This collection of short stories gathers works from some of the greatest sci-fi writers. All focusing on what the ever expanding universe looks like when it is inhabited by various species and federations. Some tales are optimistic, some are disheartening, and some are down-right terrifying. I'd definitely read more books by just about all of the authors featured in this anthology.

John Joseph Adams' Federations is at-best a mediocre collection, putting together a few really good stories with a few really bad stories and a bunch of mediocre, interesting-but-could-have been better stories. My two biggest complaints about the collection are that it tends towards super-contemporary and slightly juvenile styles and it also contains several stories which are sequels, prequels, or otherwise part of story arcs set across multiple stories and novels by their authors, making the st...

I bought this book purely for Jeremiah Tolbert's story, which did not disappoint, and was surprised to see other authors I liked among the contributors. There were a number of stories that blew me away, and several that really didn't, and the rest were good. Drill-down below...The Excellent:"Swanwatch" by Yoon Ha Lee• Love the structure of this universe."Spirey and the Queen" by Alastair Reynolds• Perfect mixture of "You don't live in this world so I will use enough words so that the things you

not exactly what i was expecting. definitely more interesting! definitely worth the read

One of the better sf collections I've read lately. The bad:"Mazer in Prison" by Orson Scott Card. Mazer Rackham, the first human to defeat the Buggers, is waiting in a near-lightspeed ship for the Buggers to return, or the next human commander to be found. Very disappointing, like most of Card's work in his Ender's Game universe. The story is basically a back and forth of "I knew you knew that I knew that you knew, so I...""Life-Suspension" by LE Modesitt, Jr. Ugh."Someone Is Stealing the Great

Reasonably enjoyable but most of the stories were good without being great. I thought “Terra-Exulta” by S.W. Gilbow was exceptional and really enjoyed “Pardon Our Conquest” by Alan Dean Foster and “The One With The Interstellar Group Consciousness” by James Alan Gardner. The rest were merely okay with a few that were abjectly terrible (I couldn’t even read John C. Wright’s “Twilight of the Gods”).

Mazer in Prison - Orson Scott Card (2005)The 50 relativistic years journey of Mazer Rackham preceding Ender's Game that led to the foundation of Battle School. The premise is shaky and hero worship and wish fulfillment is plentiful, but it's fun.OkCarthago Delenda Est - Genevieve Valentine (2009)A delegation awaits the arrival of an alien species based on a message that almost no one is allowed to hear. There mustn't be any war before their arrival. The delegation has been waiting 400 years. How...

Some really solid pieces in this anthologyI'm not a huge fan of anthologies in general, as I am of the opinion that it take more effort to make a good short story than a novel. Some of the stories here don't really stand alone (Ship Who Returned) while others are shining examples of what you can do when you see brevity as a strength (Mazer in Prison, Carthage Delenda Est, My She, Shoulders of Giants). The others were... unremarkable but possibly worth your time. All is all, a bag of apples worth...

A wonderful collection of science fiction short stories from authors I’m familiar with and new ones. Each story is different and unique from the last. Some that made me chuckle, others that made me think and the last gives a deep appreciation for wine while lightly criticizing interstellar capitalism.

In many ways, I've started to come to believe that you can't go wrong with a John Joseph Adams' collection. Wastelands was incredible, The Living Dead was great, and Federations...? Also very very good.The "dust jacket description" of this anthology pretty much sums it up... It collects a few different modern takes on the classic science fiction trope: What does it take; what does it mean for a civilization to be interstellar and/or pan-galactic?My take of Federations, it gets a composit...

OK collection, best stories those by the stars: Card, Bujold. Also the worst/slightest: Modesitt, Martin.

So some of these stories were better than others, obviously, but the book overall is very good and there's definitely more authors from here that I want to read from. Some of these should become episodes on Black Mirror, they're super creepy! I recommend this one to anyone who is in need of some awesome short stories.

Science fiction short stories. Some of the stories are amazing while some are just so-so.

Actually only read the McCaffrey part. It was fine for what it is. I really like Helva, anyway.

This is a nice idea for an anthology: stories set in and imagining large-scale interstellar societies. There's a mix of reprints and originals, and I tended to find the originals tended to match the brief better than the reprints.There was a mix of stories here. There weren't any that I outright hated, but I couldn't remember enough about Ender's Game to appreciate Orson Scott Card's Mazer in Prison, set in the same universe, before Ender's time; and I feel there was some mythology in LE Modesi...

Fantastic collection of storiesThis is a fantastic collection of short stories from a set of incredibly talented authors. They manage to build incredibly vivid and interesting worlds in such a short time and draw you in to tell their stories. Not a bad one in the bunch.

I tend to steer clear of space-based science fiction, because I feel it's all alien invasions and lasers...but this book was an excellent mix of stories that got much deeper than my preconceptions. Sure, not every story in the book was 5-star-worthy in my opinion, but as a whole, the best ones made up for the less-best ones. My favorite was "Terra-Exulta," which at surface level was a story about "words," (which is interesting enough in itself!), but revealed a darker subtext that even the narra...

Excellent SF collection. The Introduction by Adams was OK - short & to the point.Mazer in Prison by Orson Scott Card was excellent, but I listened to it not long ago in one of his collections. I skimmed it & it's still worthy of 4 stars.Carthago delenda est by Genevieve Valentine missed the mark with me. 2 stars. Life-suspension by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. was good, 3.5 stars. I like his minimalist take on space piloting. He was a combat pilot. Terra-exulta by S.L. Gilbow was chilling. 4 stars. Afterm...

FederationsAuthor: Bujold, Card, Martin, McCaffrey, Reynolds, Silverberg, Valentine, Modesitt Jr, Turtledove, Anderson, Beason, Bradford, Wright, Guthridge, Lee, Foster, Silverberg, Rosenblum, Sawyer, Tolbert, Steele, Li, Hergenrader, Gardner, Valente, Publisher: Prime BooksDate: 2009Pgs: 379REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERSSummary:Vast interstellar societies and the challenges facing them. Federations stories mix new fiction alongside reprints that represent what interstellar SF is capable of. Space

3.5This collection definitely had its ups and downs. Overall, it was a good foray into the world of sci-fi short stories.