2-3 stars

I was sososo excited to be approved for this book because I love multiverse books/tv/podcasts (anything really). Anthologies by different authors are so hard to judge as a group because they're all unique, but overall, I would say that the writing just wasn't that strong. Maybe it just needs a bit of additional editing to make the stories flow more quickly... because I will always love this concept.

Multiverses is a scifi and fantasy anthology edited by Preston Grassman that spans a variety of interpretations of the theme and features stories that hit more than they flop. Featuring scifi stalwarts like Alistair Reynolds and Ian McDonald, rising stars such as Alix E. Harrow and Charlie Jane Anders, as well as several authors from across the globe, this collection probably has something for everyone tucked inside.

Highlights:

Banish by Alastair Reynolds, a great little story about a brain surgeon whose clients span the multiverse, with an interesting ethical question.

Quorum’s Eye by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, that imagines a world where most people form a collective mind link with their selves on other earths, and the implications for someone who doesn’t.

#Selfcare by Annalee Newitz, a story that touches on social media, fae curses and the difficulties holding down a solid job.

A Witch’s Guide to Escape by Alix E. Harrow, featuring a librarian witch who tries to use books to help an at risk youth.

Those excited to see Clive Barker on the cover are hopefully fans of his poetry rather than his prose – as there are none of his short stories in this anthology. The Lavie Tidhar story connects fairly directly to his The Violent Century, being set after it – I enjoyed it, but it does spoil elements of the book’s plot and I’m not sure how good it would be for those new to the world.

One thing that may frustrate some – there’s only six or so stories in this collection directly connected to the idea of a multiverse. Some of the less direct interpretations are set in alternate histories, and the rest have varyingly loose connections to the idea of alternate realities. I didn’t mind this – these themed anthologies tend to have stories that barely fit the brief – but be aware going in if you were hoping for a full set of proper multiverse tales.

All told, Multiverses is a very solid collection, with a lot of very enjoyable stories. The variety is great, and the quality was generally pretty good, even if none of the stories are going to hit my favourites list.

Rating: 8/10

An excellent collection. Multiverses, alternate realities and other ideas are not new or unusual in SF, though as introduction for anyone not familiar this is very good. A strong list of authors with varied styles in their stories and narratives, and good to see the selection of less familiar writing from other parts of the world, a diversity which many collections would benefit from.

Favourites would depend on personal preference. For me, I have always liked the short story writing of Ken Liu since first coming across his work, and that stood out in the early section. Lots of new good writing and authors to explore.

It definitely has been an interesting trend this year of multiverse related tales. From MR Carey’s Infinity Gate and Emily Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory tales exploring if can we live our lives slightly differently are striking a chord with readers and storytellers. This is not necessarily a new idea in SF but certainly one that is having a resurgence. In Pressman’s Grassman’s entertaining anthology Multiverses - An An Anthology of Alternate Realities a galaxy of great authors have different spins on the idea making it a very good way at exploring how this theme can be used.

Grassman has constructed the anthology into three sections. Starting with the most apt Parallel Worlds. In Alastair Reynold’s Banish - we have a clever spin on something we tend normally to see in time travel. Surgeons working on a patient who in their universe is a war criminal and in this one is not. A fascinating moral dilemma about what to do next with an unusual but powerful solution. I really was impressed by Chana Porter’s Cracks where our lead character keeps meeting other versions of herself - thinner; better looking; gay, straight rich and poor and the reader has to decide if this is in the character’s mind as they dream of what they could have been or is this the universe saying its time for some more changes to their own life? The anthology has a very good global dimension and moving to Bangladesh we get in Jayaprakah Satyamurthy’’s A Threshold Hypothesis a tale that first just lets us experience a city that appears to have crossing over points into other versions; then an academic look at the city with a love letter to many of SF’s famous tales and then a very disquieting explanation for it all that makes the whole tale appear a sign of dark things to come. One of my favourites in the collection. In a similar yet different fashion the deceptively cute titled Crunchables by Ian McDonald has a suburban couple trying to live life and feed pets with the regular rewriting of realities all around them. What appears funny also feels like people trying to survive a disaster out of their control in the best way that they can. In this section I also really enjoyed Nine Hundred Grandmothers by Paul Di Fillipo has the cunning idea of an intervention for a drug addict moving into drug dealer that involves entire multiverses of himself and family coming to tell him to change - funny and just a little unsettling too!

