The marvels of tomorrows past and tomorrows yet to come abound in this delightful volume. A helpful list of honorable mentions and Gardner Dozois's insightful summation of the year in science fiction round out the volume, making it indispensable for anyone interested in science fiction today.
Contents ix • Summation: 1995 • (1996) • essay by Gardner Dozois 1 • A Woman's Liberation • [Yeowe and Werel • 4] • (1995) • novella by Ursula K. Le Guin 51 • Starship Day • (1995) • novelette by Ian R. MacLeod 68 • A Place with Shade • [The Remarkables] • (1995) • novelette by Robert Reed 100 • Luminous • (1995) • novelette by Greg Egan 129 • The Promise of God • (1995) • shortstory by Michael F. Flynn 143 • Death in the Promised Land • (1995) • novelette by Pat Cadigan 195 • For White Hill • (1995) • novella by Joe Haldeman 231 • Some Like It Cold • (1995) • shortstory by John Kessel 243 • The Death of Captain Future • [The Captain Future Duet] • (1995) • novella by Allen Steele 281 • The Lincoln Train • (1995) • shortstory by Maureen F. McHugh 293 • We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy • [North American future] • (1995) • novella by David Marusek 341 • Radio Waves • (1995) • novelette by Michael Swanwick 360 • Wang's Carpets • (1995) • novelette by Greg Egan 389 • Casting at Pegasus • (1995) • novelette by Mary Rosenblum 414 • Looking for Kelly Dahl • (1995) • novella by Dan Simmons 452 • Think Like a Dinosaur • (1995) • novelette by James Patrick Kelly 470 • Coming of Age in Karhide • [Hainish] • (1995) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin 489 • Genesis • (1995) • novella by Poul Anderson 575 • Feigenbaum Number • (1995) • shortstory by Nancy Kress 589 • Home • (1995) • shortstory by Geoff Ryman 595 • There Are No Dead • (1995) • shortstory by Terry Bisson 602 • Recording Angel • (1995) • novelette by Paul J. McAuley 627 • Elvis Bearpaw's Luck • (1995) • novelette by William Sanders 645 • Mortimer Gray's "History of Death" • (1995) • novella by Brian Stableford 698 • Honorable Mentions: 1995 • (1996) • essay by Gardner Dozois
Gardner 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
After the fun and frolics of the 12th Annual Dozois, which was stuffed with good stories and was responsible for getting me interested in sf again after many years of ignoring it, this one thwaps back to earth and shines a screeching white light on some of the less happy aspects of modern sf. It also comes to us with a nasty hipdippy cover featuring whales and dolphins. This bunch were kind of blah, often longwinded blah, except for two great ones, making the this anthology even more annoying because you can't just write the whole anthology off as an unlucky-thirteen bag of bollocks. The two great ones were David Marusek's "We Were Out of Our Minds With Joy" and "Mortimer Gray’s ‘History of Death’" by Brian Stableford - these were exciting, poetic, daring, and they left all the others in the space dust.
Maybe I picked the wrong stories to re-read. Or (more likely) I'm still in the grips of my usual wintertime blues. At any rate, a provisional 3.5 stars, rounded up since I recall really, really liking some of the stories I didn't reread this time.
Highlights: ● "We Were Out Of Our Minds With Joy" by David Marusek. If memory serves this was his breakout story, but it hasn't aged particularly well. Not reread this time.
This is hard, as I didn't reread some of my old favorites. And what about the ones that I used to like a lot, that have faded a bit on reread? I think I'll come back to this later.
ReedIII Quick Review: Lots of heavy weight award winning authors contribute excellent science fiction stories for this well written collection. 90% of stories are good or great. Many tend to be on the long side of “short stories”.
Here's my review of the individual stories from this annual collection. I hope somebody might be able to find some real gems (which there are) and be happy that there aren't any real stinkers in this volume.
The average rating for all the stories is a 3.
