| View Larger Image | Wireless | Hardcoverby Charles Stross (Author)
| List Price: | $24.95 | | Price: | $16.47 | | You Save: | $8.48 (34%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Hardcover | | Publisher: | Ace Hardcover | | Page Count: | 368 Pages | | Publication Date: | July 07, 2009 | | Sales Rank: | 22,070nd |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9780441017195
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Science fiction guru Charles Stross "sizzles with ideas" (Denver Post) in his first major short story collection. The Hugo Award-winning author of such groundbreaking and innovative novels as Accelerando, Halting State, and Saturn's Children delivers a rich selection of speculative fiction- including a novella original to this volume- brought together for the first time in one collection, showcasing the limitless imagination of one of the twenty-first century's most daring visionaries. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 11 reviews)
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Originality Squared! by Michael K. Smith (Gonzales, Louisiana)  4 Stars
November 10, 2009
I've been aware of Stross for awhile now, and I know about his growing reputation for highly original post-cyberpunk fiction, but this collection of nine short stories is my first real experience with his writing. There's something of a Tim Powers flavor to his work that gives it considerable appeal. "Missile Gap" is about the Cold War of c.1979 as it continues on the huge flat disk in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud to which Earth's continents have been removed by some unknown agency. (Now, *there's* a set-up for a story!) Stross apparently likes to drop the reader right into the middle of things and let him flounder around awhile before finally explaining the story. He certainly gets your attention -- if you show a bit of patience. And you should -- it's an excellent story. "A Colder War" is kind of similar, except it joins the brainless cowboy diplomacy of the Reagan era with ancient Lovecraftian evil and a bitter kind of alienation. The idea of Oliver North with access to the Ancient Ones will give you the willies. Stross also likes to bring in real science types like Carl Sagan and Stephen J. Gould and Buckminster Fuller. And he likes to describe scenarios in which the missiles are in the air and the sirens are screaming. "Maxos" is a short-short that purports to be a new form called "flash fiction," but this is the first I've heard of it. In the form of a letter to NATURE, it suggests a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox, . . . one involving Nigerian investments. "Unwirer," co-written with Cory Doctorow, is about a world -- right now, more or less -- in which the telcos have protected their profits by bribing or coercing Congress to make wireless communications illegal -- no public Internet access -- and the FCC has anti-terrorist powers to arrest and imprison (via secret courts) wireless guerillas who string repeaters along hillsides. Only in Europe, where freedom still has some meaning, is innovation still legal. The way the guys tell it, it's a truly scary scenario -- largely because it's very easy to imagine it happening. "Down on the Farm," on the other hand, is kind of a ho-hum story about Agent Bob of the secret government department known as "The Laundry," whose job is to deal with spells, magic, demonology, and other truly Black Ops. For more of his adventures, you want to read _The Atrocity Archives,_ but I'm afraid this one just doesn't do much for me. The last and longest piece in the book is the never before published "Palimpsest." You would think there were no new time-travel variations to explore but Stross manages it. The agents of the Stasis (after murdering their own grandfathers as an initiation rite) have to deal with a timestream covering more than a trillion years, in which humanity has risen and fallen and become extinct many thousands of times and their remit is to keep reseeding the species. We see all this from the personal perspective of an individual student-agent, first in the midst of his twenty years of training, and later as he patrols his beat -- a brief slice of time stretching only from Carthage to the Cold War. And I admire the author's facility with the language, as shown in phrases like "the mayfly flicker of empires." All in all, this volume is worth your time and consideration and Stross is definitely on my list of authors to investigate further.
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More great work by Stross by Alex Tolley (Los Gatos, CA USA)  5 Stars
September 23, 2009
Disclosure - I am a Charlie Stross fan. Read this review with that in mind.
This is a collection of 9 short stories and novellas. Of the stories there are 3 standouts;
"Missile Gap" - which should be made into a novel. Earth's crust is laid out on a huge disc orbiting another star by aliens who watch how we manage with the changed circumstances as we explore and find evidence of other planets and intelligences similarly placed.
"Palimpsest" - ditto. This is a modern rendering of Asimov's "The End of Eternity" and much better and richer by far. This tale alone is worth the price of the book.
"Unwirer" - a collaboration with Cory Doctorow which is a bitter sweet, almost poignant tale about a US dystopia due to corporate interests controlling how the internet infrastructure is developed. This is a wonderful cautionary tale populated with believable characters.
The weakest stories are:
"Snowball's Chance" - a comedy based on beating the devil
"Trunk and Disorderly" - a comedic precursor idea to the novel Saturn's Children, but which doesn't really work that well.
This is a worthy successor to his collection "Toast" and affirms for me why Stross is one of the few great contemporary SF writers. His imagination roams far and wide and treads ground where few others have gone.
Highly recommended.
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awe-inspiring scope by R. R. Felty (Tonganoxie, KS) 5 Stars
September 18, 2009
Amazing book. As we talk about past masters like Heinlein and Asimov, so future generations will speak of Charles Stross.
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Astonishing short stories by Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) 5 Stars
September 18, 2009
A selection of speculative fiction brings together a range of Stross' fiction, from a time-travel novella to a secret service agent's adventure and an example of different universes and technological innovations. A new kind of future requires a new vision for humanity - and WIRELESS provides these visions in some astonishing short stories.
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Not Free SF Reader by Blue Tyson 5 Stars
August 21, 2009
An extremely fine collection, with a 3.83 average. An interesting range of material both in length, going from vignette to long novella, and content, from humorous science fiction and fantasy to cold war paranoia and horror. Down on the Farm, being one of the Laundry stories is perhaps a combination of both.
It contains a story new to this book as the final entry, a twisty Time Police (Stasis Agent) scenario, but with a cosmological element, as well, to make it a little different. The object of this agency is to keep humans alive after the inevitable extinctions.
I'll still happily read anything he writes, and look forward to more. An excellent book.
Wireless : Missile Gap - Charles Stross
Wireless : Rogue Farm - Charles Stross
Wireless : A Colder War - Charles Stross
Wireless : Maxos - Charles Stross
Wireless : Down on the Farm - Charles Stross
Wireless : Unwirer - Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow
Wireless : Snowball's Chance - Charles Stross
Wireless : Trunk and Disorderly - Charles Stross
Wireless : Palimpsest - Charles Stross
Discworld detour detente dramatically different.
4 out of 5
Pastoral life breakdown.
3.5 out of 5
The US works on highly advanced nuclear weapons programs to stop something far worse that the Soviets have available : 'What exactly are these weapons systems?'' demands the third inquisitor, a quiet, hawk-faced man sitting on the left of the panel.
The shoggot'im, they're called: servitors. There are several kinds of advanced robotic systems made out of molecular components: they can change shape, restructure material at the atomic level -- '
3.5 out of 5
Interstellar spam.
3 out of 5
DSS = Deeply Scary Sorcerers. No chess at the Funny Farm please.
4 out of 5
Big network bypass fascist evidence breakthrough.
4.5 out of 5
Global warming Devil deal destruction wish banking.
4 out of 5
Dwarf mammoths are heavy. Supreme planetary overlords have bloody big houses. Multigendered metalflesh relations are jolly complex, old chap.
4 out of 5
Stasis self-inflicted senior self slaying separation self-Opposition.
4 out of 5
4.5 out of 5
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