Monday, November 22, 2010

Back to the Stone Age, by Jake Saunders

Sometimes one-off stories by minor writers are hidden gems. Sometimes not. Back To the Stone Age would be in the latter category, I'm afraid. Not that it's bad. It's just not GOOD, not for an award nominee (the Nebula, 1976). There's plenty of WWII alternate history out there--this is a somewhat believable exaggeration of what would happen if the atom bomb hadn't succeeded, and we'd had to wear Japan down. Takes awhile to get what's going on, and by the time you do, it's not that big a deal. Saunders collaborated with Waldrop, so he knows his stuff, but it's a competent story, not a great one.
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