Beauty in the Night - Robert Silverburg - A bit slow. 3 Stars

Second Skin - Paul J. Mcauley - again, slow, drawn out. 3.5 stars

Steamship Soldier on the Information Font - Nancy Kress. A good story, not great, but one that sticks in your head. 4 stars

Reasons to be Cheerful - Greg Egan. Another good story - 4 stars.

Moon Six - Stephen Baxter. Never finished

We Will Drink Fish Together. Very Enjoyable - small town, closed society meets an Alien. 4.5 stars

Escape Route - Peter F Hamiliton. Never Finished.

Itsy Bitsy Spider James Patrick Kelly - Things are never what they seem, especially viewed when you were young. 4 stars

A Spy in Europa - Alistair Reynolds - Unrememberable - 3 stars.

The Undiscovered- William Sanders - Lovely Alternate History Story in what happens when Shakespeare Stows away on the wrong boat. 4.5 stars

Echoes - Alan Brennert - Another good story about what if your parents wanted a boy, or an artist, or a scientist... 4 stars

Getting to Know You - David Marusek - A scary story about the future and what cloning will do to the workforce - 4 stars.

Balinese Dancer - Gwyneth Jones - A sad story about the breakdown of social convention as a family travels across Europe. 3 stars.

Marrow - Robert Reed - Way too long, but a good story. 3.5 stars

Heart of Whitenesse - Howard Waldrop - Not sure exactly what this story is about. 3 stars.

The Wisdom of Old Earth - Michael Swanwick - Not sure how to sum up in one sentence, 3.5 stars.

The Pipes of Pan - Brian Stableford. I love this story - Due to overpopulation, children are not allowed to grow up. 4 stars

Crossing Chao Meng Fu - First Poet walks across Mercury. 3.5 stars.

Yeyuka - Greg Egan - Another fine story, About a surgeon working in AFrica - 3.5 stars.

Frost Painting - Carolyn Ives Gilman - A sad introspective story about the loss of a partner to an alien ideal. 4 stars.

Lethe - Walter Jon Williams - how does different experiences change who you are? 4 stars

Winter Fire - Geoffrey A Landis - A slow, difficult story. 3 stars.

Nevermore - Ian R. MacLeod - Didn't Finish.

Open veins - Simon Ings - Didn't Finish.

After Kerry - Ian R. MacLeod - How far would you go to forget your difficult? 3.5 stars.

The Masques of Agamemnon - Sean Williams and Simon Brown. Didn't Finish.

Gulliver at Home - John Kessel - A great story - Gulliver viewed from his wife - 4 stars.

A Cold Dry Cradle - Gregory Benford and Elisabeth Malartre - The first people on Mars - 4 stars. ( )

This is a down volume for this series, with a well below the norm story average of 3.61. It starts really well, and tails off, including a couple of likely not science fiction candidates like Kessel's Gulliver story - proto sf metafictional background, perhaps, if you like.

So, after the start, quite a bit of average and even a couple of below that, with the usual good intro.

Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Beauty in the Night - Robert Silverberg
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Second Skin - Paul J. McAuley
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Steamship Soldier on the Information Front - Nancy Kress
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Reasons to Be Cheerful - Greg Egan
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Moon Six - Stephen Baxter
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : We Will Drink a Fish Together - Bill Johnson
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Escape Route - Peter F. Hamilton
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Itsy Bitsy Spider - James Patrick Kelly
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : A Spy in Europa - Alastair Reynolds
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : The Undiscovered - William Sanders
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Echoes - Alan Brennert
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Getting to Know You - David Marusek
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Balinese Dancer - Gwyneth Jones
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Marrow - Robert Reed
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Heart of Whitenesse - Howard Waldrop
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : The Wisdom of Old Earth - Michael Swanwick
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : The Pipes of Pan - Brian Stableford
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Crossing Chao Meng Fu - G. David Nordley
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Yeyuka - Greg Egan
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Frost Painting - Carolyn Ives Gilman
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Lethe - Walter Jon Williams
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Winter Fire - Geoffrey A. Landis
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Nevermore - Ian R. MacLeod
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Open Veins - Simon Ings
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : After Kerry - Ian McDonald
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : The Masque of Agamemnon - Sean Williams and Simon Brown
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : Gulliver at Home - John Kessel
Year's Best Science Fiction 15 : A Cold Dry Cradle - Gregory Benford and Elisabeth Malartre

Quisling proxy punishment payback.

4 out of 5

Spies sort of like us.

4 out of 5

Reasons to be on the road.

4 out of 5

A boy discovers he has a serious brain tumour, and it was causing him to be amazingly happy. Removed, he becomes despondent, and undergoes a new and extensive treatment eventually, with a form of brain network, to try and get back to a more useful life many years later.

4.5 out of 5

Parallel world accidental stranding.

4 out of 5

Summit society protection detail deal.

4.5 out of 5

Old ship find time shift.

4 out of 5

Girlbot minder actor's filial substitute.

3.5 out of 5

A spy and infiltrator gets a lot more than he wanted, and a mortal shock, when he agrees to a mission for a lot of money using severe body altering technology.

3.5 out of 5

Shakespeare good at shaking spears.

3 out of 5

Quantum life possibilities.

4 out of 5

Buggy accessories.

3 out of 5

Stuck in France, with weird cat.

3 out of 5

Burroughsian Love Boat in space's passengers rather older than the average.

3.5 out of 5

Plotters and drinkers.

2.5 out of 5

Posthuman a tad fragile on holiday.

3.5 out of 5

Growth target overrun epidemic.

3.5 out of 5

"But the milieu of the Gentleman Adventurer requires that one return from the adventure to recount it."

4 out of 5

Medical technology advances are making surgery unnecessary in the wealthier countries. A surgeon takes a trip overseas to somewhere less fortunate to do some work, and comes across an interesting project.

"Recycling. Twenty or thirty years ago, the computer industry ran an elaborate scam: software companies wrote deliberately inefficient programs, to make people buy newer, faster computers all the time -- then they made sure that the faster computers needed brand new software to work at all. People threw out perfectly good machines every three or four years, and though some ended up as landfill, millions were saved. There's been a worldwide market in discarded processors for years, and the slowest now cost about as much as buttons. But all it takes to get some real power out of them is a little ingenuity."

I stared at the wonderful contraption. "And you wrote the Yeyuka software on this?"

Their project is to try and replicate for next to nothing the expensive commercial HealthGuard stuff.

4 out of 5

Unrealistic artists.

3.5 out of 5

Pairing memory recreation problems.

3.5 out of 5

Salzburg shelling unlikely survival situation.

4 out of 5

Arty unreality.

2.5 out of 5

Hotwired immune resistance upload death defense.

4 out of 5

Sororal personality permanent split.

3.5 out of 5

Trojan analogue with spacefleets, AI and Von Neumann probes.

3 out of 5

Travel leftovers.

3 out of 5

Marsmat discovery goodbye.

4 out of 5

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/02/years-best-science-fiction-15th-annual.html ( )