ARC Backlog Review – Even Greater Mistakes

From Goodreads:

Short stories from the multiple-award winning brain of Charlie Jane Anders. Enter the wild and fantastic worlds of one of the brightest minds in science fiction today.

Infinite worlds, and infinite possibilities, brought to you by the electric talents of Charlie Jane Anders. This collection cracks open science fiction with joyous exuberance and a riotous cavalcade of ideas. Witness vampire zombies and fairy werewolves, fully-immersive AR cat brains, love in the form of tentacles, the amateur Time Travel Club’s first successful experiment and transformations of all kinds. Whatever you do, don’t stop trying new things, and don’t be afraid of Even Greater Mistakes.

Its always difficult to review Short story anthologies as they tend to have stories that I love and keep thinking about and others that I just don’t connect with so they always end up with a middling rating. This collection was no exception to that rule but I will say overall it is an exciting and diverse collection of tales.

I found a lot of them had real emotional resonance, I loved getting to read Ander’s introductions as to why each of these stories was written, the mindset behind each one really added to the stories themselves. All of the stories were really creative and interesting. Some of them had great joy and laughter to them, such as The Time Travel Club and the Visitmothers which left you with a real heartwarming feeling. Others stories touched on elements such as grief, climate change and the trans experience in ways that were thought provoking, emotional and raw. Some Stories were dark, some were hopeful, some had whimsy, some chose violence but all in all they were entertaining.

If you are a fan of Ander’s Writing then this is a book you will enjoy. It is also a good way to sample a writers many varying styles so you can suss out which books, if any, of theirs you might like so I would especially as Charlie Jane Ander’s writes both Adult and YA books you can get a feel from those styles from these stories. So if you haven’t read any of Ander’s work this might be a good place to start.