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The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 8
The best of the year's Science Fiction and Fantasy stories as selected by the multiple award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan. The series moves to its new publishing home, Solaris, with this eighth annual volume of the celebrated and popular series.
Table of Content
"Some Desperado" by Joe Abercrombie
"Zero for Conduct" by Greg Egan
"Effigy Nights" by Yoon Ha Lee
"Rosary and Goldenstar" by Geoff Ryman
"The Sleeper and the Spindle" by Neil Gaiman
"Cave and Julia" by M. John Harrison
"The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest" by M Bennardo
"Water" by Ramez Naam
"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang
"The Ink Readers of Doi Saket" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
"Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls" by Richard Parks
"Rag and Bone" by Priya Sharma
"The Book Seller" by Lavie Tidhar
"The Sun and I" by K J Parker
"The Promise of Space" by James Patrick Kelly
"The Master Conjurer" by Charlie Jane Anders
"The Pilgrim and the Angel" by E. Lily Yu
"Entangled" by Ian R Macleod
"Fade to Gold" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
"Selkies Stories are for Losers" by Sofia Samatar
"In Metal, In Bone" by An Owomoyela
"Kormack the Lucky" by Eleanor Arnason
"Sing" by Karin Tidbeck
"Social Services" by Madeline Ashby
"The Road of Needles" by Caitlín R Kiernan
"Mystic Falls" by Robert Reed
"The Queen of Night’s Aria" by Ian McDonald
"The Irish Astronaut" by Val Nolan
Table of Content
"Some Desperado" by Joe Abercrombie
"Zero for Conduct" by Greg Egan
"Effigy Nights" by Yoon Ha Lee
"Rosary and Goldenstar" by Geoff Ryman
"The Sleeper and the Spindle" by Neil Gaiman
"Cave and Julia" by M. John Harrison
"The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest" by M Bennardo
"Water" by Ramez Naam
"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang
"The Ink Readers of Doi Saket" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
"Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls" by Richard Parks
"Rag and Bone" by Priya Sharma
"The Book Seller" by Lavie Tidhar
"The Sun and I" by K J Parker
"The Promise of Space" by James Patrick Kelly
"The Master Conjurer" by Charlie Jane Anders
"The Pilgrim and the Angel" by E. Lily Yu
"Entangled" by Ian R Macleod
"Fade to Gold" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
"Selkies Stories are for Losers" by Sofia Samatar
"In Metal, In Bone" by An Owomoyela
"Kormack the Lucky" by Eleanor Arnason
"Sing" by Karin Tidbeck
"Social Services" by Madeline Ashby
"The Road of Needles" by Caitlín R Kiernan
"Mystic Falls" by Robert Reed
"The Queen of Night’s Aria" by Ian McDonald
"The Irish Astronaut" by Val Nolan
618 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
December 26, 2014
I got a review copy of this from the publisher and accidentally back-burnered it for a bit, but what a pleasure this compilation has been to read! Only an editor like Jonathan Strahan could ride the newest waves of science fiction and fantasy, following threads of new settings (southeast Asia and Iceland), new trends (increasing AI and post-human topics), and still find so much variety both in story content and author background. This is an impressive collection, most of which I had not come across. Highly recommended.
My favorite stories were:
“The Sleeper and the Spindle” by Neil Gaiman
"Cave and Julia" by M. John Harrison
“The Promise of Space” by James Patrick Kelly
“Sing” by Karin Tidbeck
I have brief impressions of each story if you click through (not really spoilers)
My favorite stories were:
“The Sleeper and the Spindle” by Neil Gaiman
"Cave and Julia" by M. John Harrison
“The Promise of Space” by James Patrick Kelly
“Sing” by Karin Tidbeck
I have brief impressions of each story if you click through (not really spoilers)
July 24, 2014
5 Stars - it might be impossible to love every story equally, in a collection this huge and diverse - but you're not going to find a better best-of collection for the genre this year. Full of must-reads.
Introduction, Jonathan Strahan
In his introduction, Strahan states his editorial goal is to fall somewhere between well-known SF editors Judith Merrill and David Hartwell. He perceives the former as being known for pushing the boundaries of genre and blurring the lines between SF and mainstream fiction; and says that Hartwell's selections reinforced the traditional ideas of what SF as a genre is. Strahan then states: "I have restricted this book to stories that I believe are definitely SF or fantasy in some way." That's all well and good... but somewhat ironic, considering that...
**** “Some Desperado”, Joe Abercrombie (Dangerous Women)
...this story, lacking a greater context is neither sci-fi nor fantasy. It is 100% Western. A bad-ass but desperate bank robber is forced into a showdown with her former compatriots in a dusty ghost town. It's an excellent story, which does a great job of balancing extreme violence with sensitivity. [In that greater context; the main character here is the protagonist of Abercrombie's 'Red Country'; which I have yet to read, but it is definitely set in a fantasy world.] And I definitely plan on reading it.
**** “Zero for Conduct”, Greg Egan (Twelve Tomorrows)
My criticism here was that the story is a bit unrealistically upbeat (in reality, the protagonist would likely have been be arrested for terrorism for accidentally blowing something up), and that the tech portrayed is just barely futuristic. However, then I learned that the concept of the anthology this was written for (published by MIT) was to utilize current and near-future technology in an optimistic story. This certainly does that, and does it excellently. A teenage Afghan refugee in Iran goes through difficulties to do independent research, and makes a breakthrough that she plans on using to help her family financially.
***** “Effigy Nights”, Yoon Ha Lee (Clarkesworld)
This one is just lovely. A dreamlike city of magical words is under attack by a vicious general. To defend the city, the Warden uses stories of past heroes, brought to (temporary) life through magic to protect their home. On surface level, this is a beautifully realized SF story of conflict - but it's also an ode to the abiding value of the written word; and how there are some things which should never be sacrificed.
** “Rosary and Goldenstar”, Geoff Ryman (F&SF)
Hmm. I loved Ryman's 'Air,' and very much expected to love this. But - I didn't. This is precisely the sort of use of historical and fictional characters that just rubs me the wrong way. Shakespeare, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Tycho Brahe, etc, get together to discuss the stars. There's something about how poetry can be more accurate than math. It just didn't do it for me.
***** “The Sleeper and the Spindle”, Neil Gaiman (Rags and Bones)
Yes, yes.. I'm sure you've read many, many retellings of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. If you're like me, you may even have read retelling that mesh both stories into one, as in this tale. But you've never read quite this take on either story, I guarantee it. And it's quite lovely and powerful.
***** “Cave and Julia”, M. John Harrison (Kindle Singles)
In Autotelia, a setting that reminded me, perhaps, of an alternate Turkey, a journalist forms an odd relationship with a fading celebrity who was suspected of killing her young brother, when she was a girl. I wanted just a tiny bit more conclusiveness to this piece, but the writing is just fantastic - conjuring a perfect mix of grounded reality and dreamlike occurrences. I believe that this is the first story I've read by Harrison, and clearly, I've been missing something. (I've just ordered two of his books...)
**** “The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest”, M Bennardo (Lightspeed)
I got a feeling here of 'James Fenimore Cooper meets Lovecraft.' A fur trapper, mourning the death of his Native wife, travels West alone, into unknown territory. He encounters monstrous, vicious wildlife - but also makes a human connection that may enable him to turn back toward life.
*** “Water”, Ramez Naam (An Aura of Familiarity)
A vision of a near future where advertising is beamed straight into our brains (unless, of course, you're in the lucky 1% who can afford the ad-free software), and the stock market is controlled by AIs. A plot to take down the stock of one company allows a competitor to grab the opportunity. It was OK, but I didn't really feel that the ideas were new, and the story felt a bit shoehorned-in, in service to the concept.
***** “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, Ted Chiang (Subterranean)
Almost more an essay than a story; this is Chiang's thoughtful response to those who bemoan the advent of new technologies, saying that the advent of the Internet and data storage means that we don't rely on our memories the way we used to.
Chiang posits a near-future analog of our scenario: a new technology called Remem which 'hyperlinks' recordings from our 'lifelogs' whenever we query it, or whenever an appropriate moment arises. The tech may mean that, with constant access to the 'truth' of our past, we can no longer adjust our memory of that past to fit in with our self-created life narratives. This is contrasted with a situation in which a tribal society with a tradition of oral history encounters and must come to grips with the new-to-them technology of writing.
Beautiful, and thought-provoking - as I've come to expect from Chiang.
*** “The Ink Readers of Doi Saket”, Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Tor.com)
An irreverent tale of a festival of wishes; and what may or may not happen to make those wishes come true. It had some good elements, but overall I didn't find the Thai setting convincing, and the tone felt like a mainstream writer trying his hand at a fantastic tale. (From his bio, it doesn't seem that he does write mainstream fiction; but that was my impression.) Mostly, I think his particular brand of satirical humor just isn't for me - it probably will be more to others' taste.
**** “Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls”, Richard Parks (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
A journey into the underworld, with a Buddhist flavor. A young boy cannot summon up any enthusiasm for the games of his peers. Instead, he finds his attention drawn by a dry well outside the borders of his village, and a mysterious song that no one else can perceive. A romantic and tragic tale.
***** “Rag and Bone”, Priya Sharma (Tor.com)
Oh, this one is creepy. Think: Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go' meets Thompson's 'Divided Kingdom' in a Dickensian alternate England. A bit of a steampunk feel to it (think George Mann's 'Affinity Bridge') - minus the steam.
But it's also a wonderful story in which humanity and compassion come to the fore, even in the face of complete and utter callousness. It illustrates both the best and the worst that people are capable of. I hope to read more from Sharma in the future.
**** “The Book Seller”, Lavie Tidhar (Interzone)
An update of C.L. Moore's 'Shambleau,' which features an elderly book seller, obsessed with collecting Hebrew-language pulp novels, whose own life takes a turn into the territory covered by his favorite stories when he saves a young woman from the anger of a mob. She's infected by a bio-tech virus which has made her a data vampire. This is good - very good, even - but the original 'Shambleau' is one of my favorite stories, and this isn't quite *that* good.
**** “The Sun and I”, K J Parker (Subterranean)
I really enjoy KJ Parker's style. This is a fun and irony-filled tale of a group of dissipated young men who decide to start a new religion as a way to jump-start their cash flow. However, when the scheme succeeds past their wildest dreams, the joke might end up being on them - or on the world at large.
*** “The Promise of Space”, James Patrick Kelly (Clarkesworld)
A woman deals with the collateral damage that's been a side effect of her astronaut husband's missions. A deftly handled exploration of grief and anger. I assume the title is an intentional reference to Arthur C. Clarke's optimistic non-fiction work of the same name.
*** “The Master Conjurer”, Charlie Jane Anders (Lightspeed)
Here, Anders gives us an alternate reality where spells work - but always have unpredictable and negative side effects. When a rumor gets out that an ordinary guy has successfully completed a spell with no ill effects, he achieves local celebrity - to his consternation. A fun little story.
*** “The Pilgrim and the Angel”, E. Lily Yu (McSweeney’s 45)
An Egyptian shopkeeper is granted a magic carpet ride to visit his son in America. He reminds the kid to call home every so often. Not bad, but not one that'll stick in my mind forever, either.
**** “Entangled”, Ian R Macleod (Asimov’s)
A nice exploration of guilt and responsibility, from the point of view of a disabled woman - a brain injury has made her immune to the virus that has rendered nearly all of humanity telepathic, and changed society in major ways.
*** “Fade to Gold”, Benjanun Sriduangkaew (End of the Road)
A story of trust and tragedy. Set in Thailand (and doing a far better job of it than the other 'Thai' story in this anthology, the tale brings folklore of the Penanggalan into a war-torn setting, where refugees journey toward homes that they hope are still there.
*** “Selkie Stories are for Losers”, Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons)
A YA story, which does a nice job of letting elements remain implied and ambiguous. Two teen girls, both growing up without their mothers, meet at their waitressing jobs, and bond. Selkie stories usually deal with the tragedy of the selkie herself, and her bondage. But here, Samatar asks, "What about those who are left behind?"
**** “In Metal, In Bone”, An Owomoyela (Eclipse Online)
In the midst of some African civil war, a man with the psychic ability to 'read' objects by touching them is recruited to help identify the war dead by handling their bones. He develops a friendship with the foreign worker, Alvarez, who is there to help with the task. Beautifully written - I've read one other story by Owomoyela, and am very favorably impressed by both.
*** “Kormak the Lucky”, Eleanor Arnason (F&SF)
A story that reads just like something out of the Mabinogion, or a Scandinavian edda... Indeed, it features Egil, of 'Egil's Saga,' although the main character is an Irish slave who, among many other adventures, has to fetch someone from Faerie, Under the Hill. Arnason does an impressive job of writing a story that does not adhere to the conventions of modern storytelling; but is still entertaining to a modern reader.
***** “Sing”, Karin Tidbeck (Tor.com)
Tidbeck is definitely an author to watch out for - she deserves recognition. I loved her collection, 'Jagannath,' and this is another deftly told tale. A tailor, disabled and shunned by her community, meets an off-world man who looks at her without the condemnation she is used to from her own people. She is attracted to the vision he offers her of a wider world. And he, in turn, appreciates her. But there is a secret that the people of her world do not speak of. The story captures real complexity of emotion.
**** “Social Services”, Madeline Ashby (An Aura of Familiarity)
Absolutely a horror story. A future social worker, among her many house calls to check up on abused and at-risk children, is sent out to a creepy house in an abandoned luxury development. What she encounters there may be far beyond what her training has prepared her for. Don't read this if you're planning on going into social work!
**** “The Road of Needles”, Caitlín R Kiernan (Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales)
Based on French folklorist Paul Delarue's version of the 'Red Riding Hood' story (The Grandmother's Tale.) This gives the fable a science fiction setting, with a protagonist whose dangerous job often keeps her away from her wife and daughter. She's the sole human staff member on cargo trains through space, assigned to be the troubleshooter if anything goes wrong. And, on this mission, something does go wrong... At times, this feels slightly scattered, but the setting is vivid and the character memorable.
*** “Mystic Falls”, Robert Reed (Clarkesworld)
An interesting take on AI, with shades of The Matrix or Dark City. Suddenly, there's a woman whom everyone on the planet feels like they know, or at least know of... maybe she's a minor celebrity, maybe someone they met in passing...? But clearly, she cannot be a real person. Is her existence a threat? And if so, what kind?
*** “The Queen of Night’s Aria”, Ian McDonald (Old Mars)
An aging tenor accepts a military tour (entertain the troops!) in order to pay off his debts - and finds himself caught in the crossfire of an alien war. It's clearly supposed to have a twist ending, but I saw it coming a mile away. Kind of fun, but not my favorite in the collection.
**** “The Irish Astronaut”, Val Nolan (Electric Velocipede)
Not a science-fiction story at all, but one that all science fiction fans should be able to appreciate. A NASA astronaut who missed his chance to command a mission goes to Ireland to fulfill the last wish of a colleague and friend who died in the line of duty. Sad and sweet; full of both large tragedies and smaller ironies. Highly recommended.
Introduction, Jonathan Strahan
In his introduction, Strahan states his editorial goal is to fall somewhere between well-known SF editors Judith Merrill and David Hartwell. He perceives the former as being known for pushing the boundaries of genre and blurring the lines between SF and mainstream fiction; and says that Hartwell's selections reinforced the traditional ideas of what SF as a genre is. Strahan then states: "I have restricted this book to stories that I believe are definitely SF or fantasy in some way." That's all well and good... but somewhat ironic, considering that...
**** “Some Desperado”, Joe Abercrombie (Dangerous Women)
...this story, lacking a greater context is neither sci-fi nor fantasy. It is 100% Western. A bad-ass but desperate bank robber is forced into a showdown with her former compatriots in a dusty ghost town. It's an excellent story, which does a great job of balancing extreme violence with sensitivity. [In that greater context; the main character here is the protagonist of Abercrombie's 'Red Country'; which I have yet to read, but it is definitely set in a fantasy world.] And I definitely plan on reading it.
**** “Zero for Conduct”, Greg Egan (Twelve Tomorrows)
My criticism here was that the story is a bit unrealistically upbeat (in reality, the protagonist would likely have been be arrested for terrorism for accidentally blowing something up), and that the tech portrayed is just barely futuristic. However, then I learned that the concept of the anthology this was written for (published by MIT) was to utilize current and near-future technology in an optimistic story. This certainly does that, and does it excellently. A teenage Afghan refugee in Iran goes through difficulties to do independent research, and makes a breakthrough that she plans on using to help her family financially.
