Apostrophes & Apocalypses: The First Collection from One of the Most Acclaimed SF Writers of the Decade

John Barnes is simply the best when it comes to hard sci-fi. I stumbled upon his work after reading a short story in the "Drakas!" collection based on the alt-universe created by S.M. Stirling (another fave). I picked up a copy of "Kaleidoscope Century" and was hooked. Barnes is a master of dark humor and has a keen eye on the human condition. The short stories in "A & A" are marvelous, a few laugh out loud funny, all thought provoking (I'll never look at wolves the same way again...). The essays are equally good. Barnes is wonderfully controversial, politically incorrect, irreverent, and one of my favorite writers of all time. Can't recommend this book enough.

I have had very mixed feelings about Barnes' novel-length work. Descriptions of Barnes as the next Heinlein never sold his books to me as I stopped deifying the 'Dean of Science Fiction' long ago; indeed, in my view, Barnes' flaws often replicated Heinlein's stylistic and imaginative shortcomings. He also seemed to have a rather boring way of constructing his worlds whether they were supposed to be shockingly foregrounded or merely backcloth. This collection managed to both surprise me and confirm some of my previous impressions. I found the author's commentaries on his stories engaging and enlightening, though I did not always agree with his opinions of his own work! For example, 'Under the Covenant Stars', a tale set in a near future USA dominated by religous dogma and fear of the outside, which Barnes describes as one of his most (thankfully) dated, I found to be still timely and disturbing. Perhaps more recent events have reawakened tendencies Barnes thought long gone. I also liked the one with the gay wolf sex! Barnes seems to encourage the reader to find this shocking - actually it isn't at all unless you have problems with the normal range of human sexuality - and is in fact quite an intriguing tale that could be read as a challenge to human speciesism, a tale of moral control, or a satire on the animal rights lobby depending on you mood and persuasions. There are a few really enjoyable and genuinely challenging stories in this collection: the first story, 'Gentleman Pervent, Out on a Spree' is strong stuff with some disturbing but worthwhile points about gender relations, although it outstays its welcome and drifts off course a little.However there are some really bad stories too - another lengthy piece which worked hard at inverting mainstream fantasy conventions of good elves and bad goblins went on so long and aimlessly that I began to think that some publisher's trick had plunged me into the middle of another interminable fantasy trilogy. Many other tales are equally pointless or flawed: some, such as 'Stochasm, 'are just too clever-clever , others aren't as funny as they the author believes, particularly one abysmally unamusing alt-history satire about Christopher Columbus. Interspersed with the stories are non-fiction pieces. These I found very interesting because they purport at least to be what Barnes really thinks about writing, about Science Fiction, and about world-creation. I say 'purport', because I was left unsure whether Barnes really believes what he writes and whether the pieces are merely self-justification. One example is an essay on style in SF, in which Barnes exalts good honest craft in writing over bombastic stylistic exhuberance. Given that Barnes' own style is workmanlike at best and dull at worst, this could be seen merely as an attempt to give a critical gloss to an inability to write in anything more than flat prose. Likewise his essay on how to construct a world: mathematically-correct maybe, but worlds are ma

I came to John Barnes' writing through his novels, and was very pleasantly suprised to find his short stories. They pack almost as much creativity as is usually found in a 300 page work into a scant 30 pages. The downside to this, of course, is that after being so drawn in to one of his universes, you want to stay with the world and the characters for another 270 pages...One great thing about this collection are the essays interleaved between the stories. The insight into how Barnes arrives at his plots and universes is a special treat.

This is exactly what I want in a collection - stories and essays by a great author. I really enjoyed it, and reccomend it to anyone who likes Barnes' novels, or just well written SF.I found in reading this book that the author has both a BA-Economics and an MA-Political Science, math-intensive. This explains much about his well planned worlds and scholarly characters, but there is so much more here than that. Buy it. Read it. Understand why he's compared to Heinlein so often.