To be honest, my overall enjoyment of these stories was more of a two star rating all around, because I was pretty bored for the most part. However, I will say I think this mainly had to do with the fact I don't read a lot of hard sci-fi. I like more speculative sci-fi (if that's a thing), something that's not too hard to jump in and understand the technology and concept. Despite this, I do want to get more into reading hard sci-fi, and I thought short stories were a good way to do this because

Interesting collection. I'm not a huge fan of short stories. I find it's just difficult to get into a short story. It's so compressed and contained that I just have no interest in the characters. That said, there was a few stories I particularly liked. Rescue Party by Aliette de Bodard was particularly interesting. Actually, some of the terms and the name seems oddly familiar. I get the feeling I may have read a short story by this author before. I also quite enjoyed Devil in the Dust by Linda N...

ive said it before, Jonathan Strahan puts together some of the best hard scifi anthologies out there and this one was a smash hit start to finish showcasing 15 stories by 15 extremely talented currently writing scifi authors.

Another very good anthology from Jonathan Strahan, this one features very good stories by Greg Feeley, Peter Hamilton, Aliette de Bodard, and others. In Greg Feeley's "Hanging Gardens," Mars is being bombarded by comets as part of a terraforming project. Some worked live in shelters on the ground, while overhead, orbital cities -- the hanging gardens of the title -- house the ruling class. When a comet hits too close, a group of children escape in a pod. It's an exiting story of their trek, comb...

Mission Critical is a selection of science fiction survival stories by a variety of authors. Right to the point, I found the stories to be uneven. There were a couple of stories I enjoyed, but there were the same number that caused me to glaze over. Perhaps I am not cut out for reading short stories. A mediocre three of five on Goodreads.

As a rule, I really enjoy Strahan's anthologies, and this one intrigued me: the stories of when things go wrong. These are small stories and large, set in our near space and a very long way away - in time as well as space - and stories where not everything ends up well. You already know something is going to go wrong. I didn't love every story in the book; it's an anthology, so that's no surprise. To my own surprise I did not love the Greg Egan story that starts it: it was fine, but it didn't ha...

DNF I really only read this for Yooh Ha Lee's story

The theme of this anthology of original stories is “life-threatening engineering problem in space”. (The editor admits he got the idea while watching “The Martian”). In that sense it's a throwback to the old SF stories that featured clever people coming up with a technical fix that saves themselves (or everybody else). However, these are top-notch writers who were invited to contribute, and the quality and complexity is very high. There are also some interesting twists that you probably wouldn't...

The last few Infinity anthologies by Strahan have largely been pretty bad, with very few decent stories or in fact, very few actual stories that are not snippets from larger works or skiffy travelogues disguised as short stories. This new venture of his, fortunately, breaks with this line. People tend to complain about anthologies being “hit and miss”, but this one was a pretty even run for me. None of the stories were “blow my mind” material, yet none fall below “entertaining and well-written”

I liked the idea of this anthology: of things going wrong, and going wrong quickly, and the people who have to deal with those situations and comes out the other side. There's a lot to enjoy here. It displays its mission statement with a strong first story, This is Not the Way Home by Greg Egan, involving a space tourist trapped on the moon when contact with Earth disappears. This is followed up with a very different take on the idea in Rescue Party by Aliette de Bodard, set in her Xuya universe...

9 I thoroughly enjoyed the previous collection by Jonathan Strahan that I read, and when I read that this one was based around accidents on missions, things going wrong and characters having to fix them in desperate situations, I was sold. The foreword tells the idea was born while watching the Martian, quoting the memorable words: 'I've got to science the shit out of this'. And if that is not the basis of a thrilling hard SF story then I don't know what is. Strahan found an interesting roster o...

Strahan is quickly becoming one of my favorite anthology editors; a man capable of assembling impressive contemporary talent. This collection is themed around emergency in space, in the Apollo 13 style "Failure is not an option" improvisations. It's an inspired prompt, one that allows a crew of genre masters to rapidly develop setting and character and throw them into the ringer. Special award to By The Warmth of Their Calculus by Tobias Brucknell for a resolutely analog spacefaring culture, and...

“Chance wouldn’t save them. If she left this to chance, they would die.”The best SF anthology I’ve read in years. Most anthologies trade on famous names or unlikely “best of” claims; this one focuses on short stories and novelettes about what happens after a disaster. Admittedly inspired by Andy Weir’s The Martian. Nice cover art.“It’s easy to make a ‘hard’ choice when the price is paid by someone else.”No story rates less than three stars; a few are outstanding. “This is not the Way Home” harks...

Enjoyed it!

I read Jonathan Strahan’s latest anthology in kindle ebook format, because I appreciated his preceding “Infinity” series of anthologies, and this had a super-special sale price. He says in his forward that he was inspired by the film “The Martian” to put together an anthology of stories of a similar nature. The authors that participated, with all new stories, are mostly big names in hard-sf, as you can see from the list I’ve made below. The common theme is that most of the stories involve explor...

Most anthologies are filled with “hits and misses”, but for a collection that a) had a cool theme, b) had an evocative title, and c) had a pretty kickass cover art, this one really failed to deliver – especially in the first half. The hits came in at the tail end via the works of Carolyn Ives Gilman, Allen Steele, Peter F, Hamilton, and Peter Watts. Overall it was a pretty unwhelming aggregate of work.

An uneven anthology with several fascinating highlights Anyone who reads short story anthologies know the quality of stories will be uneven. Further, different styles appeal to different readers. For me, the highlights of MISSION CRITICAL were:- "The Empty Gun" by Yoon Ha Lee (which I enjoyed enough to go buy Ninefox Gambit)- "Genesong" by Peter F. Hamilton (an emotional, poignant departure from Mr. Hamilton's usual style)- "Something in the Air" by Carolyn Ives Gilman (a flawed but fascinating

Another excellent Jonathan Strahan edited collection with stand out stories by Peter Watts, Linda Nagata, and John Meaney.

This was almost a five-star book. But after an anthology full of stories where people pull together in moments of crisis and often put the collective good above personal comfort or safety, setting the most grim and cynical tale as the closer felt not only jarring but like a betrayal.Normally a quibble over story order would barely be worth demoting a book by one star, much less two. The story in question is well-written, and if it had been somewhere in the middle, I think I would have barely not...

Like most themed anthologies this one is a mixed bag of stores ranging from poor to very good . The better stories seem to come in the second half of the book. Standouts for me were Yoon Ha Lee, Linda Nagata, Allen Steele and Kristine Kathryn Rusch.3 1/2 stars