Library Journal has a review of Carbide Tipped Pens. Kudos to Doug Beason, Leah Petersen, Gabrielle Harbowy, Greg Benford, David DeGraff and Aliette de Bodard. The book will be available starting next week.
“Compiled by Bova, a six-time Hugo Award winner, and Choi, a rising star of the short form, these 17 stories...are considered ‘hard’ SF. As Choi explains in his introduction, hard SF is the ‘literature of change’, interested in the effects of science and technology on society, while still telling human stories. This is a solid anthology, with only a few missteps; some of the best selections include Doug Beason’s ‘Thunderwell’, a tense tale of efforts to save a human mission to Mars; ‘Skin Deep’ by Leah Petersen and Gabrielle Harbowy, about a lawyer who confronts a company that makes medical tattoos; and David DeGraff’s ‘SIREN of Titan’ in which an artificially intelligent rover on the surface of Saturn’s Titan moon decides to go off-mission and explore, much to the consternation of her handlers back on Earth. Verdict: A pleasing sampling of stories, all showing the range found even within a subgenre like hard SF. Well-known novelists such as Gregory Benford appear alongside Aliette de Bodard and other top writers of the short form, plus some talented newcomers are featured.”