Disregard this warning at your own risk! Martin Greenberg believes that everything should be translated according to Wordsworth's dictum that poetry should be in the "ordinary speech used by men"--regardless of the language of the original. Could you imagine Shakespeare's sonnets being translated into common, slang-filled, modern-day say French or Spanish??? Well, that is what this absurdly dumbed-down version of Faust manages to do. By all means, read either the Oxford World's Classics paperback version by David Luke (easily the best) or the Stuart Atkins version in Princeton's Collected Works series. This book is trash, pure and simple!

This is an excellent translation of an amazing book.

Not only does Greenberg's translation rhyme (as opposed to the free-verse versions of lesser translators), but it's a great deal more intelligible to modern American readers than the other translations I've read. Nothing has been dumbed down, this book radiates the same brilliance and wit as the German original.

I highly recommend it.

After comparing most of the major English translations of Faust (Luke, Kaufmann, Arndt, Wayne) I found Martin Greenberg's to be the most beautiful and accessible of them all. Greenberg does an excellent job of suiting the tenor of the verse to the dramatic occasion, ranging from low comical to sublime lyric. Whereas the majority of previous English translations tend (mistakenly) strive for a uniformly "elevated" tone, Greenberg's translation gets the nuances right. A central idea running throughout Goethe's works is that in any comprehensive formulation of life, extremes must be united. The range of poetic styles in Faust--from high to low, comic to tragic, beautiful to sublime, "volk" slang to epic vaunt--also follows this general rule, and again Greenberg's sensativity to this range is wonderful. While the other translations are not bad, if you really want to experience the fantastic emotional-intellectual rollercoaster ride of Faust, this translation does it best.

Exploring and colonizing the stars is the theme, a classic science fiction idea. But only a couple of stories here have any chance of becoming classics. Many are bland and mediocre.

Two classic science fiction tales, A.E. van Vogt's "Far Centaurus" and Arthur C. Clarke's "The Sentinel, provide the inspiration for a mediocre story and a bland story. The mediocre one is Robert J. Sawyer's "The Shoulders of Giants" with a starship racing to a frontier already settled by humanity. The bland story is Eric Kotani's "Edgeworld" with its discovery of an alien artifact.

Also on the bland side are Jack Williamson's "Eden Star", with family conflicts played out on a planet with light-worshipping aliens, and Edo van Belkom's "Coming of Age" about colonists who discover that their children are doomed to permanent pre-pubescence. The weakest story, in terms of originality, is the entirely predictable "Full Circle" by Mike Resnick and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Even humor can not save this old plot about futilely trying to get rid of one noxious pest by importing another.

On the marginally interesting edge of the spectrum are Paul Levinson's "The Suspended Fourth", about a planet where birdsong may hold the key to avoiding disasters, and Alan Dean Foster's "The Muffin Migration", another of those stories where colonists rue ignoring the natives' advice about the local fauna. Dana Stabenow's "No Place Like Home" has a few plot holes but its black humor and mean-spiritedness make up for it in a tale weighing the relative values of human life and that of alien bacteria.

Both Allen Steele's "The Boid Hunt" and Tom Piccirilli's "I Am a Graveyard Hated by the Moon" are character centered stories. The Steele tale is a deadly coming of age story and an examination of courage before and during a hunt for alien predators. Piccirilli's mixture of virtual reality, nanotechnology, characters who think they're gods, and landscapes haunting characters doesn't quite work but is an enjoyable story reminiscent of Roger Zelazny.

Peter Ullian's "The Vietnamization of Centauri V" is not a strict retelling of the Vietnam War on an alien world but, rather, how three soldiers are differently affected by the carnage around them to which they sometimes contribute, sometimes balk at. Its plot may not be that original, but it rings psychologically true.

