et’s start with the fact that I don’t, as a rule, enjoy speculative short stories. Some of them are fun and entertaining, yes, some make you really think about the world, and most are very well-written and do absolutely nothing for me. A good anthology, for me, will have about 75% of the first two categories. This one… despite its promises of “modern, funny SFF”, only a few had me laughing or gave me the joy and zing I want when I read. A month and a bit later, I can’t even remember that many of them without looking at the index. I’m not sure if this is because it’s an older anthology, or because my humour is very twisted sometimes, or because of my usual short story problems, or because it’s pretty heavily male, or what, but …. A few good stories in this one, but on the whole, an average anthology.

5/10 ( )

The copy is very excited about being "sardonic." I was drawn in by promises of stories by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Pat Murphy, Pat Cadigan. The Murphy story was actually quite sweet, a strange contrast to the rest that had a nasty edge, some of them downright icky. There was a game that Jeffrey Ford was playing with run on sentences that appeared several times. Glad he was enjoying himself. ( )

This collection was supposed to "range in style from dark comedy to laugh-out-loud farce", but in point of fact only one of the 26 was funny (that being Hoffman's piece, of course). According to the preface, these stories are supposed to be an injection of fun into the specfic genre. Judged by that standard, this collection is a miserable failure. (Jeffrey Ford's ridiculous attempts at humor via run-on sentences and pulp fiction cliches are particularly fail-tastic.) That said, there were a few stories whose premise or execution set them above the rest.
What I liked:
James Morrow's fertility-obsessed dystopia in "Auspicious Eggs"
Nina Kiriki Hoffman's adorable revenge fantasy set in a Mad-Men like world, "Savage Breasts"
Pat Murphy's "The Wild Girls," another retread of the classic "two kids have an intense friendship that is not understood by the outside world, and explore the woods a lot" trope, but with the extra spice that the kids are girls

The best story in the collection was easily Laurent McAllister's "Kapuzine and the Wolf: a Hortatory Tale." Kapuzine and her older sister Maureen live in the suburbs, where the rebel Woodcutters have pushed back the greenery and the forests and restored mankind's supremacy over nature. As part of a Woodcutter scheme, Kapuzine is sent deep into enemy territory (the City, where Gardeners and their minions reign) with plasticine hidden in her basket of goodies. The world is fascinating, and the tale is told as though it were a legend used as propaganda many years thence. For this story alone, it's worth seeking out [b:witpunk|1822860|Witpunk|Marty Halpern|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1188840116s/1822860.jpg|1822517].
( )