The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection
by Gardner Dozois (Editor)
Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction (15), Dozois Year's Best Science Fiction (19)
On This Page
Description
The twenty-first century has so far proven to be exciting and wondrous and filled with challenges we had never dreamed. New possibilities previously unimagined appear almost daily . . . and science fiction stories continue to explore those possibilities with delightful results:Collected in this anthology are such compelling stories as:"On K2 with Kanakaredes" by Dan Simmons. A relentlessly paced and absorbing tale set in the near future about three mountain climbers who must scale the face show more of K2 with some very odd company."The Human Front" by Ken MacLeod. In this compassionate coming-of-age tale the details of life are just a bit off from things as we know them-and nothing is as it appears to be."Glacial" by Alastair Reynolds. A fascinating discovery on a distant planet leads to mass death and a wrenching mystery as spellbinding as anything in recent short fiction.The twenty-six stories in this collection imaginatively takes us far across the universe, into the very core of our beings, to the realm of the gods, and the moment just after now. Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents, including:Eleanor ArnasonChris BeckettMichael BlumleinMichael CassuttBrenda W. CloughPaul Di FilippoAndy DuncanCarolyn Ives GilmanJim GrimsleySimon IngsJames Patrick KellyLeigh KennedyNancy KressIan R. MacLeodKen MacLeodPaul J. McAuleyMaureen F. McHughRobert ReedAlastair ReynoldsGeoff RymanWilliam SandersDan SimmonsAllen M. SteeleCharles StrossMichael SwanwickHoward WaldropSupplementing the stories are the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
2001 - Quite a number for a film and were we having a space odyssey in the real 2001? No we weren't. This collection highlights what Dozois thinks were the best shorter length science fiction stories of 2001. Dozois was embracing the future and his selections drew 5 of the 26 from stories that were published on the internet, as well as stories from what was then more traditional sources ... a few anthology selections and the more prominent magazines, especially 'Asimov's Science Fiction' and 'The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'. Gardner also does his usual lengthy summation (maybe a tad too lengthy) of various trends and events in the year. This turned out to be a good collection with only a few stories that put me off. There show more were a few too many stories that didn't thrill me that prevents me from calling this a great collection.
I've been sampling stories from this collection this year and last, and the very recent death of Gardner Dozois prompted me to speed up my reading. I won't go over all the stories - I'll comment on some of those that I particularly enjoyed or disliked. I was surprised at how many of these I had read before, perhaps as much as a third of them, but back then I was reading a lot of short fiction in the science fiction magazines and some have appeared elsewhere since 2001. The included material was:
•xi • Summation: 2001 • essay by Gardner Dozois
•1 • New Light on the Drake Equation • novella by Ian R. MacLeod
•44 • More Adventures on Other Planets • novelette by Michael Cassutt
•59 • On K2 with Kanakaredes • novelette by Dan Simmons
•91 • When This World Is All on Fire • novelette by William Sanders
•131 • Computer Virus • novelette by Nancy Kress
•141 • Have Not Have • novelette by Geoff Ryman
•157 • Lobsters • novelette by Charles Stross
•178 • The Dog Said Bow-Wow • shortstory by Michael Swanwick
•192 • The Chief Designer • novella by Andy Duncan
•229 • Neutrino Drag • novelette by Paul Di Filippo
•247 • Glacial • Revelation Space • novelette by Alastair Reynolds
•281 • The Days Between • novelette by Allen Steele
•303 • One-Horse Town • novelette by Howard Waldrop and Leigh Kennedy
•330 • Moby Quilt • novella by Eleanor Arnason
•365 • Raven Dream • novelette by Robert Reed
•385 • Undone • novelette by James Patrick Kelly
•408 • The Real Thing • novelette by Carolyn Ives Gilman
•438 • Interview: On Any Given Day • shortstory by Maureen F. McHugh
•452 • Isabel of the Fall • novelette by Ian R. MacLeod
•470 • Into Greenwood • novelette by Jim Grimsley
•497 • Know How, Can Do • novelette by Michael Blumlein
•514 • Russian Vine • shortstory by Simon Ings
•528 • The Two Dicks • novelette by Paul J. McAuley
•542 • May Be Some Time • novelette by Brenda W. Clough
•577 • Marcher • shortstory by Chris Beckett
•591 • The Human Front • novella by Ken MacLeod
•631 • Honorable Mentions: 2001 • essay by Gardner Dozois
The opening novella, "New Light on the Drake Equation" by Ian R. MacLeod was quite good, a story about one elderly man in France who has dedicated his life to SETI - the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. A very personal story, very different from what I think of as a typical science fiction story. This was much more about the human side of life's journey with attention paid to little details, the personal cost of his obsession, a love lost story with a touch of eroticism. A great start to the collection and a reminder of how much I enjoyed reading MacLeod's short fiction in the 90's in Asimov's science fiction magazine. I loved this story.
"More Adventures on Other Planets" by Michael Cassutt was also enjoyable. Calling it a love story between two rovers, Earl and Rebecca, on a Jovian moon would do it a disservice.
There is one story in here that I thought was complete dreck - "Lobsters" by Charles Stross. It had even been nominated for a Hugo in the novelette category, placing 4th in the votes. So some people found it much better than I did. The story that followed, "The Dog Said Bow-Wow" by Michael Swanwick won the Hugo for best short story. It was a farce that would never have won my vote! The story that follows these two, 'The Chief Designer' a novella by Andy Duncan was better - it won the Sturgeon Award and was nominated for the Hugo in the Best Novella category. It placed 4th in the votes coming behind Brenda Clough's remarkable "May Be Some Time" which appears later in this collection. I was about a third of the way through these when I finished Andy Duncan's remarkable story which is built around the soviet side of the space race when I thought - "This is a remarkably mellow batch of stories." These are a thinking person's stories rather than any sort of action adventure or wild fables. Still, Duncan's story about the soviets shows the competitive drive that once existed in the space race that allowed amazing things to happen in a relatively short period of time, and the costs associated with that.