The best stories of the anthology, both very much worth reading and both sharing settings from their authors' novels, are Robert Charles Wilson's "The Dryad's Wedding" and Pamela Sargent's "Dream of Venus". Set on the same planet as the setting for his BIOS, "The Dryad's Wedding" features a woman's whose memories and personality were re-set by a trauma that almost killed her when she was sixteen. Nineteen years later she is set to again marry her old husband. Wandering the planet Isis, with its ecosystem lethal to any one not genetically engineered to live there, she has began to notice some strange things . . . like a mound of talking spiders. Set in the same universe as her trilogy about terraforming Venus, Sargent's "Dream of Venus" is about the conflict between artistic integrity and political realities. Rich, aimless, and young Hassan hopes producing a propagandistic "mind-tour" on the Venus project will be a ladder to the kind of Earth-side job his father wants for him. He's partnered with brilliant Miriam, a poor woman from the North America provinces. She has something different in mind other than a simple celebration of the centuries-long terraforming project.

This collection is worth reading despite the bland and predictable tales. There are enough interesting, if flawed, stories here, and a couple of very good ones, to make it worthwhile.

A good collection of stories. We start off with the obligatory Looking-to-the-Future Introduction by one of the editors, which I could have gone without. Must we start every science fiction short story collection by an introduction that mentions the moon landing, Isaac Asimov, and Mars, and tells us to keep dreaming? I mean really. At least it's kept short.

Which is good because it lets us get to the 13 stories in the book, none of which suck, and some which are inspired. Most of the stories are amusing even if they are given dark elements. 'The Muffin Migration', 'Eden Star', and 'Full Circle' are all told with a light narrative even when creepy and disturbing things occur. I like this.

The worst story in the collection and the one that seems to fit least is 'The Vietnamization of Centauri V'. The Message is so obvious and heavy-handed (as I'm sure the title gives away) that it distracts from the story, as you continue making the obvious connections between Centauri and Vietnam. The question I have is since the story is Vietnam set on an alien planet, why not just make it about Vietnam? The other strategy would be to make the connection less obvious and let the reader come to it on his own. The way it is now simplifies it all too much. Not a bad story at all, and there is some nice dialogue about God, but just the worst in this collection.

'The Dream of Venus' is one of the better stories if only because it takes the concept of terraforming Venus and gives it the story a fresh point of view. This, along with 'The Shoulders of Giants' and 'Full Circle' are stories that could have seemed trite or cliched if they weren't written so well.

Even if you're not a fan of sf, this collection should still be enjoyed. If you strip away the sf elements you're left with well-written stories about people. The collection doesn't insult your intelligence and it's solid.

Star Colonies is an anthology of thirteen science-fiction short stories. The theme of this collection is (obviously) human colonies on other worlds. Some deal with human interaction with natives of various forms, some deal with planet-wide superminds, but all are well written and thought provoking. Sadly, unlike many anthologies I have read, this book contains no one story that leaped out at me because to its excellence. But, the stories are all solidly written and enjoyable to read. Overall this is a very good book, and I recommend it to you.

I have got to stop giving my old books away. I probably have a small fortune in out of print volumes. Every time I look up a book for a gift I reach the same section, "sorry." "13 Crimes" is one of those entertaining books that probably started as a coffee shop conversation. "Hey Joe, you notice there aren't any SciFi detective stories." "Can't be done Fred. Too easy. The Gumshoes could just come up with some gizmo to see fingerprints, or track shoe size. It can't be fair. For along time this was the case. Then someone got the idea of making rules. What if you had a world of the future, but no surprises? Any technology you want, but the reader has to be let in on it. A hundred years ago crime stories were just laid out. Today it's different. You have to give the reader a chance to figure it out along with the detective. "13 Crimes" does this masterfully. It takes the 13 types of mystery stories, the loc! ked room mystery, the hard boiled PI mystery, etc., and puts it in a SciFi setting. The result is a collection of authors and stories that will satisfy both the SciFi AND mystery fan. Or a least it would if you can find it.

