Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Final Frontier: Stories of Exploring Space, Colonizing the Universe, and First Contact

30 total ratings, 6 with reviews

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From the United States

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 15, 2022

I was very excited to read this book after seeing the reviews and reading the synopsis on the back: "a professional friend hired to comfort a mentally unstable drone for a mission?" "Generation ships and new worlds?" "A living membrane around a star?" Sign me up! However, my excitement quickly died when I started reading it and it was a real slog to get through the majority of these, ending as an overall disappointment with a few silver linings in between.

The reviews that sing praises about the hard sci-fi in this book are definitely right: even in the poorer stories there's some great concepts. So if you're reading this collection for that and don't care so much about the characters and other story elements then you might still enjoy a lot of this. Otherwise, there were only a couple of truly great stories where every element was working well. Most often, when a story wasn't working it was due to poor characters, poor interactions, or not doing anything with the interesting concept or premise the story was supposed to be about.

Here's the breakdown:

The only stories I'd say were truly great that I enjoyed reading were:
- Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Diving into the Wreck
- Vandana Singh - Sailing the Antarsa

After that there were a bunch of stories that ranged from good to alright:
- Tobias S. Buckell - A Jar of Goodwill
- Ken Liu - Mono no aware
- Michael Swanwick - Slow Life
- Julie Novakova - The Symphony of Ice and Dust
- Sean McMullen - The Firewall and the Door

Then the rest were pretty "meh" for one reason or another, with a mix of what wasn't working for each. For example, Greg Egan's "Glory" had probably the best hard sci-fi opening I've ever read for how super-advanced aliens beat the speed of light andmove themselves across the universe, and how they build their ships when they get there. Immediately afterwards though, those same sophisticated aliens were supposed to be diplomats to a less-advanced civilization but they had the skill, temperament, and dialogue of spoiled teenagers.

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Rhonda A. Atlanta

About the best

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 27, 2020

Verified Purchase

The is about the best collection of hard sci fi I have read. All stories tight and well-written. All engaging . Not one to pass up.

One person found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Excellent anthology.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 8, 2019

Verified Purchase

There are some true gems in this collection, stories of such imagination and execution they will literally transport you within. Rarely does a SF anthology succeed at this level. Read it.

2 people found this helpful

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Blackwolf

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 9, 2018

Verified Purchase

Full review coming soon

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From other countries

Perceptive Reader

Good Collection

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on March 18, 2022

Verified Purchase

This massive tome, containing prints in font size 9.5 spread across 579 pages plus sundry, was not easy on eyes by any means. But fortunately, apart from a few definitive 'Meh'-s, most of the huge novellas were good reads, with a few jewels here and there.
My take-away would be the following~
1. Tobias S. Buckell's 'A Jar of Goodwill';
2. Nancy Kress's 'Shiva in Shadow';
3. Julie Novakova's 'The Symphony of Ice and Dust';
4. Sean McMullen's 'The Firewall and the Door' (I totally loved it!);
5. Jay Lake's 'Permanent Fatal Errors';
6. Carrie Vaughn's 'The Mind is Its Own Place';
7. An Owomoyela's 'Travelling into Nothing';
8. Peter Watt's 'The Island'.
Reading this book was a worthwhile experience. But it seems that the art of writing crisp and compact short stories is either getting lost, or the editors aren't interested, favouring humongous tales over them.
Meanwhile, if you can get hold of this one and have a handy pair of bifocals, go ahead.

John

Buy buy buy !

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 7, 2019

Verified Purchase

Proper large screen big concept hard sf....beautiful. .....

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5 star		57%
4 star		23%
3 star		8%
2 star		8%
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