Reviewing the Mail: Week of 12/7

Most weeks, at least one unexpected book arrives in my mail, sent by the great publicists of American trade publishing in hopes I'll read and review and promote it. (And that is a wonderful thing -- if you ever have a chance to get free stuff come to you unexpectedly, take it, because it makes every day a journey into surprise and joy.)

And so I write about those books every Monday morning, because that kind of thing deserves a response, because I want the free books to keep coming, and because I feel horribly guilty about how few of these books I manage to read.

This week there's just one book: a new collection of short stories by SF writer Peter Watts, the current reigning master of the dark future. (All you people who just read zombie stories have no idea how dark things can get.) Beyond the Rift collects a baker's dozen stories (one written in collaboration with Derryl Murphy), with a new afterword by Watts. The stories are mostly since his last collection, Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes, in 2002, though four of these stories are from the '90s. This admirable book is a trade paperback from the fine folks at Tachyon Publications, and it's already available now.

As my colleague James Nicoll has said, "Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts." You should, too.