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arbieroo

Arbie's Unoriginally Titled Book Blog

It's a blog! Mainly of book reviews.

Currently reading

Station Zero
Philip Reeve
Progress: 220/282 pages
The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition
Ursula K. Le Guin, Charles Vess
Progress: 749/997 pages
The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry
Robert Chandler
The Uncertain Land and Other Poems
Patrick O'Brian
Progress: 8/160 pages
The Heptameron (Penguin Classics)
Marguerite de Navarre
Progress: 152/544 pages
The Poems and Plays of John Masefield
John Masefield
Progress: 78/534 pages
Poems Selected
Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes
Progress: 4/50 pages
Selected Poems
U A Fanthorpe
Progress: 18/160 pages
The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse
Mick Imlah, Robert Crawford
Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 2
Ursula K. Le Guin
Progress: 133/789 pages

Beyond the Aquila Rift, Alastair Reynolds

Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds - Alastair Reynolds, William Schafer, Jonathan Strahan

I bought this because I knew it contained at least one novella I hadn't read that wasn't easily obtainable elsewhere. I now wish I had waited for the UK edition which has a much better cover. I also wish that the editors had done a better job - by which I mean who-ever was responsible for ensuring a high quality, accurate text. This edition contains a large number of mistakes involving wrong word order, missing words or incorrect homophones. I don't know if the UK edition is any better in this respect.

 

There's some great stuff in this collection but as with any other short story collection, there's some variation in quality. On this front what concerned me was a trend towards poorer efforts as the book goes on. Since they are in publication order, does this mean Reynolds is getting worse?

 

That said, this is still a great introduction to Reynolds for those unfamiliar with him and is worth the price for Diamond Dogs alone.