Lightspeed Year One: From the Hugo Award Nominated Magazine

As I write this there are only two other reviews, one of which was devastatingly low (1 star) and I almost, foolishly, passed this short story collection by. The one star review was not based on the quality of this collection, it was based on the fact that this was a short story collection and the consumer purchased this thinking it was something different. If you buy a Hip Hop song expecting classical music I suspect you're going to be disappointed. Nonetheless, I haven't yet listened to this, but I strongly suspect it is pretty good being the best short stories collected from Lightspeed magazine over it's first year. I'll try to remember to come back here and write a real review later but I justed wanted to counter-balance the previous ridiculous review.

Fantastic Sci-Fi Fun - This book is full of surprising stories with great audio- performances

This is hands- down the best anthology of SFi-Fi stories I have read or listen to.

Orson Scott Cards idea of Elephants roaming in the plains and cities of Poland is just a great fun picture for the readers mind.

Certainly easy to continue to listen for the whole day, but because there are so many diverse and interesting stories from the SF- great masters of the game: Take it slowly !

I purchased this book because of Orson Scott Card. I am a huge fan of his Ender/ Bean series and thought I might enjoy a collection of short stories to which he has given his support/ endorsement. I have to say that I disliked this collection overall. Several of the stories just bored me. Several felt incomplete or too short. The worst thing, however, was the abundance of what I can only describe as Sci-Fi Torture Porn.

While I'm a big fan of fantasy, sci-fi and even to a certain extent, horror, there was just no reason to include several of these stories in this book as they have been done before, have been done better, and made for a disgusting read. I like Stephen King short story collections a lot, and in his collections, there are always a few stories that are just gross, but usually only at the end of the short and usually in a surprising way. In other words, I am able to enjoy his short story, even if repulsive, because it has something in it that is clever or surprising. In this case these grotesque stories whole point seems to disgust and horrify the reader endlessly. When the end of these stories came, I just felt used and as if the writers were just trying to manipulate me, rather than entertain or enthrall me with their tales.

I would recommend a pass on this collection. There are much better collections out there with stories that are enthralling, entertaining and surprising, rather than just boring and/ or disgusting. Overall, the performances were fine or better, but couldn't make up for the material being.

Great writing, dark material. One story about a man who wakes up early in a crio chamber then proceeds to eat the rest of his crewmates to survive was almost too much to get through. The writing puts you right into the stories. So beware, you might be getting more than you bargained for.

Most stories are very well written. The voice acting is of a reasonably good quality. The problem is every single story is depressing. On their own each story isn't that bad, very dystopian however. The problem arises if you listen to them as a full volume. At about the half way mark I was completely miserable. That being said it is still an excellent listen, as long as you limit your listening to 2-3 stories at a time

this is just a lot of short storys.
im tossing mine.
goodthing it was cheap at the time.