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The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction
For years, The Year's Best Science Fiction has been the most widely read short science fiction anthology of its kind. Now, after twenty-one annual collections, comes the ultimate in science fiction anthologies, The Best of the 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction, in which legendary editor Gardner Dozois selects the very best short stories for this landmark collection. Some notable stories "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin. Coming of age is a difficult passage for any adolescent, but couple that with the potential to be either sex and you've got a dilemma of seismic proportion. Bringing readers back to the world of her classic and best known novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin creates a compelling and evocative story of transition."The Winter Market" by William Gibson. Called the SF Timothy Leary of our times, Gibson returns to the subject that made him a cultural icon, cyberpunk. People who know what they want are often lauded and honored in this society. But when those people start using others to get it, beware!"Trinity" by Nancy Kress. People have searched for God since the dawn of time, but not until the new millennium did they think to find this celestial being through technology. Since soon after the series began, Kress has been an annual and esteemed contributor to The Year's Best Science Fiction. Contributors Stephen Baxter * Greg Bear * William Bigson * Terry Bisson * Pat Cadigan * Ted Chiang * John Crowley * Tony Daniel * Greg Egan * Molly Gloss * Eileen Gunn * Joe Haldeman * James Patrick Kelly * John Kessel * Nancy Kress * Ursula K. Le Guin * Ian R. MacLeod * David Marusek * Paul McAuley * Ian McDonald * Maureen F. McHugh * Robert Reed * Mike Resnick * Geoff Ryman * William Sander * Lucius Shepard * Robert Silverberg * Brian Stableford * Bruce Sterling * Charles Stross * Michael Swanwick * Steven Utley * Howard Waldrop * Walter Jon Williams * Connie Willis * Gene WolfeWith work spanning two decades, The Best of the Best stands as one of the ultimate science fiction anthologies ever published.
655 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2005
About the author
Gardner Dozois
650 books345 followersGardner Raymond Dozois was an American science fiction author and editor. He was editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine from 1984 to 2004. He won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, both as an editor and a writer of short fiction.
Wikipedia entry: Gardner Dozois
http://us.macmillan.com/author/gardne...
Wikipedia entry: Gardner Dozois
http://us.macmillan.com/author/gardne...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
August 21, 2021
Modern science fiction writers try to do too much all at once. By modern I mean anything after 1990. Before then, they came up with a nice idea and wrote a story round their single idea set either in the present or on a planet that only had three things different from Earth or in the future which only had three things different in it than 1975. These days, that’s all way too simple. If you’re writing about another planet it has to have a complex thoroughly worked-out ecology based on methane and involving magnetic semipoles connected by superstrings. If you’re writing about the future you have to cram thirtyfive edgy inventions into your first three paragraphs (and please, that old internet-in-your-eyeballs is so passe now), to assure the reader that when you talk about the year 2278 you don’t just mean they replaced all those concrete buildings with shiny mirrored ones and they now have flying taxis.
All of this franticness gives me a headache. It is like they think they have to invent a whole new original world in every story. Still, of course there are many great sf stories being written, and this book had lots of excellent ones. My favourites were
Greg Bear: "Blood Music" (which became a really bonkers novel, read that instead)
Lucius Shepard: "Salvador"
Bruce Sterling: "Dinner in Audoghast"
John Crowley: "Snow"
Eileen Gunn: "Stable Strategies for Middle Management"
Mike Resnick: "Kirinyaga"
Terry Bisson: "Bears Discover Fire"
Connie Willis: "Even the Queen"
Joe Haldeman: "None So Blind"
Brian Stableford: "Mortimer Gray's History of Death"
Michael Swanwick: "The Dead"
Stephen Baxter: "People Came From Earth"
David Marusek: "The Wedding Album"
All of this franticness gives me a headache. It is like they think they have to invent a whole new original world in every story. Still, of course there are many great sf stories being written, and this book had lots of excellent ones. My favourites were
Greg Bear: "Blood Music" (which became a really bonkers novel, read that instead)
Lucius Shepard: "Salvador"
Bruce Sterling: "Dinner in Audoghast"
John Crowley: "Snow"
Eileen Gunn: "Stable Strategies for Middle Management"
Mike Resnick: "Kirinyaga"
Terry Bisson: "Bears Discover Fire"
Connie Willis: "Even the Queen"
Joe Haldeman: "None So Blind"
Brian Stableford: "Mortimer Gray's History of Death"
Michael Swanwick: "The Dead"
Stephen Baxter: "People Came From Earth"
David Marusek: "The Wedding Album"
April 18, 2020
Summary: Dozois published annual anthologies with the best published SF short works from several magazines ever since 1985. From 20 of these anthologies covering the years 1983-2002, he chose those 36 stories which impressed him as a reader the most. Obviously these are not absolutely the best stories of those years, because he didn't grab everyone in his anthologies. This is the first volume of three, where the second publishes novellas which were excluded from this first volume, and the third covering the years from 2003 to 2017. Together, they summarize and conclude those 35 years of anthologies, as there won't be no more from this master of his trade: Sadly, he passed away in 2018, may he rest in peace.
Please note, that review links will lead to my blog (GR doesn't like single stories and often deletes reviews, so I've pushed those to the external site).
What is to be expected from this anthology? First of all, a huge amount of stories. Also not only Science Fiction stories despite of the title - many of the stories are not exactly SF but magical realism or borderline SF at the best. Dozois tended to select literary stories which might not be to everyone's taste, but fit mine very well. As with every anthology, it is a mixed bag - some of the stories just didn't fit my taste, and I could have easily selected a better story from the according annual anthology. But I liked most and found more than a handful new favourites. Also, it is a extremely good retrospective of those years. So, if you trust Mr Dozois more than the Hugo or other awards like me, I can really recommend this huge anthology which is well worth the price and the time invested.
My favourite ★★★★★ stories were
Kirinyaga • 1988 • SF novelette by Mike Resnick • review
Guest of Honor • 1993 • SF novelette by Robert Reed • review
Wang's Carpets • 1995 • Posthuman first contact novelette by Greg Egan • review
The Undiscovered • 1997 • Alternate History novelette about Shakespeare writing Hamlet at the Cherokee by William Sanders • review
Story of Your Life • 1998 • first contact SF novella by Ted Chiang • review
Lobsters • 2001 • Near future novelette by Charles Stross • review
Breathmoss • 2002 • SF novella by Ian R. MacLeod • review
Weakest ☆ or ★ stories
None So Blind • 1994 • Near Future SF short story by Joe Haldeman • review
The Lincoln Train • 1995 • Alternate History short story by Maureen F. McHugh • I didn't get this story at all; Lincoln didn't die after his assassination, but that had no consequence for the story.
The Wedding Album • 1999 • novella by David Marusek • clones in holograms are freed by human rights movement - this started as an interesting story, but got longer and longer and the reused names confused me completely
Contents (stories are ordered from oldest to newest):
1 • ★★★★ • Blood Music • 1983 • Near Future SF novelette about nano computers gone rogue by Greg Bear • review
19 • ★★★+ • “A Cabin on the Coast” • 1981 • magical realism short story about the passage to the fairy world by Gene Wolfe • review
28 • ★★★★ • Salvador • 1984 • Near Future SF short story about drug induced haluzinating soldiers by Lucius Shepard • review
42 • ★★★+ • Trinity • 1984 • SF novella about a way of scientific search for God by Nancy Kress • review
78 • ★★ • Flying Saucer Rock and Roll • 1985 • Vintage novelette about exactly that title by Howard Waldrop • review
93 • ★★★ • Dinner in Audoghast • 1985 • Historical fiction short story by Bruce Sterling • review
103 • ★★ • Roadside Rescue • 1985 • SF short story by Pat Cadigan • review
109 • ★★★★ • Snow • 1985 • short story about recording lifes for the afterworld by John Crowley • review
121 • ★★★★ • The Winter Market • 1985 • Cyberpunk novelette about uploading minds by William Gibson • review
137 • ★★★ • The Pure Product • 1986 • Time Travel novelette about a murdering traveler in the 1980s by John Kessel • review
152 • ★★ • Stable Strategies for Middle Management • 1988 • Absurdist fiction short story covering Kafka's metamorphosis by Eileen Gunn
162 • ★★★★★ • Kirinyaga • 1988 • SF novelette about a Kenyan tribe in space by Mike Resnick • review
177 • ★★★★ • Tales from the Venia Woods • 1989 • Alternative History of an eternal Roman Empire short story by Robert Silverberg • review
191 • ★★★+ • Bears Discover Fire • 1990 • magical realism short story by Terry Bisson • review
199 • ★★★ • Even the Queen • 1992 • Near Future short story by Connie Willis • review
213 • ★★★★★ • Guest of Honor • 1993 • SF novelette by Robert Reed • review
238 • ★ • None So Blind • 1994 • Near Future SF short story by Joe Haldeman • review
246 • ★★★★ • Mortimer Gray's History of Death • 1995 • Posthuman SF novella by Brian Stableford • review
293 • ★ • The Lincoln Train • 1995 • Alternate History short story by Maureen F. McHugh • I didn't get this story at all; Lincoln didn't die after his assassination, but that had no consequence for the story.
303 • ★★★★★ • Wang's Carpets • 1995 • Posthuman first contact novelette by Greg Egan • review
328 • ★★★★ • Coming of Age in Karhide • 1995 • Hainish novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin • review
342 • ★★★★ • The Dead • 1996 • Zomedy short story by Michael Swanwick about Zombies as the new workforce • review
352 • ★★★+ • Recording Angel • 1996 • First contact short story by Ian McDonald • review
363 • ★★★★★ • A Dry, Quiet War • 1996 • Spaghetti Western in Space novelette by Tony Daniel • review
380 • ★★★★★ • The Undiscovered • 1997 • Alternate History novelette about Shakespeare writing Hamlet at the Cherokee by William Sanders • review
400 • ★★★ • Second Skin • 1997 • Quiet War short story by Paul J. McAuley • review
418 • ★★★★★ • Story of Your Life • 1998 • first contact SF novella by Ted Chiang • review
454 • ★★+ • People Came from Earth • 1999 • SF short story by Stephen Baxter • review
464 • ☆ (DNFed) • The Wedding Album • 1999 • novella by David Marusek • clones in holograms are freed by human rights movement - this started as an interesting story, but got longer and longer and the reused names confused me completely
502 • ★★★+ • 10 to 16 to 1 • 1999 • Time travel novelette by James Patrick Kelly • review
520 • ★★★+ • Daddy's World • 1999 • Posthuman novelette by Walter Jon Williams • review
541 • ★★★+ • The Real World • 2000 • SF novelette by Steven Utley • review
561 • ★★��+ • Have Not Have • 2001 • SF novelette by Geoff Ryman • review
577 • ★★★★★ • Lobsters • 2001 • Near future novelette by Charles Stross • review
597 • ★★★★+ • Breathmoss • 2002 • SF novella by Ian R. MacLeod • review
647 • ★★+ • Lambing Season • 2002 • First contact short story by Molly Gloss • review
Please note, that review links will lead to my blog (GR doesn't like single stories and often deletes reviews, so I've pushed those to the external site).
What is to be expected from this anthology? First of all, a huge amount of stories. Also not only Science Fiction stories despite of the title - many of the stories are not exactly SF but magical realism or borderline SF at the best. Dozois tended to select literary stories which might not be to everyone's taste, but fit mine very well. As with every anthology, it is a mixed bag - some of the stories just didn't fit my taste, and I could have easily selected a better story from the according annual anthology. But I liked most and found more than a handful new favourites. Also, it is a extremely good retrospective of those years. So, if you trust Mr Dozois more than the Hugo or other awards like me, I can really recommend this huge anthology which is well worth the price and the time invested.
My favourite ★★★★★ stories were
Kirinyaga • 1988 • SF novelette by Mike Resnick • review
Guest of Honor • 1993 • SF novelette by Robert Reed • review
Wang's Carpets • 1995 • Posthuman first contact novelette by Greg Egan • review
The Undiscovered • 1997 • Alternate History novelette about Shakespeare writing Hamlet at the Cherokee by William Sanders • review
Story of Your Life • 1998 • first contact SF novella by Ted Chiang • review
Lobsters • 2001 • Near future novelette by Charles Stross • review
Breathmoss • 2002 • SF novella by Ian R. MacLeod • review
Weakest ☆ or ★ stories
None So Blind • 1994 • Near Future SF short story by Joe Haldeman • review
The Lincoln Train • 1995 • Alternate History short story by Maureen F. McHugh • I didn't get this story at all; Lincoln didn't die after his assassination, but that had no consequence for the story.
The Wedding Album • 1999 • novella by David Marusek • clones in holograms are freed by human rights movement - this started as an interesting story, but got longer and longer and the reused names confused me completely
Contents (stories are ordered from oldest to newest):
1 • ★★★★ • Blood Music • 1983 • Near Future SF novelette about nano computers gone rogue by Greg Bear • review
19 • ★★★+ • “A Cabin on the Coast” • 1981 • magical realism short story about the passage to the fairy world by Gene Wolfe • review
28 • ★★★★ • Salvador • 1984 • Near Future SF short story about drug induced haluzinating soldiers by Lucius Shepard • review
42 • ★★★+ • Trinity • 1984 • SF novella about a way of scientific search for God by Nancy Kress • review
78 • ★★ • Flying Saucer Rock and Roll • 1985 • Vintage novelette about exactly that title by Howard Waldrop • review
93 • ★★★ • Dinner in Audoghast • 1985 • Historical fiction short story by Bruce Sterling • review
103 • ★★ • Roadside Rescue • 1985 • SF short story by Pat Cadigan • review
109 • ★★★★ • Snow • 1985 • short story about recording lifes for the afterworld by John Crowley • review
121 • ★★★★ • The Winter Market • 1985 • Cyberpunk novelette about uploading minds by William Gibson • review
137 • ★★★ • The Pure Product • 1986 • Time Travel novelette about a murdering traveler in the 1980s by John Kessel • review
152 • ★★ • Stable Strategies for Middle Management • 1988 • Absurdist fiction short story covering Kafka's metamorphosis by Eileen Gunn
162 • ★★★★★ • Kirinyaga • 1988 • SF novelette about a Kenyan tribe in space by Mike Resnick • review
177 • ★★★★ • Tales from the Venia Woods • 1989 • Alternative History of an eternal Roman Empire short story by Robert Silverberg • review
191 • ★★★+ • Bears Discover Fire • 1990 • magical realism short story by Terry Bisson • review
199 • ★★★ • Even the Queen • 1992 • Near Future short story by Connie Willis • review
213 • ★★★★★ • Guest of Honor • 1993 • SF novelette by Robert Reed • review
238 • ★ • None So Blind • 1994 • Near Future SF short story by Joe Haldeman • review
246 • ★★★★ • Mortimer Gray's History of Death • 1995 • Posthuman SF novella by Brian Stableford • review
293 • ★ • The Lincoln Train • 1995 • Alternate History short story by Maureen F. McHugh • I didn't get this story at all; Lincoln didn't die after his assassination, but that had no consequence for the story.
