Book review 130
"This Is My Funniest: Leading Science Fiction Writers Present Their Funniest Stories Ever"
A short story collection edited by Mike Resnick (published in 2006)
I wanted to have some good time with this book, but it happened to be much worse than my expectations.
Its not a bad book really. And it seems like it has found its reader: there is a volume two, released several years later. Also, it is featuring some stories of real Sci-Fi stars (like Robert Sheckley). And each story have a foreword from its author, which is also interesting to read. And its almost everything good about this book.
Now about what I didn't like. About a half of this book is written by authors I never heard of. Some of them presented as famous, but not in Sci-Fi. Seems like they they've started with this attitude: "Ok, Sci-Fi is not a real serious literature, plus I am supposed to write something funny. So I won't take it serious.". So either Sci-Fi is not their thing, or they just tried to get some easy money not thinking about the quality.
Also, more than a half of those "funniest" stories is just a toilet humor (with lots of bodily jokes and some porn). Some of them are not humor, but rather satirical, which is close, but not really the point.
Plus, even for the famous authors, some choices are... weird. Even the editor warns, that it is not what he is considering the funniest, but the authors themselves. And, seems like, even if someone can write a generally funny stories, he still may posses a quite unusual sense of humor.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RRPHqn-5v2PZ6PR9w0qZIp396ljfL6IqXMUqjKuw7bw/edit?usp=sharing