Most of the stories have serious points to make and, on reflection, a reader will be surprised at how much he has learned. It would be remiss of me not to mention that the author delights in salting his writing with puns so delicately constructed that they don’t distract at all from the reader’s enjoyment of the story.

But, be warned. This book will change how you see the world around you. You will never be the same.

For sound science in science fiction, its application in the real world, insights into the nature of society and how all three may affect the future, this brilliant anthology is a perfect storm with the reader at its eye.

(from the review by Bill Wright, in the April 2010 issue of Interstellar Ramjet Scoop: click here to download the issue [2MB approx])
 

The writing is excellent. Sometimes you forget to keep an eye out for that in humorous pieces, so I’ll mention it again: The writing is excellent. There’s thinky if you want thinky, there’s cheeky if you want cheeky and there’s some that are little more than wickedly phrased punch lines that sneak up and slap you in the face. So far I am most enamoured of “Downdraft” and “Working Girl” for equal and opposite reasons. And I think that conclusively solves the question of whether I prefer a theme or variety in my single-author collections. Mix it up! Skål!

(Thoraiya Dyer)
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Overall, this is a very interesting collection. It’s well worth the money: the scattershot approach ensures that it’s got something for everyone. There’s plenty of science fiction, fantasy, a little horror, even some straight-up non-speculative fiction, and oodles of half-page instant punchline pieces.

This anthology may in fact be the precursor of a new thing. Simon Petrie, I think, with all of his crackling wit and clever, referenced humour, his short, punchy tales and his classic idea-as-hero SF approach, may well be the first author I’ve yet seen who has been polished and sharpened into a true creation of the Internet era. ‘Rare, Unsigned Copy’ is an anthology which I read very easily from the tiny screen of a netbook computer, and somehow, it seemed all the more right to be doing so.

In other words, I suspect that this approach — and particularly, the prose, humour and style of Simon Petrie — is very likely the beginning of an avalanche, an uber-meme: the Way Of The Geek In Print. And if you consider yourself net-savvy; if you enjoy mixing and mashing between video and movie and music and computer-game, you should definitely buy ‘Rare, Unsigned Copy,’ because Simon Petrie is very much One Of Us… and it will be very interesting to see where the author goes next.

(from the (Cool) Shite review by Dirk Flinthart: click here to read the full review)

Rare Unsigned Copy consists of a collection of short science-fiction stories written by Australian author Simon Petrie. There are 42 short stories in total (including the introduction), some being up to, or around, 25 pages long, and some being just one paragraph long. Most of the stories are humorous, and some are a little more serious science fiction and are quite dark. I could tell that from just the introduction written by Über-Professor Arrrrarrrgghl Schlurpmftxpftpfl which had me laughing, that I would enjoy this book. Each story is well written, absorbing and entertaining. The story lines vary from a man and his crew trying to extract a giant carrot from the ground, to my favourite story, Three-horned Dilemma, which involves a man who sees a triceratops destroying his back garden whilst he is eating breakfast. Rare Unsigned Copy does have some swear words, so I would recommend it to teenagers 14 to15 years and up. All up this was a very enjoyable collection of stories, and I recommend Rare Unsigned Copy to science-fiction lovers and book lovers alike.

(Natasha, age 14, Canberra, Australia)

For a review of the book in SF Crows Nest go here.