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Seeds of Change | 
 enlarge | Authors: Tobias S. Buckell, Ken Macleod, Nnedi Okorafor-mbachu, K. D. Wentworth, Jeremiah Tolbert, Jay Lake, Ted Kosmatka, Blake Charlton, Mark Budz
Creator: John Joseph Adams
Publisher: Prime Books
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $12.00
You Save: $7.95 (40%)
New (26) Used (10) from $12.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 228611
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0809573105
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.0876208
EAN: 9780809573103
ASIN: 0809573105
Publication Date: August 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: bookstore stock
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Product Description
Imagine the moment when the present ends, and the future begins - when the world we knew is no more and a brave new world is thrust upon us. Gathering stories by nine of today's most incisive minds, Seeds of Change confronts the pivotal issues facing our society today: racism, global warming, peak oil, technological advancement, and political revolution. Many serve as a call to action. How will you change with the future? These nine stories sow seeds of change across familiar and foreign territory, from our own backyards to the Niger Delta to worlds not yet discovered. Pepper, the mysterious mercenary from Tobias S. Buckell's Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin, works as an agent for change - if the price is right - in "Resistance." Ken MacLeod envisions the end-game in the Middle East in "A Dance Called Armageddon." New writer Blake Charlton imagines a revolutionary advance in cancer research in "Endosymbiont." Award-winning author Jay Lake tackles technological change and the forces that will stop at nothing to prevent it in "The Future by Degrees." Other stories by K.D. Wentworth, Jeremiah Tolbert, Mark Budz, Ted Kosmatka, and Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu range from the darkly satirical to the exotic. All explore the notion that change will come.
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| Customer Reviews:
 "Endosymbiont" by Blake Charlton is one of the nine stories that make up the science fiction anthology Seeds of Change September 3, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
"How did my body die?" asks 14- year- old chemo patient Stephanie of Jani, a pediatric resident at a virtual San Francisco Children's Hospital. By now, the reader is fully aware that author Blake Charlton has taken us into the dystopian world of virtual medicine, where patients' minds can be reset at the sound of a word, technophobes worry about "posthumans" gaining too much power and abusing it and neuroprocessors take over the brain in a dead body, turning people into "endosymbionts", the equivalent of a bacteria that borrows life by feeding off its host organism. The precocious, knowledge-hungry Stephanie embarks on a cyber quest for truth that involves "unprogramming" a nurse, seeing a "cyber shrink" that breaks the rules of psychoanalysis by threatening to "delete" patients (what shrink doesn't wish they could sometimes?) and concocting a Borgesian, pre-existing plan for allowing neuroprocessors to endocytose morality. Little does Stephanie know yet what a key role in her own farfetched idea she'll play. In yet the last and most important symbiosis of the story, her plan will engulf her turning her into a martyr of the moral neurotech evolution that promises to make the world a better place. The symbol for this interdependency is perhaps best illustrated by the ubiquitous image of the snake eating its own tail that opens and closes the narrative and reinforced by the last name "Mandala", a Buddhist circular diagram, emblem of cosmic order and harmony. Charlton is skillful at making the perfect circularity of these recurrent motifs transcend the thematic aspect to contaminate, like the bacteria at the heart of the story, the textual structure: opening and closing with the same image the story itself becomes a perfect circle that envelops us. The young author crafts a thought-provoking story at the intersection of medicine and technology but manages to bring both fields of knowledge in manageable doses for the lay reader. Our consciousness as readers is thus momentarily uploaded too, and we are forced to suspend our disbelief to imagine a possible, alternative world that may not reside too far into our future.
 very thoughtful August 31, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I definetly enjoyed the 9 short stories. They all took an issue that resonates today and brought it to a futuristic level.
Seeds of Change Review August 16, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Seeds of Change is an anthology that contains nine short stories confronting issues that our society faces today such as: racism, global warming, peak oil, technological advancement, and political revolution. All with a Science Fiction twist. This is a book that activist will enjoy, and if as readers, we don't understand the problems our world faces, Seeds of Change can really open our eyes to them. I really enjoyed what John Joseph Adams has done here. As an author and editor he has put this information out there in an entertaining way, in an attempt at making people more aware.
The authors are knowledgeable about the issues, and have taken the time to write intelligent Scifi stories for readers to enjoy. Seeds of Change is a fantastic addition to anyone's book collection, and I highly recommend it to all readers to check it out. John has also put together a great website for Seeds of Change that contains three free stories (with excerpts of the rest), as well as interviews, author bios, and a book trailer featuring dramatized excerpts of each story and an original musical score. http://www.seedsanthology.com/ Don't forget to go there and check that out :)
Not Free SF Reader August 13, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
Says the editor: "I asked the contributors to this anthology to write about paradigm shifts-technological, scientific, political, or cultural-and how individuals and societies deal with such changes. The idea is to challenge our current paradigms and speculate on how they might evolve in the future, either for better or for worse."
