Greg Bechtel

Nevertheless is the 21st volume of a Canadian speculative fiction anthology series called Tesseracts, and the common theme for this anthology was "hope". Considering the theme I was extremely satisfied with the speculative situations portrayed, as many of them were apocalyptic and not at all uncomfortably sacchrine. I was impressed with the wide range of tonal and narrative choices, and the intentional choice by the editors to limit the number of stories about self-sacrifice of the main character/narrator.

In general, I was surprised by just how much I liked this anthology. Obviously not all of the stories were a hit with me, but I found all of them to be well written and somewhat amazingly, roughly half left me gasping for air. These were good stories edited well.… (meer)

Mixed to fair collection. I've never read any of the Tesseracts volumes before, and my vague understanding is that they tend to showcase Canadian writing and each volume is mostly built around a theme. The theme for this one is 'hope,' and this hope is a bit more rage-fueled than I had expected -- a strong spit-in-your-eye-and-keep-fighting feel. I particularly liked the broad stretch of gender and sexual culture that marked more than one story, but I have mixed feelings regarding the anthology as whole. This seems to very much be a passion project, and I think there are places where clarity has been shunted aside to showcase the passion here.

Related material:

I've read two other anthologies headed by Parrish, and my feelings about them have been decidedly mixed. Chalk it up to my personal taste being different from Parrish's editing style, I suppose.

* Review of Equus : Magical Menageries, Volume 5
* Review of Mrs. Clause : Not the Fairy Tale They Say… (meer)

Nevertheless is the twenty-first volume of the Tesseracts series of Canadian speculative fiction anthologies. As in earlier editions, there is a varied collection of short stories and poetry by established and newer science fiction and fantasy writers. This anthology is subtitled “An Anthology of Canadian Optimistic Fiction”. Optimism is the theme on which all of the contributions in this anthology are based. Given that theme, I was surprised at how dark many of the stories were. Many of the stories are post-apocalyptic and dystopian visions with characters finding optimism in the darkest of circumstances. I found some of the stories a bit confusing; I wasn’t really sure what happened at the end. I enjoyed a few of the stories more than the others. “Pin and Spanner” by Pat Flewwelling was one of the most optimistic of the post-apocalyptic stories in the collection. “Tera & Flux” by Leslie Van Zwol was a futuristic take on the myth of Pandora’s box and the importance of hope. The “Garden” by Darrel Duckworth was like “Of Mice and Men” but more optimistic, in spite of taking place after the ecological collapse. “The Rosedale House” by Michael Reid was funny and sly. Although I didn’t enjoy this collection as much as earlier volumes in the series, I would recommend this anthology as an interesting and varied collection of speculative fiction.… (meer)