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2011Variousagentorange9 out of 10Brave New Worlds is one of the best primers of dystopian literature you'll find on shelves today. A perfect blend of classic and contemporary short stories about government control, technological subjugation and corporate espionage, each story offers a unique position on how we're so apt to allow entities to control us... for our own good, of course.When I first got the 500 page book in the mail I was worried I wouldn't have time to read it before it gets released in January. But once I started I found I couldn't put it down. Once again, it would seem that editor John Joseph Adams knows how to pick 'em.Of course, Brave New Worlds won major points right off the bat for featuring Shirley Jackson's 1948 classic "The Lottery" as the opening story. This story was my first introduction to the scary idea of a dystopian society. It was taught in schools along with "Lord of the Flies" when I was a kid and it still holds up as a simple, yet elegant look at our propensity to hand control of our liberty over because of superstition and fear.This theme pops up in each story that follows regardless of what the story is about. In Joseph Paul Heine's "Ten with a Flag," our quest to know everything about our children before they are born has led to a world where that knowledge determines our social standing. In Philip K. Dick's "Minority Report" our desire for a crime-free world has led us to forget that the justice system is based on the concept of innocent until proven guilty.I think the thing that keeps me coming back to stories about dystopias is the interplay between utopias and dystopias and the idea that you can't have one without the other. In Ursula K. Le Guin's "The ones who walk away from Omelas," the utopian city of Omelas has a secret - a child kept prisoner underground. The citizens of the town all know he's there, starving in the dark, but most are able to surpress the thought and enjoy what thay have. Those who can't are "the ones who walk away." Of course Le Guin's story is a metaphore, but it's all about this idea that there can never be a utopia of full equality... because if everyone's equal, chances are you've got yourself a dystopia, like the one that is developed in Neil Gaiman's "From Homogenous to Honey" where equality equals no identity allowed (another inclusion that wins this book major points.Probably my favourite story in the book is S.L. Gilbow's "Red Card" which imagines a world in which everyone is allowed to murder one person, as long as they have a card submitted by the government. You're not supposed to tell anyone if you have a card though, so you can imagine the kind of paranoid world that creates.Night Shade Books has been making a name for itself with a number of recent anthologies, most notably the post apocalyptic books, The Living Dead I & 2 review ) and Wastelands review ). Personally I think they've hit another home run with Brave New Worlds, so check it out this January 25, 2011. Shirley JacksonS. L. GilbowJoseph Paul HainesUrsula K. Le GuinM. RickertKate WilhelmO Geoff RymanCharles Coleman FinlayNeil Gaiman & Bryan TalbotJ. G. BallardCarrie VaughnPaolo BacigalupiJames MorrowAlex IrvineRay BradburyCory DoctorowCaitlin R. KiernanGeoff RymanHarlan Ellison (R)Genevieve ValentineSarah LanganKim Stanley RobinsonMatt WilliamsonPhilip K. DickHeather LindsleyKurt Vonnegut, Jr.Robert SilverbergOrson Scott CardJeremiah TolbertJoe MastroianniAdam-Troy CastroTobias S. BuckellVylar Kaftan