Reviews for Tomorrow today

The average rating for Tomorrow today based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-11-08 00:00:00 Jeffrey Hock A classic super genre-y paperback if ever there was one, "Tomorrow Sucks" does not house any groundbreaking works of literature, nor does it contain any particularly revelatory stories. On the other hand, it doesn't contain anything that's really schlock, and while none of the stories are going to change your life, they do make for engaging and entertaining reads. The collection brings together a range of science fiction stories that deal with vampirism. The theme is a relatively loose one, with some stories being grounded firmly in science and reason and some others relying more on genre archetypes (ray guns and robots) to be considered "science fiction" instead of fantasy or horror. As usual, the best thing to do is break it down story by story. "Pillar of Fire" by Ray Bradbury - The opening line to "Pillar of Fire is, "He came out of the earth, hating." That's one of the best opening lines I've ever encountered. Unfortunately, the story is on the long side and gets a little tedious despite some excellent sentence structures and evocative ideas. "And Not Quite Human" by Joe L Hensley - A tiny little ditty which riffs on fear and indecisiveness; I'm not sure if it suffers or is saved by the plot-dump explanation of everything that's happened that comes at the end. "The Man Who Loved The Vampire Lady" by Brian Sableford - I can't really figure out why I liked this story as much as I did, as it combines a few particularly useless stereotypes, including one of my least favorites - the covert revolutionary who betrays his eeeeevil superiors. That said, this is the first really "sciencey" story in the collection, which is a little ironic since it takes place hundreds of years ago in an alternate version of history. Worth the time to read. "Born Again" by SN Dyer - A story which showed a ton of promise, only to devolve into useless "commentary on human nature" near the end. Throughout the majority of this story, vampirism is approached in a scientific way - then for the last act we see all the main characters fall prey to brazen character assassination to make them fit into the author's "message." Disappointing. "Kaeti's Nights" by Keith Roberts - In kind of an odd way this story reminded me of Jhumpa Lahiri, in that it's a short story that encompasses a narrative of a relatively long period of time. Despite breaking a ton of narrative rules this story was really well done. It manages to tell the "vampires are the good guys" story in a light that felt extremely natural. Recommended. "Pyotr's Story" by Spider Robinson - A good read; strange mostly in that it's not actually Pyotr's story (although it is about him in many ways, he isn't the primary focus throughout much of it). Very rarely have I felt negatively toward a story or book because the title was poorly chosen, but this'd have to be an instance falling under that category. Worth the read, just ignore the title. "Vanishing Breed" by Leslie Roy Carter - Space vampires tried to mingle with humans but failed and are migrating in their millennium old space ship but the main character's staying behind because he feels more human than vampire the end. Read all that in one breath and you've saved yourself the trouble of reading "Vanishing Breed," which isn't a completely terrible story, but suffers from pacing issues, believability issues, and "what the fuck why would you stop the story just as you're getting to the part that matters most to your main character!" issues. You may or may not feel like you wasted your time after reading this one. "Fleas" by Dean Ing - Another short, quick read; a supernatural take on the idea that there's a always a bigger fish. Somehow doesn't feel terribly original despite the fact that I can't summon up any one particular story that was about this same topic. Another one that you might feel wastes your time, but probably not. "Leechcraft" by Susan Petrey - Despite a few instances where I felt like laughing at the absurdity of what I was reading - one character wants to compliment another on "the smell of her wolvish cunt" at one point, I'm not even joking - this on is probably the best story in the collection, all the more strange because it's the closest thing to a straight-up love story in the whole thing, and it's not exactly difficult to figure out what's going to happen next. Characterization in this one is strong and nuanced and worth the time to read. "Shambleau" by CL Moore - Definitely the most "horror" themed story in the collection, "Shambleau" also stretches the theme of the collection - scifi vampire stories - as it is about a futuristic Medusa (who nonetheless feeds on "life force"). I'm not a huge horror-story fan and honestly there wasn't anything about "Shambleau" that thrilled me; it just doesn't reach the sublime level you get from good horror writing. "The Stainless Steel Leech" by Roger Zelazny - A wonderful idea ("robots have inherited the Earth and there's even a robot vampire!") that manages to explain the unlikely confluence of events needed to create such a creature (he had his power source removed due to being defective but found that he could survive by draining power from other robots) in a way that didn't feel forced. Unfortunately, the story never goes anywhere, and ends on something of an anticlimax. There's so much potential here that I could cry, but it never achieves anything. So in review - "The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady," "Kaeti's Nights," "Pyotr's Story," and "Leechcraft" are all pretty good and well worth your time, if you're into science fiction and/or vampires. The others are a hit or miss, but none of them are completely pointless.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-08-26 00:00:00 Jimmy Bob Well, I'm way more on board with sci-fi vampires than fantasy vampires. But I feel like I already knew that. Solid collection, though I wouldn't call any individual story phenomenal. I liked "Pillar of Fire" and "Leechcraft" the best.