303 • ★★★★★ • Wang's Carpets • 1995 • Posthuman first contact novelette by Greg Egan • review
328 • ★★★★ • Coming of Age in Karhide • 1995 • Hainish novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin • review
342 • ★★★★ • The Dead • 1996 • Zomedy short story by Michael Swanwick about Zombies as the new workforce • review
352 • ★★★+ • Recording Angel • 1996 • First contact short story by Ian McDonald • review
363 • ★★★★★ • A Dry, Quiet War • 1996 • Spaghetti Western in Space novelette by Tony Daniel • review
380 • ★★★★★ • The Undiscovered • 1997 • Alternate History novelette about Shakespeare writing Hamlet at the Cherokee by William Sanders • review
400 • ★★★ • Second Skin • 1997 • Quiet War short story by Paul J. McAuley • review
418 • ★★★★★ • Story of Your Life • 1998 • first contact SF novella by Ted Chiang • review
454 • ★★+ • People Came from Earth • 1999 • SF short story by Stephen Baxter • review
464 • ☆ (DNFed) • The Wedding Album • 1999 • novella by David Marusek • clones in holograms are freed by human rights movement - this started as an interesting story, but got longer and longer and the reused names confused me completely
502 • ★★★+ • 10 to 16 to 1 • 1999 • Time travel novelette by James Patrick Kelly • review
520 • ★★★+ • Daddy's World • 1999 • Posthuman novelette by Walter Jon Williams • review
541 • ★★★+ • The Real World • 2000 • SF novelette by Steven Utley • review
561 • ★★��+ • Have Not Have • 2001 • SF novelette by Geoff Ryman • review
577 • ★★★★★ • Lobsters • 2001 • Near future novelette by Charles Stross • review
597 • ★★★★+ • Breathmoss • 2002 • SF novella by Ian R. MacLeod • review
647 • ★★+ • Lambing Season • 2002 • First contact short story by Molly Gloss • review
August 7, 2019
An outstanding collection. Here's an annotated TOC. My favorites are starred or rated, but they're all worth reading. I can't believe what an amazing lineup this is. Astounding! Fantastic! Absolutely not to be missed, if you have any interest in short SF. And a great primer, if you've always wanted to try some. Start with the best, right here.
** 10 to the 16th to 1 • (1999) • novelette by James Patrick Kelly
• A Cabin on the Coast • (1984) • short story by Gene Wolfe
**** A Dry, Quiet War • (1996) • novelette by Tony Daniel. 5+ stars! Possibly my favorite here. What a story!
**** Bears Discover Fire • (1990) • short story by Terry Bisson. 5 stars, maybe his best?
** Blood Music • (1983) • novelette by Greg Bear. 4+ stars
• Breathmoss • (2002) • novella by Ian R. MacLeod
* Coming of Age in Karhide • [Hainish] • (1995) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
** Daddy's World • (1999) • novelette by Walter Jon Williams
*** Dinner in Audoghast • (1985) • short story by Bruce Sterling. 5 stars, historical fantasy.
** Even the Queen • (1992) • short story by Connie Willis. 4.5 stars
* Flying Saucer Rock and Roll • (1985) • novelette by Howard Waldrop
** Guest of Honor • (1993) • novelette by Robert Reed. 4 stars
• Have Not Have • (2001) • novelette by Geoff Ryman
• Kirinyaga • (1988) • novelette by Mike Resnick
• Lambing Season • (2002) • short story by Molly Gloss
** Lobsters • [Manfred Macx] • (2001) • novelette by Charles Stross. 4.5 stars
* Mortimer Gray's History of Death • (1995) • novella by Brian Stableford
** None So Blind • (1994) • short story by Joe Haldeman
* People Came from Earth • (1999) • short story by Stephen Baxter
• Recording Angel • (1996) • short story by Ian McDonald
** Roadside Rescue • (1985) • short story by Pat Cadigan. 4.5 stars
• Salvador • (1984) • short story by Lucius Shepard
* Second Skin • [The Quiet War] • (1997) • short story by Paul J. McAuley
• Snow • (1985) • short story by John Crowley
*** Stable Strategies for Middle Management • (1988) • short story by Eileen Gunn. 4.5 stars
• Story of Your Life • (1998) • novella by Ted Chiang
* Tales from the Venia Woods • [Roma Eterna] • (1989) • short story by Robert Silverberg
* The Dead • (1996) • short story by Michael Swanwick. 3.5 stars
• The Lincoln Train • (1995) • short story by Maureen F. McHugh
* The Pure Product • (1986) • novelette by John Kessel
* The Real World • [Silurian Tales] • (2000) • novelette by Steven Utley
*** The Undiscovered • (1997) • novelette by William Sanders. 5 stars!
** The Wedding Album • [Cathy] • (1999) • novella by David Marusek. 4 stars
* The Winter Market • (1985) • novelette by William Gibson
• Trinity • (1984) • novella by Nancy Kress
*** Wang's Carpets • (1995) • novelette by Greg Egan. 4.5 stars
==========
NB: this is an old list, partially updated and reformatted 8-2019. Stars at left mean a standout,
but those aren't the GR star-ratings. Pretty much all of these are 3-star or better stories.
** 10 to the 16th to 1 • (1999) • novelette by James Patrick Kelly
• A Cabin on the Coast • (1984) • short story by Gene Wolfe
**** A Dry, Quiet War • (1996) • novelette by Tony Daniel. 5+ stars! Possibly my favorite here. What a story!
**** Bears Discover Fire • (1990) • short story by Terry Bisson. 5 stars, maybe his best?
** Blood Music • (1983) • novelette by Greg Bear. 4+ stars
• Breathmoss • (2002) • novella by Ian R. MacLeod
* Coming of Age in Karhide • [Hainish] • (1995) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
** Daddy's World • (1999) • novelette by Walter Jon Williams
*** Dinner in Audoghast • (1985) • short story by Bruce Sterling. 5 stars, historical fantasy.
** Even the Queen • (1992) • short story by Connie Willis. 4.5 stars
* Flying Saucer Rock and Roll • (1985) • novelette by Howard Waldrop
** Guest of Honor • (1993) • novelette by Robert Reed. 4 stars
• Have Not Have • (2001) • novelette by Geoff Ryman
• Kirinyaga • (1988) • novelette by Mike Resnick
• Lambing Season • (2002) • short story by Molly Gloss
** Lobsters • [Manfred Macx] • (2001) • novelette by Charles Stross. 4.5 stars
* Mortimer Gray's History of Death • (1995) • novella by Brian Stableford
** None So Blind • (1994) • short story by Joe Haldeman
* People Came from Earth • (1999) • short story by Stephen Baxter
• Recording Angel • (1996) • short story by Ian McDonald
** Roadside Rescue • (1985) • short story by Pat Cadigan. 4.5 stars
• Salvador • (1984) • short story by Lucius Shepard
* Second Skin • [The Quiet War] • (1997) • short story by Paul J. McAuley
• Snow • (1985) • short story by John Crowley
*** Stable Strategies for Middle Management • (1988) • short story by Eileen Gunn. 4.5 stars
• Story of Your Life • (1998) • novella by Ted Chiang
* Tales from the Venia Woods • [Roma Eterna] • (1989) • short story by Robert Silverberg
* The Dead • (1996) • short story by Michael Swanwick. 3.5 stars
• The Lincoln Train • (1995) • short story by Maureen F. McHugh
* The Pure Product • (1986) • novelette by John Kessel
* The Real World • [Silurian Tales] • (2000) • novelette by Steven Utley
*** The Undiscovered • (1997) • novelette by William Sanders. 5 stars!
** The Wedding Album • [Cathy] • (1999) • novella by David Marusek. 4 stars
* The Winter Market • (1985) • novelette by William Gibson
• Trinity • (1984) • novella by Nancy Kress
*** Wang's Carpets • (1995) • novelette by Greg Egan. 4.5 stars
==========
NB: this is an old list, partially updated and reformatted 8-2019. Stars at left mean a standout,
but those aren't the GR star-ratings. Pretty much all of these are 3-star or better stories.
November 27, 2012
"History of Death" is a long story, but well worth the read, and is easily one of the most interesting pieces of fiction I have ever read. I highly recommend others to read this story. The story details Mortimer Gray's journey of writing about death, and the fascination people have with it, once people become essentially immortal. The story's author works on a number of volumes in the History, which takes 174 years to complete. Battling several close calls with death himself, Mortimer Gray is an intriguing and highly flawed character, who is a joy to read about.
"The Undiscovered" by William Sanders - Another 'alternate history' story, "The Undiscovered" ponders what Williams Shakespeare might have accomplished, were his audience completely different than the ones he wrote for. The story details how 'Spearshaker' puts on a play with native-americans, after being stranded in the new-world, rather than writing his plays back in England. It's an interesting twist for a story to ponder, but Sanders does an admirable job.
"Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang - Though not a highly prolific author, I cannot help feeling like I've been missing something. "Story of Your Life" was arguably the best story in the book, and grabbed my attention more than any story I can remember. Another longer piece, "Story or Your Life" is both a flashback, and a flash-forward--sort of. Aliens at last visit us, but we find it more difficult to communicate than imagination could provide. Using 'semagrams', the main character learns not only how to communicate with the aliens', but also how to think like them--to unusual results. It's one of the best-written stories I've ever encountered, and should be required reading for any science fiction fan.
"10-16 to 1" by James Patrick Kelly - This is actually a story I had run across before, in a science fiction magazine. A time-traveler enlists the help of a young boy, to change the course of history for all life on Earth--if the boy completes his task properly. Set during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the tension of the story is a character in itself, and helps set the tone for the world that the boy lives in. Add the dysfunctional family, in a time where families weren't supposed to be dysfunctional, and the reality of the situation sets even further. With an interesting premise, and an even more interesting ending, this story is an enjoyable, and thought-provoking read.
"Lobsters" by Charles Stross - Another author whose work I've never delved into, Stross does a superb job portraying the future of the 'internet-age' in a believable, and somewhat terrifying manner. The technical portions of this story are what made me take notice, describing how even a Windows NT server from Russia can survive into the future, and become a character worth interacting with. Stross has become an author I will be looking for now, in order to see if his other stories are as technically rich. If so, I have a new favorite.
"Lambing Season" by Molly Gloss - Another story that I'd read in a magazine, "Lambing Season" is another fantastically understated work. Portraying an encounter with aliens, who look nothing like we'd expect, this story is leisurely and relaxed, and makes the reader feel comfortable with the idea that it's okay not to report the contact. I've not seen a lot of work by this author, but look forward to finding more.
Though these are not all of the great stories in the book, these were just my favorites, or the ones that made me notice the authors for the first time. All of the stories in the collection are amazing, as they should be for this book, and all could be recommended easily. For any science-fiction fan who wants to get a sample from many good authors, they should pick up this book. It's also an example of what great science fiction looks like, and would-be authors should take notice.
"The Undiscovered" by William Sanders - Another 'alternate history' story, "The Undiscovered" ponders what Williams Shakespeare might have accomplished, were his audience completely different than the ones he wrote for. The story details how 'Spearshaker' puts on a play with native-americans, after being stranded in the new-world, rather than writing his plays back in England. It's an interesting twist for a story to ponder, but Sanders does an admirable job.
"Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang - Though not a highly prolific author, I cannot help feeling like I've been missing something. "Story of Your Life" was arguably the best story in the book, and grabbed my attention more than any story I can remember. Another longer piece, "Story or Your Life" is both a flashback, and a flash-forward--sort of. Aliens at last visit us, but we find it more difficult to communicate than imagination could provide. Using 'semagrams', the main character learns not only how to communicate with the aliens', but also how to think like them--to unusual results. It's one of the best-written stories I've ever encountered, and should be required reading for any science fiction fan.
"10-16 to 1" by James Patrick Kelly - This is actually a story I had run across before, in a science fiction magazine. A time-traveler enlists the help of a young boy, to change the course of history for all life on Earth--if the boy completes his task properly. Set during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the tension of the story is a character in itself, and helps set the tone for the world that the boy lives in. Add the dysfunctional family, in a time where families weren't supposed to be dysfunctional, and the reality of the situation sets even further. With an interesting premise, and an even more interesting ending, this story is an enjoyable, and thought-provoking read.
"Lobsters" by Charles Stross - Another author whose work I've never delved into, Stross does a superb job portraying the future of the 'internet-age' in a believable, and somewhat terrifying manner. The technical portions of this story are what made me take notice, describing how even a Windows NT server from Russia can survive into the future, and become a character worth interacting with. Stross has become an author I will be looking for now, in order to see if his other stories are as technically rich. If so, I have a new favorite.
"Lambing Season" by Molly Gloss - Another story that I'd read in a magazine, "Lambing Season" is another fantastically understated work. Portraying an encounter with aliens, who look nothing like we'd expect, this story is leisurely and relaxed, and makes the reader feel comfortable with the idea that it's okay not to report the contact. I've not seen a lot of work by this author, but look forward to finding more.
Though these are not all of the great stories in the book, these were just my favorites, or the ones that made me notice the authors for the first time. All of the stories in the collection are amazing, as they should be for this book, and all could be recommended easily. For any science-fiction fan who wants to get a sample from many good authors, they should pick up this book. It's also an example of what great science fiction looks like, and would-be authors should take notice.
December 31, 2016
Overall review: This is a solid collection with some very good stories in it. Most times in the past when I've read short story collections, it's a book with all stories from the same author in it, which is nice in its own way, but this sort of thing seems like a great way to get a sampling of stories from across the Sci-Fi spectrum. I'll be checking out more in the Gardner Dozois "Best of" series in the future.
Detailed reviews below, but I think the biggest standouts from this collection (not including the ones I skipped because I had read them before) were A Dry, Quiet War, Coming of Age in Karhide, Stable Strategies for Middle Management, Guest of Honor, The Wedding Album and The Undiscovered. Also worth mentioning are Dinner in Audoghast and Even the Queen.
4.5 of 5 stars
Reviews by short story (oldest at the bottom, nearly all plot details are kept in spoiler tags):
Lambing Season (2002) - Molly Gloss
This was a strange, and not strange like Bears Discover Fire or Stable Strategies for Middle Management, just kinda quaint and odd. In some ways, to me, it's a horror story, 3 of 5 stars
Breathmoss (2002) - Ian R. MacLeod
For a good chunk of this story, I had trouble getting into it, but in the end I think the world-building and character-building turned me around on it. I could see this being something I would like in the long run, like the Hyperion Cantos. 3.5 of 5 stars
Lobsters (2001) - Charles Stross
Skipped this one as it is a chapter in Accelerando , but I did like it in that book.
