Cindy's Reviews > The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection

The Year's Best Science Fiction by Gardner R. Dozois

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2493714
's review
Aug 01, 10

bookshelves: fat-volumes-in-progress, anthology, own, sci-fi

99-cent buy from Goodwill. Keeping track of the stories I've read:

1 - John Kessel "The Juniper Tree" 2/5
    Generations of feminist social & technological engineering on the moon with a horrifying murderous guilt twist. Fell flat for me.

*27 - Charles Stross "Antibodies" 4/5
    I find Stross's blog very amusing and well-written but had never read any of his fiction, despite him being a very prolific author. This story is one that starts out as a maybe-two-star and quickly turns into a 4 or 5 star rating as the earth begins to fall out from under the feet of our protagonists. The beginning will remind you that this was written in 2000, but the end is mind blowing and amusing. Too much talking, though.

42 - Ursula K LeGuin "The Birthday of the World" 3/5
    An alternative mythology story that's quite confusing to get into, mostly because the writing is obtuse. I like that God is a man and a woman joined, so you have God Himself and God Herself who are considered one, but have separate religious and ceremonial jobs.

*64 - Nancy Kress "Savior" 5/5
Novella-length first contact story. An alien egg object lands in northern Minnesota. Humanity's interactions with the egg and humanity's own foibles spans many generations. A story of destruction and construction. Love the sociology SF of Kress.

549 - M. Shayne Bell "The Thing About Benny" 4/5
    Entertaining riff in near future world where many plants are extinct and a young savant who hunts down lost specimens in old office buildings. Oh, and it's a clever Abba tribute.

*555 - Robert Charles Wilson "The Long Goodbye" 5/5
    A brisk 2.5 pages gives you two differentiated human species 350 years in the future, a grandfather and grandson, space exploration and a huge twist. Awesome! I love RCW.

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