Oof. That first story was rough. Like The Cold Equations for the 21st century. ( )

Fantastic.

A more serious, emotional, poignant and heart-breaking version of The Martian.

I loved it. Gets my Hugo nomination. ( )

(...)

In the end, it doesn’t matter much, as Gypsy is singular enough. Its dystopic premise isn’t new, but as far as possible projections for the near future goes, it’s definitely convincing. The middle class is dying and climate is changing. That’s not rocket science. Gypsy is a lot less optimistic than KSR’s latest book, and Scholz is outright grim. Those looking for just a fun science driven story: this is not The Martian.

To say much more would spoil the experience, but structurally Gypsy is a very interesting novella. There’s not a lot of characters, and not a lot of pages, but the way Scholz handles both character and story development is masterly. One would not expect its narrative choices to deliver the emotions it does. At times, Gypsy‘s atmosphere reminded me of Duncan Jones’ 2009 movie Moon.

(...)

Full review on Weighing A Pig ( )

This boook contains the novella 'Gypsy' (which I did not read in time to nominate for the Hugo Award, fat lot of good that would have done), plus some short stories, an essays and an interview with the author. The additional works are wry, and only tangentially science fiction. The interview will strike up some chords of resonance with the hobbies of some of the protagonists of the title novella, whilst 'United States of Impunity' sets out some of the reasons for the quiet desperation and despair which are the genesis of the mission of the 'Gypsy'.

The title novella is a perfectly formed jewel. Spare and concise in its prose, it recounts through the real time experiences of 'stewards' of the starship's crew as one by one they are woken from hibernation to atend to setbacks and challenges arising from the journey to the hoped for Ghost Planet at Alpha Centauri. The purloined starship, built and crewed by disillusioned scientists out of the crumbs which fall from the table of the rapacious military-industrial-financial conglomerate which rules and exploits an Earth fast going to hell in a handbasket, is just adequate for the mission. There is a pioneering spirit, and sellfless bravery at the fore in this exploit. The backstories of the crew, and their recruitment intercut the episodes from the journey and reveal the motivations of these pioneers.

Despite some apparent similarities, this is NOT 'Aurora Lite', it is a more hopeful tale, even given the sombre fate of the mision to Alpha Centauri. I'm pleased that I took the time to read this collection. ( )

I’d never heard of Scholz, although apparently he is held in high regard. Looking at some of the comments on this book, it’s clear he has plenty of genre friends in San Francisco/Oakland, where he lives – including Kim Stanley Robinson – and where PM Press is based. None of which is a reflection on Scholz’s ability, more on the requirement of connections and patronage in genre in order for good fiction to get noticed. And ‘Gypsy’, the title novella of this collection, is very good indeed. It’s 2015’s third generation starship story, and probably the best of the three as a generation starship story. Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time scores well because of its spider civilisation, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora has some good bits about narratology… but Scholz’s ‘Gypsy’ goes for real science and engineering and paints a bleak picture – one not helped by the driving force behind the flight being the immanent collapse of Earth’s biosphere. Not that the flight itself provides any answers. The remainder of the collection comprises a somewhat tired epistolary short story, an essay about US economic shenanigans, a story presented as house committee testimony, and an interview with Scholz. I have a lot of time for Scholz’s approach to genre, as given in his interview, but only the title novella seems a good expression of it. ( )