A Woman's Liberation - 3 (a little dry, especially from LeGuin) Starship Day - 4 (surprisingly clever) A Place With Shade - 5 (brutally fun) Luminous - 4 (interesting premise, nice cyberpunk feel) The Promise Of God - 3 (good premise, so-so execution) Death In The Promised Land - 3 (decent premise, better-than-average execution) For White Hill - 4 (good character study, feels real) Some Like It Cold - 3 (more like a missing chapter from John Kessel's fun novel Corrupting Dr. Nice) The Death Of Captain Future - 4 (flames out at the end, but takes a fun path getting there) The Lincoln Train - 2 (borderline offensive, saved by some decent writing) We Were Out Of Our Minds With Joy - 5 (easily the gem of this collection, heartbreaking) Radio Waves - 3 (a little odd, but a good change of pace) Wang's Carpets - 3 (smart science, a little dull) Casting At Pegasus - 3 (perhaps a little too clever for its own good, and the main character isn't terribly compelling) Looking For Kelly Dahl - 4 (another "fun" story from Dan Simmons, closer in tone to his horror stories) Think Like A Dinosaur - 4 (a particularly nasty little morality tale) Coming Of Age In Karhide - 3 (LeGuin's second story in the collection, not one of her best) Genesis - 3 (feels like it easily could have been longer, but feels unfinished at the current length) Feigenbaum Number - 3 (another story with a compelling scientific premise, but a so-so execution) Home - 2 (not really much there to get excited about) There Are No Dead - 3 (short, Twilight Zone sort of tale) Recording Angel - 2 (a few clever bits but not much point to the story, a twisted fairy tale of sorts) Elvis Bearpaw's Luck - 3 (funny, silly palate cleanser) Mortimer Gray's History Of Death - 4 (not as grim as the title might suggest, and a nice capper to the collection)
My introduction to the series. I don't read newer ones as thoroughly as I used to, but it renewed my interest in science fiction for a time. One's I remember particularly liking.
The Death of Captain Future - Kind of a futuristic version of the original idea of "Don Quixote." In the first sections of Quixote it's pretty explicit he's kind of a nut who's obsessed with chivalric/knighthood novels and tales, but develops a kind of nobility. Similar here with comics or the like.
The Lincoln Train - Alternate History.
Looking for Kelly Dahl - Kind of more of a Twilight-Zone style fantasy there was a strange quality to it I surprisingly liked.
Think Like a Dinosaur - Classic "moral quandary" type story, later made into a so-so episode of "The New Outer Limits."
Genesis - Liked it enough I later read the novel. You get far-future and an exploration of alternate histories.
Feigenbaum Number - Perils of knowing of a better world. His "freak out" at his students struck me at the time as I think I might have just started college.
Recording Angel - Nicely exotic.
Elvis Bearpaw's Luck - A bit of humor and terror from a writer I would later get to know, more or less, online.
Mortimer Gray's "History of Death" - Like taking a kind of futuristic "death and dying" class, but maybe better than that sounds.
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...
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.
The stories in this collection were first published in 1995. There's a good variety here, and although some of the stories might be recognized as having come from the mid-1990s purely from internal evidence, all the stories age well.
Once again Gardner Dozois brings a superb volume filled with top-notch science fiction stories and a expansive summation of the prior year in science fiction.
A Woman's Liberation by Ursula K. Le Guin: 5 1st best story of the anthology: The life of a woman that was born in slavery and how she gained her freedom. Covering her education and her rise in the academic world and subsequent escape from her own planet not willing to tolerate her revolutionary ideas
Starship Day by Ian R. MacLeod: 3 Earth's preparation to receive a transmission from the stars told from the point of view of a bored psychiatrists
A Place with Shade by Robert Reed: 3.5 A terraformer is hired as a tutor a rich man's daughter and proceeds to fall in love with her despite the rich man's warnings.
Luminous by Greg Egan: 5 A team of mathematicians use a light based Chinese supercomputer to iron out a crease found in the fabric of mathematics before a company can exploit it for profit
The Promise of God by Michael F. Flynn: 1 2nd worst story of the anthology: Something about a wizard losing his morals after(?) the loss of his wife
Death in the Promised Land by Pat Cadigan: 3.5 A cyberpunk story about a detective investigating a series of murders that seem to have taken place simultaneously in virtual and physical reality
For White Hill by Joe Haldeman: 4 The story of the relationship between two sculptors participating in an interplanetary art contest in Earth after most life has been wiped out by biological weapons after a global war
Some Like It Cold by John Kessel: 4 A peculiar story of time travel involving rescuing Marilyn Monroe from a drug overdose
The Death of Captain Future by Allen Steele: 4.5 The story of a space sailor that ends up serving under a prepotent and not fully lucid captain that believes he is Captain Future
The Lincoln Train by Maureen F. McHugh: 1 2nd worst story of the anthology: Quaker's helping slave owners escape? Ok...
