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The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual Collection
The past through tomorrow are boldly imagined and reinvented in the twenty-five stories collected in this showcase anthology. Many of the field's finest practitioners are represented here, along with stories from promising newcomers,
William Barton * Rob Chilson * Tony Daniel * Cory Doctorow * Jim Grimsley * Gwyneth Jones * Chris Lawson * Ian McDonald * Robert Reed * William Browning Spencer * Allen Steele * Michael Swanwick * Howard Waldrop * Cherry Wilder * Liz Williams
A useful list of honorable mentions and Dozois's insightful summation of the year in sf round out this anthology, making it indispensable for anyone interested in SF today.
William Barton * Rob Chilson * Tony Daniel * Cory Doctorow * Jim Grimsley * Gwyneth Jones * Chris Lawson * Ian McDonald * Robert Reed * William Browning Spencer * Allen Steele * Michael Swanwick * Howard Waldrop * Cherry Wilder * Liz Williams
A useful list of honorable mentions and Dozois's insightful summation of the year in sf round out this anthology, making it indispensable for anyone interested in SF today.
672 pages, Paperback
First published June 25, 1999
18 people are currently reading
327 people want to read
About the author
Gardner Dozois
646 books363 followersGardner Raymond Dozois was an American science fiction author and editor. He was editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine from 1984 to 2004. He won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, both as an editor and a writer of short fiction.
Wikipedia entry: Gardner Dozois
http://us.macmillan.com/author/gardne...
Wikipedia entry: Gardner Dozois
http://us.macmillan.com/author/gardne...
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 21, 2024
It's not immediately obvious, but the year in question is 1998. This whopper of a book, containing over a quarter million words of fiction, begins with a 50-page summary of all the science fiction novels, short stories, collections, magazines, movies, TV shows, and more that appeared in 1998. It's humorous in retrospect that editor Gardner Dozois says South Park is beginning to grow repetitive and he predicts its influence is beginning to wane, since it's still making new episodes over twenty years later.
The first story in the collection is "Oceanic" by Greg Egan. Despite taking place in the far future on a world where people change their sex from time to time, it's a realistic examination of religious belief. Our narrator first believes the religion of his parents, gets introduced to another religion, goes to college and learns about problems with his religion, stops being a literal believer but holds on to the essence of the religion, then finally becomes an atheist. A very realistic faith journey.
"Approaching Perimelasma" by Geoffrey A. Landis mainly consists of scientific explanations of how black holes and wormholes work, so it's a bit dry, but the idea that time turns into space and space into time when you enter a black hole is interestingly described. A cool hard sci fi story.
Many of the stories in this collection deal with immortality. "Jedella Ghost" by Tanith Lee concerns a mysterious woman who doesn't know about death or aging arriving in town. In "The Island of the Immortals" by Ursula K. Le Guin, immortality isn't desirable when you have a body that continues to deteriorate. "Divided by Infinity" by Robert Charles Wilson shows us how horrifying immortality is when you end up being the last human left alive. "The Days of Solomon Gursky" by Ian McDonald, on the other hand, presents immortality as desirable, but I don't buy it. Wouldn't anyone get bored of living after millions of years?
As you'd expect, many of the stories deal with making first contact with an alien species. In "Craphound" by Cory Doctorow, which I heard narrated on a podcast before, aliens are interested in scouring rummage sales and buying second-hand stuff from us. In "The Very Pulse of the Machine" by Michael Swanwick, a woman drags her friend's body across the surface of Io after a rover crash. The moon starts talking to her, claiming to be an ancient machine created by aliens, but is she hallucinating?
"Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang is the most famous story in this collection as it was turned into the movie Arrival in 2016. Compared to Arrival, the short story is more philosophical. Due to how it's written, the surprise twist isn't as surprising as it is in the movie. The story makes more sense than the movie because it's able to take more time explaining, but that also blunts the emotional impact. The movie has higher stakes, of course, but a short story having low stakes makes sense. One of the best stories in this collection. I'm glad I read it.
"The Dancing Floor" by Cherry Wilder doesn't feel like a stand-alone story. We're told the main character Taya grew up on an alien planet, but it's mentioned in passing, so this feels like a sequel or part of a series. There are too many named characters and too much world building to keep track of for a short story. Taya is part of a team investigating an alien artifact called The Dancing Floor. There are several good surprise twists at the end.
