Monday, October 24, 2016

Now We Are Ten, edited by Ian Whates

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(10th Anniversary Anthology) A collection of stories exploring the number 10. (77,129 words; Time: 4h:17m)

Rating: ★★★☆☆, Average

"Now We Are Ten," edited by Ian Whates, published on by .

No Coherent Theme

The trouble with organizing an anthology around the number 10 is that you end up with no coherent theme. Out of these 16 stories, 9 are SF, 3 are fantasy, 2 are horror, 1 is an allegory, and 1 isn't SFF at all. One story was only ten words long. 

Normally, out of 16 stories, we'd recommend against 3, but here we recommend against 7. Normally we'd recommend about 3, and that is correct. So the upshot is that there are about as many really good stories as you'd expect, but there are surpisingly many bad ones.

Specially Recommended

The Final Path, by Genevieve Cogman, introduces us to a teenager who buries herself in video games to forget about the way the outside world is falling apart. But there's something creepy about the game she likes the best.

Recommended

Dress Rehearsal, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. A group of travelling players puts on performances for people in different places in different versions of reality. Their leader seems to be running away from something though.

The Tenth Man, by Bryony Pearce. A young gradute student seeks answers from a professor for his dissertation on multiple worlds. Trouble is, the professor is in an insane asylum after killing the partners he worked with on the same topic in the past.

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2 comments (may contain spoilers):

  1. Finally got round to this one. I don't mind the rather scattered theme so much, I think it's resulted in an interesting mix.
    I broadly agree with your scoring here as well, although I may quibble with a few individual scores.

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    Replies
    1. Did you like the ten-word review for the ten-word story? :-)

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