When the Great Days Come

When the Great Days Come - Gardner Dozois. Gardner Dozois is probably best known for his work as editor, for which he has won an.
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A Luddite encounters time travelers near the moment of Singularity. A young boy may have just destroyed the entire Eastern Seaboard. By turns haunting and humorous, Gardner Dozois's acclaimed short fiction is finally collected in a definitive edition of his work. When the Great Days Come proves that Dozois is not just one of science fiction's best editors of short fiction, but one of its best writers as well.

Paperback , pages. Published July 19th by Prime Books first published January 1st To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about When the Great Days Come , please sign up. Be the first to ask a question about When the Great Days Come. Lists with This Book. I like anthologies, I really do, but as a novel lover first and foremost, I always find myself overcoming a certain prejudice towards shorter fiction.

Fortunately, Dozois makes that prejudice easy to overcome in this case. Every writer has them, some more obviously so than others, and short stories often reveal them more boldly than the lengthier, multi-faceted narratives of novels. Sometimes this manifests itself as tales of first contact: These are a little uncomfortable even these days, given some of the hypocritical rhetoric coming out of certain parts of the American political arena.

Great Days

Aliens land in their impenetrable, inscrutable spaceships. Interspersed with narration of how the various governments and authorities are trying to deal with this crisis, there are scenes that follow Tommy, a young boy who sees Other People fairy folk! Gradually, though, I was intrigued by the fatalistic tone of the story—the idea that humans might one day meet their end not of our own doing but simply because another species, one that barely recognizes we are here, decides they want the planet.

Add to this the idea of all these other species that have lived here, undetected, for all human history … and that makes a pretty interesting story. Many of these stories, in fact, have almost no dialogue at all. Many of the stories involve loner characters who spend most of the narrative isolated from other beings. However, for short stories, one only needs to look to the majority of this collection to see that it works fine. When the Great Days Come is a great anthology by a great science-fiction writer.

But it makes up for that with a few stellar stories and a very consistent tone—one of humanity embroiled in constant conflict, the fight for survival, with our darker impulses always essential to our salvation. Gardner Dozois spins a good tale and has a top-notch imagination. As I mentioned earlier, I thought almost all of these stories were very well written from a technical point of view. They were very well paced in particular. Structured so as not to give the twist of the story away too early.

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The tone of most of them is very dark though, making When the Great Days Come a somewhat depressing read. That being said, I like the way in which Dozois delivers the punch of his stories. The endings are often ambiguous, yet fit the tales perfectly. They leave the reade They leave the reader to mull over the larger theme of the story, rather than the fate of the main character as often as not. Some readers may find his style a bit verbose at some points but that was not something that bothered me in any of these stories. When the Great Days Come is a great collection. It took me longer than I expected to make my way though it, but is was reading time well spent.

Full Random Comments review May 20, Prem N rated it it was amazing. Easily the best written, most depressing collection of short stories I've ever read. Oct 24, Falbs rated it liked it. The man is clearly one of the great editors of our time, but as an author, he's not really one of the greats. His prose is magnificent, but the 'grand ideas' that have caused me to love science fiction so much in the first place, just don't seem to be there.

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There's a wonderful take on the Cinderella story, but his alternate past novel, his 'Cat Horror Story', 'Community', etc. The ideas weren't really new, just fles The man is clearly one of the great editors of our time, but as an author, he's not really one of the greats. The ideas weren't really new, just fleshed out in different ways. Well written, but no breakthrough concepts that made me go, 'Damn, what a great and thoughtful new idea, I'm going to have to run that over in my mind for a while to see what I really think'. And I kind of need that in my sci-fi-fi. Apr 05, Evanston Public Library added it Shelves: Gardner Dozois isn't the most prolific science fiction writer, but he's certainly one of the most gifted.

Best known as the long-time editor of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Dozois has quietly earned a reputation as an eloquently vivid storyteller and in his third and latest collection he definitely doesn't disappoint. Comprised of 18 imaginative tales including Nebula winners "Morning Child" and "The Peacemaker," this combination of recent writing and "best of" selections ranges from class Gardner Dozois isn't the most prolific science fiction writer, but he's certainly one of the most gifted.

Comprised of 18 imaginative tales including Nebula winners "Morning Child" and "The Peacemaker," this combination of recent writing and "best of" selections ranges from classic fantasy, alternative history, horror, and hard sci-fi as Dozois wrestles with the complexities of religious belief and life in human society. However, it's not only this versatility and the provocative plot lines of gems like "Counterfactual" and "Community" that make Dozois and this collection stand out in the genre.


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Along with his nimble creativity, Dozois is an uncommonly lyrical literary craftsman with a finely-tuned ear for dialogue and a knack for bringing fully-formed characters to life. Whether you're a sci-fi aficionado or new to the genre, When the Great Days Come is highly recommended. Nov 03, Dan rated it it was amazing.

I can see why Dozois is a slow writer. He really only has a few stories to tell, and he can tell them in the short format with beautiful spare language. Storms and volcanic eruptions , earthquakes and other natural disasters 'swept like tidal waves through early nineteenth-century periodicals, broadsheets and panoramas'. Catastrophic and apocalyptic visions acquired a remarkable common currency, the Malthusian spectre a constant reminder of the need for atonement.

Val's Random Comments: When the Great Days Come - Gardner Dozois

For some onlookers, Martin's most famous canvases of divine revelation seemed simultaneously to encode new geological and astronomical truths. And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

Following the completion of a series of his last works including The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and sending them to the Royal Academy , Martin started working on a group of three paintings that included The End of the World. Based on this comment, F. Klingender argued that this image was in fact a "disguised response to the industrial scene", a claim Charles F.

Stuckey is sceptical of. While painting, on 12 November , Martin suffered an attack of paralysis, now thought to have been a stroke. The attack deprived him of the ability to talk and to control his right arm, and he died at Douglas on 17 February