There are several stories in this collection I'd classify as "action" stories. A couple spies infiltrate a secret Chinese base containing underground starships in "Taklamakan" by Bruce Sterling. "Sea Change, with Monsters" by Paul J. McAuley features a woman whose job is to kill genetically engineered monsters left over from the last war. She goes to a monastery where the monks have a terrible secret. Great world building in this one. "The Halfway House at the Heart of Darkness" by William Browning Spencer is about a woman addicted to chemically-enhanced virtual reality going to rehab and ending up having to save her therapist.
"Grist" by Tony Daniel concerns a substance called grist which can be used to create whatever you want. It's a type of programable matter. After people die, their corpses are still animated by the technology living on in their brains. A pointedly non-celibate priest is tasked with trying to prevent an upcoming war. He likes to balance rocks on top of each other up to 20 feet high as a hobby. Some people have heightened awareness due to technology, including being able to predict the future. The story is partly told from the point of view of an enhanced ferret, which I love. Apparently, women still menstruate 1000 years in the future even though birth control methods that eliminate menstruation have been around since before this book was written. Overall, a strange and fun story.
Science fiction is often concerned with discrimination. "Free in Asveroth" by Jim Grimsley tells the tale of beings known as "jumpers" who are colonized by a group of two legs and kept locked up. However, three of them manage to escape. "The Cuckoo's Boys" by Robert Reed tells us of a genius who creates a virus which makes hundreds of thousands of women all over the world get pregnant with his clones. The gifted clones are targeted by killers all over the world for polluting the gene pool, but for some reason, the killers wait 13 years before beginning their reign of terror. In "Voivodoi" by Liz Williams, the narrator's brother has a medical condition she keeps secret from the reader until the end, although you can probably guess what it is from the title.
Some of the stories take place after Earth has become inhabitable. In "This Side of Independence" by Rob Chilson, Geelie is tasked with evicting the last people still living on a frozen earth, but they don't want to leave. Before the general public became aware of global warming, many science fiction stories featured a frozen Earth. The Earth is also frozen in "Saddlepoint: Roughneck" by Stephen Baxter.
In Baxter's story, aliens come to earth in the 21st century, and give Frank and Xenia a chance to take an interstellar voyage that lasts one year from their point of view, but when they return, centuries have passed for everyone else. They're relics from the past, which makes them superior to future humans. In this time, Japanese live on the moon. Frank, a rich, capitalist American relic with a move-fast-break-things approach, saves the moon by doing unethical things. As Frank would say, you've got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. I'm not sure if the story condones or condemns his behavior. Xenia, our viewpoint character, doesn't entirely approve, but Frank gets what he wants in the end at the expense of others. It seems short-sighted to present Japanese living centuries in the future still behaving in a stereotypical 20th century way, though.
Instead of being frozen, Earth is destroyed by an asteroid in "Down in the Dark" by William Barton. Only a couple thousand humans remain on various planets in the solar system. Without resupplies from earth, it's only a matter of time before they die out. The narrator is a guy who's no longer interested in sex despite women trying to seduce him by getting naked in front of him. (There was a similar scene in "Grist". Was this a theme at the time?) He's on Titan where a strange phenomenon might just be signs of life. It's largely melancholy throughout, but has a hopeful ending.
The only stories in this collection I didn't care for are "Unborn Again" by Chris Lawson and "La Cenerentola" by Gwyneth Jones. In Lawson's story, a woman with Parkinson's uses illegal stem cells to cure her disease, but the procedure gives her random pain because instead of stem cells, the Chinese actually gave her brains from infant girls tortured to death due to their one child policy. It's a moralizing story about how China and stem cells are evil. John Stuart Mill appears in her dreams in order to condemn utilitarianism too.
In Jones's story, a rich couple from America, the narrator and her wife, travel to Europe where they lust over teenage twins. Something sexual seems to be going on with the twins' tween sister as well. It's a creepy story, but it's also confusing. The moral of the story seems to be that advances in reproductive technology are leading to magic.
