MATTER'S END by Gregory Benford
Evelyn C Leeper
Bantam, ISBN 0-553-56898-1, 1995, 294p, $5.99
A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper
As a fan of short fiction, I am always happy to see a publisher
bring out a collection of an author's short fiction. There was a
period during which most publishers seemed to shy away from single-
author collections, but lately we've been seeing them from almost all
the major science fiction publishers. Bantam's latest is this
collection of twenty-one stories by Gregory Benford. This is his
second collection; the first was titled IN ALIEN FLESH.
Although only seven stories list earlier copyright dates on the
copyright page, I believe that all the stories have appeared elsewhere
before. They span the entire three decades of Benford's writing
career, and cover a wide range of styles and subject matters. Benford,
in fact, talks about this in his afterword, a far better description of
the stories in terms of category, style, and intent than I could hope
to give.
The diversity of styles will probably mean that there will be some
stories not to your liking, but it also means that there will probably
be some stories you do like (as opposed to an all-or-nothing
situation). Benford, though a professional physicist, does not write
in the way many people expect scientists to write (although he is
almost alone among science fiction writers in refusing to use faster-
than-light travel in space travel stories, as being scientifically
impossible), so you never really know what to expect from him.
I can't say I liked all the stories, and some I would argue with
for one reason or another, but with such excellent pieces as
"Freezeframe," "Centigrade 233," "Nobody Lives on Burton Street," "We
Could Do Worse" (okay, I'm a sucker for alternate history stories), and
"Immortal Night," this is certainly a volume I can recommend. (Is it
just my imagination, or is there a possible future history cycle in
"Immortal Night," "The Bigger One," "Nobody Lives on Burton Street,"
and "Centigrade 233"?)
%A Benford, Gregory
%T Matter's End
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York
%D January 1995
%G ISBN 0-553-56898-1
%P 294pp
%O paperback, $5.99
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Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn...@att.com
"As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as
certain about anything as were the people who built this place."
-Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg on her visit to Auschwitz