Breaking Waves showcases the fury and fragility of the sea

call for a breakage from holiday commercialism ? Want to send a much - need gift to mathematical group scavenge up one of 2010 ’s worst disasters ? Great ! Check out Breaking Waves , an anthology boast honour - winning writers like Ursula K. Le Guin and Vonda McIntyre .

After the BP oil release in the Gulf of Mexico in April , YA phantasy source Tiffany Trent need writers to contribute short stories , poems , and essays for a welfare aggregation to resurrect money for cleaning of the disaster . The result was Breaking Waves : An Anthology for Gulf Coast Relief , distributed as an ebook ( in a variety of non - DRMed format ) through Book View Cafe . All return from sales event of the $ 4.99 rule book go tothe Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund — and yes , even months subsequently , the effects of the spill are still being felt , even if it has largely faded from public consciousness .

As you might guess , most of the slice here — 22 stories , seven poem , and five essay — center on the ocean . The book ’s claim is a threefold pun , cue us of the sea ’s ability to break us and our own , ever - growing capacity for damage it . What ’s interesting about a collection like this is hear how many different ways there are to flick on the theme .

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For example : In her unforesightful story “ Site 14 , ” Laura Anne Gilman contrasts the so-so , immense power of the inscrutable , deep depths with the inventiveness and doggedness of a hardworking crew of administration aquanauts , to rattling effect . In “ Black Gold , ” Trent give us an exclusive tale from her Hallowmere mythos , with undines and kelpies and the vicious prince of the Fey Folk venturing into New Orleans . Elaine Isaak ’s “ My Mother ’s People ” introduces us to an Alaskan Indian whale hunter who gets more in touch with his heritage than he ever planned on . “ Emergency ” by Nancy Jane Moore — a series of ( fictional ) alarum from the National Weather Service — is brief and blackly funny . And “ Shark Attack ” by Sue Lange is a gripping ( also fictional ) account of one unseasoned lady ’s atrocious decision and the consequences it entails .

Where there is n’t a lineal marine connection , there ’s usually one to the surroundings at large . befittingly , the centerpiece of the collecting is an excerpt fromRachel Carson ’s classic The Sea Around Us , an explanation of how our oceans influence the climate as a whole — complex material rendered in exculpated , measured prose . “ Christmas Count ” by David B. Coe shows us a populace where skill has allowed us to revive extinct bird species , and asks whether that would be such a good thing after all ; the theme is n’t a new one for SF , but Coe ’s execution and peculiarly his personation make it fresh . Then there ’s McIntyre ’s “ A Modest Proposal for the Perfection of Nature , ” a bitingly soft essay that originally seem in Nature , in which she suggests that a exactly regulated biosphere might be so pretty that it ’s just despicable .

There are also numerous reference to New Orleans . Of these , my favourite was Kristine Kathryn Rusch ’s “ Disaster Relief , ” the story of a very minor magician and his feline conversant help a radical of their compeer relocate after Hurricane Katrina — honest and bathetic , without being soupy .

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Now , though Breaking Waves showcases both the splendor and the craze of nature , it is most definitely an anthology with a breaker point of position , and that full point of persuasion is that human beings can do some jolly awful things to the surroundings , and that we ought to block off — or at the absolute minimum , think a little harder about them . There are , I imagine , readers who would favour not to be display to such a collecting — reviewer who will notice some of the pieces here sanctimonious or oversaturated with “ liberal guilt . ” And for certain , some of the writing here is too heavy - handed . Some of it is just not so corking , trail off into endings that experience unresolved . ( And some of it is simply disappointing because you ’d like more — only a poem from Ursula Le Guin ? Alas . )

But this is nonetheless a big chunk of undecomposed oeuvre for a great price and an important causal agency . In my humble public opinion , Randy Tatano ’s tale “ Backtiming ” ( deceptively uncomplicated , but keying into a phantasy I intend a lot of us have harbor at some pointedness ) , “ Terra Incognita ” by Camille Alexa ( ready in a drop Antarctica in a dystopic near - future tense that is all too plausible ) , and Sarah Monette ’s “ After the Dragon ” are worth the cost of admission alone . Vonda McIntyre personally recommend that last one whenshe distinguish me about the anthology in October , and she was stagnant on . Strangely , of all the pieces , it probably has the least connection to Breaking Waves ’ ecumenical themes . But for absolute heart - grabbing - ness , saturation , and trueness , it is quite a feat .

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