Authors do not develop new stories, they write new twists on old ones. While a science fiction setting does provide additional possibilities for a mystery, it is also very limiting. To be effective, the science fictional aspects must be important, yet secondary. For example, it would be a very dull tale if a locked room mystery was solved by a principal character simply using a device to step into the fourth dimension at a critical moment.
These thirteen stories of crimes are well crafted. Each follows one of the basic themes of crime stories: hard-boiled detective, psychic detective, spy, analytical detective, whodunit, why-done-it, how-done-it, inverted, locked room, cipher, police procedural, trial and punishment. The science fiction aspects are necessary, yet do not overshadow what is a tale of suspense. My favorite stories are "Mouthpiece" by Edward Wellen and "Time In Advance" by William Tenn. In "Mouthpiece", the personality of a gangster is loaded into a powerful computer and the programmer who did it becomes an unwitting pawn of the gangster who wants to avenge his assassination. "Time In Advance" is aptly named, as in this story, the human race has expanded out to other planets and colonists are badly needed. A solution is to have people voluntarily serve a sentence for murder before the fact and then in the unlikely event they survive, they have the right to commit one murder.
These are thirteen of the best combinations of crime and science fiction stories that have ever been written. The editors made their selections well and I enjoyed each one immensely, even though I generally do not read crime stories.

The book contains short stories of varying quality. The title gives the impression that the collection deals with crimes solved by cats. This, however, is not usually true, although a cat plays a major role in each story. Two of the stories were outstanding and would hold their own as good literature. They were: "The Death Cat of Hester Street," by Carol Gorman and "Byron" by Jack Albert. Cat lovers will love the book, for it was written with cat lovers in mind

Authors are: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Janet Dawson, Debbie De Lousie, Jon L. Breen, Bill Crider, Carol Gorman, Doug Allyn, Morris Hershman, Tom Piccirilli, Shirley Kennett, Brett Hudgins, Elizabeth Foxwell, Bentley Little, Marc Bilgrey, Gary A. Braunbeck, Barbara Collins, Jack Albert, Bruce Holland Rogers, Jan Grape, Peter Crowther, Carole Nelson Douglas.

The one that caught my attention was Elizabeth's, Tinker Tam and the Body Snatchers. Being a cat about Edinburgh, Tinker Tam notices a homeless girl is taken against her will, so he sets about rescuing her... In some of the stories the cat is the focus, in others the cat is a part of the story and brings about the clue or clues to solve the mystery.

A delightful read. Cat fans, mystery lovers and history buffs, this is the book for you. The stories are all different. The history travels from Edinburgh, to the California gold rush, to the Wild West, on to the royal tombs, and there's still more!

This book is a collection of eighteen fantasy stories, from some very distinguished and well known authors. Unfortunately for me these stories have already been covered in almost every other fantasy anthology book available.

Still, there are some noteworthy tales here. While there are a few fantasy-fantasy stories (knights and dragons and minor magic) most of the stories are contemporary tales that, not fitting into the general "fiction" category, ended up as "fantasy." Many times such tales get classified under the "science fiction" category. Many in fact I do recognize from "Analog", "Science Fiction and Fantasy", and "Asimov's" magazines.

Included tales that struck my fancy are "The Edge of the World" (Michael Stanwick), about three bored contemporary teens who decide to descend the abyss at the edge of town. Good sense of wonder in this one (it really does seem to be the Edge of the World since there is an endless stairway that winds its way down, and down, and down endlessly), and the protagonists are real and believable with lots of angst, and confusion about life (and not the Edge itself). "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium" (William Wu) is about a strange shop where you can find things that you have lost; and not just that charm bracelet you lost at the beach but perhaps lost hopes and dreams as well. Not as cliche as it sounds.

The authors participating are (last name only for space): Zelazny, Haldeman, de Lint, Bishop, Martin, Kushner, Foster, Silverberg, Tiptree, Wu, Ellison, Bear, Springer, Le Guin, Norton, Stanwick, Card, Niven.

A Minus: the publishing rights/agency credits are given, but not the sources/bibliography. Each story here came from somewhere else; Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's, Locus, Interzone, etc. Not a mention of any resource. Some of us like to know this stuff.

