CRACKING THE SKY: STORIES
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BRENDA COOPER
Award-winning author and Philip K. Dick Award-nominated Brenda Cooper’s first science fiction only collection treats readers to human stories about the future. Meet a physicist who searches across timelines in a desperate attempt to travel across them herself, a young woman who tried to re-cover the magic of a trip on a river with her grandfather, a young couple who suspect their neighbor child is being raised by robots, and many more…
- August 2015 978-1-933846-92-7
- Cover design by Patrick Swenson
Award-winning author and Philip K. Dick Award-nominated Brenda Cooper’s first science fiction only collection treats readers to human stories about the future. Meet a physicist who searches across timelines in a desperate attempt to travel across them herself, a young woman who tried to re-cover the magic of a trip on a river with her grandfather, a young couple who suspect their neighbor child is being raised by robots, and many more…
"A masterful blend of hard-edged speculation tied to insightful evocations of the human spirit.
—James Van Pelt, author of Summer of the Apocalypse
"This capable collection of hard SF stories (mostly reprints) focuses squarely on worldbuilding, from the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. to the far reaches of space. Cooper ( Edge of Dark ) works hard to center each piece on a way that technology has influenced human lives...Those who love technology-driven stories will find a lot to like."
--Publishers Weekly
“A cracking good book—packed with the kind of great, imaginative science fiction that people have come to expect from Brenda Cooper.”
—Ted Kosmatka, author of The Flicker Men
"Cooper's stories are, like her novels, strongly and firmly focused on the characters and the character interactions. The author is far more interested in how people react to technology, and themselves, and to each other, than the nitty-gritty details of the speculative elements themselves....Overall, Brenda Cooper's collection provides a short-form introduction to the work of a very humanist science fiction writer."
--The Skiffy and Fantasy Show
"Having enjoyed Cooper's novels, I was justified in expecting to like the short stories as well. To my surprise, I liked them even better. This very varied collection ranges from mildly sentimental to hard science, touching on time travel, cybernetics, space travel, exploration, and even a bit of the military. Several of the stories are quite short. "My Father's Singularity" and the three stories in the Space section were my favorites. I'm not as fond of the short short as are some readers, but these struck me as well above average. Cooper's protagonists are all interesting, if not necessarily likeable, and readers will care what happens to them. It is very difficult to consistently portray believable humans in such totally unfamiliar settings as are standard in SF and it's a pleasure to find a writer who can manage it."
—Don D'Ammassa, Critical Mass
"A great collection. . . .Each story here offers a confirmation of what, at our core, makes us human and how doing for others is not labor, but rather the way we feed and grow our humanity."
--SFReader.com
—James Van Pelt, author of Summer of the Apocalypse
"This capable collection of hard SF stories (mostly reprints) focuses squarely on worldbuilding, from the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. to the far reaches of space. Cooper ( Edge of Dark ) works hard to center each piece on a way that technology has influenced human lives...Those who love technology-driven stories will find a lot to like."
--Publishers Weekly
“A cracking good book—packed with the kind of great, imaginative science fiction that people have come to expect from Brenda Cooper.”
—Ted Kosmatka, author of The Flicker Men
"Cooper's stories are, like her novels, strongly and firmly focused on the characters and the character interactions. The author is far more interested in how people react to technology, and themselves, and to each other, than the nitty-gritty details of the speculative elements themselves....Overall, Brenda Cooper's collection provides a short-form introduction to the work of a very humanist science fiction writer."
--The Skiffy and Fantasy Show
"Having enjoyed Cooper's novels, I was justified in expecting to like the short stories as well. To my surprise, I liked them even better. This very varied collection ranges from mildly sentimental to hard science, touching on time travel, cybernetics, space travel, exploration, and even a bit of the military. Several of the stories are quite short. "My Father's Singularity" and the three stories in the Space section were my favorites. I'm not as fond of the short short as are some readers, but these struck me as well above average. Cooper's protagonists are all interesting, if not necessarily likeable, and readers will care what happens to them. It is very difficult to consistently portray believable humans in such totally unfamiliar settings as are standard in SF and it's a pleasure to find a writer who can manage it."
—Don D'Ammassa, Critical Mass
"A great collection. . . .Each story here offers a confirmation of what, at our core, makes us human and how doing for others is not labor, but rather the way we feed and grow our humanity."
--SFReader.com
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