Miracle Jones's Reviews > Again, Dangerous Visions

Man, most of these stories are extremely bad. Some of the standouts include the Le Guin and the Tiptree and the Hollis and perhaps the Vonnegut, but even then, man, I don't know. There is one fun bagatelle about the legal implications of cryogenics that reads like droll sci-fi Thackeray, and H.H. Hollis' story about LSD lawyering was also spry, but these do not justify the many many bad stories you will read. Really, the only reason to read this collection is if you have any kind of fascination with the kinetic and utterly self-involved world of seventies sci-fi, a world that is rather dead now, and which was charming without ever actually being very relevant or producing any stand-out writers. I have such a fascination; reading this collection was my own fault.

There is a Piers Anthony story about a PARALLEL DIMENSION where all dairy products come from milking human women that is pretty jaw-dropping and would make a great short film for Lars Von Trier perhaps, but which cannot be taken seriously on its own merits at all, no matter what dimension you are from. Reading the explanation in the afterword of this piece, where it is explained that it is a parable about animal cruelty, I was uh...unpersuaded...that it was not just an elaborate, disturbing, specific, jolly fucked-up sex fantasy. I liked it on that level, I guess, but DAMN... who was this story for? Now we have Smashwords for such "dangerous visions," I guess.

I like reading bad books, but I cannot recommend this to anyone unless you like journeying into REALMS OF THE MISGUIDED AND CRANKY AND SELF-INDULGENT AND DEAD IN SPIRIT.