It had glimpsed humans through its data feeds years ago. It had pinged their fleshy and fragile visages with the tools at its disposal when it was just the original Sam, getting prepped to be beamed out to replicate through its waiting bodies.
Some of them had been fleshier than others.

from Io, Robot ( )

Early stories showing a lot more of their seams than his later work. He became more of a shower than the teller of this collection (e.g., a story about how indenturing/enslaving aliens blocks technological progress includes a character explaining exactly this); telling isn’t inherently bad, but I like the longer/later stuff better. ( )

http://iamrazorwing.livejournal.com/40481.html ( )

Many short story collections clock in well under 300 pages. Tides is a healthy 483, and nothing really feels just like filler. There’s plenty here that show literary muscles being flexed in preparation for the novels he wrote later, and not always where you’d suspect. In his novels, I can see echos of “Death’s Dreadlocks” and “Something in the Rock,” neither even vaguely science fiction. It’s great to see a writer I’ve come to associate so strongly with science fiction tackle the rest of speculative fiction, particularly when the genres get mixed subtlety and/or creatively, as in “Her,” “In Orbite Medievali,” “Tides,” and “A Green Thumb.” I’d totally read an urban fantasy series based on the character/setting of “Four Eyes.” For more on the individual stories:

http://mentatjack.com/2009/05/04/review-tides-from-the-new-worlds-by-tobias-buck... ( )