We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy by David Marusek: 5 2nd best story of the anthology: The love story between an artist and an aspiring politician that plan out the rest of their eternal life together, but ultimately the plans fall apart after an unforeseen tragedy occurs
Radio Waves by Michael Swanwick: 3 The story of two souls surviving in the afterlife trying to not fall down into space as gravity is inverted once you die
Wang's Carpets by Greg Egan: 5 The post-human crew of an expeditionary ship fails to find intelligent life on another star system... or do they?
Casting at Pegasus by Mary Rosenblum: 4 The story of a kite flyer that decides to begin recording her kite flying sessions and sell them to make ends meet
Looking for Kelly Dahl by Dan Simmons: 4 A former teacher is saved from his own suicide attempts by one of his ex-students that now seems to have god-like powers that she uses to alter reality and toy with him
Think Like a Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly: 4.5 A man is tasked with "balancing the equation" by killing the person left behind after using a teleporter and prove that humanity is ready to ascend to the next step of evolution
Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula K. Le Guin: 5 A coming of age story of a hermaphroditic human and close look to the society they inhabit
Genesis by Poul Anderson: 2.5 The galactic brain weighs in on wether earth must be saved from the growing sun
Feigenbaum Number by Nancy Kress: 5 A post-graduate student discovers the equations that explain the double-vision he has suffered throughou his entire life after hitting rock bottom due to the death of his academic advisor
Home by Geoff Ryman: 1 3rd worst story of the anthology: The story of a man escaping crucifixion?
There Are No Dead by Terry Bisson: 3 The story of three men that get together to revisit their old camping place
Recording Angel by Paul J. McAuley: 4.5 After a five million year trip human arrives on a planet where humanity's descendants live in relative peace and stirs up a revolt
Elvis Bearpaw's Luck by William Sanders: 3.5 The story of a man cheating on a game of Bingo and winning more than he bargained for
Mortimer Gray's History of Death by Brian Stableford: 5 3rd best story of the anthology: A comprehensive review of the ultimate treatise on death and the life of the man that wrote it
⭐⭐⭐ The Death of Captain Future ALLEN STEELE ⭐⭐⭐ Mortimer Gray's "History of Death" BRIAN STABLEFORD ⭐⭐⭐ Looking for Kelly Dahl DAN SIMMONS ⭐⭐⭐ We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy DAVID MARUSEK ⭐⭐⭐ Home GEOFF RYMAN ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Luminous GREG EGAN ⭐⭐ Wang's Carpets GREG EGAN ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Starship Day IAN R. MACLEOD ⭐⭐⭐ Think Like a Dinosaur JAMES PATRICK KELLY ⭐⭐⭐ For White Hill JOE HALDEMAN ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Some Like It Cold JOHN KESSEL ⭐⭐ Casting at Pegasus MARY ROSENBLUM ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Lincoln Train MAUREEN F. MCHUGH ⭐⭐⭐ The Promise of God MICHAEL F. FLYNN ⭐⭐ Radio Waves MICHAEL SWANWICK ⭐⭐ Feigenbaum Number NANCY KRESS ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Death in the Promised Land PAT CADIGAN ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Recording Angel PAUL J. MCAULEY ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Genesis POUL ANDERSON ⭐⭐⭐ A Place with Shade ROBERT REED ⭐⭐⭐ There Are No Dead TERRY BISSON ⭐⭐⭐ A Woman's Liberation URSULA K. LE GUIN ⭐⭐⭐ Coming of Age in Karhide URSULA K. LE GUIN ⭐⭐⭐ Elvis Bearpaw's Luck WILLIAM SANDERS
This book contains the short story "We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy," by David Marusek which later formed the first chapter of his debut novel Counting Heads. That story moved me. If I had time, I'd say a lot more. There are other great stories in this volume as well. Thanks to Mike Brodie for sending it with me when my family and I departed Thailand for Australia!
2/17/12: "Starship Day" by Ian R. MacLeod 2/19/12: "Some Like It Cold" by John Kessel 2/20/12: "There Are No Dead" by Terry Bisson 2/24/12: "Radio Waves" by Michael Swanwick 2/24/12: "Think Like a Dinosaur" by James Patrick Kelly 2/24/12: "Luminous" by Greg Egan 2/27/12: "Wang's Carpets" by Greg Egan
Only stories I remember were one of my favorite of Swanwick's, Radio Waves, the Allen Steele silly space opera, McHugh's dull "Lincoln Train", and McAuley's obtuse Recording Angel.
"Some Like It Cold" by John Kessel - A man from a future timeline saves Marilyn Monroe from her drug overdose so that she can be brought to the future and exploited.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.