***** “Effigy Nights”, Yoon Ha Lee (Clarkesworld)
This one is just lovely. A dreamlike city of magical words is under attack by a vicious general. To defend the city, the Warden uses stories of past heroes, brought to (temporary) life through magic to protect their home. On surface level, this is a beautifully realized SF story of conflict - but it's also an ode to the abiding value of the written word; and how there are some things which should never be sacrificed.
** “Rosary and Goldenstar”, Geoff Ryman (F&SF)
Hmm. I loved Ryman's 'Air,' and very much expected to love this. But - I didn't. This is precisely the sort of use of historical and fictional characters that just rubs me the wrong way. Shakespeare, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Tycho Brahe, etc, get together to discuss the stars. There's something about how poetry can be more accurate than math. It just didn't do it for me.
***** “The Sleeper and the Spindle”, Neil Gaiman (Rags and Bones)
Yes, yes.. I'm sure you've read many, many retellings of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. If you're like me, you may even have read retelling that mesh both stories into one, as in this tale. But you've never read quite this take on either story, I guarantee it. And it's quite lovely and powerful.
***** “Cave and Julia”, M. John Harrison (Kindle Singles)
In Autotelia, a setting that reminded me, perhaps, of an alternate Turkey, a journalist forms an odd relationship with a fading celebrity who was suspected of killing her young brother, when she was a girl. I wanted just a tiny bit more conclusiveness to this piece, but the writing is just fantastic - conjuring a perfect mix of grounded reality and dreamlike occurrences. I believe that this is the first story I've read by Harrison, and clearly, I've been missing something. (I've just ordered two of his books...)
**** “The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest”, M Bennardo (Lightspeed)
I got a feeling here of 'James Fenimore Cooper meets Lovecraft.' A fur trapper, mourning the death of his Native wife, travels West alone, into unknown territory. He encounters monstrous, vicious wildlife - but also makes a human connection that may enable him to turn back toward life.
*** “Water”, Ramez Naam (An Aura of Familiarity)
A vision of a near future where advertising is beamed straight into our brains (unless, of course, you're in the lucky 1% who can afford the ad-free software), and the stock market is controlled by AIs. A plot to take down the stock of one company allows a competitor to grab the opportunity. It was OK, but I didn't really feel that the ideas were new, and the story felt a bit shoehorned-in, in service to the concept.
***** “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, Ted Chiang (Subterranean)
Almost more an essay than a story; this is Chiang's thoughtful response to those who bemoan the advent of new technologies, saying that the advent of the Internet and data storage means that we don't rely on our memories the way we used to.
Chiang posits a near-future analog of our scenario: a new technology called Remem which 'hyperlinks' recordings from our 'lifelogs' whenever we query it, or whenever an appropriate moment arises. The tech may mean that, with constant access to the 'truth' of our past, we can no longer adjust our memory of that past to fit in with our self-created life narratives. This is contrasted with a situation in which a tribal society with a tradition of oral history encounters and must come to grips with the new-to-them technology of writing.
Beautiful, and thought-provoking - as I've come to expect from Chiang.
*** “The Ink Readers of Doi Saket”, Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Tor.com)
An irreverent tale of a festival of wishes; and what may or may not happen to make those wishes come true. It had some good elements, but overall I didn't find the Thai setting convincing, and the tone felt like a mainstream writer trying his hand at a fantastic tale. (From his bio, it doesn't seem that he does write mainstream fiction; but that was my impression.) Mostly, I think his particular brand of satirical humor just isn't for me - it probably will be more to others' taste.
**** “Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls”, Richard Parks (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
A journey into the underworld, with a Buddhist flavor. A young boy cannot summon up any enthusiasm for the games of his peers. Instead, he finds his attention drawn by a dry well outside the borders of his village, and a mysterious song that no one else can perceive. A romantic and tragic tale.
***** “Rag and Bone”, Priya Sharma (Tor.com)
Oh, this one is creepy. Think: Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go' meets Thompson's 'Divided Kingdom' in a Dickensian alternate England. A bit of a steampunk feel to it (think George Mann's 'Affinity Bridge') - minus the steam.
But it's also a wonderful story in which humanity and compassion come to the fore, even in the face of complete and utter callousness. It illustrates both the best and the worst that people are capable of. I hope to read more from Sharma in the future.
**** “The Book Seller”, Lavie Tidhar (Interzone)
An update of C.L. Moore's 'Shambleau,' which features an elderly book seller, obsessed with collecting Hebrew-language pulp novels, whose own life takes a turn into the territory covered by his favorite stories when he saves a young woman from the anger of a mob. She's infected by a bio-tech virus which has made her a data vampire. This is good - very good, even - but the original 'Shambleau' is one of my favorite stories, and this isn't quite *that* good.
**** “The Sun and I”, K J Parker (Subterranean)
I really enjoy KJ Parker's style. This is a fun and irony-filled tale of a group of dissipated young men who decide to start a new religion as a way to jump-start their cash flow. However, when the scheme succeeds past their wildest dreams, the joke might end up being on them - or on the world at large.
*** “The Promise of Space”, James Patrick Kelly (Clarkesworld)
A woman deals with the collateral damage that's been a side effect of her astronaut husband's missions. A deftly handled exploration of grief and anger. I assume the title is an intentional reference to Arthur C. Clarke's optimistic non-fiction work of the same name.
*** “The Master Conjurer”, Charlie Jane Anders (Lightspeed)
Here, Anders gives us an alternate reality where spells work - but always have unpredictable and negative side effects. When a rumor gets out that an ordinary guy has successfully completed a spell with no ill effects, he achieves local celebrity - to his consternation. A fun little story.
*** “The Pilgrim and the Angel”, E. Lily Yu (McSweeney’s 45)
An Egyptian shopkeeper is granted a magic carpet ride to visit his son in America. He reminds the kid to call home every so often. Not bad, but not one that'll stick in my mind forever, either.
**** “Entangled”, Ian R Macleod (Asimov’s)
A nice exploration of guilt and responsibility, from the point of view of a disabled woman - a brain injury has made her immune to the virus that has rendered nearly all of humanity telepathic, and changed society in major ways.
*** “Fade to Gold”, Benjanun Sriduangkaew (End of the Road)
A story of trust and tragedy. Set in Thailand (and doing a far better job of it than the other 'Thai' story in this anthology, the tale brings folklore of the Penanggalan into a war-torn setting, where refugees journey toward homes that they hope are still there.
*** “Selkie Stories are for Losers”, Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons)
A YA story, which does a nice job of letting elements remain implied and ambiguous. Two teen girls, both growing up without their mothers, meet at their waitressing jobs, and bond. Selkie stories usually deal with the tragedy of the selkie herself, and her bondage. But here, Samatar asks, "What about those who are left behind?"
**** “In Metal, In Bone”, An Owomoyela (Eclipse Online)
In the midst of some African civil war, a man with the psychic ability to 'read' objects by touching them is recruited to help identify the war dead by handling their bones. He develops a friendship with the foreign worker, Alvarez, who is there to help with the task. Beautifully written - I've read one other story by Owomoyela, and am very favorably impressed by both.
*** “Kormak the Lucky”, Eleanor Arnason (F&SF)
A story that reads just like something out of the Mabinogion, or a Scandinavian edda... Indeed, it features Egil, of 'Egil's Saga,' although the main character is an Irish slave who, among many other adventures, has to fetch someone from Faerie, Under the Hill. Arnason does an impressive job of writing a story that does not adhere to the conventions of modern storytelling; but is still entertaining to a modern reader.
***** “Sing”, Karin Tidbeck (Tor.com)
Tidbeck is definitely an author to watch out for - she deserves recognition. I loved her collection, 'Jagannath,' and this is another deftly told tale. A tailor, disabled and shunned by her community, meets an off-world man who looks at her without the condemnation she is used to from her own people. She is attracted to the vision he offers her of a wider world. And he, in turn, appreciates her. But there is a secret that the people of her world do not speak of. The story captures real complexity of emotion.
**** “Social Services”, Madeline Ashby (An Aura of Familiarity)
Absolutely a horror story. A future social worker, among her many house calls to check up on abused and at-risk children, is sent out to a creepy house in an abandoned luxury development. What she encounters there may be far beyond what her training has prepared her for. Don't read this if you're planning on going into social work!
**** “The Road of Needles”, Caitlín R Kiernan (Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales)
Based on French folklorist Paul Delarue's version of the 'Red Riding Hood' story (The Grandmother's Tale.) This gives the fable a science fiction setting, with a protagonist whose dangerous job often keeps her away from her wife and daughter. She's the sole human staff member on cargo trains through space, assigned to be the troubleshooter if anything goes wrong. And, on this mission, something does go wrong... At times, this feels slightly scattered, but the setting is vivid and the character memorable.
*** “Mystic Falls”, Robert Reed (Clarkesworld)
An interesting take on AI, with shades of The Matrix or Dark City. Suddenly, there's a woman whom everyone on the planet feels like they know, or at least know of... maybe she's a minor celebrity, maybe someone they met in passing...? But clearly, she cannot be a real person. Is her existence a threat? And if so, what kind?
*** “The Queen of Night’s Aria”, Ian McDonald (Old Mars)
An aging tenor accepts a military tour (entertain the troops!) in order to pay off his debts - and finds himself caught in the crossfire of an alien war. It's clearly supposed to have a twist ending, but I saw it coming a mile away. Kind of fun, but not my favorite in the collection.
**** “The Irish Astronaut”, Val Nolan (Electric Velocipede)
Not a science-fiction story at all, but one that all science fiction fans should be able to appreciate. A NASA astronaut who missed his chance to command a mission goes to Ireland to fulfill the last wish of a colleague and friend who died in the line of duty. Sad and sweet; full of both large tragedies and smaller ironies. Highly recommended.
March 31, 2014
I remember a time when, unless you were interested in "Sunday Review"-type books, the only information available to a prospective reader was the cover, the blurb, and maybe a few heavily excerpted praises slapped carelessly onto the covers. My solution was anthologies: short story collections gave me a low-risk, high-reward way of expanding my reading horizons, and I've found several favourite authors in "Year's Best" collections. Even with the availability of online reviews and sample chapters, anthologies still provide a unique and valuable glimpse into the author's concept of denouement, suspense, humour, imagination, and daring. Anthologies challenge me to read outside my narrow subgenres of choice, and looking back, I'm truly impressed by how many exceptional stories I encountered, and now I have a whole list of new authors to explore.
Scifi has long been known as a way of exploring future pitfalls and present injustices, and several of the stories truly shone in this arena. "Water" by Ramez Naam was as spectacular as it was unexpected, a delightfully ironic look at a future in which personal advertising encroaches (even more) directly into our minds. In Naam's world, most people have neural implants to improve cognition, often because your only employment options are "wired or fired." The implants incredibly expensive, so most people are forced to use ad-sponsored versions, meaning that the circuitry can alter dopamine and norepenepherine, whisper subconscious thoughts, and more, all in an effort to get the beleaguered consumer to buy, buy, buy. All is fair in love, war, and advertising, and in a game where every second counts, the competition will stop at nothing, including espionage, to get ahead. The story is gleefully critical and delightfully black-humoured, and the sheer irony of the ending end actually made me laugh. I will definitely seek out more of Mr. Naam's work.
"The Sleeper and the Spindle" by Neil Gaiman was another gem, a twisted fairy tale in which Snow White is pulled into a quest to aid Sleeping Beauty. I'm usually a bit mixed about Gaiman, but I think this story was lovely, and I think its brevity actually improved my appreciation for the story. As usual, Gaiman perfectly captured the fairy-tale tone and managed to produce a delightful, heartwarming, and even somewhat thought-provoking little story.
"The Sun and I" by K. J. Parker was another absolutely terrific high-fantasy jaunt that managed to combine humour with a bit of social commentary. The narrator, Eps, is part of a group of upper-class layabout wastrels are out of cash and up for a scheme. Unfortunately, they'd make for improbable beggars, and in their war-torn world, penniless veterans are practically passe. Then Eps suggests brightly,
One of the most important factors for me in speculative fiction is imagination, and in that respect, I many of the stories definitely delivered. I think my favourite was in "Effigy Nights" by Yoon Ha Lee. When the scifi city of Imulai Mokarengen ("Inkblot of the gods") comes under attack, one of the city's wardens convinces an ex-surgeon-priest to release fabled beings from the city's stories into the streets to protect the city. I loved the creativity and imagination, the idea of the Saint of Guns and other beings trapped within the lines of text, waiting patiently to be released by sharp scissors. The elaborately fanciful concept is a perfect fit for the poetic language and haunting conclusion; while I'm not sure how I would handle an entire novel of such elaborate prose, I think it worked beautifully in the shorter setting.
One of the aspects of the anthology that I really appreciated was the variation in everything from location to ethnicity to gender and sexuality, and I really applaud Strahan for find authors who broke that stereotype. Some of the non-western-centric stories include Greg Egan's "Zero for Conduct" and An Owomoyela's haunting "In Metal, In Bone." There were plenty of other fantastic stories, including Ted Chiang's "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling," which explores how new technologies effect our definition of ourselves and our reality, Lavie Tidhar's imaginative futuristic vampire tale in "The Bookseller," Priya Sharma's twisty "Rag and Bone," and the lyric and creepy "Sing" by Karin Tidbeck. Several of the stories returned to the classics, including "The Ink Readers of Doi Saket" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, a charming story about a Thai village and its annual catch of wishes that are cast out upon the water.
Like any grab-bag, short story collections will necessarily have some stories that appeal and some that don't; they're usually guaranteed to have at least one story that suits each reader and one story that repels them. Some failed to resonate with me, perhaps because I missed the underlying message. To me, some of the stories seemed to be a little lacking in magic; I'm not sure if there's really a good definition of speculative fiction, but I felt that for some of these stories to fit into the definition, "fantasy" and "science fiction" would need to be redefined as "anything that is only slightly off from reality," thereby encompassing essentially all of fiction. However, for me, this anthology was a remarkably good fit; there are a few real gems in the collection, and it left me with a host of new authors to explore. No matter your tastes, if you're a fan of fantasy or science fiction, I would bet that at least one of these stories will leave you enthralled.
~~I received this ebook through NetGalley from the publisher, Solaris Books, in exchange for my honest review.~~
Excerpted from my (egregiously long) review on BookLikes, where I actually do talk about every single story in the collection.
Scifi has long been known as a way of exploring future pitfalls and present injustices, and several of the stories truly shone in this arena. "Water" by Ramez Naam was as spectacular as it was unexpected, a delightfully ironic look at a future in which personal advertising encroaches (even more) directly into our minds. In Naam's world, most people have neural implants to improve cognition, often because your only employment options are "wired or fired." The implants incredibly expensive, so most people are forced to use ad-sponsored versions, meaning that the circuitry can alter dopamine and norepenepherine, whisper subconscious thoughts, and more, all in an effort to get the beleaguered consumer to buy, buy, buy. All is fair in love, war, and advertising, and in a game where every second counts, the competition will stop at nothing, including espionage, to get ahead. The story is gleefully critical and delightfully black-humoured, and the sheer irony of the ending end actually made me laugh. I will definitely seek out more of Mr. Naam's work.
"The Sleeper and the Spindle" by Neil Gaiman was another gem, a twisted fairy tale in which Snow White is pulled into a quest to aid Sleeping Beauty. I'm usually a bit mixed about Gaiman, but I think this story was lovely, and I think its brevity actually improved my appreciation for the story. As usual, Gaiman perfectly captured the fairy-tale tone and managed to produce a delightful, heartwarming, and even somewhat thought-provoking little story.
"The Sun and I" by K. J. Parker was another absolutely terrific high-fantasy jaunt that managed to combine humour with a bit of social commentary. The narrator, Eps, is part of a group of upper-class layabout wastrels are out of cash and up for a scheme. Unfortunately, they'd make for improbable beggars, and in their war-torn world, penniless veterans are practically passe. Then Eps suggests brightly,
"We could always invent God."And so the ruse begins. The group decides to construct a religion whose keystone, naturally, is donating lots and lots of money to the church, but is also
"Tailored precisely to the needs and expectations of the customer. That's where all the old religions screwed up, you see; they weren't planned or custom-fitted, they just sort of grew."All too soon, the scheme is taking on a life of its own. I found Eps to be an extremely entertaining character, and not just because I somehow gave him the voice of Bertie Wooster. The story pokes good-natured fun at several well-known religions, but never crosses into offensiveness. I found "The Sun and I" to be one of the highlights of the collection, and it definitely pushed Parker's Engineer Trilogy up my to-read list.