The authors each contribute a brief introduction or scene-setting for each story.
A short book, so pretty much all short stories as opposed to anything longer, but rather good for an original anthology, at 3.67. Although no particular standout, there are several good stories to be found here, basically at the start, and at the end of the anthology.
I'd basically call this a 4.25. Adams has done well producing a theme anthology where all stories are actually relevant to the mission statement, if you like. He is doing a very nice job as an editor so far.
Also nice to see electronic versions of this are available, as well.
Seeds Of Change : N-Words - Ted Kosmatka
Seeds Of Change : The Future by Degrees - Jay Lake
Seeds Of Change : Drinking Problem - K. D. Wentworth
Seeds Of Change : Endosymbiont - Blake Charlton
Seeds Of Change : A Dance Called Armageddon - Ken MacLeod
Seeds Of Change : Arties Aren't Stupid - Jeremiah Tolbert
Seeds Of Change : Faceless in Gethsemane - Mark Budz
Seeds Of Change : Spider the Artist - Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
Seeds Of Change : Resistance - Tobias S. Buckell
Another good story by Kosmatka. I suppose the writer he reminds me of the most with the recent handful of stories is Robert Reed. Certainly good company.
The future issue he is taking a look at is cloning. The US has banned certain lines of research on religious grounds, so all the best cutting edge work happens elsewhere.
First with dogs, then the extinct Tasmanian Tiger, prehistoric mammoths, and, of course, finally making it to the Homo genus.
A leading scientist gets a Neanderthal skull. The results surprise, and a new minority becomes a target for r@cism.
A bit of flashforward and flashback here that seems to work ok.
Hopefully he can continue to come up with regular work given the recent quality.
4 out of 5
A small company comes up with a device that can take waste heat and reuse and/or store it for later, at over 90% efficiency.
Lake makes explicit reference to the Silkwood case, and again, here, people are willing to indulge in violence to protect their energy industry profits. He does have one authority figure on his side, an FBI agent who lost some of her family in a fire in cheap housing.
A lot more straightforward sort of story than some of the Weird work he has done in the past.
4 out of 5
In a book like this looking at future issues, you could certainly have a problem with the whole thing being decidedly downbeat.
This is certainly not the case with Wentworth's story. Here, a new reusable bottle proves to be on a par with The Talkie Toaster in Red Dwarf, except smarter and with more uses - although the two devices likely would get along well.
The story told via a hapless husband who buys one to drink with at his local bar without knowing what he is getting into.
4 out of 5
A young cancer patient in the future starts to question her reality in the hospital she is currently living in. This leads to a story on human anti-AI fears and posthuman ethical transfer research with a choice of whether or not an Ouroborous situation, termination, or something lesser is appropriate.
3.5 out of 5
In the intro MacLeod says he couldn't think of much until he got all pessimistic. He wasn't kidding.
Maybe you could call this a Scottish loser story, as a man watches a world war on the tv at the pub "The scene is apocalyptic: US, UK, Israeli, and Jordanian units in continuous engagements with much larger armies of Syrians, Russians, and Iranians. Tank battles, artillery duels, airstrikes, naval bombardments. Every minute or so one of the live-action screens goes white as a tactical nuke explodes."
Black jokes and Culloden references are the order of the day here, as things are not going well.
3 out of 5
A youth subculture's rebellion style is interwoven into their art, and a new twist is that with the particular instantiation technologies available, they can make stuff live. If they get a bit of technical advice and don't get arrested.
Told in a style that reflects their lingua franca. A little Dark Angel, even.
3.5 out of 5
Budz's introduction says this story idea grew out of a real condition, that of not being able to recognise faces. Here, a group of people alter themselves so they cannot identify people by race when seeing them: "..any of the people you look at gain by you being faceblind? Well for one thing I dont prejudge people the way I used to. I dont automatically assign a whole bunch of cultural baggage to someone based on a bunch of misconceptions, preconceptions, or stereotypes. Not everyone has that problem, Fran said. Im not saying they do. All Im saying is that I did, and I took steps to correct it. I didnt want to see the world the way I used to. Before the surgery, Id look at a person sometimes and misread them, see things that werent there. Now, there arent any facial miscues. I see people for who they really are.
This, of course, weirds people out, or makes them angry. A slightly creepy story that build.
3 out of 5
"Some of these pipelines carry diesel fuel, others carry crude oil. Millions of liters of it a day. Nigeria supplies twenty-five percent of United States oil. And we get virtually nothing in return. Nothing but death by Zombie attack. We can all tell you stories."
