“There are greater and lesser worlds, Jacob, nested inside one another like Russian dolls. But everything is organic, in the end. Everything lives, eats, hunts, dies. That’s what the universe is.”What a fabulous collection! Mostly horror, with a tinge of sci-fi and magical realism but so full of emotions. Life, love, sorrow, death and magic are mingled in the characters’ paths which, tangential or not, are drawn toward an old bookshop like no other, called Finders. Old books, fake books, books f...

I am a little disappointed with these 9 longer length short stories. I've read at least 8 of Wilson's novels including 5 this year and they all have been good to great. I thought that several of these shorter works just don't measure up. Wilson is good at dreaming up big ideas in his novels and he has some big ideas here, but in this mix of horror and science fiction and a little dark fantasy and mainstream storytelling several of his proposals just come off as completely illogical and stupid. I...

I generally quite like Robert Charles Wilson's books. But I found this collection a little dark and gloomy for my taste. The writing was fine. Toronto figures prominently in the stories, and there are themes and characters that you see more than once. All that was fine, and I kinda liked it.I just found the stories gloomy and/or depressing. Nothing wrong with that per se, but my dog's sick and I don't need gloomy stories right now.But read these and make your own judgement. Just don't read them

This is a gloomy collection of short stories, loosely tied together. I like this sort of anthology, and find it particularly well fit for science fiction. But these stories are all quite far out, to say the least! Topics ambitiously tackled include aliens that travel across space as light, a pill that makes you king of the insects, a woman impregnated by a rock-based life form, many worlds quantum immortality, alien abduction, and drug induced insanity. But most of these stories distracted me wi...

I've read and never less than enjoyed (more usually been bowled over by) several of Wilson's novels but not encountered his short fiction before. This is his first and so far only collection -- nine tales, most of novelette length -- and it most assuredly doesn't disappoint. If there's a weak story at all it's the last one in the book, "Pearl Baby", which was as elegantly and movingly written as all the others, but with a premise which failed to convince me and a denouement that didn't (as I'd

None of these stories are bad but only about three were ones I really enjoyed.

I have enjoyed several of Wilson's novels, but this short story collection reads like an exorcism of a midlife crisis. I would describe it as indulgently fatalistic science fiction horror. All but two of the protagonists are middle aged men, with the exception of two middle aged women. They all share a discomfort with themselves and a dissatisfaction with their lives, and all suffer the fates of curious cats. There are some interesting ideas here, but none of it was any fun. And if recreational

Les Perséides sont un phénomène bien connu et très apprécié puisqu’il s’agit de la pluie de météorites survenant en août depuis bien des siècles, aussi appelée la pluie d’étoiles filantes. Au vu de la nature science-fictive des récits de Robert Charles Wilson, un tel titre n’étonne pas. En revanche, je m’interrogeais sur ce qui pouvait bien se cacher dans la queue de la comète. Des extraterrestres ? des légendes associées à ce spectacle magnifique et merveilleux ?En fait, l’auteur nous propose d...

Oooooooh, what a treat this little collection of stories is. I haven't read much sci-fi, but was delighted at the natural flow of Wilson's writing, the believability of his characters, and the cleverness (but not arrogantly so) of his ideas. A week after reading it I still find myself fascinated with little details from his stories such as his reimagining of the chessboard into a spherical shape (I explained it to my mom by using Pac Man as an analogy: When Pac Man goes off the right side of the...

At some point during each of the stories in this collection, there was a moment where I stopped reading, looked up, and said to no one in particular “this is why I love science fiction.” Having said that, many of the stories (all but three, I think), adhere to a pretty standard formula: first person narrative (usually a middle-aged man who is overly-fond of marijuana with a younger love interest), an antagonist – often a competing interest for the girl – espousing some sort of weird, sometimes n...

Robert Charles Wilson. What else ?

This short story collection from Robert Charles Wilson was a very disappointing read.I've been a fan of Wilson for awhile (Spin, The Chronoliths, and Darwinia being my favourites), but these stories didn't have any of the big ideas that are present in those novels. Also, many of the main characters that he uses in these stories are dislikable. It was hard to make a strong connection to any of them. This won't deter me from seeking out his future novels but I'm glad these stories weren't my intro...

A short story collection, loosely connected, and mostly set in Toronto. A little creepier than I expected. You can see the seeds of Spin and Burning Paradise here. My favorite story was the opening one, which took a turn I didn't expect.

Wilson doesn't seem to write many short stories but he does a good job when he does.

A very satisfying collection from Robert Charles Wilson- even if the blurb was leading me to expect something more towards the sf side of things than horror...I'll go story by story. (view spoiler)["The Fields of Abraham" - Interesting. Not much else to say about it."The Perseids" - Very scary, and Lovecraftian in tone- in fact, I believe I might have read it first in a Lovecraftian horror collection of some sort, as it was vaguely familiar. Plus it has some fascinating thoughts on the purpose o...

As with most collections of shorts--some of the stories here were incredible, while others failed to move me. In general, I found the stories at the start of the collection much more engaging while the ones towards the end left me more cold. Especial kudos needs to go to ‘Fields of Abraham’ and ‘Inner Inner City’, however, both of which blew my mind and made me fall horribly in love. I can’t think of anyone else that writes like Wilson. Even with the stories I didn’t care for, I loved the combin...

This book was a re-read for me. It is a good few years since I read this and since then I have read a number of Philip K. Dick novels and these story reminded me of his work. I don't know if it was the background of a mild drug culture or if is the style of the stories that caused this.The collection is a very loosely linked stories. Some characters appear in multiple stories, the book shop Finders is mentioned in nearly all of them and all (except 1)set in Toronto.Having said all this did I lik...

This is a pretty good collection of short stories. You can really tell that the germination of a lot of RCWs ideas germinated here. His eyes for the alternate universe, the post-apocalyptic world and the search for the unknown is represented well. Some of the stories are fives and some are three, but this is a good collection.

I read these stories to Aviva in installments over the last couple of years. Wilson is one of my very favorite SF authors for his big ideas, his knack for the truly weird, his usually strong characters, and his ability to spin a page-turning yarn. These loosely interrelated stories, all set in Toronto, are compelling and often downright creepy.

Found this in a used bookstore for a couple of bucks. As I catch up on my Robert Charles Wilson this book serves as a midpoint between The Chronoliths and The Bridge of Years that I already read and Spin, Axis and Vortex that I am going to read next.A decent collection of short stories, some more interesting than others.

I only read the first two stories. I really like the novels I've read by Wilson, but I was disappointed by these two stories--they both felt incomplete. Wilson's new novel Spin is a very good coming-of-age with aliens story. NOTE FOR NERDS: The author is the father of Dwight from the Office.

Robert Charles Wilson is becoming my new favourite author and this, a collecting of short stories set in Toronto with linking characters and places, doesn't disappoint. Wilson has a knack for creating an interesting and original storyline, and as usual his prose is an easy read.

10/11/07

It's weird...I like Wilson's books but there's always a caveat when I read them...like there's some weird barrier preventing me from really enjoying them.

The Perseids is a modern Lovecraft tale, with other sci-fi themes deftly woven into it.

Short story collection from one of my favorite sci fi authors. Enjoyed the stories.

[En Français/In French:http://une-androide.blogspot.se/2014/...]

The book seems interesting. I give this book 5 stars.

Short stories but a page turner. I couldn't put it down once started, and read on into the night. As a Sci Fi it was great reading.