosymbiont”), with varying success. The hero of Jay Lake's “The Future by Degrees” invents an energy-saving thermal superconductor only to be pursued by corporations protecting their business, with predictable results. Pepper, the mercenary hero of Tobias S. Buckell's Crystal Rain, refuses to assassinate a dictator in the morally contrived “Resistance.” Considerably more powerful is Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu's “Spider the Artist,” which combines African folk tales and advanced robotics in a chilling story about a rising social conscience in the Nigerian oil fields.
I can't wait to dig into it!
Seeds of Change [via Amazon]
Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.
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