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The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2011 (The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy)
by
Rich Horton ,
Neil Gaiman (Goodreads Author), Elizabeth Hand, Robert Reed, Gene Wolfe, Charles Yu, R.J. Parker, Alexandra Duncan (Goodreads Author)
This third volume of the year's best science fiction and fantasy features thirty stories by some of the genre's greatest authors, including Carol Emshwiller, Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Hand, Paul Park, RJ Parker, Robert Reed, Rachel Swirsky, Peter Watts, Gene Wolfe, and many others. Selecting the best fiction from Asimov's, F&SF, Strange Horizons, Subterranean, Tor.com, an...more
Paperback, 572 pages
Published
June 21st 2011
by Prime Books
(first published June 1st 2011)
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Feb 18, 2012
Alan
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
SF readers
Recommended to Alan by:
The editor and contents
Now this is the way to put together a best-of-year anthology. Editor Rich Horton may not have quite the long track record of the great Gardner Dozois, but I think this third iteration of Horton's own Year's Best series establishes him as a strong runner-up. The volume in hand has the same standard features as Dozois' anthologies—the recap of the year in various media up front, and a list of recommended reading in back, for example—but there's one essential feature they share in particular: every...more
There's really nothing like a good anthology, particularly for those with short attention-spans, or who only have a chance to read on lunch breaks and what-have-you. I fall into both categories, and I found this collection to stir in me feelings of wonder and joy. Stories range from hard sci-fi to epic fantasy, and feature the claustrophobic reaches of space as well as incredible lands lost to time. If you can handle jumping between genres and subjects, these stories will fuel your imagination a...more
A solid, interesting collection. While there were no stories here that totally blew me away, there were no complete duds, either. All of the stories were well-written and at least somewhat interesting, many were thoroughly enjoyable, and there were a few that weren't as enjoyable but were particularly memorable and thought-provoking. My favorites I've marked below with an asterisk.
A few quick words about each story, keyed to the author's last name:
Lee: inventive sci-fi story that felt more like...more
A few quick words about each story, keyed to the author's last name:
Lee: inventive sci-fi story that felt more like...more
Another one that had some creative starts, but I couldn't get over the pretentious social commentary. "I'm so clever, I'm going to take some really extreme social opinions and thinly veil them in a science fiction or fantasy story. It's okay that they're really extreme because I've put them in some impossible world." Unfortunately, they were too busy making their commentary and forgot to write cohesive science fiction and fantasy.
This suffered as it was the last of the year's best volumes covering 2010 that I read, so that more of the stories were familiar to me. The selection was also less in tune with my personal preferences than it has been in previous years. Stories that I particularly liked were Alice Kim's "The Other Graces", Matthew Johnson's "Holdfast", Neil Gaiman's "The Thing About Cassandra", Robert Reed's "Dead Man's Run" and Matthew Surridge's "The Word of Azrael".
A mediocre collection, but it picks out a couple of gems others overlooked. Among the unusual choices, I especially liked "The Word of Azrael," which is like every sword & sorcery story ever written mashed up into one amazing blast of imagery. A+: Swirsky, Watts, Surridge. A: Parker. B+: Lee, El-Mohtar, Landis, Fagan. B: Tem, Johnson, Park, Broderick.
Yoon Ha Lee | Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain | 20121205 | 3.5*
Christie Yant | The Magician and the Maid and Other Stories | 20121206 | 2.5*
Neil Gaiman | The Thing About Cassandra | 20121206 | 2.0*
An Owomoyela | Abandonware | 20121207 | 3.0*
Christie Yant | The Magician and the Maid and Other Stories | 20121206 | 2.5*
Neil Gaiman | The Thing About Cassandra | 20121206 | 2.0*
An Owomoyela | Abandonware | 20121207 | 3.0*
Some decent stories but a fair number of reprints and some absolute duds really hold this volume back.
I usually love the "Year's Best" series, but this one was lackluster and uninspiring. I found myself skipping probably every other story. There were a few stories I enjoyed, but nothing I loved. I can't even remember the names of the stories I liked best. There were too many novella lengths stories as well.
The 2011 edition of "The Year's Best SCiFi and Fantasy" is light on fantasy and heavy on SciFi. 2 stories are reprints from other, better anthologies. This book was a waste of time and energy...more
The 2011 edition of "The Year's Best SCiFi and Fantasy" is light on fantasy and heavy on SciFi. 2 stories are reprints from other, better anthologies. This book was a waste of time and energy...more
Meh. Most of these stories just didn't grab my attention.
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