Dan
This is a big collection, thirty plus stories. It works well as an overview of Powell’s career so far. His Embers of war and Ack Ack Macaque series are both represented, one in a story which was the germ of things to come and the other by a pair of stories written after (during?) the main series and illuminating it in a different way. His familiar themes and obsessions are here, made more obvious by having them reflected thirty two different ways. In many ways it feels like a summing up of the first phase of his career, and it’d be nice to think that it’s both a capstone to that and a foundation for what is to come
This is a big collection, thirty plus stories. It works well as an overview of Powell’s career so far. His Embers of war and Ack Ack Macaque series are both represented, one in a story which was the germ of things to come and the other by a pair of stories written after (during?) the main series and illuminating it in a different way. His familiar themes and obsessions are here, made more obvious by having them reflected thirty two different ways. In many ways it feels like a summing up of the first phase of his career, and it’d be nice to think that it’s both a capstone to that and a foundation for what is to come