Crowing About Pyr

Tomas L. Martin has posted two reviews in the recent edition of SF Crowsnest.

Of Justina Robson's brilliant near-future thriller, Mappa Mundi,Tomas has this to say:

"Mappa Mundi is an excellent second novel, with great characterisation and an intriguing plot idea. It's certainly worth reading and Justina Robson is an extremely promising writer but I felt this book strayed a bit too far in its extrapolation to function as a great thriller. As it is, it's simply a good book."

Not arguing with a good review - just feel compelled to add that I love the "straying." For me, the book starts off like any Michael Crichton thriller, but goes in the opposite direction. So much of his work - as well as the Hollywood treatment of SFnal tropes - is about putting genies back in the bottle, while we science fiction types know that that is rarely possible...

Meanwhile, Tomas's thoughts on my own Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edgeare equally appreciated:

"There are some excellent stories here. In his introduction, Anders mentions that he aspires to produce a similar collection to that of Damon Knight's prestigious Orbit series that was so influential in its twenty-one volumes. This is heady competition to put onto a new publication but happily it isn't too difficult to see Fast Forward becoming a similarly established name in original SF anthology history.... Fast Forward 1 has more than enough original and exciting new stories to make it important reading and worthy of more than a couple more editions to follow. Lou Anders has done a good job with this first volume and I hope he continues producing original anthologies if they are as good as this one."