Skybreaker

this is a fine anthology-one of several in what's shaping up to be a remarkable year for original anthologies. -Gardnerspace column, Locus, December 2008, Issue 575, Vol. 61, No. 6 --- This collection may be all about fast forwarding, but with material this strong, it's worth hitting slow mo and zoom, Over the course of its one Introduction, two epigraphs and fourteen stories, Fast Forward 2 proves itself a rare beast among anthologies of the imagination: one whose content actually provides a materialization of its own theoretical blueprint . -Strange Horizons, November 28, 2008 Fast Forward 2 is the second volume in Lou Anders' excellent science fiction anthology... While all stories herein are at least excellent, there were a couple of absolute knockouts... Paolo Bacigalupe's The Gambler should be required reading at every school of journalism in the world, exploring as it does the question of click-driven news and coming up with genuinely novel and sometimes disturbing things to say about it. --BoingBoing.net, posted by Cory Doctorow, December 2, 2008 What I hope will be abundantly plain is how strong I found the selection as a whole. It's been suggested to me as a rule of thumb that genuinely enjoying half the stories in an anthology is to be considered a sign of good TOC. If that's the case then one of three things is true: either I'm too easily pleased, or my tastes coincide very closely with Lou Anders, or Fast Forward 2 is an excellent anthology. There's not a single story I actively dislike, and even those I'm lukewarm to have obvious merits. --Futurismic, December 3, 2008 Looking for some fresh science fiction? The Fast Forward series of anthologies, published by Pyr, prides itself on featuring original stories from science-fiction heavyweights. I love Gardner Dozois' annual The Year's Best Science Fiction collections, but sometimes its great to get something really new, and Fast Forward doesn't disappoint. The latest installment, Fast Forward 2. [is] a great collection, with a good mix of stories ranging from hard science fiction to near magic realism. Stand outs for me included True Names, a novella by [Cory] Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum set in a post-post-post-human universe, and An Eligible Boy, written by Ian McDonald, that takes place in the mid-21st century India that McDonald has used as the backdrop for his 2004 book River of Gods. --Discover Magazine Science Not Fiction blog, October 14, 2008 First of all, this is a beautiful book. The cover, by John Picacio, is stunning. Within the book, FF2 , like FF1, uses play, pause, and, of course, fast forward icons similar to those on your nearest remote control at line breaks and at the beginning and end of stories in an inspired bit of design. This is a fantastic anthology that I look forward to rereading. I sincerely hope that Fast Forward becomes an annual anthology; the first two volumes are incredibly strong. --Little Bits of Everything, Rene Sears Live Journal, October 17, 2008 The great Gardner Dozois tagged this as the best sf anthology of 2008, and I'm not gonna argue with him. Great stories here by Paul Cornell, Paolo Bacigalupi, Ian McDonald, Jack Skillingstead, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Cory Doctorow, and many more. It's a special antho, a must-read, and the kind of book that sf readers remember when the awards season rolls around. --John Picacio, replying to SFSignal Mind Meld question, What were the best genre-related books, movies and/or shows you consumed in 2008?, December 10, 2008 Along comes Fast Forward 2, Lou Anders' new anthology of original SF stories, to demonstrate that the cutting edge of the genre is still relevant, and better written than ever before, even as it leaves some of its more fantastical staples -- time travel, aliens, etc. -- behind. The collection follows on the success of 2007's Fast Forward 1, which impressed critics both within and outside the genre. In this second volume, the future just keeps getting nearer. Overall, it's a great collection. It's also indicative of where the genre is, circa 2008: In other words, more 'realistic'- not to mention better written- than the more colorful stuff of yesteryear, which both broadens its appeal and increasingly erases the distinction between SF and everything else. --Daily Camera, Boulder, CO, January 9, 2009 If Fast Forward 2 has an overriding theme, it is that the fourteen stories here are highly entertaining . -- Black Gate: Adventures in Fantasy Literature magazine, January 9, 2009 Again, Pyr have produced an excellent book and again Lou Anders has selected a very good collection with four or five stories that are truly great. -- SfCrowsnest.com, Issue 183, February 2009 Although the stories in this anthology vary widely in content, in vision and in readability, each tale brings a unique perspective to the genre. As most of the authors are well known and award-winning a reader looking for real science fiction will find a great many stories herein to enjoy and to provide a positive jolt into alternative ways of thinking about other potentialities. -- SFRevu.com, February 2009 The explicit mission of editor Lou Anders's Fast Forward 2 is coterminous with that of hardcore science fiction at its best: to chart out rigorously and boldly the unexplored regions of the near future, using the decades-honed narrative and ideational tool kit of the genre. This mission is more often paid mere lip service these days than pursued, as improbable adventure scenarios and stale speculations predominate in some variant of Gresham's Law. But Anders holds the feet of his contributors to the ancestral fire ignited by Wells and Verne, and gets radical results... Fast Forward 2 exhibits an impressively catholic panoply of thought experiments. -- Barnes & Noble Review, The Speculator column, February 9, 2009 Short story anthologies are a bit of hit-and-miss for me; if I don't enjoy reading at least half of the stories they contain, I feel like I wasted my money. So I don't tend to buy them or recommend them. Well, I am pleased to say, that Fast Forward 2, edited by Lou Anders and published by Pyr is an exception. The quality of writing is very high; and more importantly, the ideas explored in story form are innovative, memorable and thought-provoking. -- Northwest Science Fiction Society, February 15, 2009 You know you have a good anthology when you're having trouble picking your favorites. I haven't read the other anthologies edited by Lou Anders but if Fast Forward 2 is any measure of his work, then I look forward to reading more from him. This is science fiction that's relevant, gripping, and easily one of last year's stand-out anthologies. -- Bibliophile Stalker blog, March 23, 2009 The reason I took so long to review this anthology is that I wanted to read it at least twice so I could review all of their stories the way they deserved to be reviewed. Lou Anders has outdone himself as an editor, and all that I have to say is that I m looking forward to FF 3. -- Fantasy Book Critic, June 11, 2009 In 2007 Lou Anders edited Fast Forward [1], one of the strongest original anthologies that science fiction has seen - so strong, in fact, that after one closed the book one wondered if Anders would be able to match both the quality and the ambition of that volume in his next. But Anders did it; Fast Forward [1] not only met the challenge to look forward, but succeeded. And with Fast Forward 2, his follow-up anthology, Anders not only continues to forge ahead and actually push science fiction into the future, but also position himself as one of the genre's most dynamic and influential editors. A reader looking for the best in contemporary science fiction will find not a wasted story in Fast Forward 2's pages. This is the Stuff.Fast Forward 2 is so good that I'm a little frightened to think what Anders and company have in store for us next time. But I'm looking forward to finding out. -- SF Site, June 2009