Meet Me in The Future is the first book I've completed by Kameron Hurley, who is one of the most engaging columnists in the field today. There is a lot of good stuff in there but overall I found it a bit of a slog to finish. Quality of the writing is high but there's only so much war-related content I can handle without getting a little bored. There are some great lines and images throughout many of the stories but I tend to prefer more idea-s orientated science-fiction (Ted Chiang for example). Overall, though It was enough for me to make sure that I keep an eye out for future work by her.

The first two stories in this collection caught me up immediately. Elephants and Corpses leads you into a piece about body-jumping mercenaries - definitely the way to get me reading. It also offered a unique way to view gender dysphoria, something which is risky to do in the first place, but that landed in a really, really interesting way in the story, and continues later in the collection.
The set up of alternative families, particularly in When We Fall, drew me in a whole lot too. An AI and a mechanic, a guy and his elephant, a woman and her two wives; there's a lot of non-normative families, which admittedly don't always work out for the characters, but I love how they exist in the tales.
Each story is usually backgrounded by some distant war, or past war, or approaching war. War is never fully central to the story, which I'm glad for, but it does inform a lot of the narratives. Knowing war's proximity to each piece assists in forming an understanding of the current climate of the place, which I honestly just thought was really cool. Plus, all of the characters and spaces are fulfilling. Some don't really reach their full potential and I'd love to see a couple of them in expanded works, but as far as short stories go, they're incredible.

Elephants and Corpses was my very first introduction to Kameron Hurley's writing several years back when Tor had it on their site. It was a first class story that made a lasting impression, yet its only in the last year that I have started buying and reading more of Hurley's work. I sit back now and want to kick myself. So of course when I saw this on NetGalley I hit request as fast as I could and then put everything else on the backburner as soon as I was approved, even though I had a couple of months before it's release day.

Well it was worth bumping it to the top of my tbr because I enjoyed the hell out of every single story in this collection. As someone who finds short stories very hit and miss, I was surprised. Every single story stood on it's own. If I was to rate them individually the lowest was a 4 star. I can't stress enough that this is an amazing feat. Every single story is absolute quality.

Lucky for me I got to revisit Elephant and Corpses in this collection and I loved it just as much the second time. And we get a second story with Nev, which was fantastic. Nev's world and history is so rich and well put together. A person who can jump from corpse to corpse and use the bodies as their own. Nev doesn't easily divulge much information, but from the fascinating tidbits dropped along the way, especially in the second story, I'm really hoping Hurley will decide to give us a longer story in Nev's world. Whether it be about Nev or another body merc, maybe even during the war, I wouldn't mind.

'Bodies are only beautiful when they aren't yours. It's why Nev had fallen in love with bodies in the first place. When you spent time with the dead you could be anyone you wanted to be. They didn't know any better. They didn't want to have long conversations about it.'

Hurley has the ability to catch you within the first paragraph. Her writing is full of humour, sarcasm and heart. She uses her writing to ask what happens next, what will the future look like. Most of her stories have a sense of darkness. They are set in worlds ravaged by war, she shows the consequences of war and how really when one war finishes a new one is started. In Red Secretary we are in a world where the government sends those who fight in their war to death once it's over and they go willingly.

"When they said the war was over, I was glad," Arkadi said. "I thought it would get easier after that. But it's harder now. It's harder to fight your own people. Harder to see what's right."

Each of the stories have what I see as a powerful message. I wanted to pull quotes from every one. We have strong feminist stories, women dominated worlds. Stories that highlight how lack of education can be used by the people in power to control the masses. Another that shows how technology might be used in the future. Inclusive stories, you will find yourself inside this book.

Each story flows, has incredible characters and kind of fills me with a sense of dread. Some of these stories really hit a bit close to home. They reflect very heavily on the way some of the Governments around the world are behaving now and have in the past. Each story may be set in a different future, but they are all incredibly relevant to where we are now.

"Do you know the power of story?" Moravas said. "It takes only a single generation to change the entire story of a people. Ten years. You take the children off to state schools. You tell them a story. You make it illegal to tell any other. People forget. The world moves on..."

Meet Me in the Future: Stories by Kameron Hurley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm generally not that big into short stories and by way of Hurley's introduction, I might have expected her to do a so-so job with these... but Hurley lies. The writer's talents are equal across novels and short fiction. Sorry, Hurley, you're good! lol

Indeed, most of these stories are pretty amazing, delving not only into her Nyx fiction and Legion fiction and even Light Brigade, but this collection has a ton of stories that kicked me hard from a different world altogether. The only other series I haven't read is the Worldbreaker Saga and I'm honestly at a loss as to guess whether the other set of related stories revolving people jumping corpses is related to that or whether this is a taste of a brand new series to come.

If it is, I'm TOTALLY DOWN FOR IT.

Hey! Hey! But what about THIS short story collection? Is it GOOD?

Sorry? Didn't I say?

It's totally engrossing. :) Taken on its own without knowing any of the other novels, it completely works and showcases so much fungal growth, corpse making, body-horror, sexual-orientation-swapping, space-opera, disease-ridden, dog-loving joy as anyone could possibly want. And the worldbuilding is always extremely intense. :)

I will get around to her other novels, but in the meantime, I am on auto-read for anything new that Hurley throws at us. Eagerly.

Kind of alright short story collection. I had already read Elephants and Corpses in another collection and was happy to read a continuation of it. This author in my opinion can write some pretty amazing science fiction but i do have some problems with the other stories. I could not really quite get the gist of a few but that might just be me. This collection is perfect for anyone into lgbt and different genders. Most of the stories are very heavy on the feminism.