It's clear that the publishers of this book elected Silverberg to cough up a fantasy anthology, and he wasn't quite up to the task. Usually he makes better selections when he edits such a book. In fairness I will say that most of the stories here have won, or have been nominated for, the various yearly awards (World Fantasy, Hugo, Nebula, etc.)

If you have three or more contemporary fantasy anthologies, chances are you already have all of the stories in this book. If you do not, and are looking for sword and sorcery, this book isn't it. If you are looking for "contemporary" style fantasy, this may suit your taste.

This is a good little book of Fantasy Short Fiction. Recommended

Dinosaur fantasic was overlong and some of the stories had little to do with dinosaurs.And a few that did were ones that had been put into every other collection of dinosaur stories.So I had to reread a lot of ones that I had already read.Very dull reading

All stories herein were written for this collection, so readers must seek Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" and Silverberg's "Lady of the Sauropods" elsewhere.

Allen, Roger MacBride: The narrator's *very* paranoid friend Bueber has finally outdone himself with the "Evolving Conspiracy", starting at the *very* top regarding Who could fake fossil evidence. (Bueber has echoes of both Sherlock Holmes and of one of Lord Peter Wimsey's most famous opponents.) No relation to Allen's _Farside Cannon_.

Cadigan, Pat: Nanotechnology makes it possible to customize anything almost instantly, from interior decoration to body shape; Cadigan avoids exposition altogether and *shows* the reader what can be done. Marcia and Randall are playing with the current "Dino Trend" of assuming dinosaur shape, since she brought home a free sample of Bronto-Cream. (Tyrannosaurs are so popular that they're about to become passe.)

Casper, Susan: Eldon found the mosasaur while fleeing a false accusation as a child, and believed she'd brought him luck in exchange for silence. Now that his luck's turned as an adult, however, he feels the sting of "Betrayal".

Delaplace, Barbara: "Fellow Passengers" The narrator's boss at _The Blatant Inquirer_ hated breaking the story of a *real* deinonychus preying on cattle, only to be elbowed out by the mainstream press. Then the animal-rights people weighed in to release the carnivore back into the wild...

DiChario, Nicholas A.: "Whilst Slept the Sauropod" inside Sleepy Mountain, the human villagers had only dim records of its existence, since it woke with earthquakes only at very long intervals to feed; this awakening is a harbinger of change to this place forgotten by the world.

Fawcett, Bill: The triceratops were among the last survivors "After the Comet"; this follows the leader of one shrinking herd seeking shelter from the winter that brings no spring.

Feeley, Gregory: "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Dinosaur" - Interesting essay, mixed with assorted story outlines.

Gerrold, David: "Rex", the only carnivore in spoiled little Jill Fillman's miniature dinosaur collection, has been so overfed that his aggression and size allow him to escape his enclosure regularly, but the greatest toll is on the Fillmans' marriage. Jonathan feels that the main difference between tyrant-lizard and tyrant-child is that Rex eats hearts only once...

Hernandez, Lea: The narrator (all 1st-person present tense) always knew her familiar would be a pterodactyl, but the summoning ritual for "Pteri" acted like a dose of truth serum.

Kerr, Katharine: Lilas Rock-shaper narrates "The Skull's Tale" - that of the peace-token between her and the Hookclaws given for their warning of a trespasser on her family's territory.

Koja, Kathe and Malzberg, Barry N.: "Rex Tremandae Majestatis" ("Awe-Inspiring King", see Mozart.) Depressing, with a sexually explicit opening scene, but well-constructed story. Leona's depression clothes entropy in dinosaur images, which are only reinforced by her ex's cartoon-show work and her 6-year-old son's toys.

Lackey, Mercedes and Dixon, Larry: "Last Rights" The 3 self-styled animal-rights 'guerillas' seeking to liberate GenTech's DinoSaurian experiments have a dismal track record on predicting consequences or learning from experience.