There is a shorter but very interesting section named Alternate Histories (one I wish we had seen more of) with Ken Liu retelling the 20th century in A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel which imagines no WW2 as the world powers focus on building a huge underground transport mechanism but Liu posits that other crimes and dark events would have taken place similar but different. Its a tale that slowly makes you realise the alternate history may still have horrible crimes to face. A really impressive tale as is Thirty-six Alternate Views of Mount Fuji by Rumi Kaneko - mysterious artefacts that are not possible are inspected by an art historian and they have much more worrying consequences for our main character than she expects. I really liked the depth given to the other history we hear about which makes th later scenes work very smartly.

I didn’t quite gel with Fractured Realities and that felt more this pushed the boundaries of the anthology as it is more incursions with futures. In this section ~Selfcare by Annalee Newitz mixes horro witha very american business type of hellspace.. The Setr by Eugen Bacon has a charcetr facing for no explainable reasons constan rewriting of their lives using a TV style format. There is a charming space rescue in Amber Too Red, Like Ember by Yukimi Ogawa but I was slightly non-plused by A Witch’s Guide to escape by Alix E Harrow which is a librarian of other worlds helping a depressed teenager but suspect giving them Harry Potter to read may be a very outdated suggestion; the whole tale felt a little too pleased with the power of books to change lives but felt very 20th century in approach.

This is a very entertaining anthology and Grassman has successfully assembled a great variety of spins on the core theme that should help readers think about how SF has tackled the subject but also a great way of finding some of our genre’s most interesting voices. Well worth a look!

An anthology featuring Ken Liu, Lavie Tidhar, Alix Harrow and many other excellent author cannot be less than a 5* in my book and according to my gut feeling.
My gut feeling was right as the stories in this anthology are all at high level, thought provoking, and entertaining.
I strongly recommend it because it's a great read.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

"Mulitverses" is described as a "mind-blowing anthology" - and I completely agree. I couldn't tell you my favourite (or least favourite!) story, but I can tell you that each and every one is pretty special in its own way. The standard of writing is as high as you would expect, and helps to make this collection a real treat.

My thanks to the authors, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

Multiverses: An Anthology of Alternate Realities is a captivating and diverse collection of short stories that showcases the exceptional talents of its contributing authors. The anthology features a range of imaginative and well-crafted stories that explore the infinite possibilities of the multiverse. The authors, including S.K. Farrell, Mari Ness, and Premee Mohamed, among others, demonstrate their creative range and writing abilities with stories that span across different genres and themes. Each author brings their own unique perspective and style to the theme, making for an engrossing reading experience. The stories are entertaining, thought-provoking, and showcase the importance of choice, identity, and the consequences of our actions. Overall, Multiverses is a must-read anthology for fans of science fiction, fantasy, and alternate realities, and a testament to the diversity and creativity of its talented authors.

<i>Multiverses</i> is an anthology in which fifteen short stories and three poems from seventeen authors are collected. As the title suggests, they have in common that they all have some link with the multiverse. The book is divided in three major parts. Part one is about parallel worlds, with stories about interaction between such worlds. Part two contains stories about alternate histories. Mostly, they deal with our not too distant past in which events evolved somewhat differently. The last part is called <i>fractured realities</i>, and I didn’t immediately know what to expect. It turns out to be a collection of stories that are in most cases set in our universe, in which something is a bit off. Every parts starts with a nice drawing by Japanese artist <b>Yoshika Nagata</b> and ends with a poem, two times from <b>Clive Barker</b>, and the other one from <b>D.R.G. Sugawara</b> (just like they did for <i>Out of the Ruins</i>, an anthology containing post-apocalyptic stories).

