Review: Wireless

Wireless is a short story collection by Charles Stross. I had missed many of his earlier short stories so when it came out I immediately bought it.

The first story, Missile Gap made me think I had made a mistake --- it's about all of humanity being transplanted to a flat earth. There wasn't much resolution, and I didn't get any sense of the story going anywhere. I then discovered that I had read two of his previous stories, Rogue Farm and Down on the Farm. Despite their names they're not related. Down on the Farm is a lot of fun, but only if you've already read one of his earlier laundry novels, such as The Atrocity Archives.

Unwirer was written with Cory Doctorow. I've learned that I don't like Doctorow's work, so it wasn't surprising that I didn't like this one, either. Trunk and Disorderly was very reminiscent of Saturn's Children. It's a lot of fun, so I picked up at that point.

The kicker, however, was Palimpsest, easily the best novella I've read all year. This is a truly unique take on the typical time-travel story, and it was worth the $9.99 Kindle price all by itself, and boosted the book from mediocre to highly recommended all by itself. Buy this book just for that novella.