Review: Booklist

Booklist, one of the top trade journals in publishing, had this to say about Seeds of Change in their August issue:

This satisfying theme anthology is, referentially speaking, pretty seedy. It’s secretably small (about five by four inches)*, seven of its nine contributors are blossoming sf newcomers, and each of its stories is about an at-first barely appreciated experiential kernel from which something new will grow. The Sassenachs lose the big one in Ken MacLeod’s “A Dance Called Armageddon,” and only two Scots who know their folk songs realize the sea change it portends. In both Ted Kosmatka’s “N-Words” and Mark Budz’s “Faceless in Gethsemane,” the defeat of a new social prejudice born out of bioengineering begins, and only one person appreciates that it will be total. Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu’s “Spider the Artist” depicts a possible next step in evolution, cybernetic as well as physiological. K. D. Wentworth’s jokey “Drinking Problem” depicts one possible result of hyperconscious environmentalism, though she doesn’t let even one character foresee ultimate consequences. Blake Charlton’s immensely moving “Endosymbiont” lays out the future of human consciousness and has one, but only one, person embark upon it. An overall optimism, however guarded, makes the whole collection more gratifying. —Ray Olson

YA: Several kid protagonists and lots of challenging concepts. RO.

* Actually, it’s 5″ x 7″ —ed.