"Us" by Howard Waldrop is an alternative history story giving us different versions of how the Lindbergh baby might have turned out. In a different timeline, he could have been the first man on the moon, a minor celebrity, or a humble fisherman.
Dozois saved the best for last. My favorite story in the collection is "The Summer Isles" by Ian R. MacLeod. It's an alternate history story in which Britain loses World War I and becomes fascist as a result. Jews, homosexuals, and other minority groups are persecuted. The narrator is an Oxford don who is secretly homosexual. He plans to assassinate the dictator while reminiscing about his past. The story is a meditation on history with a melancholy tone. Can one person really change the course of history or are certain events inevitable? Top notch writing. This would make for a great movie.
The first story in the collection is "Oceanic" by Greg Egan. Despite taking place in the far future on a world where people change their sex from time to time, it's a realistic examination of religious belief. Our narrator first believes the religion of his parents, gets introduced to another religion, goes to college and learns about problems with his religion, stops being a literal believer but holds on to the essence of the religion, then finally becomes an atheist. A very realistic faith journey.
"Approaching Perimelasma" by Geoffrey A. Landis mainly consists of scientific explanations of how black holes and wormholes work, so it's a bit dry, but the idea that time turns into space and space into time when you enter a black hole is interestingly described. A cool hard sci fi story.
Many of the stories in this collection deal with immortality. "Jedella Ghost" by Tanith Lee concerns a mysterious woman who doesn't know about death or aging arriving in town. In "The Island of the Immortals" by Ursula K. Le Guin, immortality isn't desirable when you have a body that continues to deteriorate. "Divided by Infinity" by Robert Charles Wilson shows us how horrifying immortality is when you end up being the last human left alive. "The Days of Solomon Gursky" by Ian McDonald, on the other hand, presents immortality as desirable, but I don't buy it. Wouldn't anyone get bored of living after millions of years?
As you'd expect, many of the stories deal with making first contact with an alien species. In "Craphound" by Cory Doctorow, which I heard narrated on a podcast before, aliens are interested in scouring rummage sales and buying second-hand stuff from us. In "The Very Pulse of the Machine" by Michael Swanwick, a woman drags her friend's body across the surface of Io after a rover crash. The moon starts talking to her, claiming to be an ancient machine created by aliens, but is she hallucinating?
"Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang is the most famous story in this collection as it was turned into the movie Arrival in 2016. Compared to Arrival, the short story is more philosophical. Due to how it's written, the surprise twist isn't as surprising as it is in the movie. The story makes more sense than the movie because it's able to take more time explaining, but that also blunts the emotional impact. The movie has higher stakes, of course, but a short story having low stakes makes sense. One of the best stories in this collection. I'm glad I read it.
"The Dancing Floor" by Cherry Wilder doesn't feel like a stand-alone story. We're told the main character Taya grew up on an alien planet, but it's mentioned in passing, so this feels like a sequel or part of a series. There are too many named characters and too much world building to keep track of for a short story. Taya is part of a team investigating an alien artifact called The Dancing Floor. There are several good surprise twists at the end.
There are several stories in this collection I'd classify as "action" stories. A couple spies infiltrate a secret Chinese base containing underground starships in "Taklamakan" by Bruce Sterling. "Sea Change, with Monsters" by Paul J. McAuley features a woman whose job is to kill genetically engineered monsters left over from the last war. She goes to a monastery where the monks have a terrible secret. Great world building in this one. "The Halfway House at the Heart of Darkness" by William Browning Spencer is about a woman addicted to chemically-enhanced virtual reality going to rehab and ending up having to save her therapist.
"Grist" by Tony Daniel concerns a substance called grist which can be used to create whatever you want. It's a type of programable matter. After people die, their corpses are still animated by the technology living on in their brains. A pointedly non-celibate priest is tasked with trying to prevent an upcoming war. He likes to balance rocks on top of each other up to 20 feet high as a hobby. Some people have heightened awareness due to technology, including being able to predict the future. The story is partly told from the point of view of an enhanced ferret, which I love. Apparently, women still menstruate 1000 years in the future even though birth control methods that eliminate menstruation have been around since before this book was written. Overall, a strange and fun story.
