Science Fiction: The Best of 2003

All of the stories are worth reading, although the "Cookie Monster" by Vernor Vinge stands out to me as one of the best: a mystery wrapped around a very interesting, plausible, extrapolation of today's computer technology and science.

I also liked "The Chop Line" by Stephen Baxter. For some reason, it felt like an Asimov Foundation story with the element of time travel thrown in. That's not a very accurate description of the story, but that's the vibe I got after reading it.

Minor Problem: This anthology should have been titled "The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2003", since the two excellent stories, "A Study in Emerald" and "Only Partly There", should not be classified as science fiction. The first is a Sherlock Holmes/Cthulhu mash-up and the second is a modern ghost story. ( )

This almost gets there. An average of 3.86 is not quite enough, with not much else here to get a score of 5, pretty close a 4.75 you could call this one though.

Only one story here I thought was average, and actually something different here, the best stories are the meat in the middle, not the first couple of the last couple, if you are looking for somewhere to start.

Still, a fine year's best anthology, and well worth getting.

SF Best of 2003 : A Study in Emerald - Neil Gaiman
SF Best of 2003 : The Fluted Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi
SF Best of 2003 : Flowers from Alice - Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross
SF Best of 2003 : The Tale of the Golden Eagle - David D Levine
SF Best of 2003 : Bernardos House - James Patrick Kelly
SF Best of 2003 : Confusions of Uni - Ursula K. Le Guin
SF Best of 2003 : Jon - George Saunders
SF Best of 2003 : The Cookie Monster - Vernor Vinge
SF Best of 2003 : Legions in Time - Michael Swanwick
SF Best of 2003 : The Chop Line - Stephen Baxter
SF Best of 2003 : Calling Your Name - Howard Waldrop
SF Best of 2003 : The Empire of Ice Cream - Jeffrey Ford
SF Best of 2003 : Bumpship - Susan Mosser
SF Best of 2003 : Only Partly Here - Lucius Shepard

Old One vaudeville and some monstrous advertising.

4 out of 5

Pufnstuf probably wouldn't stand for this.

3.5 out of 5

Post-human furniture with passions.

4 out of 5

Human-bird shipbrain swap.

4 out of 5

Architecture sexware's new girl.

4 out of 5

Interplanary virtual reality craft.

4 out of 5

Segregated Privacy Tarp trademark.

3 out of 5

Upload iteration revenge.

4 out of 5

Slave escape chronowar torpedo overrun takedown homage revolution.

4.5 out of 5

Future war info can hurt your brain :
“Me? Sir—” I took a breath. “You want me to prosecute myself. For a crime, an alleged crime anyhow, I won’t commit for twenty-four years? Is there any part of that I misunderstood?”

4.5 out of 5

Wrong president.

4 out of 5

Synesthesia vision desserted.

3.5 out of 5

Corporate volunteer bad atmosphere economics.

3.5 out of 5

Annoyingly vague vaguely ghostly woman.

3.5 out of 5

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/01/science-fiction-best-of-2003-jonathan.html ( )

http://pling.livejournal.com/147472.html ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/211123.html

Not madly impressed; most of the stories I had read before as they were Hugo or Nebula finalists, or collected somewhere else, and the remaining ones were generally not up to much. (Honourable mentions though to "Flowers for Alice" by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross, and especially to "Only Partly Here", by Lucius Shepard, the first successful genre story I've read about 9/11). There is also a surprisingly unprofessional level of misprints. ( )