Full Spectrum 5

Edited by Jennifer Hershey, Tom Dupree, and Janna Silverstein

Bantam Books. $14.95
(paper $6.50)

Full Spectrum 5 is fifth in a series of science fiction anthologies of original short fiction. It contains a mix of authors, including both big names and first sales. Nevertheless, the book falls flat, a disappointing assembly of competent but bland short stories that go nowhere. Even stories by personal favorites from the list of authors lack the appeal of their usual work.

 

Full Spectrum 5 contains:

"Simply Indispensable" by Michael Bishop
"The Insipid Profession of Jonathan Hornebom" by Jonathan Lethem
"Evita, Among the Wild Beasts" by S. A. Stolnack
"The Music of What Happens" by Howard V. Hendrix
"A Belly Full of Stars" by Michael Gust
"Cool Zone" by Pat York
"Of Silence and Slow Time" by Karawynn Long
"The Breakthrough" by Paul Park
"Shimabara" by Karen Joy Fowler
"What Dreams Are Made On" by Mark Bourne
"Which Darkness Will Come Upon Us?" by John M. Landsberg
"Wonders of the Invisible World" by Patricia A. McKillip
"Excerpt from the Third and Last Volume of Tribes of the Pacific Coast" by Neal Stephenson
"The Sixty-third Anniversary of Hysteria" by Lisa Mason
"When a Man's an Empty Kettle" by William Barton
"The Dead Eye of the Camera" by Jean-Claude Dunyach
"Tale of the Blue Spruce Dreaming (Or How to Be Flesh)" by Jean Mark Gawron
"The Question Eaters" by Tricia Sullivan
"Homecoming" by Doug Beason
"The Massive Quantities of Ice" by Walter John Watkins
"Hearts and Flowers" by Lawrence Watt-Evans
"Goddoggit" by Emily Devenport
"Saving Face" by Andrew Lane
"Ruby" by Alan Rodgers
"Where the Shadows Rise and Fall" by Pat MacEwan
"Fountains in Summer" by Richard Bowes
"A Fruitful Harvest" by Lauren Fitzgerald
"The Ziggurat" by Gene Wolfe

This review copyright 1996 by Wendy Morris

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