Amazing Magazine SF Books to Look For August 2019

“Very high quality.”
—Kirkus

[Starred Review] “In her introduction, Hurley (The Light Brigade, 2019) admits that short stories aren’t her typical fare: her heart belongs to novels. And yet, she has produced one of the best story collections of the past few years. Hurley imagines brutal worlds, and her work is typically violent and vulgar. But as these stories make clear, her visions offer much more than shock value: these tales are emotionally powerful, lyrical, occasionally hopeful, and flirt with the profound. She creates worlds and characters as full and fascinating in a dozen pages as any she offers in her longer works. They throw into stark relief the core themes of her larger body of work: illness, gender identity, and our fraught relationship to our bodies (“Elephants and Corpses,” “Tumbledown,” “The Plague Givers”); war and the cycle of violence (“The Red Secretary,” “Garda,” “The War of Heroes”); storytelling as a medium for both social control and individual freedom (“Sinners on Solid Ground,” “The Corpse Archives”). What makes Hurley’s stories unique is her focus on what comes after: after war, after plague, after the collapse of civilization. These are stories that pack a punch. Highly recommended for existing fans and as an introduction for new readers.”
—Booklist

[Starred Review] “With snapshots of futures that haunt, obsess, or tantalize, this collection from Hugo-winner Hurley (The Light Brigade) offers 16 hard-edged pieces that gleam like gems in a mosaic. Undermining the admiration for military adventure that pervades much science fiction, “The Red Secretary” presents a world that indulges in war and then purges all its practitioners, cyclically. In “The War of Heroes,” underdogs who rise up to defeat the oppressor discover that “[a] Hero is one who not only slays monsters, but creates monsters to slay.” The stories that celebrate fighting monsters acknowledge that losing is no shame (in “Our Faces, Radiant Sisters, Our Faces Full of Light!”, a callback to the work of SF legend James Tiptree Jr.) and that identity is a matter of choice more than genetics (in “The Fisherman and the Pig”). Hurley works at the edges of genres, mixing SF with detective noir (“The Sinners and the Sea,” “Garda”), military adventure (“The Light Brigade,” “The Improbable War”), and fantasy quest (“The Plague Givers”) in ways that refresh the motifs of the mixed fictions. In “Tumbledown,” the benefit of making hard choices is getting to tell the stories ‘about the world we’ll make together,’ and readers will eagerly follow Hurley into these possible worlds and many more.”
—Publishers Weekly

[Starred Review] “A trek across galaxies that hits home, Meet Me in the Future is a love letter to the best of science fiction.”
—Foreword

“10/10 Stars. Meet Me In The Future is an absolute gem. It’s an empathetic collection of star-spinning adventures whose initial grim-faced vibes are resolved by a yearning sense of hopefulness by the time each story reaches its end . . . It’s the literary sci-fi equivalent of a progressive rock album for punks. A work of literary art, Meet Me In The Future confirms that Hurley’s is a voice that must be heard by all.”
—Starburst Magazine

“Sometimes dazzling, sometimes dizzying.”
—Fantasy & Science Fiction

“Hurley’s stories are a revelation; they’ve garnered high praise from every reviewer who’s encountered them. Sidle up to her scintillating perspectives and allow your mind to bounce unhindered among the stars.”
—Book Riot

“Meet Me in the Future demonstrates yet again just how gifted and unique an author Kameron Hurley truly is. This is definitely one of the speculative fiction titles to read in 2019. Or any other year, for that matter!”
—Fantasy Hotlist

“If you’ve been looking for a place to start with Hurley’s work, this is a great entry point. This collection showcases her edgy, incisive, visceral approach to sci-fi.”
—Paladin Jane’s Book Musings

“Brutal, sharp, and impossible to ignore, Kameron’s stories are a howl that throws back the encroaching void.”
— Tobias Buckell, author of Hurricane Fever

“A visceral, unrelenting, and heart-filled exploration of what it means to be human in any future; Kameron Hurley is writing the science fiction our world needs.”
—Jacqueline Koyanagi, author of Ascension

“Kameron Hurley is a badass. Her powerful stories will shred your preconceptions, and may leave you permanently off-kilter.”
— Annalee Newitz, author of Autonomous and founder of io9

“Meet Me In the Future is an outstanding showcase for her powers as a writer and storyteller, and it is surely one of the best short story collections you will read this year.”
—Barnes and Noble Book Blog

“I have begun to regard Kameron Hurley as my go to for writing fantasy and science fiction stories with brilliantly developed characters and worlds, whatever their length. In this collection, Hurley takes the world we know and understand, placing people we can easily relate to into bizarre realities that make perfect sense.
—Strange Alliances

“5/5 stars. Any time I can get my hands on new Kameron Hurley. . . Her view of the world in which we live calculating, messy, and true, and the stories she writes hit me right in the feels and make me want to help lead the revolution.”
—Fairy Bookmother

“If you’ve been looking for a place to start with Hurley’s work, this is a great entry point. This collection showcases her edgy, incisive, visceral approach to sci-fi.”
—Paladin Jane’s Book Musings

“Meet Me in the Future is a brilliant story collection that both amazes the reader with Hurley’s incredible imaginative genius and writing chops as well as it takes hold of the readers emotions like only the best fiction can.”
—Grimdark Magazine

“Completely works and showcases so much fungal growth, corpse making, body-horror, sexual-orientation-swapping, space-opera, disease-ridden, dog-loving joy as anyone could possibly want . . . I am on auto-read for anything new that Hurley throws at us. Eagerly.”
—Bradley Horner, author of Darkside Earther

“Kameron Hurley has quickly become one of my favorite fiction authors.”
—The Weightless State

 “Meet Me in the Future is possibly the best short story collection I’ve ever picked up.”
—The Bookish Mrs. Harding

“Hurley’s collection, Meet Me in the Future, achieves that which most writers only dream; connecting not just with a deeper and universal truth that will lodge itself in the minds of readers long after the story is over, but to tell stories so engaging and dynamic that even those averse to the risks of questioning one’s experience will find them impossible to put down.”
—Vernacular Books

“Kameron Hurley has this incredible ability to occupy the spaces known to the science fiction canon but somehow occupy them subversively.”
—Reading Envy

“Kameron Hurley has not so quietly become one of the major voices in speculative fiction . . . Hurley makes us complicit in touching her worlds, the worlds of these characters, and such a transgressive framing makes each story feel urgent, timely, and utterly estranged. It is a delightful collection that will challenge and grip readers.”
—Manhattan Book Review

“I cannot recommend this short story collection enough.”
—Disciples of Boltax