I first heard of this book at the J-Novel Panel at Anime Expo last year. What caught my attention the most during the announcement was that the titular short story started as a Love-Live fanfiction. I started reading the novel when the J-Novel club released different parts of the three short stories weekly before the full book came out. Before I began reading the weekly releases, I thought the stories were going to scream "moe" and filled with the kind of stuff I saw in some sci-fi anime with cute characters.
Wow, I was wrong about my predictions for this story collection. The stories were anything but ordinary sci-fi. Each story was bizarre but in a good way. My favorite mash-up in the story was the Evo Gals one which combined evolution with gacha games. Surprisingly both of those things mix well. Reading about the idol activities done in the title story was macabre but somewhat funny to those who don't mind dark humor. Reading about space whale mating and using the whale's body as a spaceship in Dark Seiyuu was amusing.
The author and the translator both do an excellent job of maintaining the right balance of describing objects and the characters' actions without being too convoluted. The way the destruction of the Earth in Dark Seiyuu when gravity ceases was vivid and took my breath away. So was the brain removal procedure featured in Last and First Idol. I can feel my eyeballs and brain popping out of my head.
After I finished reading the first time, I purchased the ebook version to read again. Reading the stories the second time made me appreciate the stories more since I gain a better grasp of the scientific terms mentioned in the stories. Even when I reread the book, I still feel the wonder I've experienced the first time.
I highly recommend buying this book and reading it multiple times.