One of the most important factors for me in speculative fiction is imagination, and in that respect, I many of the stories definitely delivered. I think my favourite was in "Effigy Nights" by Yoon Ha Lee. When the scifi city of Imulai Mokarengen ("Inkblot of the gods") comes under attack, one of the city's wardens convinces an ex-surgeon-priest to release fabled beings from the city's stories into the streets to protect the city. I loved the creativity and imagination, the idea of the Saint of Guns and other beings trapped within the lines of text, waiting patiently to be released by sharp scissors. The elaborately fanciful concept is a perfect fit for the poetic language and haunting conclusion; while I'm not sure how I would handle an entire novel of such elaborate prose, I think it worked beautifully in the shorter setting.
One of the aspects of the anthology that I really appreciated was the variation in everything from location to ethnicity to gender and sexuality, and I really applaud Strahan for find authors who broke that stereotype. Some of the non-western-centric stories include Greg Egan's "Zero for Conduct" and An Owomoyela's haunting "In Metal, In Bone." There were plenty of other fantastic stories, including Ted Chiang's "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling," which explores how new technologies effect our definition of ourselves and our reality, Lavie Tidhar's imaginative futuristic vampire tale in "The Bookseller," Priya Sharma's twisty "Rag and Bone," and the lyric and creepy "Sing" by Karin Tidbeck. Several of the stories returned to the classics, including "The Ink Readers of Doi Saket" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, a charming story about a Thai village and its annual catch of wishes that are cast out upon the water.
Like any grab-bag, short story collections will necessarily have some stories that appeal and some that don't; they're usually guaranteed to have at least one story that suits each reader and one story that repels them. Some failed to resonate with me, perhaps because I missed the underlying message. To me, some of the stories seemed to be a little lacking in magic; I'm not sure if there's really a good definition of speculative fiction, but I felt that for some of these stories to fit into the definition, "fantasy" and "science fiction" would need to be redefined as "anything that is only slightly off from reality," thereby encompassing essentially all of fiction. However, for me, this anthology was a remarkably good fit; there are a few real gems in the collection, and it left me with a host of new authors to explore. No matter your tastes, if you're a fan of fantasy or science fiction, I would bet that at least one of these stories will leave you enthralled.
~~I received this ebook through NetGalley from the publisher, Solaris Books, in exchange for my honest review.~~
Excerpted from my (egregiously long) review on BookLikes, where I actually do talk about every single story in the collection.
December 26, 2017
Parker aplica su cinismo al límite en una de sus mejores historias cortas. Esta vez aplicada a la religión.
Gratis total en https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin...
Gratis total en https://subterraneanpress.com/magazin...
May 1, 2014
It’s nigh impossible to try to keep up with everything published in the speculative fiction field these days. This is where “Year’s Best” anthologies come in very useful. Absolutely, each editor is going to have a different idea of what consititutes “best”, dependent upon personal interest and worldviews, but any of the annual anthologies are a damn good place to begin looking for an idea of the shape of the speculative fiction field in any given year.
In the introduction to volume eight of “The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year”, Johnathan Strahan expresses a desire to only include stories that are absolutely speculative in nature. The resultant stories in this volume reflect that wish admirably.
Many of the individual stories in this volume didn’t grab me, or simply weren’t for me (see the personal interest and worldview note above). However, there were some absolutely remarkable stories included.
The first standout for me was Yoon-Ha Lee’s “Effigy Nights”. Absolutely gorgeous language, and a truly unique fantasy world. There is a feeling of this being only a small glimpse into a much greater, and vastly enchanting world.
Proving that speculative fiction can contain much quieter elements, M. John Harrison’s “Cave and Julia” shows the reader a strange and haunted world, with memorable characters and sparsely beautiful language.
Possibly the standout story for me was “Water” by Ramez Naam. Science fiction works here as a warning, extrapolating into what seems like an all too possible future for advertising. Keeps you thinking long after you’ve finished reading this one.
Ted Chiang’s “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling” presents a world in which digital memory is real – Remem allows anyone to record their life, to be able to go back and rewatch memories any time they wish. Paralleling this story is another one, where written language is introduced into a culture previously only possessing an oral tradition. Extremely clever and engaging storytelling.
A darker world is presented in Priya Sharma’s “Rag and Bone”, evoking both Victorian literature with a steampunk edge. There is something horribly fascinating about the world Sharma presents, everything edged with hidden menace.
Lavie Tidhar’s “The Book Seller” will appeal to many writers and readers, evoking a love of science fiction with a love of books. Absolutely gorgeous science fiction.
Several of the stories held deep emotional impact. James Patrick Kelly’s “The Promise of Space” is a quiet and sorrowful tale of the reality of space travel. Sofia Samatar’s “Selkie Stories are for Losers” translates mythology into reality. Both of these stories, in particular, lingered emotionally for me long after I had finished reading.
Karen Tidback’s “Sing” drew the reader into a fascinating science fictional world – this world feels truly novel, the characters who inhabit it finely drawn. This is science fiction of wonder at its best.
The final story which really stood out for me was Caitlin R Kiernan’s “The Road of Needles.” I will confess to being a long time fan of Kiernan’s fiction, and this story will be no disappointment to anyone who loves her way with words and imagery. Probably among her best.
Overall, this volume presents a varied collection of what truly feels like the best science fiction and fantasy for the year. Not all of the stories appealed to me, but those that did, truly did. Definitely recommended collection, especially if (like pretty much everyone) you don’t have the time to keep up with all of the short fiction published in the year.
In the introduction to volume eight of “The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year”, Johnathan Strahan expresses a desire to only include stories that are absolutely speculative in nature. The resultant stories in this volume reflect that wish admirably.
Many of the individual stories in this volume didn’t grab me, or simply weren’t for me (see the personal interest and worldview note above). However, there were some absolutely remarkable stories included.
The first standout for me was Yoon-Ha Lee’s “Effigy Nights”. Absolutely gorgeous language, and a truly unique fantasy world. There is a feeling of this being only a small glimpse into a much greater, and vastly enchanting world.
Proving that speculative fiction can contain much quieter elements, M. John Harrison’s “Cave and Julia” shows the reader a strange and haunted world, with memorable characters and sparsely beautiful language.
Possibly the standout story for me was “Water” by Ramez Naam. Science fiction works here as a warning, extrapolating into what seems like an all too possible future for advertising. Keeps you thinking long after you’ve finished reading this one.
Ted Chiang’s “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling” presents a world in which digital memory is real – Remem allows anyone to record their life, to be able to go back and rewatch memories any time they wish. Paralleling this story is another one, where written language is introduced into a culture previously only possessing an oral tradition. Extremely clever and engaging storytelling.
A darker world is presented in Priya Sharma’s “Rag and Bone”, evoking both Victorian literature with a steampunk edge. There is something horribly fascinating about the world Sharma presents, everything edged with hidden menace.
Lavie Tidhar’s “The Book Seller” will appeal to many writers and readers, evoking a love of science fiction with a love of books. Absolutely gorgeous science fiction.
Several of the stories held deep emotional impact. James Patrick Kelly’s “The Promise of Space” is a quiet and sorrowful tale of the reality of space travel. Sofia Samatar’s “Selkie Stories are for Losers” translates mythology into reality. Both of these stories, in particular, lingered emotionally for me long after I had finished reading.
Karen Tidback’s “Sing” drew the reader into a fascinating science fictional world – this world feels truly novel, the characters who inhabit it finely drawn. This is science fiction of wonder at its best.
The final story which really stood out for me was Caitlin R Kiernan’s “The Road of Needles.” I will confess to being a long time fan of Kiernan’s fiction, and this story will be no disappointment to anyone who loves her way with words and imagery. Probably among her best.
Overall, this volume presents a varied collection of what truly feels like the best science fiction and fantasy for the year. Not all of the stories appealed to me, but those that did, truly did. Definitely recommended collection, especially if (like pretty much everyone) you don’t have the time to keep up with all of the short fiction published in the year.
June 1, 2017
I made it! Praise be! I feel a bit bad starting a review like that but, the thing is, I don't read many short story collections, and this one was a bit of a shock to the system. I basically bought it because it had a Ted Chiang story in it, and I loved Stories of Your Life and Others, and also because although I really wanted to move on from Royal Assassin to Assassin's Quest immediately, I was worried that over 1500 pages of Robin Hobb in one go would be too much Robin Hobb, even for me, even though she is incredible and I love everything she writes with the fire of a thousand suns.
Anyway, I think this is a very good collection of very good stories. They're nicely varied, running the whole gamut of ridiculous space opera, kind of alternate history, fairytale fantasy, magic, philosophical future-tech, and most things in between. I'll do a proper breakdown of the stories below because I do think they deserve it, but I don't remember there being any one of them I didn't enjoy in its own way. Some were better than other, some I gelled with more than most, a few I found unnecessarily florid or a bit silly, but basically this is a collection of good things. I just wish there hadn't been quite so many of them. Twenty-eight stories by different authors required a lot of staying power and I found it hard to keep going because I had to reset my expectations for each one, and that meant I had a tendency to pause between each for a day or so before diving back in for more. I'm just not sure I'm built for short stories. And, let's face it, none of them can actually hold a candle to Assassin's Quest which I have already begun to devour at a frightening pace.
The broad brushstrokes: 28 stories, 12 basically sci fi, 14 basically fantasy, and a couple of weird ones. Fairly good at having things written not by white men. Quite a lot of the fantasy were fairytale/mythology-based stories, which got a bit samey, but I guess it's hard to do convincing stories without much space for world-building without resorting to Tolkien tropes.
Favourites were probably: Rosary and Goldenstar by Geoff Ryman; The Sun and I by K. J. Parker, who is actually Tom Holt, The Queen of Night's Aria by Ian McDonald. Probably also The Herons of Mer de l'Ouest by M Bennardo and Water by Ramez Naam.
Ok, let's do this thing.
Some Desperado, by Joe Abercrombie. I've later found that this is some kind of character spin-off from his First Law series, and it's a fun little Western with guntoting, outlaws, etc. Cool female lead, kept me guessing, would maybe draw me in to reading more of his stuff, but not sure. The one problem I had with it is that, taken entirely on its own, there is nothing to make it science fiction or fantasy. It's a Western. The only tiny clue is maybe that they don't have guns, and they don't use dollars as currency. But there's no tech, no magic, nothing. This struck me as such a weird decision on Jonathan Strahan's part - maybe as part of the series it's clearer, but if you must include it, don't put it first! But anyway, whatever.
Zero for Conduct by Greg Egan. Near future sci fi with interesting sciencey stuff that felt believably researched, an awesome Muslim female lead, nicely down-to-earth setting, fast-paced story. I really liked it.
Effigy Nights by Yoon Ha Lee. This is a great story, well-shaped and structured, with lovely nods to a fairytale style while also being mostly sci-fi. Some of the description is a bit silly for me - I have a bee in my bonnet about using the short story form to just make up ludicrous concepts that never need to be fleshed out because you only have 30 pages. It just smacks of lazy world-building and there's a line between adding colour and taking advantage. This was a bit too close to the line at the beginning, but the plot was exciting enough to cut through that.
Rosary and Goldenstar by Geoff Ryman. Seriously good. Not to give too much away, a sort-of alternate Elizabethan history featuring John Dee and a certain world-famous playwright talking philosophy, science, astronomy, poetry, all heavily lost in translation with some Danes. Loved it, right up my alley. Will definitely be looking up more of Ryman's stuff.
The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman. Now its own graphic novel. I'm still a bit ambivalent about Neil Gaiman, but this was classic him - a retelling of a fairytale with some twists and turns, gorgeous writing and a darn sight more feminist than the original. No complaints from me.
Cave and Julia by M. John Harrison. Um, I actually have no memory of this story. I had to practically reread it to remember it at all. It's not...bad. It's just not very memorable, sorry. It's sort of about an island with strange possibly prehistoric caves and tunnels under the ground, where a boy died.
The Herons of Mer de l'Ouest by M Bennardo. Man, this is a good one. Verging on horror (not my thing) but mostly staying the right side of too creepy. Does really well at gradually getting more and more tense and sinister. Great stuff.
Water by Ramez Naam. The first of several stories that do a sort of psychological thought experiment on future technology. What if we all had brain implants that allowed us to communicate constantly with the internet of things? And that the rich could pay to turn off sensory advertising, but the poor had to put up with everything trying to seem absolutely essential and the best thing ever all the time? Disturbingly plausible.
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang. I basically bought this book because it had a Ted Chiang story in it, and luckily it didn't disappoint. Another thought experiment about how spoken vs written language affects what and how we remember, and how outsourcing memory to computer-saved film of our lives can reveal unwelcome 'truths'. I think this is the longest story in the collection, and it's really good.
The Ink Readers of Doi Saket by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Definitely one of the weirder ones, again with a kind of fairytale/mythological feel. Set in Thailand, about a town that magically 'grants wishes'. Really nicely written and a nice series of twists and turns.
Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls by Richard Parks. Quite similar to the previous one, but set in Japan (I think). A bit like Joanne Harris' Runemarks, if only because it features going underground to something like the Underworld. Not Norse gods though.
Rag and Bone by Priya Sharma. Properly horrible and awesome. A strange alternate London, about 17th-century. Gender non-conforming characters, a hideous upper class who literally use body parts of the poor to stay young and healthy. Really well-written and memorable.
The Book Seller by Lavie Tidhar. An alternate future Israel, with vampire viruses and strange AI implants and lots of really cool world-building. Definitely going to check out more stuff by him.
The Sun and I by K. J. Parker, who it turns out on searching is actually Tom Holt, author of You Don't Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But it Helps (which I enjoyed, and which is hilarious because that's based on the W. S. Gilbert character John Wellington Wells, from The Sorcerer, and this story's title and epigraph is from The Mikado. So clearly a massive G&S fan like me. This was a particularly good story, I thought - about a group of sort of layabout rich kids who decide to invent a god to make money from gullible people, and it all gets a bit out of hand.
The Promise of Space by James Patrick Kelly. One of the shortest stories, and it nearly had me sobbing. Future memory + AI tech meets dementia. Pretty heartbreaking.
The Master Conjurer by Charlie Jane Anders. What if magic were possible, but always had bad consequences for the magic-user? Except for one time...maybe. Nice idea, well-executed, fun twist.
The Pilgrim and the Angel by E. Lily Yu. Another mythology-based story, this time set in Cairo. I enjoyed it more than Cherry Blossoms or the Ink Readers for its simplicity and its humour.
Entangled by Ian R. McLeod. God, this was another one to tug at your heartstrings. Teenage angst meets class privilege meets jackass 'artist'. Very well-written. Definitely one of the most interesting worlds - everyone becoming telepathically intertwined except for a few, including the lead character. Leading to hippy-style communes and people with very little sense of self outside the collective.
Fade to Gold by Benjanun Sriduangkaew. This story plays with horror and mythos without really being either, and it's great. Sort of like The Book Seller, and also not. Really interesting.
Selkie Stories are for Losers by Sofia Samatar. Samatar manages to weave humour and first-person narration and clever mysterious references and a non-linear story together very cleverly. It reminded me of Sophie's World, but less flawed.
In Metal, In Bone by An Owomoyela. I suppose this is some clever allegory about the pointlessness of war. But taken at face value, it's not a bad little story.
Kormak the Lucky by Eleanor Arnason. Another one that's a lot like Runemarks. From Ireland to Iceland to Elfland to the Fey, Kormak is a slave who serves many masters and learns a lot about magic and magical creatures. Nicely-written, captures the mythic feel well, but not much to shout about.
Sing by Karen Tidbeck. I really liked this one. A planet where the different suns cause people not to be able to speak except by singing. Where most creatures live in some kind of parasitic symbiosis. A stranger comes to study algae and gets more than he bargained for. I just thought the writing was really good here.
Social Services by Madeline Ashby. Unexpectedly (and unpleasantly) full horror. Not my thing at all, and I wish I hadn't read it late at night. Probably not very scary at all if you're not a huge wimp like me, though, and clever ideas.
The Road of Needles by Caitlín R. Kiernan. I'm not sure I really got the point of this one - sci fi and a bit horror - kind of cool, but ultimately a bit unsatisfying. Maybe I missed something somewhere along the way.
Mystic Falls by Robert Reed. Sort of a story about the possibility we are all in a simulation. A good example, short but sweet.
The Queen of Night's Aria by Ian McDonald. This one was great! An opera singer and his accompanist try and tour a war zone between humans and aliens on an Mars, which is also inhabited by sentient bats. Actually a really good story with nice characters as well, and doesn't do what you might expect.
The Irish Astronaut by Val Nolan. I would claim that a story about an astronaut going to Ireland is not science fiction. There have been astronauts. Nothing about this story was actually speculative in any way. So it was weird to end with it (like beginning with Some Desperado), and left me with mixed feelings about the whole book to be honest. But it's a reasonably good short story in its own right.