Meacham, Beth: Combine the narrator's friend who photographs bizarre architecture + chameleon skin + dinosaurs sneaking around "On Tiptoe" = move over, NYC sewer alligators...

Nimersheim, Jack: "The Pangaea Principle" = 'To know yourself, you must be willing to learn from others.' Pietor Sinkovich's father carved his favorite proverb as a gift for the day Pietor took his Biogenetics degree in St.Petersburg. Now his old friend Rashad, a paleontologist, has an interesting sample for him to work with - but what is Pietor's true objective?

O'Donnell, Kevin (jr.): The vermin infesting the Copes' apartment are a "'Saur Spot" that persuades even Gideon's wife that they need a 6-inch Coelophysis for pest control.

Resnick, Laura: "Curren's Song" The legend of how St. Columba once saved a swimmer from the Loch Ness monster, from the swimmer's viewpoint. Why wouldn't he be grateful?

Robinson, Frank M.: As the museum's titular director (read: chief fund-raiser) explains the meteor-strike theory of "The Greatest Dying" to a reporter covering the new 6-story dinosaur exhibit, Reid Locke is examining some *very* unusual amber, and avoiding both the director and the *real* research chief (who doesn't subscribe to the meteor theory).

Rusch, Kristine Kathryn: Young Willi's witch powers mean that she needs to learn her mother's "Chameleon" skills to survive among humans, but the only things that don't taunt her there are the animals and the replica dinosaurs.

Sawyer, Robert J.: "Just Like Old Times" is in non-linear braided format. In one thread, Cohen has been sentenced to end his life in a tyrannosaur's mind (unable to affect its movements, thus avoiding a butterfly-effect on history). In the other thread, the trial unfolds, with a judge who strives to fit punishment to crime.

Sheckley, Robert: "Disquisitions on the Dinosaur" suffers from pointless exposition and discontinuity; bored time-travellers introducing dinosaurs to Nero's Rome.

Sherman, Josepha: "Wise One's Tale" is her just-so story of how her people got their wings.

Smith, Dean Wesley: The city plans on "Cutting Down Fred" - the limerick-prone oak who broke up the narrator's relationship by commenting at an awkward, sexually explicit moment - who can access his ancestors' memories. (A ginkyo would have made more sense.)

Stith, John E.: "One Giant Step" - although the reptilian time-travellers have gone millions of years into their own past, rather than to the Moon, in this alternate history.

Tarr, Judith: By the time a couple qualifies to have children, they're usually ready to split from the stressful testing. The narrator's ex has this year's custody of their 4-year-old daughter, despite the fact that he joined an Ice Age commune. (The custody system's interesting in its own right.) Nevertheless, mom takes Janie to the "Revenants" petting zoo.

West, Michelle (as Michelle M. Sagara): April Stephens follows a quiet, solitary routine, with only occasional wistful glimpses of colour in other people's lives that her own lacks. There's no one to really care when the "Shadow of a Change" first falls upon her sleep.

A very uneven collection of stories where some truly horrific classics are nearly overshadowed by the unfortunate inclusion of more contemporary 'literary' shorts. Definitely not a book to be read cover-to-cover, but the classics are well-worth the price.

In "Haunted Houses: The Greatest Stories", Martin H. Greenberg has collected a few old favorites, e.g. "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Rats in the Walls" by H.P. Lovecraft. I'm not an avid Lovecraftian, but I like this story for its sheer awfulness. Just when the reader feels that the unlucky inheritor of Lovecraft's mansion has suffered enough, something worse happens to him. "The Judge's House" by Bram Stoker (rats figure prominently in this story, too) is another mouldy oldie but goodie. It has always reminded me of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street", although I think Le Fanu's story is the scarier of the two.

There are also some good not-so-collected stories by Ruth Rendell and Joyce Carol Oates, among others. My favorite is "The Tearing of Greymare House" by Michael Reeves. It piles on so much horror that I had to put the story down for awhile before I could read to the end. I think Reeves 'out-Kings' Stephen King in this last selection of the book. Kudos to Martin H. Greenberg for searching out good haunted house stories that haven't yet been over-collected.

