The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection

A very nice average of 3.83 for this volume, but a novella heavy book, so only 23 stories. Only a couple of average and one dodgy story to go along with the fine intro (some quotes below) and summary, gives this book top marks. There are several standouts, topped by George Turner's brilliant 'Flowering Mandrake'. On the book front, along with losses and musical chairs 'the new Tor, Orb and Forge lines...and Warner Aspect'. Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Forgiveness Day - Ursula K. Le Guin Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : The Remoras - Robert Reed Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Nekropolis - Maureen F. McHugh Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Margin of Error - Nancy Kress Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Cilia-of-Gold - Stephen Baxter Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Going After Old Man Alabama - William Sanders Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Melodies of the Heart - Michael F. Flynn Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : The Hole in the Hole - Terry Bisson Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Paris In June - Pat Cadigan Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Flowering Mandrake - George Turner Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : None So Blind - Joe Haldeman Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Cocoon - Greg Egan Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge - Mike Resnick Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Dead Space for the Unexpected - Geoff Ryman Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Cri de Coeur - Michael Bishop Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : The Sawing Boys - Howard Waldrop Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : The Matter of Seggri - Ursula K. Le Guin Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Ylem - Eliot Fintushel Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Asylum - Katharine Kerr Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Red Elvis - Walter Jon Williams Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : California Dreamer - Mary Rosenblum Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Split Light - Lisa Goldstein Year's Best Science Fiction 12 : Les Fleurs du Mal - Brian M. Stableford Ekumen embassy explosion entrapment unreast. 4 out of 5 Serious space ship sucker sc@m. 3.5 out of 5 AI constraints. 3.5 out of 5 Breeding philosophy nanotage. 4 out of 5 Mercurial alien life relationship. 4 out of 5 May? Marie? What's the diff? 3.5 out of 5 Slow age memory cure. 4 out of 5 Lunar halfway rover Volvo. 3.5 out of 5 Roborecorder pimping. 3.5 out of 5 Vegetable methuselah's Kal-Elesque odyssey, and brief Phoenix rising. 5 out of 5 Supergenius, you see. Not. 4 out of 5 A private policeman investigates a bombing of a biological research centre looking into natal protection of babies, when he stumbles across the fact of the company moving anyone not died in the wool h3t3ro away from the project, and realises they are also experimenting with preventing non-hetero births by controlling maternal stress factors. 4.5 out of 5 Human pest hard to eradicate. 4 out of 5 Corporate performance pressure. 4 out of 5 Tau Ceti? Not Epsilon Eridani? Holy Crow! 4.5 out of 5 Music caper stop

This is an excellent collection (4.00 average), continuing the great work from the year before, with the extensive summation at the beginning as usual. Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : New Light on the Drake Equation - Ian R. MacLeod Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : More Adventures on Other Planets - Michael Cassutt Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : On K2 with Kanakaredes - Dan Simmons Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : When This World Is All on Fire - William Sanders Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Computer Virus - Nancy Kress Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Have Not Have - Geoff Ryman Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Lobsters - Charles Stross Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : The Dog Said Bow-Wow - Michael Swanwick Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : The Chief Designer - Andy Duncan Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Neutrino Drag - Paul Di Filippo Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Glacial - Alastair Reynolds Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : The Days Between - Allen M. Steele Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : One Horse Town - Howard Waldrop and Leigh Kennedy Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Moby Quilt - Eleanor Arnason Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Raven Dream - Robert Reed Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Undone - James Patrick Kelly Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : The Real Thing - Carolyn Ives Gilman Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Interview: On Any Given Day - Maureen F. McHugh Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Isabel of the Fall - Ian R. MacLeod Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Into Greenwood - Jim Grimsley Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Know How Can Do - Michael Blumlein Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Russian Vine - Simon Ings Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : The Two Dcks - Paul McAuley Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : May Be Some Time - Brenda W. Clough Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : Marcher - Chris Beckett Year's Best Science Fiction 19 : The Human Front - Ken MacLeod A story about a hermit-like SETI astronomer and his past relationships. 4 out of 5 Cancer bad anywhere. 3 out of 5 On a really big mountain, a human and an alien mountaineer come to an understanding. 4.5 out of 5 Flaming ruined. 3 out of 5 House arrest. 5 out of 5 Fashion business. 4 out of 5 A way ahead of the curve ideas man helps out some intelligent sea types. 5 out of 5 Canine anti-tech adventures. 4 out of 5 Space tech, cheaply preferred. 4.5 out of 5 A fun bunch of stuff. How can you not like a human alien space race, when the alien is called Spacedog, and a 50s throwback? Ok, well I couldn't care less about the 50s, really, in general, but this was done well. Macho drag racing in space, gangs, cliques, and you could almost smell the Fonz hanging around in the crowd watching the action. 4 out of 5 Clavain investigates why it is cold and almost all dead on a base. 4 out of 5 Early rising not a good idea. 4.5 out of 5 Trojan bones aplenty. 3.5 out of 5 Tentacles more fun than it looks, sea adventuring a bit more stressful. 4.

I bought this for my wife (I haven't read any sf for about 5 years - just haven't had the time and I'm consumed by the Civil War these days). She's any avid sf reader and swears this is the best anthology she's read in several years (she got a copy at the library then insisted I buy her a copy - that's how much she liked it). I figure it must be good so there's a good chance that I'll give it look too. The wife is a fan of Bear, Card and other's I consider fairly modern sf writers, but she cut her teeth on Asimov, Farmer, Niven, etc. So I trust her judgement, maybe you should too.

One of the great pleasures of the summer is the chance to read the next volume in the collection of Mr. Dozois' anthologies, and this year's is one of the best in a long time.Ian R. MacLeod's "New Light on the Drake Equation' is lyrical and touching, but his second story, "Isabel of the Fall" seems meandering and pointless. Michael Swanwick's "The Dog Said Bow-Wow" is outrageously entertaining. "Have Not Have" is, I believe, part of Geoff Ryman's forthcoming novel "Air," and is a story of an Asian/Muslim/Russian community on the brink of a worldwide technological breakthrough, filled with wonderful characters and great humor. "The Days Between" by Allen M. Steele is an inevitably tragic tale with a peculiar twist, and Waldrop and Kennedy's "One-Horse Town" shows us the poignant intersecting of time and space. Michael Blumlein's hyperkinetic, poetic, "Know How, Can Do" suggest that the human brain will remain the same no matter where you put it. My favorite, however, is "Russian Vine" by Simon Ings, a haunting and exotic tale of how a conquering race of aliens make their victims illiterate in order to achieve their goals, a story so mesmerizing I just had to read it twice. Words can't do the stories justice, and there are some clinkers here (Stross' much-praised "Lobsters" is very annoying), but overall this is the best buy in science fiction you're liable to get all year! And we are especially proud that Mr. Dozois is a native Philadelphian! I look forward eagerly to Collection number 20!

It has been years since Dozois has been able to put together a collection like this! After several years of disappointing and mediocre collections, this anthology has again reached greatness. If this collection is any indication of a trend in the overall quality of short SF being written, then we are all in for a great reading future!