Anyway, I think this is a very good collection of very good stories. They're nicely varied, running the whole gamut of ridiculous space opera, kind of alternate history, fairytale fantasy, magic, philosophical future-tech, and most things in between. I'll do a proper breakdown of the stories below because I do think they deserve it, but I don't remember there being any one of them I didn't enjoy in its own way. Some were better than other, some I gelled with more than most, a few I found unnecessarily florid or a bit silly, but basically this is a collection of good things. I just wish there hadn't been quite so many of them. Twenty-eight stories by different authors required a lot of staying power and I found it hard to keep going because I had to reset my expectations for each one, and that meant I had a tendency to pause between each for a day or so before diving back in for more. I'm just not sure I'm built for short stories. And, let's face it, none of them can actually hold a candle to Assassin's Quest which I have already begun to devour at a frightening pace.
The broad brushstrokes: 28 stories, 12 basically sci fi, 14 basically fantasy, and a couple of weird ones. Fairly good at having things written not by white men. Quite a lot of the fantasy were fairytale/mythology-based stories, which got a bit samey, but I guess it's hard to do convincing stories without much space for world-building without resorting to Tolkien tropes.
Favourites were probably: Rosary and Goldenstar by Geoff Ryman; The Sun and I by K. J. Parker, who is actually Tom Holt, The Queen of Night's Aria by Ian McDonald. Probably also The Herons of Mer de l'Ouest by M Bennardo and Water by Ramez Naam.
Ok, let's do this thing.
Some Desperado, by Joe Abercrombie. I've later found that this is some kind of character spin-off from his First Law series, and it's a fun little Western with guntoting, outlaws, etc. Cool female lead, kept me guessing, would maybe draw me in to reading more of his stuff, but not sure. The one problem I had with it is that, taken entirely on its own, there is nothing to make it science fiction or fantasy. It's a Western. The only tiny clue is maybe that they don't have guns, and they don't use dollars as currency. But there's no tech, no magic, nothing. This struck me as such a weird decision on Jonathan Strahan's part - maybe as part of the series it's clearer, but if you must include it, don't put it first! But anyway, whatever.
Zero for Conduct by Greg Egan. Near future sci fi with interesting sciencey stuff that felt believably researched, an awesome Muslim female lead, nicely down-to-earth setting, fast-paced story. I really liked it.
Effigy Nights by Yoon Ha Lee. This is a great story, well-shaped and structured, with lovely nods to a fairytale style while also being mostly sci-fi. Some of the description is a bit silly for me - I have a bee in my bonnet about using the short story form to just make up ludicrous concepts that never need to be fleshed out because you only have 30 pages. It just smacks of lazy world-building and there's a line between adding colour and taking advantage. This was a bit too close to the line at the beginning, but the plot was exciting enough to cut through that.
Rosary and Goldenstar by Geoff Ryman. Seriously good. Not to give too much away, a sort-of alternate Elizabethan history featuring John Dee and a certain world-famous playwright talking philosophy, science, astronomy, poetry, all heavily lost in translation with some Danes. Loved it, right up my alley. Will definitely be looking up more of Ryman's stuff.
The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman. Now its own graphic novel. I'm still a bit ambivalent about Neil Gaiman, but this was classic him - a retelling of a fairytale with some twists and turns, gorgeous writing and a darn sight more feminist than the original. No complaints from me.
Cave and Julia by M. John Harrison. Um, I actually have no memory of this story. I had to practically reread it to remember it at all. It's not...bad. It's just not very memorable, sorry. It's sort of about an island with strange possibly prehistoric caves and tunnels under the ground, where a boy died.
The Herons of Mer de l'Ouest by M Bennardo. Man, this is a good one. Verging on horror (not my thing) but mostly staying the right side of too creepy. Does really well at gradually getting more and more tense and sinister. Great stuff.
Water by Ramez Naam. The first of several stories that do a sort of psychological thought experiment on future technology. What if we all had brain implants that allowed us to communicate constantly with the internet of things? And that the rich could pay to turn off sensory advertising, but the poor had to put up with everything trying to seem absolutely essential and the best thing ever all the time? Disturbingly plausible.
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang. I basically bought this book because it had a Ted Chiang story in it, and luckily it didn't disappoint. Another thought experiment about how spoken vs written language affects what and how we remember, and how outsourcing memory to computer-saved film of our lives can reveal unwelcome 'truths'. I think this is the longest story in the collection, and it's really good.
The Ink Readers of Doi Saket by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Definitely one of the weirder ones, again with a kind of fairytale/mythological feel. Set in Thailand, about a town that magically 'grants wishes'. Really nicely written and a nice series of twists and turns.
Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls by Richard Parks. Quite similar to the previous one, but set in Japan (I think). A bit like Joanne Harris' Runemarks, if only because it features going underground to something like the Underworld. Not Norse gods though.
Rag and Bone by Priya Sharma. Properly horrible and awesome. A strange alternate London, about 17th-century. Gender non-conforming characters, a hideous upper class who literally use body parts of the poor to stay young and healthy. Really well-written and memorable.
The Book Seller by Lavie Tidhar. An alternate future Israel, with vampire viruses and strange AI implants and lots of really cool world-building. Definitely going to check out more stuff by him.
The Sun and I by K. J. Parker, who it turns out on searching is actually Tom Holt, author of You Don't Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But it Helps (which I enjoyed, and which is hilarious because that's based on the W. S. Gilbert character John Wellington Wells, from The Sorcerer, and this story's title and epigraph is from The Mikado. So clearly a massive G&S fan like me. This was a particularly good story, I thought - about a group of sort of layabout rich kids who decide to invent a god to make money from gullible people, and it all gets a bit out of hand.
The Promise of Space by James Patrick Kelly. One of the shortest stories, and it nearly had me sobbing. Future memory + AI tech meets dementia. Pretty heartbreaking.
The Master Conjurer by Charlie Jane Anders. What if magic were possible, but always had bad consequences for the magic-user? Except for one time...maybe. Nice idea, well-executed, fun twist.
The Pilgrim and the Angel by E. Lily Yu. Another mythology-based story, this time set in Cairo. I enjoyed it more than Cherry Blossoms or the Ink Readers for its simplicity and its humour.
Entangled by Ian R. McLeod. God, this was another one to tug at your heartstrings. Teenage angst meets class privilege meets jackass 'artist'. Very well-written. Definitely one of the most interesting worlds - everyone becoming telepathically intertwined except for a few, including the lead character. Leading to hippy-style communes and people with very little sense of self outside the collective.
Fade to Gold by Benjanun Sriduangkaew. This story plays with horror and mythos without really being either, and it's great. Sort of like The Book Seller, and also not. Really interesting.
Selkie Stories are for Losers by Sofia Samatar. Samatar manages to weave humour and first-person narration and clever mysterious references and a non-linear story together very cleverly. It reminded me of Sophie's World, but less flawed.
In Metal, In Bone by An Owomoyela. I suppose this is some clever allegory about the pointlessness of war. But taken at face value, it's not a bad little story.
Kormak the Lucky by Eleanor Arnason. Another one that's a lot like Runemarks. From Ireland to Iceland to Elfland to the Fey, Kormak is a slave who serves many masters and learns a lot about magic and magical creatures. Nicely-written, captures the mythic feel well, but not much to shout about.
Sing by Karen Tidbeck. I really liked this one. A planet where the different suns cause people not to be able to speak except by singing. Where most creatures live in some kind of parasitic symbiosis. A stranger comes to study algae and gets more than he bargained for. I just thought the writing was really good here.
Social Services by Madeline Ashby. Unexpectedly (and unpleasantly) full horror. Not my thing at all, and I wish I hadn't read it late at night. Probably not very scary at all if you're not a huge wimp like me, though, and clever ideas.
The Road of Needles by Caitlín R. Kiernan. I'm not sure I really got the point of this one - sci fi and a bit horror - kind of cool, but ultimately a bit unsatisfying. Maybe I missed something somewhere along the way.
Mystic Falls by Robert Reed. Sort of a story about the possibility we are all in a simulation. A good example, short but sweet.
The Queen of Night's Aria by Ian McDonald. This one was great! An opera singer and his accompanist try and tour a war zone between humans and aliens on an Mars, which is also inhabited by sentient bats. Actually a really good story with nice characters as well, and doesn't do what you might expect.
The Irish Astronaut by Val Nolan. I would claim that a story about an astronaut going to Ireland is not science fiction. There have been astronauts. Nothing about this story was actually speculative in any way. So it was weird to end with it (like beginning with Some Desperado), and left me with mixed feelings about the whole book to be honest. But it's a reasonably good short story in its own right.
March 23, 2014
Jonathan Strahan's introduction hits the mark pretty well for why I frequent these Best of the Year... editions. There is simply so much material available in any given year that having a good reading year can come down to luck.
Strahan says he had a good reading year and I'm happy to leave it to him. I liked most of his selections. You'll get the usual mix of good stories and forgettable ones, no bad stories here.
The stories, more than resonating on their own though, just cemented my perspective on the authors. Neil Gaiman is a great storyteller, I knew, and can turn around a well established tale like nobody else. Here he basically re-writes Sleeping Beauty and the changes make perfect sense. John Harrison, for some reason, remains one phase-shift off from me. I like the words I'm reading, but his stories just don't sing for me by the end. Karin Tidbeck's story does sing (and I mean that as praise distinguishable from the fact that the title of the story is 'Sing') and I want to read more of her stories. I want to read more Yoon Ha Lee and Ramez Naam. There are other authors here that I hadn't heard of, but will likely seek out more now.
All said, a good collection and one that brought me stories that I would not have had time to find and read on my own.
Strahan says he had a good reading year and I'm happy to leave it to him. I liked most of his selections. You'll get the usual mix of good stories and forgettable ones, no bad stories here.
The stories, more than resonating on their own though, just cemented my perspective on the authors. Neil Gaiman is a great storyteller, I knew, and can turn around a well established tale like nobody else. Here he basically re-writes Sleeping Beauty and the changes make perfect sense. John Harrison, for some reason, remains one phase-shift off from me. I like the words I'm reading, but his stories just don't sing for me by the end. Karin Tidbeck's story does sing (and I mean that as praise distinguishable from the fact that the title of the story is 'Sing') and I want to read more of her stories. I want to read more Yoon Ha Lee and Ramez Naam. There are other authors here that I hadn't heard of, but will likely seek out more now.
All said, a good collection and one that brought me stories that I would not have had time to find and read on my own.
March 26, 2014
This book was not what I expected and I don't feel I can fairly rate it. I read appx 30% (or 6 stories) of this book, and the majority of the short stories were alternative history type stories. Although I enjoy alternative history stories, this book just didn't speak to me, and I was unable to continue.
The publisher provided an e-galley through NetGalley for my fair and unbiased review.
The publisher provided an e-galley through NetGalley for my fair and unbiased review.
March 3, 2015
I thought this contained a good mix of stories showing the breadth of talent for the year. They were also arranged to flow smoothly between genres and styles without jarring the reader.
September 7, 2016
I should start by explaining that my three-star rating is a reflection of the fact that I mostly didn't enjoy these stories. It's not an objective measure of their quality, any more than their inclusion in a "Best Of" anthology can be, because tastes (and what people look for in a story) differ. Really, "Best Of" always carries an unspoken rider: "According to the taste and inclinations of the editor".
I'm somewhat outside the zeitgeist in my taste in fiction, I know. I don't care for stories that are dark, depressing, dystopian, pessimistic, tragic or about the horrors of war, and most of the stories in this collection are. I realise that I'm in a minority, and if you're not in that minority with me, you may well enjoy these stories more than I did.
Another reason I didn't enjoy some of them, though, was a specific writing style that many of them shared. It's a style I associate particularly with the magazine Clarkesworld, which I subscribed to briefly until I found that most of the stories were in this style, and in fact several of the stories here were originally published in Clarkesworld. Because I particularly dislike this style, I'm going to be unfair to it, and characterise it as would-be literary fiction, in which an alienated character drifts through an incomprehensible (but beautifully described) setting without taking effective action or making any real decisions, until the story stops with no resolution.
There are two other trends which I'm quite happy about (as long as they're not just participated in to be trendy) which this collection represents. One is setting stories in various non-Western cultures. I find that interesting and enriching. The other is the inclusion of diverse characters. In this collection, that's almost entirely done by the inclusion of lesbian characters (although there are a couple of disabled ones and one gay male), but it's a start.
Another common thread in several of the stories is the idea of mind-augmentation technology, and the different angles on it produce some interesting contrasts. It's obviously a hot topic for SF at the moment.
The editing of the book overall is fairly average, which is to say that there are a number of typos, some homonym or near-homonym errors, and a couple of instances of "alright" instead of the more correct "all right".
Unfortunately, the advance copy that I got from Netgalley for purposes of review was not a properly formatted Kindle file, but (I think) a PDF that got converted, and not only did this mean that there were extra or missing paragraph breaks, and strange formatting in the first lines of scenes and in titles, but there was no break between the stories, no table of contents and no way to navigate between stories without multiple page turns. Fortunately, one of my fellow reviewers here has listed out the stories in the order they appear, so I can comment on them individually, which would otherwise be hard to do.
“Some Desperado”, by Joe Abercrombie, confirmed for me what everything I'd heard already suggested: that Abercrombie writes really well, and that I would hate his books. The protagonist is desperate, broken, faced with impossible odds over which she doesn't really triumph all that much, and the overall vibe is very much "life sucks and then you die, without the possibility of change or improvement". It's not very SFinal; apart from the lack of guns, it could be a straight Western, and apart from the stage setting it could be a straight medieval. There's no magic, and no technology more complex than a bow, and no sociological speculation either.
“Zero for Conduct”, by Greg Egan, worked better than most for me. The protagonist is a protagonist, a young, female Afghan refugee in Iran who overcomes problems and dangers to achieve something wonderful. I got a powerful sense of the restrictions and threats that surrounded her, which added to her triumph.
“Effigy Nights”, by Yoon Ha Lee, is a Clarkesworld story. I didn't like it, but it was well done for what it was. I seem to remember reading it before; maybe it was in Clarkesworld at the time I subscribed. It's tragic and hopeless.
“Rosary and Goldenstar”, by Geoff Ryman, pulls together historical figures from the time of Shakespeare, including a young Shakespeare, and then doesn't do much with them. There's some philosophical reflecting, but not much in the way of a plot.
“The Sleeper and the Spindle”, by Neil Gaiman, is the first of several "retold fairytale" stories in the volume, which I generally liked better than the others. It's a wonderful twist on both Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, with a protagonist and a plot and a resolution (which points on to further adventures).
“Cave and Julia”, by M. John Harrison, is one of those pseudo-literary stories where the main characters just dither helplessly in a magical-realist setting. One of the least successful in the volume for me.
“The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest”, by M Bennardo, struck me as almost a horror story. Darker than I enjoy, and more about atmosphere and mood than events.
“Water”, by Ramez Naam, is dystopian, but in an "if this goes on" way that I didn't mind so much. It took the ideas of accepting ads in exchange for free technology, and targeted ads for individuals, to their ultimate conclusion, and built a dramatic story around them. A bit of a tendency to tell what the technology was doing rather than show the characters doing things was, perhaps, an inevitable result of the setup.
“The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, by Ted Chiang, was a bit too much of a lecture for my taste. It's structured as if it was a non-fiction piece, and I felt it could have been tightened and shortened, though the point it makes is good and the two stories (the supposed essayist's own story, and the story he tells as a sidelight) mesh well. It's up for a Hugo.
“The Ink Readers of Doi Saket”, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, had a Thai setting that I enjoyed. It could, again, have been tighter, but overall I think it worked. It's Hugo-nominated.
“Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls”, by Richard Parks, had a Japanese setting, again (as far as I, a non-expert on the culture, could tell) well done, and it also had a clear narrative line and plot structure, something some of the other stories are missing. I liked the idea that encountering a monster is not the same as fighting it.
“Rag and Bone”, by Priya Sharma, is set in a dystopian Liverpool in which the moguls at the top literally exploit the flesh of the workers in a way that was never completely made clear. Cross-dressing and lesbian sex appear here for the first time in the collection. The tragic end wasn't to my taste.
“The Book Seller”, by Lavie Tidhar, in a far-future Israel, brings out a love of books and a compassion for the victims of war. It's a vampire story with a technological twist. Well done, I felt, though the ending is not that strong.
“The Sun and I”, by K J Parker, seems to be set in an alternate or analogue ancient Mediterranean, and is about a group of con artists who create a monotheistic solar religion and find that there may be more to it than their scam. The style is amusing, and the idea that what matters is the outcome, not the motivation, is an interesting one to think about.