Science fiction is often concerned with discrimination. "Free in Asveroth" by Jim Grimsley tells the tale of beings known as "jumpers" who are colonized by a group of two legs and kept locked up. However, three of them manage to escape. "The Cuckoo's Boys" by Robert Reed tells us of a genius who creates a virus which makes hundreds of thousands of women all over the world get pregnant with his clones. The gifted clones are targeted by killers all over the world for polluting the gene pool, but for some reason, the killers wait 13 years before beginning their reign of terror. In "Voivodoi" by Liz Williams, the narrator's brother has a medical condition she keeps secret from the reader until the end, although you can probably guess what it is from the title.
Some of the stories take place after Earth has become inhabitable. In "This Side of Independence" by Rob Chilson, Geelie is tasked with evicting the last people still living on a frozen earth, but they don't want to leave. Before the general public became aware of global warming, many science fiction stories featured a frozen Earth. The Earth is also frozen in "Saddlepoint: Roughneck" by Stephen Baxter.
In Baxter's story, aliens come to earth in the 21st century, and give Frank and Xenia a chance to take an interstellar voyage that lasts one year from their point of view, but when they return, centuries have passed for everyone else. They're relics from the past, which makes them superior to future humans. In this time, Japanese live on the moon. Frank, a rich, capitalist American relic with a move-fast-break-things approach, saves the moon by doing unethical things. As Frank would say, you've got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. I'm not sure if the story condones or condemns his behavior. Xenia, our viewpoint character, doesn't entirely approve, but Frank gets what he wants in the end at the expense of others. It seems short-sighted to present Japanese living centuries in the future still behaving in a stereotypical 20th century way, though.
Instead of being frozen, Earth is destroyed by an asteroid in "Down in the Dark" by William Barton. Only a couple thousand humans remain on various planets in the solar system. Without resupplies from earth, it's only a matter of time before they die out. The narrator is a guy who's no longer interested in sex despite women trying to seduce him by getting naked in front of him. (There was a similar scene in "Grist". Was this a theme at the time?) He's on Titan where a strange phenomenon might just be signs of life. It's largely melancholy throughout, but has a hopeful ending.
The only stories in this collection I didn't care for are "Unborn Again" by Chris Lawson and "La Cenerentola" by Gwyneth Jones. In Lawson's story, a woman with Parkinson's uses illegal stem cells to cure her disease, but the procedure gives her random pain because instead of stem cells, the Chinese actually gave her brains from infant girls tortured to death due to their one child policy. It's a moralizing story about how China and stem cells are evil. John Stuart Mill appears in her dreams in order to condemn utilitarianism too.
In Jones's story, a rich couple from America, the narrator and her wife, travel to Europe where they lust over teenage twins. Something sexual seems to be going on with the twins' tween sister as well. It's a creepy story, but it's also confusing. The moral of the story seems to be that advances in reproductive technology are leading to magic.
"Us" by Howard Waldrop is an alternative history story giving us different versions of how the Lindbergh baby might have turned out. In a different timeline, he could have been the first man on the moon, a minor celebrity, or a humble fisherman.
Dozois saved the best for last. My favorite story in the collection is "The Summer Isles" by Ian R. MacLeod. It's an alternate history story in which Britain loses World War I and becomes fascist as a result. Jews, homosexuals, and other minority groups are persecuted. The narrator is an Oxford don who is secretly homosexual. He plans to assassinate the dictator while reminiscing about his past. The story is a meditation on history with a melancholy tone. Can one person really change the course of history or are certain events inevitable? Top notch writing. This would make for a great movie.
July 13, 2025
Once again, Gardner Dozois provides a superb review of the year in science fiction and as the new millennium and the mainstream use of the world wide web approaches he does not fail to comment on the latest on-line trends in science fiction.
I apologize for any inaccuracies in the story descriptions. I wrote them over a month after I had finished reading the book.
