Year's Best SF 13 (Year's Best SF Series, 13)

The collection started slow, with the first few stories actually disappointing me. However, somewhere along, the stories got better and I started liking most of the rest. A few of my favorites include "Memorare" by Gene Wolfe, "End Game" by Nancy Kress (this one was particularly scary), and "The Bridge" by Kathleen Ann Goonan. One especially disturbing story I didn't like for its theme was "Pirates of Somali Coast" - not because it was not well written, but because it's just plain disturbing. All in all, it's a book with a good selection.

The thirteenth volume of this series is down on quality from the twelfth, which was outstanding, at 3.90. This one averages 3.71. However, there is one great story, Terry Bisson's 'Pirates of the Somali Coast'. When they are that good I suppose you can forgive the fact that it may only be SF in the nearest of near future senses, perhaps. However, you could call it a horror story, or satire so black you have to find out what call the Old Ones from Out Of Space call their colour darker than black to categorise it. The weakest part of the book is after this story, where it trails off in quality from there. The other standout is Kage Baker's amusing Plotters and Shooters. It was a pleasant surprise to find the ebook of this after not seeing one for volume 12, meaning no waiting around, not paying someone with a plane the same price as the cost of the book to get it here, or more, etc. So well done publishers for bringing that back. There's the usual brief overview at the start, pointing out JBU and Strange Horizons online, and several original anthologies being good - New Space Opera, Fast Forward, Solaris 1, etc. They also included a poem. The editors are also quite keen on Tony Ballantyne this year, mentioning him multiple times - but neither of these stories I thought were that good. So, call this volume a bit over a 4.25, or 4.5 on the usual scale. Year's Best SF 13 : Baby Doll - Johanna Sinisalo Year's Best SF 13 : Aristotle OS - Tony Ballantyne Year's Best SF 13 : The Last American - John Kessel Year's Best SF 13 : Memorare - Gene Wolfe Year's Best SF 13 : Plotters and Shooters - Kage Baker Year's Best SF 13 : Repeating the Past - Peter Watts Year's Best SF 13 : No More Stories - Stephen Baxter Year's Best SF 13 : The Tomb Wife - Gwyneth Jones Year's Best SF 13 : An Evening's Honest Peril - Marc Laidlaw Year's Best SF 13 : End Game - Nancy Kress Year's Best SF 13 : Induction - Greg Egan Year's Best SF 13 : A Blue and Cloudless Sky - Bernard Ribbeck Year's Best SF 13 : Reasons not to Publish - Gregory Benford Year's Best SF 13 : Objective Impermeability in a Closed System - William Shunn Year's Best SF 13 : Always - Karen Joy Fowler Year's Best SF 13 : Who's Afraid of Wolf 359? - Ken MacLeod Year's Best SF 13 : Artifice and Intelligence - Tim Pratt Year's Best SF 13 : Pirates of the Somali Coast - Terry Bisson Year's Best SF 13 : Sanjeev and Robotwallah - Ian McDonald Year's Best SF 13 : Third Person - Tony Ballantyne Year's Best SF 13 : The Bridge - Kathleen Ann Goonan Year's Best SF 13 : As You Know Bob - John Hemry Year's Best SF 13 : The Lustration - Bruce Sterling Year's Best SF 13 : How Music Begins - James Van Pelt Accelerated cradle snatching. 3.5 out of 5 Accelerated cradle snatching. 3 out of 5 DAS Biography. 4 out of 5 Space vault menace. 3.5 out of 5 Deathlok defense defeat predicted, Avenger! 4.5 out of 5 Holocaust memories, game boy. 4 out of 5 Interbreeding expansion remnant conversation. 3.5 out