“The Promise of Space”, by James Patrick Kelly, is a tragedy that, as one would expect from this well-known writing instructor, is well executed and moving. It's another brain-augmentation story.
“The Master Conjurer”, by Charlie Jane Anders, is, surprisingly, from Lightspeed magazine, which (from a brief subscription to it) I associate with dark and disturbing stories. This one is amusing, if you find hopeless losers amusing, and as a general thing I don't. It could do with a stronger ending, as well.
“The Pilgrim and the Angel”, by E. Lily Yu, features an Egyptian Muslim father who, when the Angel Gabriel takes him to Mecca, prefers to go and visit his uncommunicative son in America instead. The son is not communicating, one suspects, in part because explaining his girlfriend Rosa to his parents isn't going to go well. A good depiction of the contradictions and strains of family, but it could have got to that point a bit more quickly.
“Entangled”, by Ian R Macleod, is post-apocalyptic, a genre I dislike considerably. It's deeply tragic, too. Another case of "well done, but very far from my taste" (and another brain-augmentation story, incidentally).
“Fade to Gold”, by Benjanun Sriduangkaew, is another cross-dressing lesbian story, another kind-of-a-vampire-but-more-a-victim-than-a-monster story, another war story, another story set in Thailand and another tragedy. I don't have much more to say about it than that.
“Selkie Stories are for Losers”, by Sofia Samatar, is up for a Hugo this year. I thought there were plenty of better stories even in this volume. Not that this is bad, though it is depressing. The selkie idea is used both literally and metaphorically, and it's cleverly done, I just didn't enjoy it that much or think that it took the concepts to much of a conclusion.
“In Metal, In Bone”, by An Owomoyela, was the only story I actually skipped through. Another war story, and very graphic and dark. I don't remember the ending being strong.
“Kormak the Lucky”, by Eleanor Arnason, draws on Icelandic and Irish myth and does so, I think, very effectively. It has the feel of another retold folktale without actually being one, and at the same time is told with more depth of description and a more modern awareness than the tales it's based on. There's a homonym error in this one: "broach" for "brooch".
“Sing”, by Karin Tidbeck, features a disabled protagonist (like a couple of the other stories here). What looks like a love story takes a nasty, unexpected turn at the end which, for me, sounded an emotionally false note.
“Social Services”, by Madeline Ashby, is a horror story in the Twilight Zone mould. The logic of it doesn't bear close examination. It's set in a crumbling dystopia that only misses being post-apocalyptic because there hasn't been a single decisive event. Not at all to my taste, though again well done for what it is.
“The Road of Needles”, by Caitlín R Kiernan, is another retold fairy tale, this time Red Riding Hood in space. Well, OK. It could have been tighter and clearer. The protagonist happens to be half of a lesbian couple, but that doesn't drive the story in any way, which is how it often should be with diverse characters, in my opinion. Contains the error "negligent" for "negligible".
“Mystic Falls”, by Robert Reed, is another mental-augmentation story. I didn't find the concept made total sense or worked all that well.
“The Queen of Night’s Aria”, by Ian McDonald, surprised me. I've read a couple of McDonald's novels, years ago, and I remember him being a better writer than this. There are missing commas leading to breathless dialogue, "retraced" for "retracted", and several other typos, and the story could have stood to be tightened up considerably. It's set in some kind of planetary-romance Victorian Mars, and features (by my count) the only gay male character in the collection. It ends, or at least stops, in a tragic situation.
“The Irish Astronaut”, by Val Nolan, is another story that is longer than it really needs to be. It's not really SFinal, either, and is another story that's more mood than plot.
The best of these stories are good, but not, to my mind, amazing. The worst of them are pretentious faffing about without much point. In the middle are some that are longer than they should be, some that would be stronger if they only had endings, and some things that are well done but very much not the kind of thing I enjoy.
I read this collection in the hope of learning something about short story writing and the current market (since I'm writing more shorts these days). Unfortunately, what I mainly learned is that this editor's taste doesn't mesh with mine, and so I shouldn't seek out past or future volumes in this series.
I'm somewhat outside the zeitgeist in my taste in fiction, I know. I don't care for stories that are dark, depressing, dystopian, pessimistic, tragic or about the horrors of war, and most of the stories in this collection are. I realise that I'm in a minority, and if you're not in that minority with me, you may well enjoy these stories more than I did.
Another reason I didn't enjoy some of them, though, was a specific writing style that many of them shared. It's a style I associate particularly with the magazine Clarkesworld, which I subscribed to briefly until I found that most of the stories were in this style, and in fact several of the stories here were originally published in Clarkesworld. Because I particularly dislike this style, I'm going to be unfair to it, and characterise it as would-be literary fiction, in which an alienated character drifts through an incomprehensible (but beautifully described) setting without taking effective action or making any real decisions, until the story stops with no resolution.
There are two other trends which I'm quite happy about (as long as they're not just participated in to be trendy) which this collection represents. One is setting stories in various non-Western cultures. I find that interesting and enriching. The other is the inclusion of diverse characters. In this collection, that's almost entirely done by the inclusion of lesbian characters (although there are a couple of disabled ones and one gay male), but it's a start.
Another common thread in several of the stories is the idea of mind-augmentation technology, and the different angles on it produce some interesting contrasts. It's obviously a hot topic for SF at the moment.
The editing of the book overall is fairly average, which is to say that there are a number of typos, some homonym or near-homonym errors, and a couple of instances of "alright" instead of the more correct "all right".
Unfortunately, the advance copy that I got from Netgalley for purposes of review was not a properly formatted Kindle file, but (I think) a PDF that got converted, and not only did this mean that there were extra or missing paragraph breaks, and strange formatting in the first lines of scenes and in titles, but there was no break between the stories, no table of contents and no way to navigate between stories without multiple page turns. Fortunately, one of my fellow reviewers here has listed out the stories in the order they appear, so I can comment on them individually, which would otherwise be hard to do.
“Some Desperado”, by Joe Abercrombie, confirmed for me what everything I'd heard already suggested: that Abercrombie writes really well, and that I would hate his books. The protagonist is desperate, broken, faced with impossible odds over which she doesn't really triumph all that much, and the overall vibe is very much "life sucks and then you die, without the possibility of change or improvement". It's not very SFinal; apart from the lack of guns, it could be a straight Western, and apart from the stage setting it could be a straight medieval. There's no magic, and no technology more complex than a bow, and no sociological speculation either.
“Zero for Conduct”, by Greg Egan, worked better than most for me. The protagonist is a protagonist, a young, female Afghan refugee in Iran who overcomes problems and dangers to achieve something wonderful. I got a powerful sense of the restrictions and threats that surrounded her, which added to her triumph.
“Effigy Nights”, by Yoon Ha Lee, is a Clarkesworld story. I didn't like it, but it was well done for what it was. I seem to remember reading it before; maybe it was in Clarkesworld at the time I subscribed. It's tragic and hopeless.
“Rosary and Goldenstar”, by Geoff Ryman, pulls together historical figures from the time of Shakespeare, including a young Shakespeare, and then doesn't do much with them. There's some philosophical reflecting, but not much in the way of a plot.
“The Sleeper and the Spindle”, by Neil Gaiman, is the first of several "retold fairytale" stories in the volume, which I generally liked better than the others. It's a wonderful twist on both Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, with a protagonist and a plot and a resolution (which points on to further adventures).
“Cave and Julia”, by M. John Harrison, is one of those pseudo-literary stories where the main characters just dither helplessly in a magical-realist setting. One of the least successful in the volume for me.
“The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest”, by M Bennardo, struck me as almost a horror story. Darker than I enjoy, and more about atmosphere and mood than events.
“Water”, by Ramez Naam, is dystopian, but in an "if this goes on" way that I didn't mind so much. It took the ideas of accepting ads in exchange for free technology, and targeted ads for individuals, to their ultimate conclusion, and built a dramatic story around them. A bit of a tendency to tell what the technology was doing rather than show the characters doing things was, perhaps, an inevitable result of the setup.
“The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, by Ted Chiang, was a bit too much of a lecture for my taste. It's structured as if it was a non-fiction piece, and I felt it could have been tightened and shortened, though the point it makes is good and the two stories (the supposed essayist's own story, and the story he tells as a sidelight) mesh well. It's up for a Hugo.
“The Ink Readers of Doi Saket”, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, had a Thai setting that I enjoyed. It could, again, have been tighter, but overall I think it worked. It's Hugo-nominated.
“Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls”, by Richard Parks, had a Japanese setting, again (as far as I, a non-expert on the culture, could tell) well done, and it also had a clear narrative line and plot structure, something some of the other stories are missing. I liked the idea that encountering a monster is not the same as fighting it.
“Rag and Bone”, by Priya Sharma, is set in a dystopian Liverpool in which the moguls at the top literally exploit the flesh of the workers in a way that was never completely made clear. Cross-dressing and lesbian sex appear here for the first time in the collection. The tragic end wasn't to my taste.
“The Book Seller”, by Lavie Tidhar, in a far-future Israel, brings out a love of books and a compassion for the victims of war. It's a vampire story with a technological twist. Well done, I felt, though the ending is not that strong.
“The Sun and I”, by K J Parker, seems to be set in an alternate or analogue ancient Mediterranean, and is about a group of con artists who create a monotheistic solar religion and find that there may be more to it than their scam. The style is amusing, and the idea that what matters is the outcome, not the motivation, is an interesting one to think about.
“The Promise of Space”, by James Patrick Kelly, is a tragedy that, as one would expect from this well-known writing instructor, is well executed and moving. It's another brain-augmentation story.
“The Master Conjurer”, by Charlie Jane Anders, is, surprisingly, from Lightspeed magazine, which (from a brief subscription to it) I associate with dark and disturbing stories. This one is amusing, if you find hopeless losers amusing, and as a general thing I don't. It could do with a stronger ending, as well.
“The Pilgrim and the Angel”, by E. Lily Yu, features an Egyptian Muslim father who, when the Angel Gabriel takes him to Mecca, prefers to go and visit his uncommunicative son in America instead. The son is not communicating, one suspects, in part because explaining his girlfriend Rosa to his parents isn't going to go well. A good depiction of the contradictions and strains of family, but it could have got to that point a bit more quickly.
“Entangled”, by Ian R Macleod, is post-apocalyptic, a genre I dislike considerably. It's deeply tragic, too. Another case of "well done, but very far from my taste" (and another brain-augmentation story, incidentally).
“Fade to Gold”, by Benjanun Sriduangkaew, is another cross-dressing lesbian story, another kind-of-a-vampire-but-more-a-victim-than-a-monster story, another war story, another story set in Thailand and another tragedy. I don't have much more to say about it than that.
“Selkie Stories are for Losers”, by Sofia Samatar, is up for a Hugo this year. I thought there were plenty of better stories even in this volume. Not that this is bad, though it is depressing. The selkie idea is used both literally and metaphorically, and it's cleverly done, I just didn't enjoy it that much or think that it took the concepts to much of a conclusion.
“In Metal, In Bone”, by An Owomoyela, was the only story I actually skipped through. Another war story, and very graphic and dark. I don't remember the ending being strong.
“Kormak the Lucky”, by Eleanor Arnason, draws on Icelandic and Irish myth and does so, I think, very effectively. It has the feel of another retold folktale without actually being one, and at the same time is told with more depth of description and a more modern awareness than the tales it's based on. There's a homonym error in this one: "broach" for "brooch".
“Sing”, by Karin Tidbeck, features a disabled protagonist (like a couple of the other stories here). What looks like a love story takes a nasty, unexpected turn at the end which, for me, sounded an emotionally false note.
“Social Services”, by Madeline Ashby, is a horror story in the Twilight Zone mould. The logic of it doesn't bear close examination. It's set in a crumbling dystopia that only misses being post-apocalyptic because there hasn't been a single decisive event. Not at all to my taste, though again well done for what it is.
“The Road of Needles”, by Caitlín R Kiernan, is another retold fairy tale, this time Red Riding Hood in space. Well, OK. It could have been tighter and clearer. The protagonist happens to be half of a lesbian couple, but that doesn't drive the story in any way, which is how it often should be with diverse characters, in my opinion. Contains the error "negligent" for "negligible".
“Mystic Falls”, by Robert Reed, is another mental-augmentation story. I didn't find the concept made total sense or worked all that well.
“The Queen of Night’s Aria”, by Ian McDonald, surprised me. I've read a couple of McDonald's novels, years ago, and I remember him being a better writer than this. There are missing commas leading to breathless dialogue, "retraced" for "retracted", and several other typos, and the story could have stood to be tightened up considerably. It's set in some kind of planetary-romance Victorian Mars, and features (by my count) the only gay male character in the collection. It ends, or at least stops, in a tragic situation.
“The Irish Astronaut”, by Val Nolan, is another story that is longer than it really needs to be. It's not really SFinal, either, and is another story that's more mood than plot.
The best of these stories are good, but not, to my mind, amazing. The worst of them are pretentious faffing about without much point. In the middle are some that are longer than they should be, some that would be stronger if they only had endings, and some things that are well done but very much not the kind of thing I enjoy.
I read this collection in the hope of learning something about short story writing and the current market (since I'm writing more shorts these days). Unfortunately, what I mainly learned is that this editor's taste doesn't mesh with mine, and so I shouldn't seek out past or future volumes in this series.
April 5, 2020
More and more I’ve come to appreciate short story anthologies, especially when they’re labelled the best of whatever genre I’m interested in. They may not necessarily be the best by my standards (though I confess I’d be hard-pressed to assemble such a collection if asked), but I can say with certainty that at least with this collection, every story between the covers was very good. The ones I liked less than others were largely a matter of personal taste rather than an indication of quality.
One of the things I noticed about this collection fairly early on is the diversity in both characters and authors represented. The stories are not dominated by white men, written by white male authors. It isn’t that white men don’t exist in any stories here, but instead they’re represented as often as women, as often as people of colour, and so there’s actually a fairly good range of culture and gender here. This is indicative of the wonderful shift that’s going on in SFF fandom at the moment, with more people striving for equality and greater representation. It isn’t necessarily that more women or people of colour are writing SFF than they used to (though I don’t doubt that is a factor), but people are taking more care to make sure that they get such work noticed instead of constantly being overshadowed. It’s great to see this reflected, and it made for a book filled with wonderfully diverse stories, not just in characters and authors but in a greater range for tone and content.
There are so many stories in here that are worthy of note. Ramez Naam’s Water was a disturbing and insightful look at the pervasive advertising in our lives and cranks it up to 11 by attaching the concept to cybernetic implants so that companies can directly stimulate your brain and make you crave their product at the chemical level. K J Parker’s The Sun and I was an amazing look at religion, and seemed to me like it was taking the Christian split from Judaism and sticking it in a fantasy world, with the added twist that the religion was made up and a money scam from the get-go. (Or was it?) Madeline Ashby’s Social Services was a very creepy near-future blend of sci-fi and horror, with an ambiguous ending that practically made me shake the book and demand to know what happens next. Yoon Ha Lee’s Effigy Nights was almost like a fairy tale in the poetic language used, and Neil Gaiman’s The Sleeper and the Spindle was a rewrite of a fairy tale. Multiple fairy tales, technically, with the kind of unexpected twists and turns that you come to expect from Gaiman’s writing.
I’m not the only person, though, to point out that the earlier stories in the book are the ones that they find the most engaging, the highest quality, and that the stories tend to lose something as the anthology goes on. I won’t say that the worst were saved for last, exactly, but the last few stories were really not to my taste and were it not for the fact that I don’t feel right skipping stories when I’m trying to review anthologies, I would have just passed over them and not have felt any real loss for having done so. They weren’t bad, in terms of sheer objective quality of writing or skill at storytelling. They just weren’t for me, and it seems the same has been said by other reviewers.
But still, the vast majority of stories in this anthology were incredible, and I had a great time reading them. I found a few authors who were new to me and whose work I now want to take a closer look at, and as I mentioned in a previous post, I’m convinced more than ever that my introduction to K J Parker was just a coincidentally poor one and that I really do need to give their longer work another chance. This is a talented and skilled collection of authors writing an amazing collection of stories, and this is a book that should be gracing your bookshelves. Expect to have your mind blown open a time or two while reading.