Oceanic by Greg Egan: 5
1st best story of the anthology: The story of a man born into a very religious family goes on to become a scientist that discovers why religion arose in their planet
Approaching Perimelasma by Geoffrey A. Landis: 5
The story of a scientist that has a miniature body created for him to explore the inside of a black hole
Craphound by Cory Doctorow: 4.5
The story of a fight between two craphounds (hunters and re-sellers of antiques or other peculiar items), an alien and a human, after one of them outbid and bought an item the other wanted
Jedella Ghost by Tanith Lee: 2
The story of an immortal(? or very slow aging) girl in the countryside
Taklamakan by Bruce Sterling: 4
A spy story where two US spies find an ethically dubious underground experiment in China
The Island Of the Immortals by Ursula K. Le Guin: 5
A story about a mysterious island where diamonds are seemingly abundant near the surface, which is also home to an extremely rare disease that makes people immortal
Sea Change, With Monsters by Paul J. McAuley: 4.5
A story about a monster hunter, forged fighting bio-weapons/mutants that remained after a war on the moon Europa, and her latest mission to a monastery hostile towards women
Divided By Infinity by Robert Charles Wilson: 4
A story about how a man comes to learn that death does not exist and people (or at least their consciousness) is transferred to ever more bizarre universes
US by Howard Waldrop: 3.5
A story about three possible lives the son of Charles Lindberg could have lived. (I wish I had written this sooner as I no longer remember what where these different lives except that in one he is a famous astronaut and in another he is a hermit(?) that spends his free time fishing)
The Days Of Solomon Gursky by Ian McDonald: 4
The great story of the life and times of Solomon Gursky. The man that ushered humanity forward (although some may disagree) after he discovers effective immortality during his experiments on matter control
The Cuckoo's Boys by Robert Reed: 5
3rd best story of the anthology: The story of a teacher and the three different boys he mentors. The boys all being the result of a plague designed by a dead scientist to replace the DNA of the fetus(?) inside infected women essentially making them his clones.
The Halfway House At the Heart Of Darkness by William Browning Spencer: 4.5
The story of a rehab specialist that loses himself in a VR addiction and how the patient he was supposed to help ends up rescuing him while also finding a new purpose to her life
The Very Pulse of the Machine by Michael Swanwick: 4.5
The story of an astronaut carrying the corpse of her diseased crew mate for life support along the surface of the moon Io. She eventually begins to talk with the consciousness of Io but is unsure if it is real or not because she took heavy drugs to stay awake
Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang: 5
2nd best story of the anthology: The story of how a linguist's perception of reality changes as she learns more of an extraterrestrial written language
Voivodoi by Liz Williams: 4
The story of a boy slowly mutating into a monster as a result of a genetic modification gone wrong told from the point of view of his younger sister
Saddlepoint: Roughneck by Stephen Baxter : 4
This story feels like an inferior version of Cilia-of-gold. Two men living on the moon decide to drill into its core to find volatiles to make the moon self sufficient (after a nuclear war on earth?). They end up stumbling upon microorganisms that could become extinct due to their excavations.
This Side Of Independence by Rob Chilson: 4
A company in charge of scrapping (salvaging?) earth finds humans still living on the surface that refuse to leave.
Unborn Again by Chris Lawson: 4.5
The story of how a government detective(?) discovers the truth behind an outbreak of prion disease and how it relates to a neurologist that underwent an illegal surgery to treat he Parkinson's disease
Grist by Tony Daniel: 2
Posthumans abound in the future... I cannot pretend to know what was going on in this story. Something about a clergyman finding another ex-clergyman(?) to stop a future war. The low rating could be the reader not the story in this case.
La Cenerentola by Gwyneth Jones: 5
A woman vacationing in France with her wife develops an obsession with another woman who is traveling with her three daughters (two "perfect" twins and an unperfect "Cinderella".
Down In the Dark by William Barton: 3
The last(?) days of the remaining living humans in space after Earth was taken out by an asteroid
Free In Asveroth by Jim Grimsley: 4
The tale of three fugitive extraterrestrials in their own planet after humans have colonized and enslaved their people.
The Dancing Floor by Cherry Wilder: 3
The story of a mission sent to study the "dancing floor" that appeared(?) in an asteroid colony
The Summer Isles by Ian R. MacLeod: 5
Honorable Mention: The story of an old professor that decides to attempt to assassinate the Prime Minister of Great Britain that instated a fascist dictatorship after his rise to power in the 1930's. The two having shared a gay love affair before WWI.
I apologize for any inaccuracies in the story descriptions. I wrote them over a month after I had finished reading the book.
Oceanic by Greg Egan: 5
1st best story of the anthology: The story of a man born into a very religious family goes on to become a scientist that discovers why religion arose in their planet
Approaching Perimelasma by Geoffrey A. Landis: 5
The story of a scientist that has a miniature body created for him to explore the inside of a black hole
Craphound by Cory Doctorow: 4.5
The story of a fight between two craphounds (hunters and re-sellers of antiques or other peculiar items), an alien and a human, after one of them outbid and bought an item the other wanted
Jedella Ghost by Tanith Lee: 2
The story of an immortal(? or very slow aging) girl in the countryside
Taklamakan by Bruce Sterling: 4
A spy story where two US spies find an ethically dubious underground experiment in China
The Island Of the Immortals by Ursula K. Le Guin: 5
A story about a mysterious island where diamonds are seemingly abundant near the surface, which is also home to an extremely rare disease that makes people immortal
Sea Change, With Monsters by Paul J. McAuley: 4.5
A story about a monster hunter, forged fighting bio-weapons/mutants that remained after a war on the moon Europa, and her latest mission to a monastery hostile towards women
Divided By Infinity by Robert Charles Wilson: 4
A story about how a man comes to learn that death does not exist and people (or at least their consciousness) is transferred to ever more bizarre universes
US by Howard Waldrop: 3.5
A story about three possible lives the son of Charles Lindberg could have lived. (I wish I had written this sooner as I no longer remember what where these different lives except that in one he is a famous astronaut and in another he is a hermit(?) that spends his free time fishing)
The Days Of Solomon Gursky by Ian McDonald: 4
The great story of the life and times of Solomon Gursky. The man that ushered humanity forward (although some may disagree) after he discovers effective immortality during his experiments on matter control
The Cuckoo's Boys by Robert Reed: 5
3rd best story of the anthology: The story of a teacher and the three different boys he mentors. The boys all being the result of a plague designed by a dead scientist to replace the DNA of the fetus(?) inside infected women essentially making them his clones.
The Halfway House At the Heart Of Darkness by William Browning Spencer: 4.5
The story of a rehab specialist that loses himself in a VR addiction and how the patient he was supposed to help ends up rescuing him while also finding a new purpose to her life
The Very Pulse of the Machine by Michael Swanwick: 4.5
The story of an astronaut carrying the corpse of her diseased crew mate for life support along the surface of the moon Io. She eventually begins to talk with the consciousness of Io but is unsure if it is real or not because she took heavy drugs to stay awake
Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang: 5
2nd best story of the anthology: The story of how a linguist's perception of reality changes as she learns more of an extraterrestrial written language
Voivodoi by Liz Williams: 4
The story of a boy slowly mutating into a monster as a result of a genetic modification gone wrong told from the point of view of his younger sister
Saddlepoint: Roughneck by Stephen Baxter : 4
This story feels like an inferior version of Cilia-of-gold. Two men living on the moon decide to drill into its core to find volatiles to make the moon self sufficient (after a nuclear war on earth?). They end up stumbling upon microorganisms that could become extinct due to their excavations.
This Side Of Independence by Rob Chilson: 4
A company in charge of scrapping (salvaging?) earth finds humans still living on the surface that refuse to leave.
Unborn Again by Chris Lawson: 4.5
The story of how a government detective(?) discovers the truth behind an outbreak of prion disease and how it relates to a neurologist that underwent an illegal surgery to treat he Parkinson's disease
Grist by Tony Daniel: 2
Posthumans abound in the future... I cannot pretend to know what was going on in this story. Something about a clergyman finding another ex-clergyman(?) to stop a future war. The low rating could be the reader not the story in this case.
La Cenerentola by Gwyneth Jones: 5
A woman vacationing in France with her wife develops an obsession with another woman who is traveling with her three daughters (two "perfect" twins and an unperfect "Cinderella".
Down In the Dark by William Barton: 3
The last(?) days of the remaining living humans in space after Earth was taken out by an asteroid
Free In Asveroth by Jim Grimsley: 4
The tale of three fugitive extraterrestrials in their own planet after humans have colonized and enslaved their people.
The Dancing Floor by Cherry Wilder: 3
The story of a mission sent to study the "dancing floor" that appeared(?) in an asteroid colony
The Summer Isles by Ian R. MacLeod: 5
Honorable Mention: The story of an old professor that decides to attempt to assassinate the Prime Minister of Great Britain that instated a fascist dictatorship after his rise to power in the 1930's. The two having shared a gay love affair before WWI.
fat-volumes-in-progress
March 20, 201099-cent buy from Goodwill.
January 25, 2025
Dozois does his usual excellent job of gathering diverse and high-quality science fiction, this time from that published in 1998. Also as usual with anthologies, not all stories will appeal to all people's tastes. It's a large collection, and it took me long enough to get through that I don't remember many of the early stories well enough to do them justice in a review, so I won't attempt individual rankings. With one exception: Cory Doctorow's story "Craphound", one of the early stories, was so fresh and unusual that I still remember it with delight.
August 6, 2019
I guess I don't like short stories as much as I do novels because I love scifi but I don't care as much for scifi anthologies. I can not remember the good stories after I have read one I have to make myself read. At the same time I remember that I thought a short story I read was good as and another I found interesting but the last one was one I had to make myself read.
April 25, 2019
I thought this had a lot of mediocre stories, with only a couple that were memorable and particularly interesting. I enjoyed the 22nd annual collection more.
February 11, 2024
Loved it!!! So many stories. So many ideas and interpretations.
February 17, 2025
Favorites: 'Oceanic', 'Grist', 'The Summer Isles'.
February 7, 2018
every single one of these collections is essential reading for true fans of science fiction short stories... each lengthy volume has a stellar array of all mini-genres and areas of powerfully influential science fiction: hard science, speculative, steampunk, alien invasions, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, space opera, fantasy, aliens, monsters, horror-ish, space travel, time travel, eco-science, evolutionary, pre-historic, parallel universes, extraterrestrials... in each successive volume in the series the tales have advanced and grown in imagination and detail with our ability to envision greater concepts and possibilities... Rod Serling said, "...fantasy is the impossible made probable. science fiction is the improbable made possible..." and in the pages of these books is the absolute best the vastness of science fiction writing has to offer... sit back, relax, and dream...
September 17, 2014
I agree with Ken MacLeod that a most haunting story is Divided by Infinity by Robert Charles Wilson.
MacLeod summarises it as: "The narrator is given a pseudo-scientific book that argues, on the basis of the Many Worlds Interpretation and quantum handwaves, that you never die. Other people die, but (from your POV) you don't. Subjectively your consciousness continues in a less likely infinity of possible worlds. As you get older, the world around you just gets weirder, and weirder, and weirder."
MacLeod summarises it as: "The narrator is given a pseudo-scientific book that argues, on the basis of the Many Worlds Interpretation and quantum handwaves, that you never die. Other people die, but (from your POV) you don't. Subjectively your consciousness continues in a less likely infinity of possible worlds. As you get older, the world around you just gets weirder, and weirder, and weirder."
May 4, 2012
One of the best in the series, with brilliant works by Greg Egan, Ian McDonald, Ted Chiang, Tony Daniel and one of my all time favorite short stories, "The Summer Isles" by Ian R MacLeod. Other memorable works that I remember or re-read later were Doctorow's "Craphound", "Taklamakan" by Sterling, "Cuckoo's Boys" by Reed, and Swanwick's "The Very Pulse of the Machine". Tony Daniel's "Grist" was one of my favorites ever, and despite being disappointed by his later novels, I really loved the story and world of Grist.
April 9, 2007
If you read one sci-fi book a year, this is the one. Always stories of high caliber with a few tossed in that will keep you thinking weeks later, not to mention the collection is a primer for what science and technology everyone will be talking about five to ten years from now.
April 29, 2010
Mixed bag as usual for short stories: some I hated, some I skipped, some were readable, and a couple I really enjoyed. The best were Approaching Perimelasma and Story of Your Life.
Read
December 15, 2012I didn't finish it, I just got bored
April 19, 2013
Excellent!
Read
July 22, 201311/12/11: "Sea Change, with Monsters" by Paul J. McAuley
11/26/11: "Divided by Infinity" by Robert Charles Wilson
11/26/11: "Divided by Infinity" by Robert Charles Wilson
January 1, 2015
A great collection. My favorite were Craphound and Divided By Infinity.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews