J

So clearly, a complete collection of the short stories of a prolific writer is going to have some variance. There are some that are forgettable, and some that are just stories for the sake of stories. But Clarke relatively frequently evoked, for me, a sense of wonder, of imagination, of desire to unlock the secrets of the universe, even with the advances in science since.

He also has a knack for completely reframing a story with a new idea in the last paragraph, or even sentence, to leave you thinking.

As I read, I wrote down some of the stories I found memorable for one reason or another:

• Rescue Party
• Lion of Comarre
• Hide and seek
• Breaking Strain
• Nemesis
• Second Dawn
• Superiority
• If I forget Thee, Oh Earth
• Encounter in the Dawn
• Refugee
• The Next Tenants
• The Man Who Ploughed the Sea
• Let There Be Light
• Out of the Sun
• Cosmic Casanova
• The Songs of Distant Earth
• A Slight Case of Sunstroke
• Death and the Senator
• Before Eden
• Dog Star
• Maelstrom II

I can see why Sanderson calls this a curiosity. There are elements cannibalized (and improved on) for the Stormlight Archive, and because this isn't canon, this particular story will never be finished in that form.

The bones are damn good, though. I love Sanderson in all his varied forms, but Stormlight is stylistically my favorite, and this feels very similar, even beyond the elements he plundered, and [You Know Who] is pretty much fully developed and the fantastic character he always is in his regular Cosmere appearances.

I would not recommend this before Stormlight, because it feels like it might pull a couple punches away from it, but it is an excellent read. It's also an interesting look at his process, to see how he built kernels here into master strokes in Stormlight. Well worth it for Sanderson fans, maybe not standalone material for others because you'll never get a resolution.