(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)
One of the things I noticed about this collection fairly early on is the diversity in both characters and authors represented. The stories are not dominated by white men, written by white male authors. It isn’t that white men don’t exist in any stories here, but instead they’re represented as often as women, as often as people of colour, and so there’s actually a fairly good range of culture and gender here. This is indicative of the wonderful shift that’s going on in SFF fandom at the moment, with more people striving for equality and greater representation. It isn’t necessarily that more women or people of colour are writing SFF than they used to (though I don’t doubt that is a factor), but people are taking more care to make sure that they get such work noticed instead of constantly being overshadowed. It’s great to see this reflected, and it made for a book filled with wonderfully diverse stories, not just in characters and authors but in a greater range for tone and content.
There are so many stories in here that are worthy of note. Ramez Naam’s Water was a disturbing and insightful look at the pervasive advertising in our lives and cranks it up to 11 by attaching the concept to cybernetic implants so that companies can directly stimulate your brain and make you crave their product at the chemical level. K J Parker’s The Sun and I was an amazing look at religion, and seemed to me like it was taking the Christian split from Judaism and sticking it in a fantasy world, with the added twist that the religion was made up and a money scam from the get-go. (Or was it?) Madeline Ashby’s Social Services was a very creepy near-future blend of sci-fi and horror, with an ambiguous ending that practically made me shake the book and demand to know what happens next. Yoon Ha Lee’s Effigy Nights was almost like a fairy tale in the poetic language used, and Neil Gaiman’s The Sleeper and the Spindle was a rewrite of a fairy tale. Multiple fairy tales, technically, with the kind of unexpected twists and turns that you come to expect from Gaiman’s writing.
I’m not the only person, though, to point out that the earlier stories in the book are the ones that they find the most engaging, the highest quality, and that the stories tend to lose something as the anthology goes on. I won’t say that the worst were saved for last, exactly, but the last few stories were really not to my taste and were it not for the fact that I don’t feel right skipping stories when I’m trying to review anthologies, I would have just passed over them and not have felt any real loss for having done so. They weren’t bad, in terms of sheer objective quality of writing or skill at storytelling. They just weren’t for me, and it seems the same has been said by other reviewers.
But still, the vast majority of stories in this anthology were incredible, and I had a great time reading them. I found a few authors who were new to me and whose work I now want to take a closer look at, and as I mentioned in a previous post, I’m convinced more than ever that my introduction to K J Parker was just a coincidentally poor one and that I really do need to give their longer work another chance. This is a talented and skilled collection of authors writing an amazing collection of stories, and this is a book that should be gracing your bookshelves. Expect to have your mind blown open a time or two while reading.
(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)
September 3, 2022
As we pass the halfway mark of the year, we find the first of the new 'best of' anthologies flooding the market. Currently I have 4 monster tomes that I've been reading through, jumping around between favorite authors and intriguing titles. I'm not one to read an anthology from cover-to-cover, but I try to give the bulk of the stories a fair shot.
First up was Space Opera from Rich Horton.
Next we have The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year #8, edited by Jonathan Strahan, which collects 624 pages of stories from an absolutely stellar cast of authors. That selection alone would have been more than enough for me to pick this up for a read, but it certainly helps that Strahan has developed a reputation with me of being a consistently dependable editor. I'd read just about anything he puts together, and come away from it amazed and entertained by the stories chosen.
Some Desperado by Joe Abercrombie reminds me I really need to get around to reading his First Law trilogy - this was a weird bit of violent, western style fantasy with a strong heroine.
The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman was pretty much everything you could expect from a fairytale retelling with his unique twists - a new version of Sleeping Beauty (with an appearance from Snow White), that focuses more on the dark side of things.
Water by Ramez Naam was a story I initially thought was trying too hard, but which I came to really enjoy - - it's a really interesting exploration of invasive technology, the ethics of advertising, and the dangers of ad-supported cerebral software that already has access to your thoughts and emotions.
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang was another favorite, and a story that pairs very well with Water - Chiang looks at our memories, how we form them, how we capture them, and how we distort or sanitize them. Pair that with an exploration of how new technology so often frightens those who don't understand it, and you've got a great tale.
The Book Seller by Lavie Tidhar was another mixed concept kind of story, this time with vampires, robots, genetic engineering, and the musty, dusty appeal of old books.
The Sun and I by K J Parker was a fun tale the ultimately takes itself too seriously, but which I still enjoyed. Here, Parker looks at what happens when a gang of criminals set up a false religion to bilk the ignorant, only to find that they're really onto something, leaving them stuck running a Church.
Entangled by Ian R Macleod was one of the collection's harder science fiction tales, a fascinating look at a far future world in which we've evolved into a sort of hive-mind, with one man futilely flitting around the outside.
In Metal, In Bone by An Owomoyela takes a hard look at the morality, the victims, and the consequences of violent warfare, with a disturbing focus on how the never-ending cycle of violence can make victims of even those who've come to offer their aid.
Being a general collection, rather than one built around a theme, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year #8 had more misses than I'm used to from Strahan's editorial pen, but the hits are more than strong enough to make up for them.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
First up was Space Opera from Rich Horton.
Next we have The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year #8, edited by Jonathan Strahan, which collects 624 pages of stories from an absolutely stellar cast of authors. That selection alone would have been more than enough for me to pick this up for a read, but it certainly helps that Strahan has developed a reputation with me of being a consistently dependable editor. I'd read just about anything he puts together, and come away from it amazed and entertained by the stories chosen.
Some Desperado by Joe Abercrombie reminds me I really need to get around to reading his First Law trilogy - this was a weird bit of violent, western style fantasy with a strong heroine.
The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman was pretty much everything you could expect from a fairytale retelling with his unique twists - a new version of Sleeping Beauty (with an appearance from Snow White), that focuses more on the dark side of things.
Water by Ramez Naam was a story I initially thought was trying too hard, but which I came to really enjoy - - it's a really interesting exploration of invasive technology, the ethics of advertising, and the dangers of ad-supported cerebral software that already has access to your thoughts and emotions.
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang was another favorite, and a story that pairs very well with Water - Chiang looks at our memories, how we form them, how we capture them, and how we distort or sanitize them. Pair that with an exploration of how new technology so often frightens those who don't understand it, and you've got a great tale.
The Book Seller by Lavie Tidhar was another mixed concept kind of story, this time with vampires, robots, genetic engineering, and the musty, dusty appeal of old books.
The Sun and I by K J Parker was a fun tale the ultimately takes itself too seriously, but which I still enjoyed. Here, Parker looks at what happens when a gang of criminals set up a false religion to bilk the ignorant, only to find that they're really onto something, leaving them stuck running a Church.
Entangled by Ian R Macleod was one of the collection's harder science fiction tales, a fascinating look at a far future world in which we've evolved into a sort of hive-mind, with one man futilely flitting around the outside.
In Metal, In Bone by An Owomoyela takes a hard look at the morality, the victims, and the consequences of violent warfare, with a disturbing focus on how the never-ending cycle of violence can make victims of even those who've come to offer their aid.
Being a general collection, rather than one built around a theme, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year #8 had more misses than I'm used to from Strahan's editorial pen, but the hits are more than strong enough to make up for them.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
February 14, 2016
For this book (and others like it) I usually read a story or two before going to sleep.
I decided to make notes of the stories so I can remember what they were about and re-visit the authors I liked. Ideally I would have written my opinions immediately after reading each story. So this "review" is mostly for myself, from my memory, may contain spoilers and since written weeks after actually reading may not be very accurate of the real plot or my original feelings.
I will say a few of the things in general I enjoyed about this book were: less of your typical space type sci-fi, there were more interesting non-USA settings, and a lot of the stories had female protagonists.
Some Desperado, Joe Abercrombie
Liked - Western Story. liked the main character Shy a young girl who was both lucky and unlucky. Who had to fight off 3 brothers who were after her. Would like to read more about her.
Zero for Conduct, Greg Egan
Liked - Set in Middle-east, an enjoyable story about a bright but poor girl who developed a superconductor technology that could help her people but had to hide it from others until she could afford to patent it and get safely away. I enjoyed it. The technology aspect was interesting and her situation kept the story interesting.
Effigy Nights, Yoon Ha Lee
Ok - A world where solders took over, to fight the peaceful priests used a special girl and stories to create warriors out of precious books from the sacred libraries, but in the end all the books were destroy along with the soldiers and people.
Rosary and Goldenstar, Geoff Ryman
Unmemorable. - middle ages, poet, ???
The Sleeper and the Spindle, Neil Gaiman
Liked - A take on sleeping beauty.
Cave and Julia, M. John Harrison
Ok - "Cave" had a strange fascination with "Julia", there was a strange x-files like place he was drawn to. No real resolution.
The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest, M. Bennardo
OK - Weird story about a guy lost in woods who finds a nest of giant birds, joins the hunters who pretend to be giant birds. Interesting moral dilemmas.
Water, Ramez Naam
Really Liked - Concept of Marketing through technology directly to brain, sabotage, income discrepancies and chemical. Girl got totally even with jerk of a boy.
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, Ted Chiang
Really liked - interesting look at pros and cons of recording your life to replace / enhance memory. From the perspective of a father and his relationship with his daughter.
The Ink Readers of Doi Saket, Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Liked - Interesting story of a village who fulfills wishes for people who send them down the river in small paper boats.
Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls, Richard Parks
Liked - About a boy who goes into a well because a spirit is calling him, had to decide whether to stay with his love or live on.
Rag and Bone, Priya Sharma
Ok - A poor boy who makes deals with others for the rich so they can use their body parts to live longer. Sacrifices himself for a girl he meets, doesn't end well for anyone.
The Book Seller, Lavie Tidhar
OK - A story about a book collector who was not connected to the network like other people, rescues a troubled girl who feeds off people for information (like a vampire and thus can't get anything from him) but they still live together
The Sun and I, K J Parker
Liked - A group of guys tired of begging decide to start a religion. Turns out they are successful, some felt guilty tried to get out, but in the end it turns out the "gods" had chosen them.
The Promise of Space, James Patrick Kelly
Ok - A dialog between a wife and husband, the husband has gone into space too many times and is relearning his memories. The wife is helping but not sure if it is worth it, if he is real. They argue about his space travel, which caused this damage.
The Master Conjurer, Charlie Jane Anders
Liked - A boy does a magic spell without any bad unintended consequence, which is unheard of and he becomes a celebrity which he doesn't want. Some worship him, some think he is fake, etc.
The Pilgrim and the Angel, E. Lily Yu
Liked - An angel tried to take a man to Mecca before he dies, but instead the man wants to see his son who went to America and tell him to call his mother.
Entangled, Ian R Macleod
Liked, sad - In a world which is devastated by war but has gotten better because people can talk to each other telepathically. The protagonist, a girl who had an accident and her brain was damaged so she can't communicate in the same way. She ends up learning tragically the accident was her fault which also killed her brother and her father gave up everything to save her.
Fade to Gold, Benjanun Sriduangkaew
Liked - A female soldier, pretending to be a male, on her way home unknowingly befriends a monster and has to decide whether to trust it or kill it.
Selkie Stories Are for Losers, Sofia Samatar
Really liked - A girl whose mother was a selkie and left her, tries to deal with it while making a friend at work.
In Metal, In Bone, An Owomoyela
Liked - Different story about a person who could touch things and see / feel memories of someone, so he was used in war to identify bodies. Learning to look for dog tags in the memory helps a lot. As the war front gets closer, he thinks about his own death and dog tags.
Kormak the Lucky, Eleanor Arnason
Good - Long short story. stories about elves and magic. Komar was kidnapped as a boy, but survived a lot of different events. Ends up helping rescue someone from the elf queen, returns to Ireland. Lives happily ever after. Metal dogs, spinning, iron, elfin time shifts, etc.
Sing, Karin Tidbeck
Liked - A stranger comes to a planet with some weird properties, during different phases of the moons. He befriends a disfigured girl, wants to know the secret of their singing. The girl a tailor wants to leave her world; he wants to stay.
Social Services, Madeline Ashby
Uncomfortable - a social worker gets abducted by one of her over-eager clients. Some sci-fi type elements in the world as it happens. Not bad, but don't like the end premise.
The Road of Needles, Caitlín R Kiernan
Liked - A girl whose job it is to make sure a train doesn't break down is forced to try and make it to the engine compartment, having hallucination and fighting inner demons.
Mystic Falls, Robert Reed
Really liked - a "girl" was in everyone’s collective conscious and everyone feels they met her, but turns out she is fake and the protagonist has to go back in his memories and really meet her and figure out what she is there for. Left me wanting to know more.
The Queen of Night’s Aria, Ian McDonald
Ok - longish story about an opera singer, and his assistant who is at the end of his career and having to travel in space to entertain the troops fighting aliens from other planets. Turns out the alien queen is a fan of his and captures him.
The Irish Astronaut, Val Nolan
Ok - An almost astronaut had to go to Ireland to give his friend who died in space a burial. People believed he was an astronaut. He had to deal with them and his own mistakes as he waited for the priest.
I decided to make notes of the stories so I can remember what they were about and re-visit the authors I liked. Ideally I would have written my opinions immediately after reading each story. So this "review" is mostly for myself, from my memory, may contain spoilers and since written weeks after actually reading may not be very accurate of the real plot or my original feelings.
I will say a few of the things in general I enjoyed about this book were: less of your typical space type sci-fi, there were more interesting non-USA settings, and a lot of the stories had female protagonists.
Some Desperado, Joe Abercrombie
Liked - Western Story. liked the main character Shy a young girl who was both lucky and unlucky. Who had to fight off 3 brothers who were after her. Would like to read more about her.
Zero for Conduct, Greg Egan
Liked - Set in Middle-east, an enjoyable story about a bright but poor girl who developed a superconductor technology that could help her people but had to hide it from others until she could afford to patent it and get safely away. I enjoyed it. The technology aspect was interesting and her situation kept the story interesting.
Effigy Nights, Yoon Ha Lee
Ok - A world where solders took over, to fight the peaceful priests used a special girl and stories to create warriors out of precious books from the sacred libraries, but in the end all the books were destroy along with the soldiers and people.
Rosary and Goldenstar, Geoff Ryman
Unmemorable. - middle ages, poet, ???
The Sleeper and the Spindle, Neil Gaiman
Liked - A take on sleeping beauty.
Cave and Julia, M. John Harrison
Ok - "Cave" had a strange fascination with "Julia", there was a strange x-files like place he was drawn to. No real resolution.
The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest, M. Bennardo
OK - Weird story about a guy lost in woods who finds a nest of giant birds, joins the hunters who pretend to be giant birds. Interesting moral dilemmas.
Water, Ramez Naam
Really Liked - Concept of Marketing through technology directly to brain, sabotage, income discrepancies and chemical. Girl got totally even with jerk of a boy.
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, Ted Chiang
Really liked - interesting look at pros and cons of recording your life to replace / enhance memory. From the perspective of a father and his relationship with his daughter.
The Ink Readers of Doi Saket, Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Liked - Interesting story of a village who fulfills wishes for people who send them down the river in small paper boats.
Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls, Richard Parks
Liked - About a boy who goes into a well because a spirit is calling him, had to decide whether to stay with his love or live on.
Rag and Bone, Priya Sharma
Ok - A poor boy who makes deals with others for the rich so they can use their body parts to live longer. Sacrifices himself for a girl he meets, doesn't end well for anyone.
The Book Seller, Lavie Tidhar
OK - A story about a book collector who was not connected to the network like other people, rescues a troubled girl who feeds off people for information (like a vampire and thus can't get anything from him) but they still live together
The Sun and I, K J Parker
Liked - A group of guys tired of begging decide to start a religion. Turns out they are successful, some felt guilty tried to get out, but in the end it turns out the "gods" had chosen them.
The Promise of Space, James Patrick Kelly
Ok - A dialog between a wife and husband, the husband has gone into space too many times and is relearning his memories. The wife is helping but not sure if it is worth it, if he is real. They argue about his space travel, which caused this damage.
The Master Conjurer, Charlie Jane Anders
Liked - A boy does a magic spell without any bad unintended consequence, which is unheard of and he becomes a celebrity which he doesn't want. Some worship him, some think he is fake, etc.
The Pilgrim and the Angel, E. Lily Yu
Liked - An angel tried to take a man to Mecca before he dies, but instead the man wants to see his son who went to America and tell him to call his mother.
Entangled, Ian R Macleod
Liked, sad - In a world which is devastated by war but has gotten better because people can talk to each other telepathically. The protagonist, a girl who had an accident and her brain was damaged so she can't communicate in the same way. She ends up learning tragically the accident was her fault which also killed her brother and her father gave up everything to save her.
Fade to Gold, Benjanun Sriduangkaew
Liked - A female soldier, pretending to be a male, on her way home unknowingly befriends a monster and has to decide whether to trust it or kill it.
Selkie Stories Are for Losers, Sofia Samatar
Really liked - A girl whose mother was a selkie and left her, tries to deal with it while making a friend at work.
In Metal, In Bone, An Owomoyela
Liked - Different story about a person who could touch things and see / feel memories of someone, so he was used in war to identify bodies. Learning to look for dog tags in the memory helps a lot. As the war front gets closer, he thinks about his own death and dog tags.
Kormak the Lucky, Eleanor Arnason
Good - Long short story. stories about elves and magic. Komar was kidnapped as a boy, but survived a lot of different events. Ends up helping rescue someone from the elf queen, returns to Ireland. Lives happily ever after. Metal dogs, spinning, iron, elfin time shifts, etc.
Sing, Karin Tidbeck
Liked - A stranger comes to a planet with some weird properties, during different phases of the moons. He befriends a disfigured girl, wants to know the secret of their singing. The girl a tailor wants to leave her world; he wants to stay.
Social Services, Madeline Ashby
Uncomfortable - a social worker gets abducted by one of her over-eager clients. Some sci-fi type elements in the world as it happens. Not bad, but don't like the end premise.
The Road of Needles, Caitlín R Kiernan
Liked - A girl whose job it is to make sure a train doesn't break down is forced to try and make it to the engine compartment, having hallucination and fighting inner demons.
Mystic Falls, Robert Reed
Really liked - a "girl" was in everyone’s collective conscious and everyone feels they met her, but turns out she is fake and the protagonist has to go back in his memories and really meet her and figure out what she is there for. Left me wanting to know more.
The Queen of Night’s Aria, Ian McDonald
Ok - longish story about an opera singer, and his assistant who is at the end of his career and having to travel in space to entertain the troops fighting aliens from other planets. Turns out the alien queen is a fan of his and captures him.
The Irish Astronaut, Val Nolan
Ok - An almost astronaut had to go to Ireland to give his friend who died in space a burial. People believed he was an astronaut. He had to deal with them and his own mistakes as he waited for the priest.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2014
Over the last almost four years that I've been running A Fantastical Librarian, I've come to appreciate the art of short form more and more. But most of my short fiction consumption comes from reading anthologies and listening to podcasts such as Escape Pod, PodCastle, Lightspeed and Clarkesworld; most of the fiction published in magazines completely passes me by. And when the email about a review copy for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year volume 8 arrived, it plugged that gap nicely, especially given the fact that I was in the process of putting together my nominations for this year's Hugo's. What I found in this continuation of Jonathan Strahan's series of 'Best of the Year'-anthologies with a new publisher, was a fantastic set of stories, some of which didn't completely work for me, but all of them interesting. Below I'll call out some of the stories I really liked and talk in more detail about my favourites.
Greg Egan's Zero for Conduct surprised me a lot, especially given the fact that Egan is often remarked on for the fact that his stories are hard Hard SF and can be somewhat inaccessible for the casual SF reader. And while I certainly ran across some scientific concepts that I didn't completely grok, I realised I found the way Egan used these rather lovely, rather than confusing. And I loved the idea and setting for the story. The science is important to the plot, but the narrative is all about Latifa's story. Neil Gaiman's The Sleeper and the Spindle was a delightful retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the evil Fairy Godmother's perspective. Benjanun Sriduangkaew's Fade to Gold was as amazing on re-read as it was the first time and it's on my Hugo Ballot. Ian R. Macleod's Entangled was a fascinating look at a society in which humans have evolved into hive-minded creatures and what it is like to be stuck on the outside. An Owomoyela's In Metal, In Bone is a searing look at war, at its effects on its victims and how often those who wish to help them become victims of circumstance themselves.
Ted Chiang - The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling
I loved this dual story of a father trying to parse a new technology in which people record everything that happens to them, creating a virtual memory, leaving nothing to be forgotten or misremembered and a story of a village boy learning to read and write and moving from an oral tradition to a written one. The questions it asks about memory and the way humans tend to distort their own memories to make their behaviour or past more palatable are fascinating, as is the look at how new technology is so often seen as a threat to civilisation and humanity itself, be it writing, the printing press, the internet or in this case a virtual memory. I liked this one so much I nominated it for a Hugo.
K J Parker - The Sun and I
This is my second K J parker story after A Rich Full Week from Swords and Dark Magic and it reminded me that I definitely, really need to check out Parker's novels, because I love their writing. There is a dry wit to this story of a religion set up by a group of con men who find out that the joke is on them as their made-up religion turns out to be so successful and popular, that there is no getting away with the money and they end up running a true Church. It also asks some difficult ethical and moral questions, especially one of the most fundamental ones in life—whether good done in the name of evil is still good and evil done in the name of good isn't still evil. The narrator’s voice is strong and the story just made me smile from beginning to end. I also nominated this one for a Hugo.
Sofia Samatar - Selkie Stories are for Losers
I love this story about a woman not wanting to be like her Selkie mother. I think this is a theme that will resonate with many people as most of us do not want to be like our parents. And it's a story of friendship and love. It's a mixture of Selkie legends and the story of the unnamed narrator and Mona. It's really hard to explain more about it, because it's a really short story, but I loved its flow and language.
Madeline Ashby - Social Services
What I really liked about Madeline Ashby's Social Services was its combination of strange technology, human nature, and its creepy ending. Lena is a sympathetic character, a social worker who wants to truly help her clients be better and living in a difficult situation at home. Ashby drops hints throughout the story that something is off, but at the same time the ending was unexpected and really, really creepy, which I loved. To say more would ruin the twist, but this was absolutely one of my favourites from this collection.
Robert Reed - Mystic Falls
I first heard Mystic Falls in audio form on the Clarkesworld podcast and I really liked it a lot. However, liking the audio version doesn't always equate to liking a story in print, however odd that may sound, but in the case of Mystic Falls I liked the story even better. It again plays with memory, but adds artificial intelligence and computer viruses in the mix. The narrator is quite matter-of-fact about some things, and I loved the dryness of his voice. The story is serious and emotionally engaging, but at the same time is witty and clever and made for a wonderful read.
Not having read any other year's best anthologies for 2013 – I think Strahan's is one of the first to be published and it's only coming out in May – it's hard to draw a comparison, but I know I enjoyed my time spent with these stories. Strahan wrote an interesting foreword to the collection. However, I would have loved to have learned more about why he selected these stories over others, what his selection criteria were, whether it's a gut instinct thing or a rational decision. Still, regardless of the how and the why, this is a wonderful collection of stories and if you want to catch up on some of 2013's best short fiction, Jonathan Strahan's The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year volume 8 is an excellent place to start.
This book was provided for review by the publisher.
Greg Egan's Zero for Conduct surprised me a lot, especially given the fact that Egan is often remarked on for the fact that his stories are hard Hard SF and can be somewhat inaccessible for the casual SF reader. And while I certainly ran across some scientific concepts that I didn't completely grok, I realised I found the way Egan used these rather lovely, rather than confusing. And I loved the idea and setting for the story. The science is important to the plot, but the narrative is all about Latifa's story. Neil Gaiman's The Sleeper and the Spindle was a delightful retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the evil Fairy Godmother's perspective. Benjanun Sriduangkaew's Fade to Gold was as amazing on re-read as it was the first time and it's on my Hugo Ballot. Ian R. Macleod's Entangled was a fascinating look at a society in which humans have evolved into hive-minded creatures and what it is like to be stuck on the outside. An Owomoyela's In Metal, In Bone is a searing look at war, at its effects on its victims and how often those who wish to help them become victims of circumstance themselves.
Ted Chiang - The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling
I loved this dual story of a father trying to parse a new technology in which people record everything that happens to them, creating a virtual memory, leaving nothing to be forgotten or misremembered and a story of a village boy learning to read and write and moving from an oral tradition to a written one. The questions it asks about memory and the way humans tend to distort their own memories to make their behaviour or past more palatable are fascinating, as is the look at how new technology is so often seen as a threat to civilisation and humanity itself, be it writing, the printing press, the internet or in this case a virtual memory. I liked this one so much I nominated it for a Hugo.
K J Parker - The Sun and I
This is my second K J parker story after A Rich Full Week from Swords and Dark Magic and it reminded me that I definitely, really need to check out Parker's novels, because I love their writing. There is a dry wit to this story of a religion set up by a group of con men who find out that the joke is on them as their made-up religion turns out to be so successful and popular, that there is no getting away with the money and they end up running a true Church. It also asks some difficult ethical and moral questions, especially one of the most fundamental ones in life—whether good done in the name of evil is still good and evil done in the name of good isn't still evil. The narrator’s voice is strong and the story just made me smile from beginning to end. I also nominated this one for a Hugo.
Sofia Samatar - Selkie Stories are for Losers
I love this story about a woman not wanting to be like her Selkie mother. I think this is a theme that will resonate with many people as most of us do not want to be like our parents. And it's a story of friendship and love. It's a mixture of Selkie legends and the story of the unnamed narrator and Mona. It's really hard to explain more about it, because it's a really short story, but I loved its flow and language.
Madeline Ashby - Social Services
What I really liked about Madeline Ashby's Social Services was its combination of strange technology, human nature, and its creepy ending. Lena is a sympathetic character, a social worker who wants to truly help her clients be better and living in a difficult situation at home. Ashby drops hints throughout the story that something is off, but at the same time the ending was unexpected and really, really creepy, which I loved. To say more would ruin the twist, but this was absolutely one of my favourites from this collection.
Robert Reed - Mystic Falls
I first heard Mystic Falls in audio form on the Clarkesworld podcast and I really liked it a lot. However, liking the audio version doesn't always equate to liking a story in print, however odd that may sound, but in the case of Mystic Falls I liked the story even better. It again plays with memory, but adds artificial intelligence and computer viruses in the mix. The narrator is quite matter-of-fact about some things, and I loved the dryness of his voice. The story is serious and emotionally engaging, but at the same time is witty and clever and made for a wonderful read.
Not having read any other year's best anthologies for 2013 – I think Strahan's is one of the first to be published and it's only coming out in May – it's hard to draw a comparison, but I know I enjoyed my time spent with these stories. Strahan wrote an interesting foreword to the collection. However, I would have loved to have learned more about why he selected these stories over others, what his selection criteria were, whether it's a gut instinct thing or a rational decision. Still, regardless of the how and the why, this is a wonderful collection of stories and if you want to catch up on some of 2013's best short fiction, Jonathan Strahan's The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year volume 8 is an excellent place to start.
This book was provided for review by the publisher.
May 12, 2020
A couple of really good stories, but mostly pretty meh. Average 3.3 stars.
"Some Desperado" by Joe Abercrombie 2 - How is this sci fi or fantasy??
"Zero for Conduct" by Greg Egan 3.5
"Effigy Nights" by Yoon Ha Lee 2.5
"Rosary and Goldenstar" by Geoff Ryman 2 - meh
"The Sleeper and the Spindle" by Neil Gaiman 5
"Cave and Julia" by M. John Harrison 1 - wtf
"The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest" by M Bennardo 3
"Water" by Ramez Naam 4
"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang 4
"The Ink Readers of Doi Saket" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt 1 - ugh
"Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls" by Richard Parks 5
"Rag and Bone" by Priya Sharma 4
"The Book Seller" by Lavie Tidhar 1 - bleh
"The Sun and I" by K J Parker 5 - now that's more like it.
"The Promise of Space" by James Patrick Kelly 4 - nice!
"The Master Conjurer" by Charlie Jane Anders 4
"The Pilgrim and the Angel" by E. Lily Yu 4
"Entangled" by Ian R Macleod 3.5
"Fade to Gold" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew 4
"Selkie Stories are for Losers" by Sofia Samatar 4
"In Metal, In Bone" by An Owomoyela 3.5
"Kormak the Lucky" by Eleanor Arnason 3.5
"Sing" by Karin Tidbeck 2.5
"Social Services" by Madeline Ashby 4
"The Road of Needles" by Caitlín R Kiernan 2.5
"Mystic Falls" by Robert Reed 4
"The Queen of Night’s Aria" by Ian McDonald 3
"The Irish Astronaut" by Val Nolan 3.5
"Some Desperado" by Joe Abercrombie 2 - How is this sci fi or fantasy??
"Zero for Conduct" by Greg Egan 3.5
"Effigy Nights" by Yoon Ha Lee 2.5
"Rosary and Goldenstar" by Geoff Ryman 2 - meh
"The Sleeper and the Spindle" by Neil Gaiman 5
"Cave and Julia" by M. John Harrison 1 - wtf
"The Herons of Mer de l’Ouest" by M Bennardo 3
"Water" by Ramez Naam 4
"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang 4
"The Ink Readers of Doi Saket" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt 1 - ugh
"Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls" by Richard Parks 5
"Rag and Bone" by Priya Sharma 4
"The Book Seller" by Lavie Tidhar 1 - bleh
"The Sun and I" by K J Parker 5 - now that's more like it.
"The Promise of Space" by James Patrick Kelly 4 - nice!
"The Master Conjurer" by Charlie Jane Anders 4
"The Pilgrim and the Angel" by E. Lily Yu 4
"Entangled" by Ian R Macleod 3.5
"Fade to Gold" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew 4
"Selkie Stories are for Losers" by Sofia Samatar 4
"In Metal, In Bone" by An Owomoyela 3.5
"Kormak the Lucky" by Eleanor Arnason 3.5
"Sing" by Karin Tidbeck 2.5
"Social Services" by Madeline Ashby 4
"The Road of Needles" by Caitlín R Kiernan 2.5
"Mystic Falls" by Robert Reed 4
"The Queen of Night’s Aria" by Ian McDonald 3
"The Irish Astronaut" by Val Nolan 3.5
May 28, 2017
I read anthologies for two reasons.
First is to enjoy the stories. It is for that reason that I gave it a 3-star. Too many post-apocalypse stories get me down - especially given current world events.
The second reason to read them is to find authors who are new to you and worth checking out. And here I came up with a few people I will be looking out for in future...
Ian R Macleod, who's 'Entangled' is a great and touching story that skillfully depicts what it is like to be an outsider and what it is to be separated from your own past. This story still haunts me.
Robert Reed. His story 'Mystic Falls' tells of what might happen one day soon on the web. Convinced me that the thing might be haunted.
Ian McDonald. 'The Queen of Night's Aria' is set in the immediate future of H.G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds' and is as funny as it is inventive. It's the story of an Irish Tenor sent to entertain the troops on Mars. Clever and affectionate send up of both Wells and the world of Irish Tenors.
Val Nolan. 'The Irish Astronaut' is not really science fiction, other than the fact that the story concerns an astronaut killed when returning from a moon landing. Touching and satisfying.
So maybe, on reflection, it should be 3.5 stars.
First is to enjoy the stories. It is for that reason that I gave it a 3-star. Too many post-apocalypse stories get me down - especially given current world events.
The second reason to read them is to find authors who are new to you and worth checking out. And here I came up with a few people I will be looking out for in future...
Ian R Macleod, who's 'Entangled' is a great and touching story that skillfully depicts what it is like to be an outsider and what it is to be separated from your own past. This story still haunts me.
Robert Reed. His story 'Mystic Falls' tells of what might happen one day soon on the web. Convinced me that the thing might be haunted.
Ian McDonald. 'The Queen of Night's Aria' is set in the immediate future of H.G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds' and is as funny as it is inventive. It's the story of an Irish Tenor sent to entertain the troops on Mars. Clever and affectionate send up of both Wells and the world of Irish Tenors.
Val Nolan. 'The Irish Astronaut' is not really science fiction, other than the fact that the story concerns an astronaut killed when returning from a moon landing. Touching and satisfying.
So maybe, on reflection, it should be 3.5 stars.
May 19, 2021
A middling collection of SF and Fantasy stories.
"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang was a standout ."Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls" by Richard Parks had a nice Kubo and the Two Strings feel and would make a great animation. Mystic Falls by Robert Reed was a good blend of the surreal and the technological ."Kormack the Lucky" by Eleanor Arnason had the feel of a classic fairy tale ,similar in some ways to Beauty by Sherri S Tepper. Most of the others were decent but not very meemorable .
"The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang was a standout ."Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls" by Richard Parks had a nice Kubo and the Two Strings feel and would make a great animation. Mystic Falls by Robert Reed was a good blend of the surreal and the technological ."Kormack the Lucky" by Eleanor Arnason had the feel of a classic fairy tale ,similar in some ways to Beauty by Sherri S Tepper. Most of the others were decent but not very meemorable .
September 23, 2017
Really fabulous stories, almost without exception. My only complaint is that of personal preference, really- every story that I enjoyed (which was basically ever story in the collection) was over much too soon. The worlds were intriguing, the characters were engaging, and I felt like I got a taste when I wanted a meal. It is rare for me to read a short story that leaves me satisfied but I'm always looking!