Murasaki star system contains a duo of inhabitable planets that orbit each other: Genji - a high-gravity world with a dense, soupy atmosphere; and Chujo - an arid, wintry world of canyons and wind-swept plains. Neither is perfect for humans - on Genji they must wear pressure suits in addition to getting used to gravity levels half-again as high as on Earth; Chujo is more forgiving, though it can be intensely cold. Both planets serve home to sapient races: the Ihrdizu of Genji - low-tech amphibians that congregate in small villages; and the humanoids of Chujo - aloof, mysterious beings that ignore the humans entirely. It is here that the first manned interstellar expeditions will arrive, bearing humans of all frames of mind - Earthlings and off-worlders, atheists and philosophers, mystics and iconoclasts...

Instead of being a collaborative novel, "Murasaki" is a mixed bag of science fiction stories that share a setting, each written by a different award-winning author. Mind the fact that the only interesting part is the fairly in-depth world-creation notes (included as appendices), and that the stories are pathetically shallow and lead virtually nowhere...

...That is precisely what I though about this "science fiction novel in six parts" prior to reading the last two parts, which are so refreshingly, profoundly excellent that I almost wept with awe. A mystery of interplanetary proportions is suddenly built up and then revealed in flying colors.

It's really a pity that the rest of Murasaki doesn't follow suit.

I became interested in this book after reading Otherness by David Brin. One of the short stories in Otherness is actually a chapter in Murasaki. The book itself is has a very intruiging storyline and I enjoyed reading much of it. The only problam I had was the mental transition I had to make with each chapter of the book, as they are all written by different authors.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who likes the work of Brin, Bear, Anderson, Pohl, Kress etc etc etc.. They all wrote parts of it.

A good read.

An interesting and somewhat ambitious collection of stories. Most of them are not, in fact, "hard" SF in any meaningful way.

In general, the stories are more interesting than truly entertaining, with a couple of exceptions; the authors and editor seem more interested in impressing critics than in old-fashioned sense of wonder. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does suggest that those of us who lack highbrow tastes should approach the book with some caution. (Also, most of the stories are on the downbeat side, which is typical of the literary approach.)

This contained "Wang's Carpet" which I believe became part of "Diaspora" & "Recording Angel" which is set in the world of "Child of the River". It also contains other good stories enjoy!

I have always been a Batman fan, but I can not get into the comics. Well, the stories are kind of hit and miss. The good ones are "Subway Jack", a ghost story; "Sound of One Hand Clapping", a funny Joker story; and the best one is "The Wise Men of Gotham", a very intelligent mystery dealing with a string robbery murders involving the Riddler. OK ones are "Neutral Ground", an intresting idea, you've heard the cloths amke the man, well, how about the man who makes the cloths, you'll see; "Daddy's Girl", bitter sweet Robin in love story, too sad to really say is great; "Pirates of Millionairs' Cove is alright, pretty much how it sounds, but a little farfetched, even for Batman. The rest rang from wierd to just boring. Over all it's worth buying for some of the stories, but get it cheap.

The Further Adventures of Batman is a theme anthology and it suffers from the same problem that befalls all of its genre. Wildly uneven stories about the same subject matter. Some of the tales contained in the book edge toward the camp of the maligned television series, while others are firmly rooted in the dark gothism of Tim Burton's first two film's in the series (which this and other DC comic character anthologies were tied in with). Which story best captures the 'flavor' of Batman is, of course, highly subjective. But the story by Joe R. Lansdale was the one that struck me as the best of the lot. Recommended strictly to Batman fanatics.

This book combines some of the best talents writing science fiction today, and puts them all in one volume,(particularly interesting is the way each individual author's way of looking at the Batman) Read the short story Subway Jack and you will get the idea. All in all a very pleasant read