Have Not Have (2001) - Geoff Ryman
I did not care for this story. It felt like it was possibly going to go somewhere, but it did not. The science fiction element was barely present other than as an "impending spectre of change" heard about in a roundabout way. The main character was very unlikable and to the extent that there was a moral it seemed like the wrong takeaway. That said, I would like to see more of these stories set in a non-Western environment. 1.5 of 5 stars
The Real World (2000) - Steven Utley
The general idea of a naturally-occurring portal to the Silurian is interesting for a number of reasons, but I find the main character's internal conflict completely unfounded, which leaves a lot to be desired. He may as well have the exact same concern even without the element of the portal. 2.5 of 5 stars
Daddy's World (1999) - Walter Jon Williams
Good premise and execution, but not mind-blowing. 3.5 of 5 stars
10¹⁶ to 1 (1999) - James Patrick Kelly
This was an interesting concept, but weak execution. Felt like a lot of childhood wish fulfillment and a lot of name-checking people with references. 2.5 of 5 stars
The Wedding Album (1999) - David Marusek
Excellent story, reminds me of other post-cyberpunk stuff like Charles Stross' Accelerando , and David Brin's Kiln People . 5 of 5 stars
People Came from Earth (1999) - Stephen Baxter
I wasn't super on-board with whatever sort of cyclic universe thing Baxter was trying to talk about in the end there, but the setting was definitely interesting and haunting. 3 of 5 stars
Story of Your Life (1998) - Ted Chiang
I skipped this one because I already read it in Stories of Your Life and Others (review). Here's the review from that:
It might be interesting to revisit this after I see the movie The Arrival. 3 of 5 stars
Second Skin (1997) - Paul J. McAuley
This story just felt awkward and weird, though at the end, the reason for the awkward wording becomes more clear. 2 of 5 stars
The Undiscovered (1997) - William Sanders
This was a nifty, fun alternate history, about . Not exactly hard-hitting, but enjoyable. 4 of 5 stars
A Dry, Quiet War (1996) - Tony Daniel
Basically everything about this is super cool. Although very different in plot, I was reminded of how much I liked John Steakley's Armor . It's a similar kind of military sci-fi. 5 of 5 stars
Recording Angel (1996) - Ian McDonald
I am not sure I really understand what was going on in this story, or what McDonald was hoping to convey. It's sorta interesting as a setting, but for me it didn't seem to "go" anywhere. 2.5 of 5 stars
The Dead (1996) - Michael Swanwick
I can understand where this is coming from, but I didn't find it too interesting or engaging, given that it's just the standard luddite story that we get every generation (though from the perspective of a potential luddite, with no actual luddites appearing in the text). 3 of 5 stars
Coming of Age in Karhide (1995) - Ursula K. Le Guin
This is a very good companion piece to The Left Hand of Darkness , which takes place on the same world. In retrospect, it's obvious that this would be the perfect story to write in this world. It should go without saying that Le Guin, being the absolute master of "soft" science fiction that she is, executes mroe or less perfectly. 5 of 5 stars
Wang's Carpets (1995) - Greg Egan
Skipped this one for now because I have already read and loved Diaspora . I may revisit this later.
The Lincoln Train (1995) - Maureen F. McHugh
Short and somewhat interesting, but nothing groundbreaking. I was bit disappointed, but mainly because I had very high standards, having really enjoyed China Mountain Zhang. 3.5 of 5 stars
Mortimer Gray's History of Death (1995) - Brian Stableford
I like the framing device and the general concept of the "war on death". 5 of 5 stars
None So Blind (1994) - Joe Haldeman
Pretty disappointing. You can see where it's going from early on, and it's not that interesting for what it is, plus the actual science is pretty dodgy. 2 of 5 stars
Guest of Honor (1993) - Robert Reed
This is an interesting story. It reminded me, in a way, of Alistair Reynolds' House of Suns , which is one of my favorite books, though obviously this short story explores only one of the strange ways of living that were the "background" of that book. 4.5 of 5 stars
Even the Queen (1992) Connie Willis
This is Connie Willis at her best, a spiritual sibling of the Oxford Time Travel series (though in an implacable way). She seems to be a master of the "sort of serious but not taking itself too seriously" - I'm sure there's a word for that, but I don't have it close at hand.. 5 of 5 stars
Bears Discover Fire (1990) Terry Bisson
This is another delightfully weird one. Not sure what Bisson was trying to say with this story, but it was pretty cool. I love how the main character is just cool as a cucumber when the bears come out with torches. 3.5 of 5 stars
Tales from the Venia Woods (1989) Robert Silverberg
I like it. Reminds me a tiny bit of The Years of Rice and Salt . I'm certainly going to read the other stories set in this universe. 3.5 of 5 stars
Kirinyaga (1988) - Mike Resnick
This is interesting, because even though I find all the "back to the land" and "our culture is dying oh no!" stuff to be generally stupid, I tend to really value peoples' ability to organize society to their liking. The novelette here has piqued my interest, I'm going to pick up the whole Kirinyaga collection at some point. 4 of 5 stars
Stable Strategies for Middle Management (1988) - Eileen Gunn
This is a weird twist on The Metamorphosis , but I loved it for how weird it is. I'm generally fond of this sort of light, semi-satirical tone in Science Fiction, so Eileen Gunn is now on my list of of authors to read. 5 of 5 stars
The Pure Product (1986) John Kessel
This is another weird one, but interesting. I imagine there may be some room to interpret this whole thing as a Philip K. Dick-style "it's all a drug trip", but I'm going to assume the narrator is reliable. It's certainly an enjoyable read just for the "worldbuilding" aspect of it, but Either way, it's interesting food for thought. 4 of 5 stars
The Winter Market (1985) William Gibson
This is some classic Gibson cyberpunk stuff. I thought it was not bad, but nothing earth-shattering. 3.5 of 5
Snow (1985) John Crowley
I'm not quite sure where Crowley was going with this one, but it didn't really resonate with me. Something about memory fading? I guess the technology introduced was a metaphor for a certain kind of memory of the past, but I'm not sure there was really anything profound here. 2 of 5
Roadside Rescue (1985) Pat Cadigan
Pretty weird, I like it. 4 of 5
Dinner in Audoghast (1985) Bruce Sterling
Not much to say about this one - it was definitely fun to read, but I don't think there were "big concepts" in it that would make me ever refer someone to this as a "must read". 4 of 5 stars
Flying Saucer Rock and Roll (1985) Howard Waldrop
Weird concept, and most of the execution was a bit shaky, but I think in the end the battle scene really pulled everything together. 3.5 of 5 stars
Trinity (1984) by Nancy Kress
The intro mentions that this is one of Kress's earlier stories, but her writing style and narrative skill seem to be in full effect in this one. The whole thing is fairly interesting and disturbing, though it can be seen as a variation on the old "scientist refuses to believe scientific evidence for religion" narrative, or it can be seen as a variation on "idiots like to cry God for anything unexplained." 3.5 of 5 stars
Salvador (1984) by Lucius Shepard
Possibly this would resonate with me if I had been to war or something, but the most I'm getting is flashbacks to Casualties of War .. To the extent that it's a drug narrative, however, I do prefer it to Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly. 3 of 5 stars
A Cabin on the Coast (1984) by Gene Wolfe
Pretty middle of the road story. Just a peek into this little universe he created and I wasn't really compelled to see any more. Interesting enough "twist" at the end. 2.5 of 5 stars
Blood Music (1983) by Greg Bear
As a "nanotech gone wild" narrative, this is a bit rough around the edges, but it conveys what it needs to, within the allotted space. The main downside was that . 3.5 of 5 stars
Detailed reviews below, but I think the biggest standouts from this collection (not including the ones I skipped because I had read them before) were A Dry, Quiet War, Coming of Age in Karhide, Stable Strategies for Middle Management, Guest of Honor, The Wedding Album and The Undiscovered. Also worth mentioning are Dinner in Audoghast and Even the Queen.
4.5 of 5 stars
Reviews by short story (oldest at the bottom, nearly all plot details are kept in spoiler tags):
Lambing Season (2002) - Molly Gloss
This was a strange, and not strange like Bears Discover Fire or Stable Strategies for Middle Management, just kinda quaint and odd. In some ways, to me, it's a horror story, 3 of 5 stars
Breathmoss (2002) - Ian R. MacLeod
For a good chunk of this story, I had trouble getting into it, but in the end I think the world-building and character-building turned me around on it. I could see this being something I would like in the long run, like the Hyperion Cantos. 3.5 of 5 stars
Lobsters (2001) - Charles Stross
Skipped this one as it is a chapter in Accelerando , but I did like it in that book.
Have Not Have (2001) - Geoff Ryman
I did not care for this story. It felt like it was possibly going to go somewhere, but it did not. The science fiction element was barely present other than as an "impending spectre of change" heard about in a roundabout way. The main character was very unlikable and to the extent that there was a moral it seemed like the wrong takeaway. That said, I would like to see more of these stories set in a non-Western environment. 1.5 of 5 stars
The Real World (2000) - Steven Utley
The general idea of a naturally-occurring portal to the Silurian is interesting for a number of reasons, but I find the main character's internal conflict completely unfounded, which leaves a lot to be desired. He may as well have the exact same concern even without the element of the portal. 2.5 of 5 stars
Daddy's World (1999) - Walter Jon Williams
Good premise and execution, but not mind-blowing. 3.5 of 5 stars
10¹⁶ to 1 (1999) - James Patrick Kelly
This was an interesting concept, but weak execution. Felt like a lot of childhood wish fulfillment and a lot of name-checking people with references. 2.5 of 5 stars
The Wedding Album (1999) - David Marusek
Excellent story, reminds me of other post-cyberpunk stuff like Charles Stross' Accelerando , and David Brin's Kiln People . 5 of 5 stars
People Came from Earth (1999) - Stephen Baxter
I wasn't super on-board with whatever sort of cyclic universe thing Baxter was trying to talk about in the end there, but the setting was definitely interesting and haunting. 3 of 5 stars
Story of Your Life (1998) - Ted Chiang
I skipped this one because I already read it in Stories of Your Life and Others (review). Here's the review from that:
It might be interesting to revisit this after I see the movie The Arrival. 3 of 5 stars
Second Skin (1997) - Paul J. McAuley
This story just felt awkward and weird, though at the end, the reason for the awkward wording becomes more clear. 2 of 5 stars
The Undiscovered (1997) - William Sanders
This was a nifty, fun alternate history, about . Not exactly hard-hitting, but enjoyable. 4 of 5 stars
A Dry, Quiet War (1996) - Tony Daniel
Basically everything about this is super cool. Although very different in plot, I was reminded of how much I liked John Steakley's Armor . It's a similar kind of military sci-fi. 5 of 5 stars
Recording Angel (1996) - Ian McDonald
I am not sure I really understand what was going on in this story, or what McDonald was hoping to convey. It's sorta interesting as a setting, but for me it didn't seem to "go" anywhere. 2.5 of 5 stars
The Dead (1996) - Michael Swanwick
I can understand where this is coming from, but I didn't find it too interesting or engaging, given that it's just the standard luddite story that we get every generation (though from the perspective of a potential luddite, with no actual luddites appearing in the text). 3 of 5 stars
Coming of Age in Karhide (1995) - Ursula K. Le Guin
This is a very good companion piece to The Left Hand of Darkness , which takes place on the same world. In retrospect, it's obvious that this would be the perfect story to write in this world. It should go without saying that Le Guin, being the absolute master of "soft" science fiction that she is, executes mroe or less perfectly. 5 of 5 stars
Wang's Carpets (1995) - Greg Egan
Skipped this one for now because I have already read and loved Diaspora . I may revisit this later.
The Lincoln Train (1995) - Maureen F. McHugh
Short and somewhat interesting, but nothing groundbreaking. I was bit disappointed, but mainly because I had very high standards, having really enjoyed China Mountain Zhang. 3.5 of 5 stars
Mortimer Gray's History of Death (1995) - Brian Stableford
I like the framing device and the general concept of the "war on death". 5 of 5 stars
None So Blind (1994) - Joe Haldeman
Pretty disappointing. You can see where it's going from early on, and it's not that interesting for what it is, plus the actual science is pretty dodgy. 2 of 5 stars
Guest of Honor (1993) - Robert Reed
This is an interesting story. It reminded me, in a way, of Alistair Reynolds' House of Suns , which is one of my favorite books, though obviously this short story explores only one of the strange ways of living that were the "background" of that book. 4.5 of 5 stars
Even the Queen (1992) Connie Willis
This is Connie Willis at her best, a spiritual sibling of the Oxford Time Travel series (though in an implacable way). She seems to be a master of the "sort of serious but not taking itself too seriously" - I'm sure there's a word for that, but I don't have it close at hand.. 5 of 5 stars
Bears Discover Fire (1990) Terry Bisson
This is another delightfully weird one. Not sure what Bisson was trying to say with this story, but it was pretty cool. I love how the main character is just cool as a cucumber when the bears come out with torches. 3.5 of 5 stars
Tales from the Venia Woods (1989) Robert Silverberg
I like it. Reminds me a tiny bit of The Years of Rice and Salt . I'm certainly going to read the other stories set in this universe. 3.5 of 5 stars
Kirinyaga (1988) - Mike Resnick
This is interesting, because even though I find all the "back to the land" and "our culture is dying oh no!" stuff to be generally stupid, I tend to really value peoples' ability to organize society to their liking. The novelette here has piqued my interest, I'm going to pick up the whole Kirinyaga collection at some point. 4 of 5 stars
Stable Strategies for Middle Management (1988) - Eileen Gunn
This is a weird twist on The Metamorphosis , but I loved it for how weird it is. I'm generally fond of this sort of light, semi-satirical tone in Science Fiction, so Eileen Gunn is now on my list of of authors to read. 5 of 5 stars
The Pure Product (1986) John Kessel
This is another weird one, but interesting. I imagine there may be some room to interpret this whole thing as a Philip K. Dick-style "it's all a drug trip", but I'm going to assume the narrator is reliable. It's certainly an enjoyable read just for the "worldbuilding" aspect of it, but Either way, it's interesting food for thought. 4 of 5 stars
The Winter Market (1985) William Gibson
This is some classic Gibson cyberpunk stuff. I thought it was not bad, but nothing earth-shattering. 3.5 of 5
Snow (1985) John Crowley
I'm not quite sure where Crowley was going with this one, but it didn't really resonate with me. Something about memory fading? I guess the technology introduced was a metaphor for a certain kind of memory of the past, but I'm not sure there was really anything profound here. 2 of 5
Roadside Rescue (1985) Pat Cadigan
Pretty weird, I like it. 4 of 5
Dinner in Audoghast (1985) Bruce Sterling
Not much to say about this one - it was definitely fun to read, but I don't think there were "big concepts" in it that would make me ever refer someone to this as a "must read". 4 of 5 stars
Flying Saucer Rock and Roll (1985) Howard Waldrop
Weird concept, and most of the execution was a bit shaky, but I think in the end the battle scene really pulled everything together. 3.5 of 5 stars
Trinity (1984) by Nancy Kress
The intro mentions that this is one of Kress's earlier stories, but her writing style and narrative skill seem to be in full effect in this one. The whole thing is fairly interesting and disturbing, though it can be seen as a variation on the old "scientist refuses to believe scientific evidence for religion" narrative, or it can be seen as a variation on "idiots like to cry God for anything unexplained." 3.5 of 5 stars
Salvador (1984) by Lucius Shepard
Possibly this would resonate with me if I had been to war or something, but the most I'm getting is flashbacks to Casualties of War .. To the extent that it's a drug narrative, however, I do prefer it to Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly. 3 of 5 stars
A Cabin on the Coast (1984) by Gene Wolfe
Pretty middle of the road story. Just a peek into this little universe he created and I wasn't really compelled to see any more. Interesting enough "twist" at the end. 2.5 of 5 stars
Blood Music (1983) by Greg Bear
As a "nanotech gone wild" narrative, this is a bit rough around the edges, but it conveys what it needs to, within the allotted space. The main downside was that . 3.5 of 5 stars
March 9, 2024
Overall it's too variable in quality - with minimal standouts - for me to give it a better star rating but I'm glad I read it as a survey at least. Some thoughts written halfway through and then more written after finishing below.
Only halfway through, and I'll probably finish, but surprised how few have excited/touched me and how much I've been disappointed overall. It's not that many of the stories are *bad* exactly - there's just a constant feeling that they don't actually have much interesting to say, or they're clumsily told. Before reading this I've mostly been familiar with either very recent sci-fi short stories and Golden Age stuff, particularly Asimov and Dick. I'm not sure exactly what's different to make these not hit.
Favourites so far:
- Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson. This is widely considered a classic and understandably IMO. The sci-fi element is pretty underplayed - just bears sitting around fires and "newberrys" formed in highway medians. It's hard to pin down what made this work for me - it's a story of family, loss, moving on and accepting new things where somehow everything falls into place and the image of bears around fires just feels perfect.
- Roadside Rescue by Pat Cadigan. An encounter with an alien visiting Earth and what sort of thing they might want There's a good sense of discomfort and a slight feeling of violation - the whole thing feels grimy and unpleasant despite being hinged on such a strange, seemingly innocent sci-fi idea. Short and doesn't outstay its welcome
There's a few which are basically based on a daft joke: Even the Queen around and Stable Strategies for Middle Management which is what if animal metaphors for competition in jobs were real The second one was worthy of a chuckle at least.
Quite a few just feel frustratingly lame, like there wasn't really a point, or the point was written really badly. In None So Blind, Joe Haldeman asks "wouldn't it be messed up if we all " like yeah man I guess it would be. Mortimer Gray's History of Death is novella-length and talks about how people understand death in a near immortal society, yet despite following one person it never really gets into real feeling and despite featuring a history book never really shows enough of the society to be interesting. Just feels too long for what's there. Flying Saucer Rock n Roll is a celebration of kids making doo-wop that ends - it feels it doesn't hit any points very well and ends with a "huh?". A Cabin on the Coast has a familiar plot about the fae but the characters aren't given enough definition to make it special (or it's hidden deeper than I understand). Snow by John Crowley hits an interesting emotional question - what memories are important? what remains of those who are gone? - but there's a frustrating ending where a key speech felt almost garbled to me.
A couple were just frustrating. The Pure Product is a tale of random violence and scams that's somehow connected to time travel, but not in a way that's talked about in any way. So there's nothing really interesting there at all. Kirinyaga became the opening story of a book going into more detail, but on its own it feels deeply frustrating because it brings up questions it won't address but are impossible to ignore. It's a story about trying to go back to pre-colonial traditions, even if they seem brutal, but they're in some sort of utopian habitat run by outside "Maintenance" to their specifications. So the ending, where This is the only interesting question in the story, but there's no engagement with it.
The Lincoln Train by Maureen McHugh is about a Southern woman in alt history post US civil war being forcibly deported by train to somewhere in the west along with a bunch of other slaveowning families. Then I found this a pretty repugnant story. There's a lot of real world connotations to the images shown and it feels offensive to attach them to slaveowners to evoke sympathy. In real life, the Southern aristocracy being allowed to continue as is caused unbelievable amounts of misery for a century or more. Writing an alt history where "what if they experienced bad things... but it was bad!" is tone deaf. Worse than that, there's nothing actually interesting here. There's no level of thought put into the alt history, or the real history referenced. It just felt gross to me.
AFTER FINISHING:
Wang's Carpets by Greg Egan - I've read another full Egan book and just like that one it's very invested in one idea without really having anything else supporting it. It stands and falls on whether you find it an interesting conclusion worth waiting the whole book for. I think that's a cool idea, but I can't say it's communicated super well or justifies the whole novella length so in the end it felt like a bit of a whiff.
Coming of Age in Karhide by Le Guin - A fun story about coming of age in the world of Left Hand of Darkness. I don't think it was super deep or anything but she used the concept to tell a sweet story. I liked it.
The Dead - Alright idea about the uses of the dead for labour made mostly about male sexual hang ups. Waste of time.
Recording Angel - not bad exactly, but felt weirdly pointless. Not sure what the idea was here.
A Dry, Quiet War - basically a Western about a town threatened by villains and the old soldier who refuses to fight. The sci fi aspect is around some sort of time travel war, but it makes no sense despite a lot of attempted explanation. Maybe if you like Westerns it's ok.
The Undiscovered - A cute story about a Cherokee village taking in a lost . It's fun but still feels a little like one of the other stories that are mainly based on a joke concept - they have been some of my favourites but I kept wanting a little more you know? Still one of the best in the collection.
Second Skin - sci-fi espionage/thriller type stuff except with minimal thrills or tension and a hard to understand conflict. Eh.
Story of your Life - I get the appeal of this story and thought it was pretty good BUT it feels like it's missing something. So there's parallel stories - contact with aliens and a mother thinking about the life of her child who predeceased her - and they're connected by a high sci fi concept but it just fell flat for me. In the end they're 2 separate good stories that don't join together into the masterpiece other people see this as for me.
People Came From Earth - I'm not sure a key idea in this actually makes sense but the whole vision is great in conveying humanity slowly dying off, even as they cling desperately to the hope of something more. I didn't really understand the Da Vinci thread in it but overall it conveys a great feeling of quiet misery.
The Wedding Album - a novella about how society sees simulated humans over time, told from the perspective of a sim made to commemorate a wedding. It's fun, I liked the turns it took and the variety of ideas about sims. Not sure if it had a "point" exactly but that's fine.
10^16 to 1 - An ok story with a surprisingly strange message. You pick up early on that this is in the Cuban Missile Crisis, so a time traveller must be doing something around that. Surprisingly
Daddy's World - I liked this one, another one about simulations. Really great emotionally about the misery of holding on to an image forever, the desperation to not engage with the real world. The cute imagery is well used to increase the disconnect. Was a big hit for me.
The Real World - a story about exploring the prehistoric past rammed into a story about Hollywood in an age of simulated actors that doesn't really do either justice at all. Kind of whiffed for me.
Have Not Have - another one which only felt vaguely sci fi connected. It appears to have been the first part of a novel where it would have made much more sense. The main technology conflict is actually "what happens when a remote village gets internet". It tells an interesting human story about a fashion designer/seamstress/beautician who acts as the village's connection to the wider fashion world and how her success depends on controlling access to information. I liked it enough I think.
Lobsters - oh man this story is so early 2000s it hurts. The main character gets slashdotted!!! Obviously you can't blame the author for not predicting the future but it's so invested in you thinking this character is Really Cool (and again with the weird male sexual anxieties) that it just feels embarrassing reading it now. There's a few interesting ideas, again around ethics of computer simulations, but the whole thing is wrapped up in to much stuff that doesn't seem funny or cool now that it's hard to enjoy.
Breathmoss - another novella that's got a similar theme to the Le Guin story, around growing up in a world with a different gender structure. I liked this but again I didn't feel it really explored much in a "sci fi" way, even though that was totally fine. It's just a somewhat touching story about growing up and moving away.
Lambing Season - about sympathy with an alien and the sense of acknowledgement that crosses species borders even without proper communication. Again the sci fi element is really small but there's something touching there.
Only halfway through, and I'll probably finish, but surprised how few have excited/touched me and how much I've been disappointed overall. It's not that many of the stories are *bad* exactly - there's just a constant feeling that they don't actually have much interesting to say, or they're clumsily told. Before reading this I've mostly been familiar with either very recent sci-fi short stories and Golden Age stuff, particularly Asimov and Dick. I'm not sure exactly what's different to make these not hit.
Favourites so far:
- Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson. This is widely considered a classic and understandably IMO. The sci-fi element is pretty underplayed - just bears sitting around fires and "newberrys" formed in highway medians. It's hard to pin down what made this work for me - it's a story of family, loss, moving on and accepting new things where somehow everything falls into place and the image of bears around fires just feels perfect.
- Roadside Rescue by Pat Cadigan. An encounter with an alien visiting Earth and what sort of thing they might want There's a good sense of discomfort and a slight feeling of violation - the whole thing feels grimy and unpleasant despite being hinged on such a strange, seemingly innocent sci-fi idea. Short and doesn't outstay its welcome
There's a few which are basically based on a daft joke: Even the Queen around and Stable Strategies for Middle Management which is what if animal metaphors for competition in jobs were real The second one was worthy of a chuckle at least.
Quite a few just feel frustratingly lame, like there wasn't really a point, or the point was written really badly. In None So Blind, Joe Haldeman asks "wouldn't it be messed up if we all " like yeah man I guess it would be. Mortimer Gray's History of Death is novella-length and talks about how people understand death in a near immortal society, yet despite following one person it never really gets into real feeling and despite featuring a history book never really shows enough of the society to be interesting. Just feels too long for what's there. Flying Saucer Rock n Roll is a celebration of kids making doo-wop that ends - it feels it doesn't hit any points very well and ends with a "huh?". A Cabin on the Coast has a familiar plot about the fae but the characters aren't given enough definition to make it special (or it's hidden deeper than I understand). Snow by John Crowley hits an interesting emotional question - what memories are important? what remains of those who are gone? - but there's a frustrating ending where a key speech felt almost garbled to me.
A couple were just frustrating. The Pure Product is a tale of random violence and scams that's somehow connected to time travel, but not in a way that's talked about in any way. So there's nothing really interesting there at all. Kirinyaga became the opening story of a book going into more detail, but on its own it feels deeply frustrating because it brings up questions it won't address but are impossible to ignore. It's a story about trying to go back to pre-colonial traditions, even if they seem brutal, but they're in some sort of utopian habitat run by outside "Maintenance" to their specifications. So the ending, where This is the only interesting question in the story, but there's no engagement with it.
The Lincoln Train by Maureen McHugh is about a Southern woman in alt history post US civil war being forcibly deported by train to somewhere in the west along with a bunch of other slaveowning families. Then I found this a pretty repugnant story. There's a lot of real world connotations to the images shown and it feels offensive to attach them to slaveowners to evoke sympathy. In real life, the Southern aristocracy being allowed to continue as is caused unbelievable amounts of misery for a century or more. Writing an alt history where "what if they experienced bad things... but it was bad!" is tone deaf. Worse than that, there's nothing actually interesting here. There's no level of thought put into the alt history, or the real history referenced. It just felt gross to me.
AFTER FINISHING:
Wang's Carpets by Greg Egan - I've read another full Egan book and just like that one it's very invested in one idea without really having anything else supporting it. It stands and falls on whether you find it an interesting conclusion worth waiting the whole book for. I think that's a cool idea, but I can't say it's communicated super well or justifies the whole novella length so in the end it felt like a bit of a whiff.
Coming of Age in Karhide by Le Guin - A fun story about coming of age in the world of Left Hand of Darkness. I don't think it was super deep or anything but she used the concept to tell a sweet story. I liked it.
The Dead - Alright idea about the uses of the dead for labour made mostly about male sexual hang ups. Waste of time.
Recording Angel - not bad exactly, but felt weirdly pointless. Not sure what the idea was here.
A Dry, Quiet War - basically a Western about a town threatened by villains and the old soldier who refuses to fight. The sci fi aspect is around some sort of time travel war, but it makes no sense despite a lot of attempted explanation. Maybe if you like Westerns it's ok.
The Undiscovered - A cute story about a Cherokee village taking in a lost . It's fun but still feels a little like one of the other stories that are mainly based on a joke concept - they have been some of my favourites but I kept wanting a little more you know? Still one of the best in the collection.
Second Skin - sci-fi espionage/thriller type stuff except with minimal thrills or tension and a hard to understand conflict. Eh.
Story of your Life - I get the appeal of this story and thought it was pretty good BUT it feels like it's missing something. So there's parallel stories - contact with aliens and a mother thinking about the life of her child who predeceased her - and they're connected by a high sci fi concept but it just fell flat for me. In the end they're 2 separate good stories that don't join together into the masterpiece other people see this as for me.
People Came From Earth - I'm not sure a key idea in this actually makes sense but the whole vision is great in conveying humanity slowly dying off, even as they cling desperately to the hope of something more. I didn't really understand the Da Vinci thread in it but overall it conveys a great feeling of quiet misery.
The Wedding Album - a novella about how society sees simulated humans over time, told from the perspective of a sim made to commemorate a wedding. It's fun, I liked the turns it took and the variety of ideas about sims. Not sure if it had a "point" exactly but that's fine.
10^16 to 1 - An ok story with a surprisingly strange message. You pick up early on that this is in the Cuban Missile Crisis, so a time traveller must be doing something around that. Surprisingly
Daddy's World - I liked this one, another one about simulations. Really great emotionally about the misery of holding on to an image forever, the desperation to not engage with the real world. The cute imagery is well used to increase the disconnect. Was a big hit for me.
The Real World - a story about exploring the prehistoric past rammed into a story about Hollywood in an age of simulated actors that doesn't really do either justice at all. Kind of whiffed for me.
Have Not Have - another one which only felt vaguely sci fi connected. It appears to have been the first part of a novel where it would have made much more sense. The main technology conflict is actually "what happens when a remote village gets internet". It tells an interesting human story about a fashion designer/seamstress/beautician who acts as the village's connection to the wider fashion world and how her success depends on controlling access to information. I liked it enough I think.
Lobsters - oh man this story is so early 2000s it hurts. The main character gets slashdotted!!! Obviously you can't blame the author for not predicting the future but it's so invested in you thinking this character is Really Cool (and again with the weird male sexual anxieties) that it just feels embarrassing reading it now. There's a few interesting ideas, again around ethics of computer simulations, but the whole thing is wrapped up in to much stuff that doesn't seem funny or cool now that it's hard to enjoy.
Breathmoss - another novella that's got a similar theme to the Le Guin story, around growing up in a world with a different gender structure. I liked this but again I didn't feel it really explored much in a "sci fi" way, even though that was totally fine. It's just a somewhat touching story about growing up and moving away.
Lambing Season - about sympathy with an alien and the sense of acknowledgement that crosses species borders even without proper communication. Again the sci fi element is really small but there's something touching there.
Want to read
April 29, 2024Includes the stories:
Blood Music (1983) by Greg Bear -
A Cabin on the Coast (1984) by Gene Wolfe -
Salvador (1984) by Lucius Shepard -
Trinity (1984) by Nancy Kress -
Flying Saucer Rock and Roll (1985) by Howard Waldrop -
Dinner in Audoghast (1985) by Bruce Sterling -
Roadside Rescue (1985) by Pat Cadigan -
Snow (1985) by John Crowley -
The Winter Market (1985) by William Gibson -
The Pure Product (1986) by John Kessel -
Stable Strategies for Middle Management (1988) by Eileen Gunn -
Kirinyaga (1988) by Mike Resnick -
Tales from the Venia Woods (1989) by Robert Silverberg -
Bears Discover Fire (1990) by Terry Bisson -
Even the Queen (1992) by Connie Willis -
Guest of Honor (1993) by Robert Reed -
None So Blind (1994) by Joe Haldeman -
Mortimer Gray's History of Death (1995) by Brian Stableford -
The Lincoln Train (1995) by Maureen F. McHugh -
Wang's Carpets (1995) by Greg Egan -
Coming of Age in Karhide (1995) by Ursula K. Le Guin -
The Dead (1996) by Michael Swanwick -
Recording Angel (1996) by Ian McDonald -
A Dry, Quiet War (1996) by Tony Daniel -
The Undiscovered (1997) by William Sanders -
Second Skin (1997) by Paul J. McAuley -
Story of Your Life (1998) by Ted Chiang - 4/5 - Stephen Hawking wonders why we can't remember the future - this story gives an idea of what it would be like if we could (basis for the film "Arrival")
People Came from Earth (1999) by Stephen Baxter -
The Wedding Album (1999) by David Marusek -
10 to 16 to 1 (1999) by James Patrick Kelly -
Daddy's World (1999) by Walter Jon Williams -
The Real World (2000) by Steven Utley -
Have Not Have (2001) by Geoff Ryman -
Lobsters (2001) by Charles Stross -
Breathmoss (2002) by Ian R. MacLeod -
Lambing Season (2002) by Molly Gloss -
Blood Music (1983) by Greg Bear -
A Cabin on the Coast (1984) by Gene Wolfe -
Salvador (1984) by Lucius Shepard -
Trinity (1984) by Nancy Kress -
Flying Saucer Rock and Roll (1985) by Howard Waldrop -
Dinner in Audoghast (1985) by Bruce Sterling -
Roadside Rescue (1985) by Pat Cadigan -
Snow (1985) by John Crowley -
The Winter Market (1985) by William Gibson -
The Pure Product (1986) by John Kessel -
Stable Strategies for Middle Management (1988) by Eileen Gunn -
Kirinyaga (1988) by Mike Resnick -
Tales from the Venia Woods (1989) by Robert Silverberg -
Bears Discover Fire (1990) by Terry Bisson -
Even the Queen (1992) by Connie Willis -
Guest of Honor (1993) by Robert Reed -
None So Blind (1994) by Joe Haldeman -
Mortimer Gray's History of Death (1995) by Brian Stableford -
The Lincoln Train (1995) by Maureen F. McHugh -
Wang's Carpets (1995) by Greg Egan -
Coming of Age in Karhide (1995) by Ursula K. Le Guin -
The Dead (1996) by Michael Swanwick -
Recording Angel (1996) by Ian McDonald -
A Dry, Quiet War (1996) by Tony Daniel -
The Undiscovered (1997) by William Sanders -
Second Skin (1997) by Paul J. McAuley -
Story of Your Life (1998) by Ted Chiang - 4/5 - Stephen Hawking wonders why we can't remember the future - this story gives an idea of what it would be like if we could (basis for the film "Arrival")
People Came from Earth (1999) by Stephen Baxter -
The Wedding Album (1999) by David Marusek -
10 to 16 to 1 (1999) by James Patrick Kelly -
Daddy's World (1999) by Walter Jon Williams -
The Real World (2000) by Steven Utley -
Have Not Have (2001) by Geoff Ryman -
Lobsters (2001) by Charles Stross -
Breathmoss (2002) by Ian R. MacLeod -
Lambing Season (2002) by Molly Gloss -
July 6, 2023
One story stands out: Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. Sometimes it's easier to communicate with heptapods (aliens with 7-8 appendages) than with your teenaged daughter! And 10¹⁶ to 1 by James Patrick Kelly, a plot straight out of a 60s Twilight Zone episode, also resonated with me.
25 May 2022
It's probably been a decade since I read this book, and I see the pages have yellowed with age. I hold it in my hands tonight because of Arrival, a Netflix film I randomly picked for its science fiction: aliens land on earth, linguists to the rescue. Half an hour into the movie, and with the mention of heptapods, I realized I had read this story in a science fiction anthology before! A quick search on Goodreads confirmed my recollection of my review--I had loved it, and of the 20 stories in the collection, this one had in fact stood out for me. I love it when this happens. Thank you, Goodreads, for making moments like this possible.
25 May 2022
It's probably been a decade since I read this book, and I see the pages have yellowed with age. I hold it in my hands tonight because of Arrival, a Netflix film I randomly picked for its science fiction: aliens land on earth, linguists to the rescue. Half an hour into the movie, and with the mention of heptapods, I realized I had read this story in a science fiction anthology before! A quick search on Goodreads confirmed my recollection of my review--I had loved it, and of the 20 stories in the collection, this one had in fact stood out for me. I love it when this happens. Thank you, Goodreads, for making moments like this possible.
June 26, 2018
Wow this was full of great stories.
Some didn't reach my five star rating... it would be hard to get that rating for a compilation of stories.
The best part is the author background and introduction. These stories have such a varied POV and getting the setting laid out before jumping into the fast pace of a short story was helpful.
Beware reading this will increase the list of books to read a lot
Some didn't reach my five star rating... it would be hard to get that rating for a compilation of stories.
The best part is the author background and introduction. These stories have such a varied POV and getting the setting laid out before jumping into the fast pace of a short story was helpful.
Beware reading this will increase the list of books to read a lot
July 30, 2021
Well, it's been quite a journey; it took me almost half a year -with considerable intervals of course- to finish this anthology that traveled me in a vast expanse of time and space. Not all of its stories were strictly science fiction, but quite a few of them were fine examples of speculative fiction. In any case, a lot of them were brilliant, sometimes closer to literary than to genre fiction, and even the duller or more difficult among them had something interesting to ponder on. If you like SF you have to give it a try, even if you read a story at a time every now and then.
I have to make a mental note to write a few words about each one of them after my vacations.
I have to make a mental note to write a few words about each one of them after my vacations.
June 5, 2023
Some real gems in here. Wang's Carpets is ground-breaking, deep, deep philosophy. Guest of honor was beautifully and cleverly written. Blood Music was great too. I marked about 5 of these for re-reading.
Be warned that a few of the stories are not appropriate. Ursula Le Guin's piece was disturbing and I removed it from my book after the halfway point - just skip it.
Be warned that a few of the stories are not appropriate. Ursula Le Guin's piece was disturbing and I removed it from my book after the halfway point - just skip it.
October 10, 2017
Reviews of some of the stories:
Blood Music, by Greg Bear--Medically Adaptable Biochips are injected into the bloodstream of their creator.
Salvador, by Lucius Shepherd--the ugly truth of our troops in a 3rd world country, stoned out of their minds on drugs and armed with state-of-the-art weapons.
Trinity, by Nancy Kress--an experiment to bring God to sense his humans. 5 🌟 for this one.
Snow, by John Crowley--Living your life, you will have countless hours of the dull, ordinary stuff of life. The countless hours of cleaning, washing dishes, grocery shopping; then you will have a few hours of exciting and/or fear-ridden, grief-stricken ones. When you're old, and you look back at your life, what do you access in your memory? How does it look to you?
Even the Queen by Connie Willis--In the future, women are more liberated than we are now. Hard to believe that there exist groups of women who would shun that liberation and go back to a bondage that even the Queen had to suffer.
Guest of Honor by Robert Reed--What do rich people do for fun? Money buys everything, so after awhile you're just bored, and you struggle to find meaning in your life. This is the theme of this short story...
Mortimer Gray's History of Death by Brian Stableford--I like this author and how he thinks. I like his character Mortimer Gray, who lives in a universe where people have emortality--this means they CAN be killed by a deadly accident. Mortimer takes on the century-encompassing task of writing a 10-volume opus on mankind's hate, fear and relationship of and with death, beginning with the Crimean war and ending in the 31st century. Curiously, humans in Stableford's novella never did anything to help non-human animals achieve a longer or happier life, though at one point he mentions that tissue culture is taking place in factories.
Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula LeGuin--How would you like it if, when you get puberty and you get horny, you don't get shamed, you don't have to suppress it, you don't get boys playing/preying on your innocence? Instead, you get encouragement, love, support, and a safe place for it to happen? Plus, you get to choose what gender you'll be while you're in "kemmer." When you're not in kemmer, you're gender-less. How cool is that?
The Dead by Michael Swanwick--I lost my job to technology early in adulthood, and never was able to have as good of a job since then. You can imagine how this affected me and my earnings, and how angry I was about it. Now imagine losing your job to a zombie. Yep, a zombie who requires no pay, no sick days, can be catheterized so no bathroom breaks. Swanwick has written a story that may make you feel ill.
The Undiscovered by William Sanders--Shakespeare gets on the wrong ship and ends up in a tribe of Indians early 1500s.
Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang--5 Stars for this novella, for originality and for making your brain go in directions that it never went before. Aliens come to visit, but they won't meet us in person, they won't say why they're here, beyond communicating to the people of Earth, "seeing and observing." Earth is expecting a"gift exchange," not seeing the gift for what it is.
The Wedding Album by David Marusek--A story about Sim City, and what life is like for the Sims.
Blood Music, by Greg Bear--Medically Adaptable Biochips are injected into the bloodstream of their creator.
Salvador, by Lucius Shepherd--the ugly truth of our troops in a 3rd world country, stoned out of their minds on drugs and armed with state-of-the-art weapons.
Trinity, by Nancy Kress--an experiment to bring God to sense his humans. 5 🌟 for this one.
Snow, by John Crowley--Living your life, you will have countless hours of the dull, ordinary stuff of life. The countless hours of cleaning, washing dishes, grocery shopping; then you will have a few hours of exciting and/or fear-ridden, grief-stricken ones. When you're old, and you look back at your life, what do you access in your memory? How does it look to you?
Even the Queen by Connie Willis--In the future, women are more liberated than we are now. Hard to believe that there exist groups of women who would shun that liberation and go back to a bondage that even the Queen had to suffer.
Guest of Honor by Robert Reed--What do rich people do for fun? Money buys everything, so after awhile you're just bored, and you struggle to find meaning in your life. This is the theme of this short story...
Mortimer Gray's History of Death by Brian Stableford--I like this author and how he thinks. I like his character Mortimer Gray, who lives in a universe where people have emortality--this means they CAN be killed by a deadly accident. Mortimer takes on the century-encompassing task of writing a 10-volume opus on mankind's hate, fear and relationship of and with death, beginning with the Crimean war and ending in the 31st century. Curiously, humans in Stableford's novella never did anything to help non-human animals achieve a longer or happier life, though at one point he mentions that tissue culture is taking place in factories.
Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula LeGuin--How would you like it if, when you get puberty and you get horny, you don't get shamed, you don't have to suppress it, you don't get boys playing/preying on your innocence? Instead, you get encouragement, love, support, and a safe place for it to happen? Plus, you get to choose what gender you'll be while you're in "kemmer." When you're not in kemmer, you're gender-less. How cool is that?
The Dead by Michael Swanwick--I lost my job to technology early in adulthood, and never was able to have as good of a job since then. You can imagine how this affected me and my earnings, and how angry I was about it. Now imagine losing your job to a zombie. Yep, a zombie who requires no pay, no sick days, can be catheterized so no bathroom breaks. Swanwick has written a story that may make you feel ill.
The Undiscovered by William Sanders--Shakespeare gets on the wrong ship and ends up in a tribe of Indians early 1500s.
Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang--5 Stars for this novella, for originality and for making your brain go in directions that it never went before. Aliens come to visit, but they won't meet us in person, they won't say why they're here, beyond communicating to the people of Earth, "seeing and observing." Earth is expecting a"gift exchange," not seeing the gift for what it is.
The Wedding Album by David Marusek--A story about Sim City, and what life is like for the Sims.
March 21, 2022
2 stars Metaphorosis Reviews
Summary
Gardner Dozois' favorite stories from 20 years of his Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies.
Review
Subtitled 20 Years of the Year’s Best Science Fiction, the volume gives you a feeling for just how long Dozois had been doing this. And then realize there’s also a later Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of the Year’s Best Science Fiction. Impressive.
I’ve read several of Dozois’ Year’s Best over the years, most recently this one. I’ve never really cared for them much, and I’ve generally put it down to an off year, though with the suspicion that perhaps Dozois and I didn’t agree. Having now read this volume – his best of the best – I can now definitively confirm the latter. While acknowledging that Dozois was a much-respected master anthologist in the field, I just don’t like his taste.
Very few of these stories appealed to me, despite including at least some authors (such as Ursula Le Guin and Brian Stableford) that I generally enjoy. If this was a summary of 20 years of SF, the field was in a dire state during those years. I found the stories, as a rule, on the dull side, and it’s not because I require fast-moving action and adventure. It’s just that these stories generally neither engaged nor moved me. The writing is technically sound – as it should be at this level – but I seldom found myself caring much about what happened.
The exceptions – the more interesting stories – were largely and happily packed toward the back of the book, when I was most tired of it and most wanting it to end. They weren’t enough to lift the anthology into the realms of books I enjoyed, but they gave me just enough hope to push through. They included:
A Dry, Quiet War – Tony Daniels. I’d not heard of Daniels before, but this military SF story had the best kind of heartbreak and duty in it.
Story of Your Life – Ted Chiang. Chiang’s has been one of those names floating around the periphery of my thoughts for years, but has never really come to the fore. This story is interesting, if (intentionally) somewhat unresolved.
The Real World -Steven Utley. A story about Hollywood in which, for once, the scientist is not overawed or a fool.
Have Not Have – Geoff Ryman. A somewhat convoluted (or maybe just tangential) piece about coming to terms with change.
Summary
Gardner Dozois' favorite stories from 20 years of his Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies.
Review
Subtitled 20 Years of the Year’s Best Science Fiction, the volume gives you a feeling for just how long Dozois had been doing this. And then realize there’s also a later Very Best of the Best: 35 Years of the Year’s Best Science Fiction. Impressive.
I’ve read several of Dozois’ Year’s Best over the years, most recently this one. I’ve never really cared for them much, and I’ve generally put it down to an off year, though with the suspicion that perhaps Dozois and I didn’t agree. Having now read this volume – his best of the best – I can now definitively confirm the latter. While acknowledging that Dozois was a much-respected master anthologist in the field, I just don’t like his taste.
Very few of these stories appealed to me, despite including at least some authors (such as Ursula Le Guin and Brian Stableford) that I generally enjoy. If this was a summary of 20 years of SF, the field was in a dire state during those years. I found the stories, as a rule, on the dull side, and it’s not because I require fast-moving action and adventure. It’s just that these stories generally neither engaged nor moved me. The writing is technically sound – as it should be at this level – but I seldom found myself caring much about what happened.
The exceptions – the more interesting stories – were largely and happily packed toward the back of the book, when I was most tired of it and most wanting it to end. They weren’t enough to lift the anthology into the realms of books I enjoyed, but they gave me just enough hope to push through. They included:
A Dry, Quiet War – Tony Daniels. I’d not heard of Daniels before, but this military SF story had the best kind of heartbreak and duty in it.
Story of Your Life – Ted Chiang. Chiang’s has been one of those names floating around the periphery of my thoughts for years, but has never really come to the fore. This story is interesting, if (intentionally) somewhat unresolved.
The Real World -Steven Utley. A story about Hollywood in which, for once, the scientist is not overawed or a fool.
Have Not Have – Geoff Ryman. A somewhat convoluted (or maybe just tangential) piece about coming to terms with change.
March 4, 2019
In the forward Dozois says that the trouble with putting together a "best of the best" book is that so many of the stories have been anthologized so many times, and you don't want to give the readers a lot of retreads. So his answer to this was to take some of the lesser-known and maybe not best stories and mix them in. The problem with doing this of course is that you end up with an anthology that isn't quite the best of the best. And that's what we have here. There are some great stories, but most of them are just good. They're the kind that might make you pause when reading a monthly magazine and think "Nicely done!" And then you move on and don't remember them except maybe as a niggle in the back of your mind.
There are some gems in here. Most are not in that category. I'd recommend this as an anthology for those who want to see what the state of 80s science fiction was. But it's not the best of it.
There are some gems in here. Most are not in that category. I'd recommend this as an anthology for those who want to see what the state of 80s science fiction was. But it's not the best of it.
July 14, 2013
Is it "The Best of the Best"? Unanswerable as that question is, there is probably no one better qualified to make his case than Gardner Dozois. And to be fair, he is not claiming to be collecting the best science fiction ever, just the stories that have been previously collected in his annual year's best anthology now well past it's second decade of existence. And what stories! Starting off with Blood Music from Greg Bear raises the possibility of peaking too soon but the collection maintains its momentum throughout all 655 pages. Wolfe, Gibson, Kessel, Le Guin, Silverberg, Cadigan, and Stross are just some of the luminaries shining brightly off these pages. If you want an anthology to keep with you at all times, full of stories worth multiple readings, by all means, grab Best of the Best and enjoy!
May 16, 2021
I sampled a handful of stories, picked at random, and they were all uniformly clumsily written and unengaging. None of them had interesting characters or situations. They had plenty of Star-Trek-style technology mumbo-jumbo, but they were short on story, character, and sheer readability. If these are the "best"...
November 24, 2016
I never did this before, but I want to try to review each story as I read them (also because I'm not sure if I'm going to read the entire book all at once)
Blood Music by Greg Bear
I definitely read this one before, it must have been in one of the Year's Best Science Fiction that I've read in the past. Incredibly unsettling. I love the idea, but something about the writing didn't quite work for me. Everything happened incredibly fast, and still felt kind of slow at times.
Cabin On The Coast by Gene Wolfe
I loved, loved, loved the writing. I was quite disappointed though by the abrupt change of pace that happened right after the deal on the boat. I kind of get why that could be a good way to do that but... no. Also, it didn't feel like science fiction at all. More like a... fantastic story. I'm not sure.
Salvador by Lucius Shepard
War stories are really not my thing. This one was really disturbing, which I think was the point, but again... it didn't feel like science fiction.
Trinity by Nancy Kress
Ah, yes, this is the science fiction I know and love. Well, one kind of science fiction I know and love, but still. Trying to explore spiritual matters in a scientific way, ethical concerns, the dangers of human curiosity. Very, very interesting. It even had a pretty good ending. It feels a little outdated in some aspects, but it's a really good story.
Flying Saucer Rock And Roll by Howard Waldrop
Uhm... okay. I liked the idea but I never really got engaged by the story.
Dinner In Audoghast by Bruce Sterling
Ah Sterling, I definitely wasn't expecting this. I might try and read more books by him. The story was quite fascinating, but I probably would have to know more about actual history to understand how far this was from the reality.
Roadside Rescue by Pat Cadigan
Yes, yes, very lovely! Well, not really lovely, but short, amusing, effective. I love when writers get really creative with what it means to be an alien.
Snow by John Crowley
So weird, and sad. A little detached, too, but not too much. I'm sure that I have read something else by Crowley before, but I can't remember what.
The Winter Market by William Gibson
Gibson, my love. I had a really short cyberpunk phase where I LOVED his writing, then I think I grew out of it and couldn't stand him anymore. Maybe it's been enough time since then, and I can actually enjoy his stories again, with a different perspective. I also think I've read this story before. I liked it, but it was slightly unsatisfying, too short, too brief, too unconclusive. But I guess that was the point.
The Pure Product by John Kessel
Uhm, no. Oh well, there had to be some stories that just... don't work for me.
Stable Strategies for Middle Management by Eileen Gunn
Superweird, and interesting! I wish there was more.
Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick
It's not a bad story but... it left kind of unsatisfied.
Tale from the Venia Woods by Robert Silverberg
I found Silverberg books profoundly disappointing when I read them for the first time in english, but this story tickled my curiosity enough that I think I'm going to try something else from the Roma universe (yes, I really loved the idea of a timeline in which the Roman Empire never fell).
Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson
A quite, fascinating story. I didn't know Terry Bisson, but I'd like to read something else.
Even the Queen by Connie Willis
Oh I loved this! I want to live after the Liberation, thank you very much. Also, I found the spokeperson for the Cyclists quite amusing, and relevant if you think at some of the controversy surrounding the social justice warriors and their way of describing many things.
Guest of Honor by Robert Reed
Haunting. I found the idea quite fascinating, but the execution... a little less.
None So Blind by Joe Haldeman
I really loved the concept, but I think it was a little too short, a little too... compressed. I would have liked to read more about it.
Mortimer Gray's History of Death by Brian Stableford
I don't know if I've ever been so sad of disliking someones writing. It definitely not badly written, but for me the style just kept pushing me back from the story. And I liked the story! I loved the ideas, and the theme, and the way it made think about certain things.
The Lincoln Train by Maureen F. McHugh
I think not knowing much of American history really impaired my understanding of the story. From the introduction, and the fact that it has been included in a scifi book, I suppose it's some kind of alternate reality, but I'm not quite sure what is supposed to be an alternate of.
Wang's Carpets by Greg Egan
Not really my thing. I might have liked it more if it were longer, if it gave me more time to understand the world it was set in... but maybe not. I'm not sure.
Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula K. Le Guin
I don't know how many times I read this story when I was a teenager. It's soft and hot and anthropological and everything I love of the scifi that I used to read back then. And amazingly, it was still really, really good. A super short story that feels as complete as a novel and as open as an introduction. It's a world condensed in a few pages. Amazing.
The Dead by Michael Swanwick
I like the concept, but I never really got engaged with the story, and then it ended.
Recording Angel by Ian McDonald
Interesting idea, compelling development, and yet I didn't find the end completely satisfying.
A Dry, Quiet War by Tony Daniel
Eerie, and fascinating. It made me want to know more, and yet there was a felling like everything that needed saying was already said. Interesting, though not my usual genre.
The Undiscovered by William Sanders
Once again, I felt like my ignorance was dampening my understanding of the story. I guess alternate histories rely on the fact that you know how things went in the real world, and this time me not knowing enough of Shakespeare work prevented me to notice the differences.
Second Skin by Paul J. McAuley
Uhm... I love the history and worlds the story hinted at, but the story itself? Not so much.
Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang
Okay, so this story... this story is everything I think about when I think of good science fiction. It has both very interesting science and very interesting human stories. It makes you care, and hurt, and rejoice. But most of all it makes you think: it has a very powerful what if at its core, and it manages to leave to the reader enough space to consider the implications. I truly loved it.
People Came From Earth by Stephen Baxter
I'm perplexed. It was a very intriguing story, but it felt more like reading a piece in a larger narrative rather than reading a complete story in itself.
The Wedding Album by David Marusek
Quite good, though at some point it kind of lost itself in the computer issues, neglecting the development of the story.
10^16 To 1 by James Patrick Kelly
Uhm. I guess I like the idea, but I didn't particularly enjoy the tone.
Daddy's World by Walter Jon Williams
Very diquieting. It was kind of difficult for me to get into the story, but once I understood what was going on I was captured.
The Real World by Steven Utley
I found it quite boring and pointless.
Have Not Have by Geoff Ryman
I wish it was longer, because I would have loved to know more about the world. The story felt a little forced, but I liked the ending.
Lobsters by Charles Stross
Maybe I'm not ready to try cyberpunk again. It's just... a lot of noise. It's tiring, and it makes following the story harder. I liked some ideas though.
Breathmoss by Ian R. MacLeod
I was quite unlucky with this antology, since the two novelettes (at least, I think it's just two) were my least favourite stories. This in particular was confused and confusing, and the big reveal at the end... meh.
Lambing Season by Molly Gloss
I guess thanks to Terry Pratchett I will always have a soft spot for sheperdesses (? I have no idea how to spell the plural). This is one of those really short, really quiet stories that nonetheless leaves a mark.
The Fluted Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Wow, very haunting. It actually tasted like a fairytale, but there was enough science in this to make this more scifi than many other stories in this book. I wish it was longer, I wish it was a whole book. And I loved the ending, so perfect in its openness.
Footvote by Peter F. Hamilton
Too short! This idea deserved at least an entire book, or maybe even a series! The laws of New Suffolk were hilarious.
Zima Blue by Alastair Reynolds
So weird. Artists are definitely weird people, even when they turn out to be something else entirely.
Blood Music by Greg Bear
I definitely read this one before, it must have been in one of the Year's Best Science Fiction that I've read in the past. Incredibly unsettling. I love the idea, but something about the writing didn't quite work for me. Everything happened incredibly fast, and still felt kind of slow at times.
Cabin On The Coast by Gene Wolfe
I loved, loved, loved the writing. I was quite disappointed though by the abrupt change of pace that happened right after the deal on the boat. I kind of get why that could be a good way to do that but... no. Also, it didn't feel like science fiction at all. More like a... fantastic story. I'm not sure.
Salvador by Lucius Shepard
War stories are really not my thing. This one was really disturbing, which I think was the point, but again... it didn't feel like science fiction.
Trinity by Nancy Kress
Ah, yes, this is the science fiction I know and love. Well, one kind of science fiction I know and love, but still. Trying to explore spiritual matters in a scientific way, ethical concerns, the dangers of human curiosity. Very, very interesting. It even had a pretty good ending. It feels a little outdated in some aspects, but it's a really good story.
Flying Saucer Rock And Roll by Howard Waldrop
Uhm... okay. I liked the idea but I never really got engaged by the story.
Dinner In Audoghast by Bruce Sterling
Ah Sterling, I definitely wasn't expecting this. I might try and read more books by him. The story was quite fascinating, but I probably would have to know more about actual history to understand how far this was from the reality.
Roadside Rescue by Pat Cadigan
Yes, yes, very lovely! Well, not really lovely, but short, amusing, effective. I love when writers get really creative with what it means to be an alien.
Snow by John Crowley
So weird, and sad. A little detached, too, but not too much. I'm sure that I have read something else by Crowley before, but I can't remember what.
The Winter Market by William Gibson
Gibson, my love. I had a really short cyberpunk phase where I LOVED his writing, then I think I grew out of it and couldn't stand him anymore. Maybe it's been enough time since then, and I can actually enjoy his stories again, with a different perspective. I also think I've read this story before. I liked it, but it was slightly unsatisfying, too short, too brief, too unconclusive. But I guess that was the point.
The Pure Product by John Kessel
Uhm, no. Oh well, there had to be some stories that just... don't work for me.
Stable Strategies for Middle Management by Eileen Gunn
Superweird, and interesting! I wish there was more.
Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick
It's not a bad story but... it left kind of unsatisfied.
Tale from the Venia Woods by Robert Silverberg
I found Silverberg books profoundly disappointing when I read them for the first time in english, but this story tickled my curiosity enough that I think I'm going to try something else from the Roma universe (yes, I really loved the idea of a timeline in which the Roman Empire never fell).
Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson
A quite, fascinating story. I didn't know Terry Bisson, but I'd like to read something else.
Even the Queen by Connie Willis
Oh I loved this! I want to live after the Liberation, thank you very much. Also, I found the spokeperson for the Cyclists quite amusing, and relevant if you think at some of the controversy surrounding the social justice warriors and their way of describing many things.
Guest of Honor by Robert Reed
Haunting. I found the idea quite fascinating, but the execution... a little less.
None So Blind by Joe Haldeman
I really loved the concept, but I think it was a little too short, a little too... compressed. I would have liked to read more about it.
Mortimer Gray's History of Death by Brian Stableford
I don't know if I've ever been so sad of disliking someones writing. It definitely not badly written, but for me the style just kept pushing me back from the story. And I liked the story! I loved the ideas, and the theme, and the way it made think about certain things.
The Lincoln Train by Maureen F. McHugh
I think not knowing much of American history really impaired my understanding of the story. From the introduction, and the fact that it has been included in a scifi book, I suppose it's some kind of alternate reality, but I'm not quite sure what is supposed to be an alternate of.
Wang's Carpets by Greg Egan
Not really my thing. I might have liked it more if it were longer, if it gave me more time to understand the world it was set in... but maybe not. I'm not sure.
Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula K. Le Guin
I don't know how many times I read this story when I was a teenager. It's soft and hot and anthropological and everything I love of the scifi that I used to read back then. And amazingly, it was still really, really good. A super short story that feels as complete as a novel and as open as an introduction. It's a world condensed in a few pages. Amazing.
The Dead by Michael Swanwick
I like the concept, but I never really got engaged with the story, and then it ended.
Recording Angel by Ian McDonald
Interesting idea, compelling development, and yet I didn't find the end completely satisfying.
A Dry, Quiet War by Tony Daniel
Eerie, and fascinating. It made me want to know more, and yet there was a felling like everything that needed saying was already said. Interesting, though not my usual genre.
The Undiscovered by William Sanders
Once again, I felt like my ignorance was dampening my understanding of the story. I guess alternate histories rely on the fact that you know how things went in the real world, and this time me not knowing enough of Shakespeare work prevented me to notice the differences.
Second Skin by Paul J. McAuley
Uhm... I love the history and worlds the story hinted at, but the story itself? Not so much.
Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang
Okay, so this story... this story is everything I think about when I think of good science fiction. It has both very interesting science and very interesting human stories. It makes you care, and hurt, and rejoice. But most of all it makes you think: it has a very powerful what if at its core, and it manages to leave to the reader enough space to consider the implications. I truly loved it.
People Came From Earth by Stephen Baxter
I'm perplexed. It was a very intriguing story, but it felt more like reading a piece in a larger narrative rather than reading a complete story in itself.
The Wedding Album by David Marusek
Quite good, though at some point it kind of lost itself in the computer issues, neglecting the development of the story.
10^16 To 1 by James Patrick Kelly
Uhm. I guess I like the idea, but I didn't particularly enjoy the tone.
Daddy's World by Walter Jon Williams
Very diquieting. It was kind of difficult for me to get into the story, but once I understood what was going on I was captured.
The Real World by Steven Utley
I found it quite boring and pointless.
Have Not Have by Geoff Ryman
I wish it was longer, because I would have loved to know more about the world. The story felt a little forced, but I liked the ending.
Lobsters by Charles Stross
Maybe I'm not ready to try cyberpunk again. It's just... a lot of noise. It's tiring, and it makes following the story harder. I liked some ideas though.
Breathmoss by Ian R. MacLeod
I was quite unlucky with this antology, since the two novelettes (at least, I think it's just two) were my least favourite stories. This in particular was confused and confusing, and the big reveal at the end... meh.
Lambing Season by Molly Gloss
I guess thanks to Terry Pratchett I will always have a soft spot for sheperdesses (? I have no idea how to spell the plural). This is one of those really short, really quiet stories that nonetheless leaves a mark.
The Fluted Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Wow, very haunting. It actually tasted like a fairytale, but there was enough science in this to make this more scifi than many other stories in this book. I wish it was longer, I wish it was a whole book. And I loved the ending, so perfect in its openness.
Footvote by Peter F. Hamilton
Too short! This idea deserved at least an entire book, or maybe even a series! The laws of New Suffolk were hilarious.
Zima Blue by Alastair Reynolds
So weird. Artists are definitely weird people, even when they turn out to be something else entirely.
January 25, 2022
Tier 1
246 • Mortimer Gray's History of Death • (1995) • novella by Brian Stableford (aka Mortimer Gray's "History of Death")
418 • Story of Your Life • (1998) • novella by Ted Chiang
Tier 2
1 • Blood Music • (1983) • novelette by Greg Bear
19 • A Cabin on the Coast • (1984) • short story by Gene Wolfe
213 • Guest of Honor • (1993) • novelette by Robert Reed
363 • A Dry, Quiet War • (1996) • novelette by Tony Daniel
380 • The Undiscovered • (1997) • novelette by William Sanders
520 • Daddy's World • (1999) • novelette by Walter Jon Williams
647 • Lambing Season • (2002) • short story by Molly Gloss
Tier 3
78 • Flying Saucer Rock and Roll • (1985) • novelette by Howard Waldrop (aka Flying Saucer Rock & Roll)
93 • Dinner in Audoghast • (1985) • short story by Bruce Sterling
103 • Roadside Rescue • (1985) • short story by Pat Cadigan
109 • Snow • (1985) • short story by John Crowley
137 • The Pure Product • (1986) • novelette by John Kessel
191 • Bears Discover Fire • (1990) • short story by Terry Bisson
199 • Even the Queen • (1992) • short story by Connie Willis
328 • Coming of Age in Karhide • [Hainish] • (1995) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
342 • The Dead • (1996) • short story by Michael Swanwick
352 • Recording Angel • (1996) • short story by Ian McDonald
454 • People Came from Earth • (1999) • short story by Stephen Baxter
502 • 10 to 16 to 1 • (1999) • novelette by James Patrick Kelly (aka 10^16 to 1)
561 • Have Not Have • (2001) • novelette by Geoff Ryman
Tier 4
28 • Salvador • (1984) • short story by Lucius Shepard
42 • Trinity • (1984) • novella by Nancy Kress
121 • The Winter Market • (1985) • novelette by William Gibson
152 • Stable Strategies for Middle Management • (1988) • short story by Eileen Gunn
162 • Kirinyaga • [Kirinyaga • 2] • (1988) • novelette by Mike Resnick
177 • Tales from the Venia Woods • [Roma Eterna] • (1989) • short story by Robert Silverberg
238 • None So Blind • (1994) • short story by Joe Haldeman
293 • The Lincoln Train • (1995) • short story by Maureen F. McHugh
303 • Wang's Carpets • (1995) • novelette by Greg Egan
400 • Second Skin • (1997) • short story by Paul J. McAuley
464 • The Wedding Album • [Cathy] • (1999) • novella by David Marusek
541 • The Real World • [Silurian Tales] • (2000) • short story by Steven Utley
577 • Lobsters • [Macx Family] • (2001) • novelette by Charles Stross
597 • Breathmoss • (2002) • novella by Ian R. MacLeod
246 • Mortimer Gray's History of Death • (1995) • novella by Brian Stableford (aka Mortimer Gray's "History of Death")
418 • Story of Your Life • (1998) • novella by Ted Chiang
Tier 2
1 • Blood Music • (1983) • novelette by Greg Bear
19 • A Cabin on the Coast • (1984) • short story by Gene Wolfe
213 • Guest of Honor • (1993) • novelette by Robert Reed
363 • A Dry, Quiet War • (1996) • novelette by Tony Daniel
380 • The Undiscovered • (1997) • novelette by William Sanders
520 • Daddy's World • (1999) • novelette by Walter Jon Williams
647 • Lambing Season • (2002) • short story by Molly Gloss
Tier 3
78 • Flying Saucer Rock and Roll • (1985) • novelette by Howard Waldrop (aka Flying Saucer Rock & Roll)
93 • Dinner in Audoghast • (1985) • short story by Bruce Sterling
103 • Roadside Rescue • (1985) • short story by Pat Cadigan
109 • Snow • (1985) • short story by John Crowley
137 • The Pure Product • (1986) • novelette by John Kessel
191 • Bears Discover Fire • (1990) • short story by Terry Bisson
199 • Even the Queen • (1992) • short story by Connie Willis
328 • Coming of Age in Karhide • [Hainish] • (1995) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
342 • The Dead • (1996) • short story by Michael Swanwick
352 • Recording Angel • (1996) • short story by Ian McDonald
454 • People Came from Earth • (1999) • short story by Stephen Baxter
502 • 10 to 16 to 1 • (1999) • novelette by James Patrick Kelly (aka 10^16 to 1)
561 • Have Not Have • (2001) • novelette by Geoff Ryman
Tier 4
28 • Salvador • (1984) • short story by Lucius Shepard
42 • Trinity • (1984) • novella by Nancy Kress
121 • The Winter Market • (1985) • novelette by William Gibson
152 • Stable Strategies for Middle Management • (1988) • short story by Eileen Gunn
162 • Kirinyaga • [Kirinyaga • 2] • (1988) • novelette by Mike Resnick
177 • Tales from the Venia Woods • [Roma Eterna] • (1989) • short story by Robert Silverberg
238 • None So Blind • (1994) • short story by Joe Haldeman
293 • The Lincoln Train • (1995) • short story by Maureen F. McHugh
303 • Wang's Carpets • (1995) • novelette by Greg Egan
400 • Second Skin • (1997) • short story by Paul J. McAuley
464 • The Wedding Album • [Cathy] • (1999) • novella by David Marusek
541 • The Real World • [Silurian Tales] • (2000) • short story by Steven Utley
577 • Lobsters • [Macx Family] • (2001) • novelette by Charles Stross
597 • Breathmoss • (2002) • novella by Ian R. MacLeod
January 25, 2014
This is a selection of Gardner Dozois' favorite stories from the first twenty years (1983 to 2002) of The Year's Best Science Fiction. Those annual anthologies had themselves already skimmed the cream off of each year's crop of stories, so ideally, this should be filled with nothing but masterpieces of the form. But, of course, there's no accounting for taste. Dozois admits up front that he has selected many of his own personal favorites, rather than choosing exclusively award winners, and his introductory notes display some tendency towards choosing breakout stories by rising stars, rather than gems written by authors at the peak of their power.
And clearly, there's no accounting for taste, whether mine or the editor's. All of these stories are well written, and are enjoyed by a large fraction of readers. But I was surprised at how many in this collection I considered to be below average. Some are not really even sci fi, like Gene Wolfe's "A Cabin on the Coast" and Bruce Sterling's "Dinner in Audoghast". Others are overly gimmicky riffs on a single idea, like the ridiculous extrapolation to real-time bioengineering for corporate ladder-climbing in Eileen Gunn's "Stable Strategies for Middle Management", or Michael Swanwick's "The Dead", in which reanimated corpses take over labor markets from taxi driving to prostitution. Terry Bisson's "Bears Discover Fire" is about exactly what it sounds like it's about, except it's less imaginative that you'd imagine. In this case it's clearly my taste that demands accounting for, however, as this story won Hugo and Nebula awards.
I'm never a big fan of alternate history, but if you enjoy that sort of thing, you can read here about what would have happened if Rome had never fallen (Robert Silverberg's "Tales from the Venia Woods"), how Shakespeare would have followed his muse if he had been somewhat inexplicably stranded among a tribe of American Indians (William Sanders' "The Undiscovered"), or how Southern slavers would have been treated after the Civil War if Lincoln had not been assassinated (Maureen F. McHugh's "The Lincoln Train")
For every disappointment, though, there was a story that I greatly enjoyed. My favorite new discovery is Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life". In fact, I think it displaces Asimov's "The Last Question" as my favorite sci-fi short story of all time. I think it must have been custom-written for me, as it combines linguistics, first contact, some physics and a nonlinear narrative structure, with a human story that is as poignant as the aliens are intriguing. I really need to find and read more by Ted Chiang.
Other favorites included "Mortimer Gray's History of Death" by Brian Stableford, which is a fascinating look at the topic of death from many different facets, and includes many intriguing speculations about the effect of human mortality on our culture and civilization throughout history. I also really enjoyed Ursula K. Le Guin's "Coming of Age in Karhide". Like much of her best work, it's about gender, and sex, and how these inevitably skew the way you see and think about everything. In a similar vein, and just as good, is Ian R. MacLeod's "Breathmoss", which can be enjoyed either for the lushly descriptive alien world, the intricate social dynamics, or the plot that slowly comes full circle as the girl who comes of age throughout the story eventually returns the favors given by her mentor.
Some of the most memorable stories are those that speculate on how everything will change once we can digitize our minds. In this category is Charles Stross's "Lobsters", which you can't read (even for the third time) without feeling like you're drinking from a firehose. This story (and the novelization in Accelerando) are what first set me to devouring the decidedly mixed bag of everything else Stross had written. The story is well worth reading for the frenetic pace that brilliantly conveys the cusp-of-singularity pace of progress, and for an idea density large enough to collapse and form a singularity on its own. But the story ends up feeling a little bit underdeveloped, if only because not all of the speculations can be followed up on. There are enough rifles hanging above the fireplace to give Chekhov fits. Also in this category are David Marusek's "The Wedding Album" and Walter Jon Williams' "Daddy's World", both from the existentialist sub-genre that focuses on the shock of discovering that you are, in fact, the clone and not the original. "Daddy's World", in particular, does a brilliant job of imagining both the soaring freedom and the crushing despair that might come with living in a digital world.
This only covers about half the stories in the book. It's a large collection. Most of the rest are solid, enjoyable, or thought-provoking to various degrees, but neither flawless nor badly flawed. On average, the quality is probably only a little higher than any one of the annual volumes picked at random, suggesting that variation between readers makes it pointless to try to define the top end of the field very precisely. On the whole, it's a great collection, well worth seeking out.
And clearly, there's no accounting for taste, whether mine or the editor's. All of these stories are well written, and are enjoyed by a large fraction of readers. But I was surprised at how many in this collection I considered to be below average. Some are not really even sci fi, like Gene Wolfe's "A Cabin on the Coast" and Bruce Sterling's "Dinner in Audoghast". Others are overly gimmicky riffs on a single idea, like the ridiculous extrapolation to real-time bioengineering for corporate ladder-climbing in Eileen Gunn's "Stable Strategies for Middle Management", or Michael Swanwick's "The Dead", in which reanimated corpses take over labor markets from taxi driving to prostitution. Terry Bisson's "Bears Discover Fire" is about exactly what it sounds like it's about, except it's less imaginative that you'd imagine. In this case it's clearly my taste that demands accounting for, however, as this story won Hugo and Nebula awards.
I'm never a big fan of alternate history, but if you enjoy that sort of thing, you can read here about what would have happened if Rome had never fallen (Robert Silverberg's "Tales from the Venia Woods"), how Shakespeare would have followed his muse if he had been somewhat inexplicably stranded among a tribe of American Indians (William Sanders' "The Undiscovered"), or how Southern slavers would have been treated after the Civil War if Lincoln had not been assassinated (Maureen F. McHugh's "The Lincoln Train")
For every disappointment, though, there was a story that I greatly enjoyed. My favorite new discovery is Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life". In fact, I think it displaces Asimov's "The Last Question" as my favorite sci-fi short story of all time. I think it must have been custom-written for me, as it combines linguistics, first contact, some physics and a nonlinear narrative structure, with a human story that is as poignant as the aliens are intriguing. I really need to find and read more by Ted Chiang.
Other favorites included "Mortimer Gray's History of Death" by Brian Stableford, which is a fascinating look at the topic of death from many different facets, and includes many intriguing speculations about the effect of human mortality on our culture and civilization throughout history. I also really enjoyed Ursula K. Le Guin's "Coming of Age in Karhide". Like much of her best work, it's about gender, and sex, and how these inevitably skew the way you see and think about everything. In a similar vein, and just as good, is Ian R. MacLeod's "Breathmoss", which can be enjoyed either for the lushly descriptive alien world, the intricate social dynamics, or the plot that slowly comes full circle as the girl who comes of age throughout the story eventually returns the favors given by her mentor.
Some of the most memorable stories are those that speculate on how everything will change once we can digitize our minds. In this category is Charles Stross's "Lobsters", which you can't read (even for the third time) without feeling like you're drinking from a firehose. This story (and the novelization in Accelerando) are what first set me to devouring the decidedly mixed bag of everything else Stross had written. The story is well worth reading for the frenetic pace that brilliantly conveys the cusp-of-singularity pace of progress, and for an idea density large enough to collapse and form a singularity on its own. But the story ends up feeling a little bit underdeveloped, if only because not all of the speculations can be followed up on. There are enough rifles hanging above the fireplace to give Chekhov fits. Also in this category are David Marusek's "The Wedding Album" and Walter Jon Williams' "Daddy's World", both from the existentialist sub-genre that focuses on the shock of discovering that you are, in fact, the clone and not the original. "Daddy's World", in particular, does a brilliant job of imagining both the soaring freedom and the crushing despair that might come with living in a digital world.
This only covers about half the stories in the book. It's a large collection. Most of the rest are solid, enjoyable, or thought-provoking to various degrees, but neither flawless nor badly flawed. On average, the quality is probably only a little higher than any one of the annual volumes picked at random, suggesting that variation between readers makes it pointless to try to define the top end of the field very precisely. On the whole, it's a great collection, well worth seeking out.
December 15, 2019
This didn't feel like a collection that should be named "The Best of the Best"; it was pretty mixed, and only had a couple of stories I thought were really awesome. Most of them were OK, but there were a couple that really were not good. Also, far too many of them were borderline sci-fi at best; I suppose you could call them speculative fiction, but really, do they then belong in a book subtitled "20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction"? Several of those stories actually wound up being my favorites, but still...
Among the stories I did really like: "Bears Discover Fire" by Terry Bisson, "The Undiscovered" by William Sanders , "Stable Strategies for Middle Management" by Eileen Gunn, "Even the Queen" by Connie Willis, "Tales from the Venia Woods" by Robert Silverberg, and "Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams. Also worth the read, though not quite as awesome: "Mortimer Gray's History of Death" by Brian Stableford, "Coming of Age in Karhide" by Ursula K. Le Guin, "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, and "The Winter Market" by William Gibson.
In the end, I still remain someone who prefers novels to short stories, but there were definitely some stories worth the read, and some authors I will now have to investigate further.
Among the stories I did really like: "Bears Discover Fire" by Terry Bisson, "The Undiscovered" by William Sanders , "Stable Strategies for Middle Management" by Eileen Gunn, "Even the Queen" by Connie Willis, "Tales from the Venia Woods" by Robert Silverberg, and "Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams. Also worth the read, though not quite as awesome: "Mortimer Gray's History of Death" by Brian Stableford, "Coming of Age in Karhide" by Ursula K. Le Guin, "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, and "The Winter Market" by William Gibson.
In the end, I still remain someone who prefers novels to short stories, but there were definitely some stories worth the read, and some authors I will now have to investigate further.
June 14, 2022
The thing about "best," in anthologies like this, is that "best" is ultimately subjective. These are the stories that Dozois liked the best, and I think it's safe to say that our tastes do not always coincide. That being said, I do like most of the stories here. I don't know that there's a single one that I'd rate as five star, so no absolute knock-outs from my perspective, but there are a few that I'd rate as four star stories. I particularly enjoyed "The Lincoln Train" by Maureen F. McHugh, which I thought was the pick of the bunch, and there were a few others that made an impression. I have to say, though, that the longer the pieces were, the more likely they were to leave me cold - with the exception of Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life" there wasn't a single novella here where I wasn't thinking Would you please just get on with it, and I felt the same way about a good portion of the novelettes. My preference for short fiction (actually short fiction) becomes ever more entrenched.
I haven't read any other of Dozois' "Best of" anthologies, and while I mean to get around to them eventually, there are certainly other anthologists for whom I have greater sympathy of taste, I think.
I haven't read any other of Dozois' "Best of" anthologies, and while I mean to get around to them eventually, there are certainly other anthologists for whom I have greater sympathy of taste, I think.
May 5, 2023
I admit: I read only 14 stories out of 26, but please understand me: I just couldn't take it any more! For me, Dozois' yearly Best of SF were always a so-so mix: some good, many bad. But in this Best of Best he overdid himself: it's actually Worst of the Best! From 20 years!
The first problem: almost none is actually scifi, but, you know, "edgy", "slippy" and so on. Second and bigger problem: they are exactly the kind of artsy texts going for the ravishing, highly polished form and completely forgetting the need for an actual, original and good story. Just what usually Dozois and Datlow are looking for, and exactly what I run away from.
From the first 14 I actually enjoyed 3 (Greg Bear, Pat Cadigan, Eileen Gunn) and strongly disliked the others (even Gene Wolfe, a first for me). The average rating was 2,2/5, but I felt so badly cheated in not actually getting scifi for my bucks, that the overall feeling is even worse. It is a firm "Did not like it."
The first problem: almost none is actually scifi, but, you know, "edgy", "slippy" and so on. Second and bigger problem: they are exactly the kind of artsy texts going for the ravishing, highly polished form and completely forgetting the need for an actual, original and good story. Just what usually Dozois and Datlow are looking for, and exactly what I run away from.
From the first 14 I actually enjoyed 3 (Greg Bear, Pat Cadigan, Eileen Gunn) and strongly disliked the others (even Gene Wolfe, a first for me). The average rating was 2,2/5, but I felt so badly cheated in not actually getting scifi for my bucks, that the overall feeling is even worse. It is a firm "Did not like it."
February 4, 2023
“Stable Strategies for Middle Management” by Eileen Gunn: 6
- Maybe it killed among the shirt-and-tie crowd. A white-collar satire that’s less metaphorically biting than it is literally so, and with a central conceit so far removed from the core of the allusion as to make the story, by extension, as arbitrary as the premise. That premise: corporate management middle rungs splice their genetic code with animal DNA in order to be better worker bees. Our protagonist does the same, all for nought nonetheless, until she can’t overcome her evolutionary workarounds and mandible snaps her boss's neck. The worthiest turn comes in the fact that the company seems to just accept this in-house murder, and she accordingly climbs the corporate ladder — meaning that, yes, business turns people into animals.
- Maybe it killed among the shirt-and-tie crowd. A white-collar satire that’s less metaphorically biting than it is literally so, and with a central conceit so far removed from the core of the allusion as to make the story, by extension, as arbitrary as the premise. That premise: corporate management middle rungs splice their genetic code with animal DNA in order to be better worker bees. Our protagonist does the same, all for nought nonetheless, until she can’t overcome her evolutionary workarounds and mandible snaps her boss's neck. The worthiest turn comes in the fact that the company seems to just accept this in-house murder, and she accordingly climbs the corporate ladder — meaning that, yes, business turns people into animals.
May 4, 2012
This is a collection of 36 stories ranging from 1981 to 2002 and purporting to represent the best shorts in science fiction in those years. A blurb on the back by GRR Martin says that "if a science fiction fan from 1984 chanced to stumble into a time warp and pop up in the here and now, and wanted to know what had been happening in his favorite genre in the last twenty years, all you'd need to do was hand him a copy of Gardner Dozois's Best of the Best." In a way, I'm that fan. I read a lot of science fiction in my childhood and early teens--mostly by writers of the Golden Age whose heyday had passed before I was born: Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke. Then I largely lost interest and instead my escapist drug of choice became fantasy. Maybe because by then science fiction had become less and less of an escape--more literary, less adventurous. Just recently I read a volume of short stories, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame filled with the classics of that Golden Age from 1929 to 1965. Several were already favorites and I recognized the names of all of the authors, almost all of whom I had read before. It's a very different case with the Dozois anthology. I had read--and recognized--few names: Nancy Kress, William Gibson, Robert Silverberg, Connie Willis, Joe Haldeman, Ursula Le Guin and Molly Gloss--who I knew from a Western she wrote. All the other names were new. And though I enjoyed and found many of the stories thought-provoking--and all were very well-written--I can't quite say I found any of them the equal of the best in the earlier anthology. There's no story here I'd put next to Asimov's "Nightfall" or Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon" in impact. And while I could say I loved all but a handful of the stories in the Golden Age anthology, I'd say that's true of perhaps only a bit more than a third here. And some stories I simply loathed--such as "Salvador," "The Pure Product," "Lobsters" or were a big huh? But that says less about the quality of the stories than my personal tastes--but it is why I rated this lower. Below are a dozen of my favorites in the order they appeared:
1) "Blood Music" by Greg Bear - reading this I was reminded how often there's a very thin line between science fiction and horror. A tale of nanotech that's truly gut-punch chilling.
2) "Trinity by Nancy Kress - I've read novels by Kress I've loved so no surprise to me she'd produce a story I'd find outstanding. This one about people trying to use science to tap God on the shoulder.
3) "Dinner in Audoghast" by Bruce Sterling - a story of prophecy and the ironies of history that lingered with me even days later. Reminiscent of the poem "Ozymandias."
4) "Kirinyaga" by Mike Resnick - this story about a "utopia" trying to recreate an old Kenyan culture--down to infanticide--is rather disturbing. Interesting especially after having recently read Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.
5) "Tales from the Venia Woods" by Robert Silverberg - a tale of a Rome that never fell in the modern age. A thought-provoking alternate history about the possible gains from an everlasting empire.
6) "Even the Queen" by Connie Willis - one of a bare handful of humorous tales in the book. There's something so pitch perfect about the way Willis plays with cultural fads and fashions in this gender-twisty tale.
7) "Mortimer Gray's History of Death" by Brian Stableford - I recently read C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy and am currently reading Joseph Campbell's Masks of God. I couldn't help but think of both works reading about this tale about the quest for immortality.
8) "Wang's Carpets" by Greg Egan - one of the few stories that really reminded me of one written in the Golden Age in the way it used science and provocative ideas that make you see the universe and what is human with new eyes.
9) "Coming of Age in Karhide" by Ursula K. Le Guin - a classic science fiction novel and a favorite book of mine is Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness about a planet whose people have no definitive gender, so it was interesting to read this tale set on that world.
10) "The Undiscovered" by William Sanders - an alternate history of William Shakespeare among the Cherokees; this was hysterical--the one story in the book that made me laugh out loud.
11) "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang - easily the most moving story in the book, it was both a great sci-fi tale of aliens and linguistics but also a poignant story of motherhood, love and loss.
12) "Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams - similar in theme to Marusek's "The Wedding Album," which was also excellent--but this left me just a bit more chilled to the bone.
I've noted reading other reviews there seems no clear consensus about what are the best, or at least favorite stories. Something before reading this I thought might be a sign of weakness, but afterwards I took as a sign of strength. Everyone I think will find stories to love here--including the ones I hated. Another interesting thing struck me reading these and the Golden Age anthology--and rather reassuring. Science does have its fads, can be absurdly wrong, and science fiction writers aren't really great prognosticators. Which, given the doomsday scenarios both within these stories and trumpeted though contemporary popular media, is rather reassuring. This book is staying on my shelf. Perhaps someone other than Dozois might have picked stories from this era I might have loved more, but this is still an outstanding collection. Now if only I could find an anthology to fill in the years between 1965 and 1980 spanning the Golden Age and this later era.
1) "Blood Music" by Greg Bear - reading this I was reminded how often there's a very thin line between science fiction and horror. A tale of nanotech that's truly gut-punch chilling.
2) "Trinity by Nancy Kress - I've read novels by Kress I've loved so no surprise to me she'd produce a story I'd find outstanding. This one about people trying to use science to tap God on the shoulder.
3) "Dinner in Audoghast" by Bruce Sterling - a story of prophecy and the ironies of history that lingered with me even days later. Reminiscent of the poem "Ozymandias."
4) "Kirinyaga" by Mike Resnick - this story about a "utopia" trying to recreate an old Kenyan culture--down to infanticide--is rather disturbing. Interesting especially after having recently read Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.
5) "Tales from the Venia Woods" by Robert Silverberg - a tale of a Rome that never fell in the modern age. A thought-provoking alternate history about the possible gains from an everlasting empire.
6) "Even the Queen" by Connie Willis - one of a bare handful of humorous tales in the book. There's something so pitch perfect about the way Willis plays with cultural fads and fashions in this gender-twisty tale.
7) "Mortimer Gray's History of Death" by Brian Stableford - I recently read C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy and am currently reading Joseph Campbell's Masks of God. I couldn't help but think of both works reading about this tale about the quest for immortality.
8) "Wang's Carpets" by Greg Egan - one of the few stories that really reminded me of one written in the Golden Age in the way it used science and provocative ideas that make you see the universe and what is human with new eyes.
9) "Coming of Age in Karhide" by Ursula K. Le Guin - a classic science fiction novel and a favorite book of mine is Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness about a planet whose people have no definitive gender, so it was interesting to read this tale set on that world.
10) "The Undiscovered" by William Sanders - an alternate history of William Shakespeare among the Cherokees; this was hysterical--the one story in the book that made me laugh out loud.
11) "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang - easily the most moving story in the book, it was both a great sci-fi tale of aliens and linguistics but also a poignant story of motherhood, love and loss.
12) "Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams - similar in theme to Marusek's "The Wedding Album," which was also excellent--but this left me just a bit more chilled to the bone.
I've noted reading other reviews there seems no clear consensus about what are the best, or at least favorite stories. Something before reading this I thought might be a sign of weakness, but afterwards I took as a sign of strength. Everyone I think will find stories to love here--including the ones I hated. Another interesting thing struck me reading these and the Golden Age anthology--and rather reassuring. Science does have its fads, can be absurdly wrong, and science fiction writers aren't really great prognosticators. Which, given the doomsday scenarios both within these stories and trumpeted though contemporary popular media, is rather reassuring. This book is staying on my shelf. Perhaps someone other than Dozois might have picked stories from this era I might have loved more, but this is still an outstanding collection. Now if only I could find an anthology to fill in the years between 1965 and 1980 spanning the Golden Age and this later era.
February 12, 2019
Top-notch collection, particularly for readers who haven't regularly been following Dozois's Year's Best Science Fiction series (and who therefore wouldn't have already read these stories). At 650+ pages there is something for every SF fan's liking here, and Dozois has done an excellent job in choosing great stories without significantly overlapping with too many other Best-Of collections. I could have done with a few less novellas, but otherwise well worth your time and money. Recommended.
August 25, 2023
This is about as good as it gets for a short story and novella anthology of science fiction. If you can't find several of these stories to your liking, sci-fi is probably not your genre.
An added benefit: if you find a story you like, there is an introductory list of further works by each author. Instant book recommendations!
Enjoy!
An added benefit: if you find a story you like, there is an introductory list of further works by each author. Instant book recommendations!
Enjoy!
March 6, 2017
I thought there were less good stories than bad in this one.
August 8, 2019
Quite and large and diverse collection of short stories in SF. I particularly liked the short biographies and list of accomplishments at the start of each story.
October 17, 2019
Many good stories.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
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