December 4, 2017
Variable
I don't know what to make of this collection. Some of the stories seemed to be trying far too hard to be weird. Others were excellent. A very mixed bag. Of course, others might like the ones I hated, and hate the ones I liked. Not sure I'd purchase another in this series.
I don't know what to make of this collection. Some of the stories seemed to be trying far too hard to be weird. Others were excellent. A very mixed bag. Of course, others might like the ones I hated, and hate the ones I liked. Not sure I'd purchase another in this series.
April 10, 2018
Good spread of stories
As you’d expect from a collection, there are some cracking Stories. Thankfully there were more Good than average, some I’d like expanded on.
If you’re looking for quickies he Sci FI variety this is worth a go.
As you’d expect from a collection, there are some cracking Stories. Thankfully there were more Good than average, some I’d like expanded on.
If you’re looking for quickies he Sci FI variety this is worth a go.
August 31, 2017
Many of these stories are excellent.
September 26, 2017
Lots of overlap with Dozios' annual collection, but maybe a little more emphasis on fantasy, which is fine. Many good stories here.
November 21, 2019
Read the first 8 of these stories and enjoyed them. Circumstances mean I have left it unfinished but I might get back to it.
December 27, 2019
I am clearly to old for this book as I prefer my science fiction to be
‘Science fiction’
‘Science fiction’
June 11, 2021
Lots of Good a Little Slow
A compilation is by definition a mix. Greatly enjoyed all the stories even if a few were not my favorite.
A compilation is by definition a mix. Greatly enjoyed all the stories even if a few were not my favorite.
June 18, 2021
Lots of diverse authors and good short stories. I enjoyed.
November 7, 2023
Sleeper and the Spindle (Gaiman, of course), Herons of Mer de L’ouest, The Sun and I*, The Promise of Space, Master Conjurer (cute), Entangled, Kormak the Lucky
April 18, 2014
I tried last year subscribing to a number of online Science Fiction and Fantasy magazines in a vain attempt to try and get a handle on the field in its short form. I still have a digital pile of unread magazines that I probably won’t make it to, what with being a reviewer, producer and a creative myself.
That’s one reason why I find works like The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 8 handy. It’s a curated volume of some of the best works of the year, in the field. For sure it’s Jonathan Strahan’s idea of what’s best and he’ll naturally have a different idea to other long running editors but I personally have found this particular volume to provide ample comfort, challenge and diversity.
There are works that are simply enjoyable and what we expect from well known authors; Abercrombie’s story Some Desperado featuring Shy from his Red Country novel and Gaiman’s off kilter fairytale, The Sleeper and the Spindle jump to mind.
Not having read any Greg Egan before I was delighted to find Zero for Conduct engaging, accessible and in line with the growing trend to present gender and cultural diversity. Prior to this story I had an impression that Egan might be a little too “hard science” for my tastes, but if he has longer work in the same vein as this short, I’d gladly read more.
M. John Harrison’s Cave and Julia, created a sense of enjoyable unease, and probably deserves a second reading because I got lost in his prose the first time. If your are the kind of reader that thinks Science Fiction is all about ray guns and rocket ships then you might check out Harrison’s work to witness some stylistic diversity.
Ramez Naam’s work Water, is one of my favourites, a story that takes current trends and extrapolates. You get an interesting and believable concept taken to its logical conclusion and in turn are obliquely encouraged to reflect on the present.
Ted Chiang achieves something similar with The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, where he presents the scenario of a society where we are able to record and recall almost instantaneously every waking moment. He explores the ramifications of such through the narrator , a journalist who is exploring the use of such technology himself while at the same time presenting a parallel story of the effect the introduction of English writing and written technology on an oral culture.
Both Naam and Chiang give you stories that keep you thinking long after the story has ended.
Priya Sharma’s Rag and Bone, turns us away from science fiction toward a distinctly Dickensian Weird. This tale has a nice twist to it which I think elevates it from being just another, albeit very well realised and written, outgrowth of Steampunk/Alternate Victorian genre meshed with the weird. This story makes me want to track down more of Sharma’s work.
The inclusion of Charlie Jane Anders The Master Conjurer, is proof that writers of Speculative Fiction have a wicked sense of humour and works to bring some levity and offers contrast with some of the darker or serious works.
I am pleased to see Benjanun Sriduangkaew’s Fade to Gold included. Sriduangkaew is one of the only short fiction writers I have managed to keep track of in the past year. A fan of her science fiction, I was pleasantly surprised to see a work here, fantastical in nature, riffing off (what I assume) is Thai folklore, I was instantly reminded of some of the work Paolo Chikiamco collected in his anthology of Philippine Fantasy, Alternative Alamat.
The goodness continues with a Kiernan, an Ashby and an Ian Macdonald to name but three. I tip my hat to Strahan (and to the writers he’s selected) because he’s presented a good representation of the field, he’s made me feel comfortable with the inclusion of works that fall in line with my tastes and presented works that showcase other parts of the genre, even authors I am not familiar with. I get a sense that there’s a certain forward momentum with what he’s presented.
There’s enough material out there I’d say, to give a readership an entire collection of works not much different to an anthology collected a decade ago. But the genre is moving on, with sub communities launching their own generation ships off in different directions, some boldly exploring the new, others staying a course. Its nigh impossible to hold a full picture of everything contained within the Speculative Fiction universe but I think Strahan like a wizened navigator, can and has, presented us with an excellent guide.
This review was based on an e-Arc provided by the publisher.
That’s one reason why I find works like The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 8 handy. It’s a curated volume of some of the best works of the year, in the field. For sure it’s Jonathan Strahan’s idea of what’s best and he’ll naturally have a different idea to other long running editors but I personally have found this particular volume to provide ample comfort, challenge and diversity.
There are works that are simply enjoyable and what we expect from well known authors; Abercrombie’s story Some Desperado featuring Shy from his Red Country novel and Gaiman’s off kilter fairytale, The Sleeper and the Spindle jump to mind.
Not having read any Greg Egan before I was delighted to find Zero for Conduct engaging, accessible and in line with the growing trend to present gender and cultural diversity. Prior to this story I had an impression that Egan might be a little too “hard science” for my tastes, but if he has longer work in the same vein as this short, I’d gladly read more.
M. John Harrison’s Cave and Julia, created a sense of enjoyable unease, and probably deserves a second reading because I got lost in his prose the first time. If your are the kind of reader that thinks Science Fiction is all about ray guns and rocket ships then you might check out Harrison’s work to witness some stylistic diversity.
Ramez Naam’s work Water, is one of my favourites, a story that takes current trends and extrapolates. You get an interesting and believable concept taken to its logical conclusion and in turn are obliquely encouraged to reflect on the present.
Ted Chiang achieves something similar with The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, where he presents the scenario of a society where we are able to record and recall almost instantaneously every waking moment. He explores the ramifications of such through the narrator , a journalist who is exploring the use of such technology himself while at the same time presenting a parallel story of the effect the introduction of English writing and written technology on an oral culture.
Both Naam and Chiang give you stories that keep you thinking long after the story has ended.
Priya Sharma’s Rag and Bone, turns us away from science fiction toward a distinctly Dickensian Weird. This tale has a nice twist to it which I think elevates it from being just another, albeit very well realised and written, outgrowth of Steampunk/Alternate Victorian genre meshed with the weird. This story makes me want to track down more of Sharma’s work.
The inclusion of Charlie Jane Anders The Master Conjurer, is proof that writers of Speculative Fiction have a wicked sense of humour and works to bring some levity and offers contrast with some of the darker or serious works.
I am pleased to see Benjanun Sriduangkaew’s Fade to Gold included. Sriduangkaew is one of the only short fiction writers I have managed to keep track of in the past year. A fan of her science fiction, I was pleasantly surprised to see a work here, fantastical in nature, riffing off (what I assume) is Thai folklore, I was instantly reminded of some of the work Paolo Chikiamco collected in his anthology of Philippine Fantasy, Alternative Alamat.
The goodness continues with a Kiernan, an Ashby and an Ian Macdonald to name but three. I tip my hat to Strahan (and to the writers he’s selected) because he’s presented a good representation of the field, he’s made me feel comfortable with the inclusion of works that fall in line with my tastes and presented works that showcase other parts of the genre, even authors I am not familiar with. I get a sense that there’s a certain forward momentum with what he’s presented.
There’s enough material out there I’d say, to give a readership an entire collection of works not much different to an anthology collected a decade ago. But the genre is moving on, with sub communities launching their own generation ships off in different directions, some boldly exploring the new, others staying a course. Its nigh impossible to hold a full picture of everything contained within the Speculative Fiction universe but I think Strahan like a wizened navigator, can and has, presented us with an excellent guide.
This review was based on an e-Arc provided by the publisher.
March 18, 2020
Great Sci-Fi and Fantasy reading!
A marvellous and eclectic collection of some truly fantastic stories. This anthology has led me to a few new favourite authors. Thank you.
A marvellous and eclectic collection of some truly fantastic stories. This anthology has led me to a few new favourite authors. Thank you.
July 28, 2014
This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 3.5 of 5
I really enjoy reading short stories. It used to be that I subscribed to just about every science fiction and fantasy magazine on the market, just because of the volume of short stories i could then read. But of course as time went on, my reading time dwindled and about the same time, more and more magazines were hitting the markets. now of course there's no end to the number of on-line magazines available as well. I still read from all these occasionally, but I've found that it helps me a lot if I let some other person spend the time to weed through the volume of short stories and give me the 'best' of them. Of course the 'best of' is really dependent on that particular editor's tastes. But as much as I enjoy short stories, I must admit that I tend to look at a collection such as this as a way to find 'new' authors for me to
Jonathan Strahan is no stranger to editing and I've read some of his edited works before and am comfortable with seeing his name on the by-line.
All the stories here are well written and generally interesting, but there were no stories that made me sit up, take notice, and do a quick google search on the author. In other words, there was nothing so stellar that I had to tell everyone I knew to hurry out and read it. There were, however, a few stand-outs:
The book begins with a Joe Abercrombie story, "Some Desperado" that might make you wonder if you didn't pick up a western/thriller collection. Almost. In fact, it was this blurring of the genre lines that first appealed to me, and the general story-telling was a heck of a lot of fun ("The world's a mean bully, alright, and the lower down you are the more it delights in kicking you." ).
Yoon Ha Lee (who is new to me) has a clever little tale called "Effigy Nights" in which a city (planet?) under siege comes up with a clever means of creating weapons out of paper that disintegrate over time.
Being a theatre professional, I caught on very quickly to the characters in "Rosary and Goldenstar" by Geoff Ryman. There isn't much to the story about the misunderstandings in language but the cast of characters is fun. Dr. John Dee is a great, little-known source for a character!
Rounding out my personal favorites would be "Water" by Ramez Naam, in which the term "Smart Water" is taken to a new extreme; "Sing" by Karin Tidbeck (an outcast with a beautiful singing voice captures a stranger's interest); and "Social Services" by Madeline Ashby, which definitely caught me off-guard as a social worker in the future is sent to check up on abused/at-risk children in an abandoned development that once was quite luxurious.
There are many familiar author names here (Neil Gaiman, M. John Harrison, E. Lily Yu, Eleanor Arnason, etc) and you know you aren't likely to be steered wrong with a collection such as this. But maybe next year we'll get that stand-out story that everyone is talking about and everyone has to read.
This collection includes:
"Some Desperado" - Joe Abercrombie
"Zero For Conduct" - Greg Egan
"Effigy Nights" - Yoon Ha Lee
"Rosary and Goldenstar" - Geoff Ryman
"The Sleeper and the Spindle" - Neil Gaiman
"Cave and Julia" - M. John Harrison
"The Herons of Mer de L'oUest" - M. Bennardo
"Water" - Ramez Naam
"The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling" - Ted Chiang
"The Ink Readers of Doi Saket" - Thomas Olde Heuvelt
"Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls" - Richard Parks
"Rag and Bone" - Priya Sharma
"The Book Seller" - Lavie Tidhar
"The Sun and I" - K J Parker
"The Promise of Space" - James Patrick Kelly
"The Master Conjurer" - Charlie Jane Anders
"The Pilgrim and the Angel" - E. Lily Yu
"Entangled" - Ian R Macleod
"Fade to Gold" - Benjanun Sriduangkaew
"Selkie Stories Are for Losers" - Sofia Samatar
"In Metal, In Bone" - An Owomoyela
"Kormak the Lucky" - Eleanor Arnason
"Sing" - Karin Tidbeck
"Social Services" - Madeline Ashby
"The Road of Needles" - Caitlin R Kiernan
"Mystic Falls" - Robert Reed
"The Queen of Night's Aria" - Ian McDonald
"The Irish Astronaut" - Val Nolan
Looking for a good book? If you enjoy science fiction or fantasy even in the slightest, this collection should be on your 'must read' list.
I really enjoy reading short stories. It used to be that I subscribed to just about every science fiction and fantasy magazine on the market, just because of the volume of short stories i could then read. But of course as time went on, my reading time dwindled and about the same time, more and more magazines were hitting the markets. now of course there's no end to the number of on-line magazines available as well. I still read from all these occasionally, but I've found that it helps me a lot if I let some other person spend the time to weed through the volume of short stories and give me the 'best' of them. Of course the 'best of' is really dependent on that particular editor's tastes. But as much as I enjoy short stories, I must admit that I tend to look at a collection such as this as a way to find 'new' authors for me to
Jonathan Strahan is no stranger to editing and I've read some of his edited works before and am comfortable with seeing his name on the by-line.
All the stories here are well written and generally interesting, but there were no stories that made me sit up, take notice, and do a quick google search on the author. In other words, there was nothing so stellar that I had to tell everyone I knew to hurry out and read it. There were, however, a few stand-outs:
The book begins with a Joe Abercrombie story, "Some Desperado" that might make you wonder if you didn't pick up a western/thriller collection. Almost. In fact, it was this blurring of the genre lines that first appealed to me, and the general story-telling was a heck of a lot of fun ("The world's a mean bully, alright, and the lower down you are the more it delights in kicking you." ).
Yoon Ha Lee (who is new to me) has a clever little tale called "Effigy Nights" in which a city (planet?) under siege comes up with a clever means of creating weapons out of paper that disintegrate over time.
Being a theatre professional, I caught on very quickly to the characters in "Rosary and Goldenstar" by Geoff Ryman. There isn't much to the story about the misunderstandings in language but the cast of characters is fun. Dr. John Dee is a great, little-known source for a character!
Rounding out my personal favorites would be "Water" by Ramez Naam, in which the term "Smart Water" is taken to a new extreme; "Sing" by Karin Tidbeck (an outcast with a beautiful singing voice captures a stranger's interest); and "Social Services" by Madeline Ashby, which definitely caught me off-guard as a social worker in the future is sent to check up on abused/at-risk children in an abandoned development that once was quite luxurious.
There are many familiar author names here (Neil Gaiman, M. John Harrison, E. Lily Yu, Eleanor Arnason, etc) and you know you aren't likely to be steered wrong with a collection such as this. But maybe next year we'll get that stand-out story that everyone is talking about and everyone has to read.
This collection includes:
"Some Desperado" - Joe Abercrombie
"Zero For Conduct" - Greg Egan
"Effigy Nights" - Yoon Ha Lee
"Rosary and Goldenstar" - Geoff Ryman
"The Sleeper and the Spindle" - Neil Gaiman
"Cave and Julia" - M. John Harrison
"The Herons of Mer de L'oUest" - M. Bennardo
"Water" - Ramez Naam
"The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling" - Ted Chiang
"The Ink Readers of Doi Saket" - Thomas Olde Heuvelt
"Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls" - Richard Parks
"Rag and Bone" - Priya Sharma
"The Book Seller" - Lavie Tidhar
"The Sun and I" - K J Parker
"The Promise of Space" - James Patrick Kelly
"The Master Conjurer" - Charlie Jane Anders
"The Pilgrim and the Angel" - E. Lily Yu
"Entangled" - Ian R Macleod
"Fade to Gold" - Benjanun Sriduangkaew
"Selkie Stories Are for Losers" - Sofia Samatar
"In Metal, In Bone" - An Owomoyela
"Kormak the Lucky" - Eleanor Arnason
"Sing" - Karin Tidbeck
"Social Services" - Madeline Ashby
"The Road of Needles" - Caitlin R Kiernan
"Mystic Falls" - Robert Reed
"The Queen of Night's Aria" - Ian McDonald
"The Irish Astronaut" - Val Nolan
Looking for a good book? If you enjoy science fiction or fantasy even in the slightest, this collection should be on your 'must read' list.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews