From Publishers Weekly
Selected and introduced by Nebula-winner Effinger's fellow SF authors, these 22 provocative short stories represent three decades of fiction written under great physical and financial hardship. His friends often described Effinger (1947–2002), who called himself "Piglet," as "fey," a quality echoed in "Two Sadnesses" and "At the Bran Foundry," both of which denounce a world gone so mad it devours its own young. Among his most memorable works are the eight "O. Niemand" stories, pitch-perfect pastiches of such writers as Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, which chronicle life, alienation and death on the asteroid Springfield, "a rock in the middle of nowhere." In the brilliant "Solo in the Spotlight," a U.S. president faced with an international "situation" while on Air Force One depends on his teenage daughter to pull solutions out of her Barbie doll Tarot deck. While commenting on the absurdity of human actions, this compassionate tale underlines the awful truth that nobody's really in charge any more.
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Booklist
Before his untimely death in 2002, Effinger was one of the acknowledged masters of satirical sf and a prolific short story writer whose prodigious stylistic gifts are showcased in this unusual collection selected by his fellow writers and editors. In tribute to Effinger's genius, 16 veteran authors, from Michael Bishop and Jack Dann to Mike Resnick and Neil Gaiman, introduce each selection with personal reflections on Effinger's character and legacy. Particularly outstanding choices include Hugo Award nominees "The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, Everything," about a species of ET who are such do-gooders they drive humans to escape Earth for other worlds, and "Everything but Honor," about a time--traveling black physicist who returns to 1860 to murder a Civil War general and revolutionize the future for black Americans. Constituting a special treat for Effinger's fans are the O. Niemand stories, here introduced by Gardner Dozois, in which Effinger mimics, without caricature, the styles of such literary legends as Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Twain, while in each tale exploring an sf theme. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
