YEAR'S BEST SF 8

An anthology that is a bit variable, two standouts, a few good stories, but a lot of 3s and not enough 3.5s, so this comes in a 3.46 only. The only writer meta-fiction perhaps should only be by Terry Pratchett, or have Batman and Sgt. Rock in it, to be at all memorable. I disagree with them that the Dozois/Dann Dark Alchemy was a good book, to start with - so that is part of it, although they did pick the two best stories from there, the Hand and Gaiman stories. Given that book is for kids, and if Ellen Datlow has got some more stuff up her sleeve in Inferno like Laird Barron's work, then the latter rips the head off the former in your fantasy no-holds barred wrestling bout. Especially as it doesn't have the child handicap. The introduction is short, with the editors saying they prefer to spend more time and space on author intros and information - which they are certainly good at - but there are only a couple of paragraphs each, here. I'd probably pick an extra story over these if putting together the book, too, but it seems none of the Year's Best publishers are using the web as effectively as they could. If the editors have a little more to say, include a url in the book, and put it up. No lack of space on the internet, publisher people (and this has been done with The Space Opera Renaissance, another of the books from this team-up, to a degree). Googleborg loves content. For a series coming out every year, the excuse that haven't had time to get around to it doesn't really wash, either. Buy book, get bonus extras, or whatever. As far as the stories go, Chadbourn's Elizabethan super-spy Will Swyfte is pretty cool, and according to the Pyr blog there will be a series of books featuring his antics, so apparently a few people like this bloke. Laird Barron has written another story that utilises his strength in trending towards the science-horror of a vaguely Lovecraftian flavour, but maybe a bit more grass and not quite so nasty this time. Call it fantasy if you want, too, works for all 3, here. Hand and Cadigan provide some good nasty ends, though, balanced by some fun from Gaiman and Pratt. There's also an Elric story that I had never heard of included here, a pleasant surprise. Year's Best Fantasy 08 : Paper Cuts Scissors - Holly Black Year's Best Fantasy 08 : A Portrait in Ivory - Michael Moorcock Year's Best Fantasy 08 : The Witch's Headstone - Neil Gaiman Year's Best Fantasy 08 : The Ruby Incomparable - Kage Baker Year's Best Fantasy 08 : And Such Small Deer - Chris Roberson Year's Best Fantasy 08 : Unpossible - Daryl Gregory Year's Best Fantasy 08 : Winter's Wife - Elizabeth Hand Year's Best Fantasy 08 : The King of the Djinn - David Ackert and Benjamin Rosenbaum Year's Best Fantasy 08 : Stilled Life - Pat Cadigan Year's Best Fantasy 08 : Poison - Bruce McAllister Year's Best Fantasy 08 : Who Slays the Gyant Wounds the Beast - Mark Chadbourn Year's Best Fantasy 08 : Under the Bottom of the Lake - Jeffrey Ford

As per the last several, Hartwell and Cramer point out they could have done three volumes this size with all the good stories they found. The editors mention a couple of anthologies as decent, but mostly not for SF, and single out Peter Crowther's Mars Probes as the best of the lot for the year, although not with huge enthusiasm - however they have selected some stories from this book. Not as many standout stories here this year, and as such, only a 3.77 average. Year's Best SF 08 : In Paradise - Bruce Sterling Year's Best SF 08 : Slow Life - Michael Swanwick Year's Best SF 08 : Knapsack Poems - Eleanor Arnason Year's Best SF 08 : At Dorado - Geoffrey A. Landis Year's Best SF 08 : Coelacanths - Robert Reed Year's Best SF 08 : Flight Correction - Ken Wharton Year's Best SF 08 : Shoes - Robert Sheckley Year's Best SF 08 : The Diamond Drill - Charles Sheffield Year's Best SF 08 : The Seasons of the Ansarac - Ursula K. Le Guin Year's Best SF 08 : Halo - Charles Stross Year's Best SF 08 : I Saw the Light - Terry Bisson Year's Best SF 08 : A Slow Day at the Gallery - A. M. Dellamonica Year's Best SF 08 : Ailoura - Paul Di Filippo Year's Best SF 08 : The Names of All the Spirits - J. R. Dunn Year's Best SF 08 : Grandma - Carol Emshwiller Year's Best SF 08 : Snow in the Desert - Neal Asher Year's Best SF 08 : Singleton - Greg Egan Year's Best SF 08 : Geropods - Robert Onopa Year's Best SF 08 : Afterlife - Jack Williamson Year's Best SF 08 : Shields of Mars - Gene Wolfe Year's Best SF 08 : Patent Infringement - Nancy Kress Year's Best SF 08 : Lost Sorceress of the Silent Citadel - Michael Moorcock Phone dead? Let's walk instead. 3 out of 5 Flying first contact breakdown breakthrough confession comeback. 4 out of 5 Single bodied monster. 3 out of 5 Port wife. 3.5 out of 5 Life history lesson appearance. 3 out of 5 Space elevator a bit of an albatross. 4 out of 5 Smart footwear very annoying. 3.5 out of 5 Alien artifacts are a boy's best friend. 3.5 out of 5 Migratory pattern. 4 out of 5 Life aboard the Field Circus for Amber, with some occasional advice from dad. 5 out of 5 Moonlight message SETI trip. 4 out of 5 Alien art, human art, crazy people. 4 out of 5 Rejuvenation prevention murder motives. 4 out of 5 AIs, ain't Jacks worth it? 4 out of 5 Superpowers not inherited it seems, as a young girl is taken in by her famous grandmother after the death of her parents. 4 out of 5 Immortality bounty is more than a load of old bollocks. 4 out of 5 A scientist couple decide to have an artificial child, some years after a natural pregnancy miscarries. "Carlos said breezily, Why not? There are so many others now. Sophie. Linus. Theo. Probably a hundred we don't even know about. It's not as if Ben's child won't have playmates. Adai Autonomously Developing Artificial Intelligences had been appearing in a blaze of controversy every few months for the last four years. A Swiss researcher, Isabelle Schib, had taken

I used to regularly have a problem with being so captured by a book that I'd neglect relatively unimportant things like eating and sleeping. I hadn't had that experience in quite a while, but this collection brought it back. Nearly every story is excellent. This book doesn't have the range of the massive _Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection_, but it benefits from its comparative selectivity. If you're only planning to get one of the two, I'd go for this one.