Other Earths and Dragon Age: Origins

Amazon

Other Earths is a magnificent collection of alternate history short stories. This genre lends itself quite marvelously to short stories and any that I can get my hands on are good ones. However as is typical with collections from multiple authors, the quality can vary from story to story. This one in particular travels up and down the scale quite frequently as it is a combination of well established authors and some up and comers that I suppose the more established authors are helping to get their name out there.

Synopsis

A synopsis is difficult to give due to the nature of this book. However, in general the idea of alternate fiction is to take a point in time and to ponder 'what would happen if this decision had been made in the other direction?' or 'what if the other side had won that war?', or evidently in this book 'what if x, y, or z fictional creature were real?' This particular compilation seemed to roughly have the theme of alternate dimensions. In several of the stories, the action took place on an alternate earth, however the story did acknowledge the normal earth that you and I know exists. This is definitely not a rule to this book however.

Review

As I grow older, I increasingly like short stories. I think that it requires much more skill and imagination on the author's part to achieve good characterization and to tell a story in a shorter framework. In addition, I've found that many short stories are quite a lot better than longer stories. As I mentioned previously, the stories in this book are very hit and miss, with some genuine gems and some steaming piles of crap. I'm particularly fond of the story by Lucius Shepard. As a matter of fact, I'd have to say that I've found a new author to put on my top 5 list. Lucius Shepard (at least in this short story I read) is awesome. Before I deify him (along with Stirling, Weiss and Hickman, Salvatore, Asimov) I'm going to get a few more of his books. This particular book gets a 2.5/5 (How else can you mix such utter crap in some instances with gold in others? average them of course!). If only judged on the quality work, it gets a 5/5.

Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age origins is the latest release by BioWare, who will be coming out with Mass Effect 2, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Dragon Age however is the spiritual successor to BioWare's older Dungeons and Dragons games: Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. I recently beat Dragon Age...however I have not perfected it yet (thanks to the achievement system so common in today's games...I have a built in measuring stick to a games perfection!). That review will be coming soon! What's next for me? After Dragon Age, I think I'm going to go after Assassin's Creed 1. In terms of books, I'm not quite sure yet. I've been looking at a few on my bookshelves and nothing has jumped out at me. So far among the contenders, "The Dante Club" is the favorite...don't take that to heart though.

This is my biggest break of the year, seeing as how I attend summer school each year. I'm getting kind of bored with myself to be honest...so be expecting that Dragon Age review soon, and the next book to be finished!