Cyberpunk

Every entry in this disjointed reprint anthology is a keeper, but Blake ends up veering across the SF spectrum without consistently hitting the mark. Cyberpunk staples are well represented by stories such as Cat Rambo's "Memories of Moments, Bright as Falling Stars," about the transformative power of modification, and James Patrick Kelly's "Mr. Boy," a multilayered examination of growing up. Others give an invigorating twist to conventions: Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner's "Mozart in Mirrorshades" demonstrates the creation of a cyberpunk past, Mark Teppo's noir "The Lost Technique of Blackmail" has fantastically evolved language, and Greg Bear's "The Fall of the House of Escher" is full of gothic horror. Unfortunately, the anthology is knocked off-track by such works as Jonathan Lethem's media-culture-commentary "Interview with the Crab" and Rudy Rucker's magically driven "The Jack Kerouac Disembodied School of Poetics"; they're well written, but they seem to belong in another book. (Feb.)