First a small thing on the poems. Poetry is not for me, I don’t like it, don’t read it, and will therefore refrain from commenting on them. The total word count of the book is over 80,000 words, and the three poems take up about 350 of them, so it’s not unfair to ignore them. It disappointed me that Barker, whose name is prominently visible on the cover, who has written some of the best speculative fiction I have ever read, whose name had a big impact on me deciding to select this book, contributed nothing more than two small poems of which one is almost 20 years old and copied from one of his Abarat books.

Part 1: Parallel Worlds

<b>Alastair Reynolds</b> opens the anthology with <i>Banish</i>, a very nice story about remote brain surgery. Remote surgery is already happening in our universe and time, but it becomes a bigger deal when part of the team is located in another universe. Reynolds added a nice dilemma to spice things up even more. Strong opener that I liked a lot. Multiverses continues strongly with <i>Cracks</i> by <b>Chana Porter</b>, in which somebody gets to see what she would have become if circumstances had been only a little bit different. The ending was a bit lame, and I favour suggestion over explicit sex in stories, but nevertheless a nice read. I am not going to go into detail about every story, but the stories by <b>Ian McDonald</b> and <b>Alvaro Zinos-Amaro</b> also appealed to me. The other ones were okay but nothing more. As always with anthologies, some stories you like, some you don’t. I never expect to be blown away by every story in collections, so I’m fine with that.

Part 2: Alternate Histories

The topic is in general less interesting, because such stories all too often are WWII related. Germany won the war, Germany never started the war, Germany lost in a different way, and so on. I’ve read enough of that. <b>Preston Grassmann</b> did a good job though, by not selecting these stories. Only the first one, <i>A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel</i>, written by <b>Ken Liu</b>, mentions WWII briefly, in one sentence, but has nothing to do with it furthermore. Liu writes about Charlie, a man from Formosa who helps building a trans-Atlantic tunnel that connects Shanghai, Tokyo and Seattle. Building starts at 1929 and ends in 1938. The best thing about this story is how Liu has developed Charlie’s background. It’s the strongest story of this part. The other stories were all well-written and had a decent story development, but I sometimes missed a satisfying story ending. Some stories just end at some point, while nothing seems to have changed. And in some cases, I simply found them not very original.

Part 3: Fractured Realities

There is a little bit of everything in this part. It starts with <i>#Selfcare</i> by <b>Annalee Newitz</b>, about Skin Seraph, a kind of shop selling skin products and treatments. It shows the influence of social media on how a shop is perceived and how little is needed to change that perception. This is basically a story about what is already happening around us, just pulled over the top. I missed the multiverse in it. <i>A Witch’s Guide to Escape</i> by <b>Alix E. Harrow</b> is much clearer on that. The librarian uses the books a young boy selects with every visit to profile him. Very original, and it has a nice ending too. Another very original story in this part is <i>Amber Too Red, Like Ember</i> by <b>Yukimi Ogawa</b> with every house being it’s own universe bubble. The other two stories included in this part were fun reads as well, actually.

Overall I didn’t read any story I’d award five stars, but the number of stories I gave 3, 3.5 or 4 stars totals up to 12 out of 15. Three stories got less, and I didn’t rate the three poems. I ended up at an average of 3.2 stars, which is as I had expected, given the diversity in stories and authors. A recommended read for those who like multiverses and short stories.

(Thank you NetGalley and Titan Books for a free DRC in exchange for an honest review.)

A nice collection of stories, although not all stick closely to the multiverse theme. Highlights were the stories from Ian McDonald, Alix E. Harrow and Annalee Newitz. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.