The Zombies in this case are security robots that guard the pipeline from being broken into and tapped for the use of the exploited locals. In this atmosphere of local oppression a woman discovers a strange relationship with one of the robots, thanks to a bit of Bob Marley music, among others. Some robots have better taste than others?
Still, lots of petroleum products and killer attack robots is always going to be an exposive situation.
A good story, and the editor has managed to get a fine example of work set in other than your usual locations, here.
4 out of 5
A story set in the author's Ragamuffin universe, again featuring, Pepper, whose superhuman talents would appear to lend themselves to being his favorite agent of change.
A society has handed over their voting to emulation of how AIs model predictions of how they would and/or should vote. Not everyone agrees this is such a great idea, some going so far as to disagree in a 'let's blow this the hell up' fashion.
A more overt in the middle of the action tale.
4 out of 5
Excellent collection projecting current issues or paradigm shifts into the future August 1, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This collection edited by slush god John Joseph Adams contains stories of paradigm shifts in the future (this review is based on an Advanced Reader Copy; the anthology is scheduled for release late August 2008). From his introduction:
"I asked the contributors to this anthology to write about paradigm shifts - technological, scientific, political, or cultural--and how individuals and societies deal with such changes. The idea is to challenge our current paradigms and speculate on how they might evolve in the future, either for better or for worse."
Many of the stories, instead of being about future paradigm shifts, are projections of current issues or ailments (racism, global warming, corporate spies and piracy) into the future but also contain new shifts brought about by new technology and ethical issues about usage (how should we or even should we not) of these new technologies.
The anthology starts with a bang, with a story of future prejudice. Of the nine stories Endosymbiont by Blake Charlton, Spider the Artist by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu and Drinking Problem by K.D. Wentworth were my personal favorites.
* N-Words by Ted Kosmatka; eloquently captures the passion and pain of past and current prejudice and echoes them onto a future where a certain type of clones have become the latest persecuted ethnics.
* The Future by Degrees by Jay Lake; a solution is developed for efficient energy usage (little waste heat, high efficiency) and everyone will kill to get it;
* Drinking Problem by K.D. Wentworth; DNA coded one-per-customer-per-lifetime beer bottles with AI chips and various conversational modes make this story more horror than scifi for a committed beer drinker like myself.
* Endosymbiont by Blake Charlton; virtual medicine plus the ability to upload people's consciousness into "nueroprocessors" are the technology that supports Blake Charlton's story of creating a new type of post-human. The main character is a young girl who was suffering from cancer, and was the first "uploaded", before the technophobes pushed through laws governing such creatures, to make sure they didn't pull a Terminator and take over the world. This was a superbly written story revolving around well-defined characters with excellent science to back it up.
* A Dance Called Armageddon by Ken MacLeod; the fifteenth winter of the Faith War, a reminder of the never-ending struggle between Christianity, Muslims and Jews fighting for who's interpretation is most correct, and a reminder that though only a small percentage of us are there, wars affect us all. Nice description of the Sony Ericsson Cyber-sight upgrade glasses as well.
* Arties Aren't Stupid by Jeremiah Tolbert; genetically manufactured classes of "humans", some braniacs, some tin-men, some thicknecks and some arties (artistic), break out their mold, freeing themselves and inflicting change upon the order of their world. The wording of the conversation got in the way a little (arties aren't stupid, but they do talk funny), but the story was quite excellent.
* Faceless in Gethsemane by Mark Budz; if you could have surgery to remove the impression of faces, would you? What would you see, and how would not jumping to first impressions about how someone looked or what color their skin is change you? There is an air of prejudice and persecution in this story that I'm not sure I agree with (would people really protest because other people modified how they perceive other's faces?) but the concepts are interesting, the story well written...and it reminds me of when I rubbed my closed eyelids and saw colors and visions (Mr. Budz, I thought it was just me.)
* Spider the Artist by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu; a beatutifully written story about man (woman) and machine, set what Nigeria is and may continue to become: a country raped and pillaged for it's oil, where it's people lose hope but continue somehow to search for hope...and find it amongst the aritificially intelligent keepers of the pipelines. Music soothes the savage AI beast, it seems.
* Resistance by Tobias S. Buckell; Pepper, of Mr. Buckell's Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin and the forthcoming Sly Mongoose, is hired to take out the dictator of a techno-democracy. Similar to a society in Sly Mongoose, this world (Haven) gave everyone a vote on everything; but they tired of that and created AI's to vote as they would. Then the AI's created the ruler "Pan". Was it their own vote, or did the AI take over? The only Pepper story I've read with a low (zero) body count.
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