Alastair Reynold's "Glacial" I had read just a few years ago (2015) in his Galactic North collection. Reynold's stuff is almost always great and this story is no exception. Allan Steele's "The Days Between" is another excellent story. I believe it was incorporated into his novel "Coyote".
I have a little higher standard for something that is a year's best compilation - I like to think that EVERY story in it should be really good for the average reader. That wasn't the case here, but the majority of the stories were pretty good and so I'll rate it at 3 1/2 stars. show less
I've been sampling stories from this collection this year and last, and the very recent death of Gardner Dozois prompted me to speed up my reading. I won't go over all the stories - I'll comment on some of those that I particularly enjoyed or disliked. I was surprised at how many of these I had read before, perhaps as much as a third of them, but back then I was reading a lot of short fiction in the science fiction magazines and some have appeared elsewhere since 2001. The included material was:
•xi • Summation: 2001 • essay by Gardner Dozois
•1 • New Light on the Drake Equation • novella by Ian R. MacLeod
•44 • More Adventures on Other Planets • novelette by Michael Cassutt
•59 • On K2 with Kanakaredes • novelette by Dan Simmons
•91 • When This World Is All on Fire • novelette by William Sanders
•131 • Computer Virus • novelette by Nancy Kress
•141 • Have Not Have • novelette by Geoff Ryman
•157 • Lobsters • novelette by Charles Stross
•178 • The Dog Said Bow-Wow • shortstory by Michael Swanwick
•192 • The Chief Designer • novella by Andy Duncan
•229 • Neutrino Drag • novelette by Paul Di Filippo
•247 • Glacial • Revelation Space • novelette by Alastair Reynolds
•281 • The Days Between • novelette by Allen Steele
•303 • One-Horse Town • novelette by Howard Waldrop and Leigh Kennedy
•330 • Moby Quilt • novella by Eleanor Arnason
•365 • Raven Dream • novelette by Robert Reed
•385 • Undone • novelette by James Patrick Kelly
•408 • The Real Thing • novelette by Carolyn Ives Gilman
•438 • Interview: On Any Given Day • shortstory by Maureen F. McHugh
•452 • Isabel of the Fall • novelette by Ian R. MacLeod
•470 • Into Greenwood • novelette by Jim Grimsley
•497 • Know How, Can Do • novelette by Michael Blumlein
•514 • Russian Vine • shortstory by Simon Ings
•528 • The Two Dicks • novelette by Paul J. McAuley
•542 • May Be Some Time • novelette by Brenda W. Clough
•577 • Marcher • shortstory by Chris Beckett
•591 • The Human Front • novella by Ken MacLeod
•631 • Honorable Mentions: 2001 • essay by Gardner Dozois
The opening novella, "New Light on the Drake Equation" by Ian R. MacLeod was quite good, a story about one elderly man in France who has dedicated his life to SETI - the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. A very personal story, very different from what I think of as a typical science fiction story. This was much more about the human side of life's journey with attention paid to little details, the personal cost of his obsession, a love lost story with a touch of eroticism. A great start to the collection and a reminder of how much I enjoyed reading MacLeod's short fiction in the 90's in Asimov's science fiction magazine. I loved this story.
"More Adventures on Other Planets" by Michael Cassutt was also enjoyable. Calling it a love story between two rovers, Earl and Rebecca, on a Jovian moon would do it a disservice.
There is one story in here that I thought was complete dreck - "Lobsters" by Charles Stross. It had even been nominated for a Hugo in the novelette category, placing 4th in the votes. So some people found it much better than I did. The story that followed, "The Dog Said Bow-Wow" by Michael Swanwick won the Hugo for best short story. It was a farce that would never have won my vote! The story that follows these two, 'The Chief Designer' a novella by Andy Duncan was better - it won the Sturgeon Award and was nominated for the Hugo in the Best Novella category. It placed 4th in the votes coming behind Brenda Clough's remarkable "May Be Some Time" which appears later in this collection. I was about a third of the way through these when I finished Andy Duncan's remarkable story which is built around the soviet side of the space race when I thought - "This is a remarkably mellow batch of stories." These are a thinking person's stories rather than any sort of action adventure or wild fables. Still, Duncan's story about the soviets shows the competitive drive that once existed in the space race that allowed amazing things to happen in a relatively short period of time, and the costs associated with that.
Alastair Reynold's "Glacial" I had read just a few years ago (2015) in his Galactic North collection. Reynold's stuff is almost always great and this story is no exception. Allan Steele's "The Days Between" is another excellent story. I believe it was incorporated into his novel "Coyote".
I have a little higher standard for something that is a year's best compilation - I like to think that EVERY story in it should be really good for the average reader. That wasn't the case here, but the majority of the stories were pretty good and so I'll rate it at 3 1/2 stars. show less
This is the third of these anthologies I've read, though it's been years. In retrospect, I don't believe I read all the tales in the previous editions, but I did with this one hoping to discover at least one gem.
To lay this on at the most basic - with the exception of only two tales, these are literary works with just enough sci-fi elements to fit poorly into the sci-fi category. I'd say more on that, but that pretty much sums it up. Will I pick up another of these anthologies? No.
Most of the stories were wordy enough to border on tedious, had no climax I could discern with flat endings that seemed to just...end. I felt no excitement, had trouble identifying with any of the characters and was highly disappointed that there was so little show more sci-fi here. I think the people who put these collections together need to be something other than literary critics. They need to find out what it is that makes true sci-fi, not disguised literary pieces.
Would I recommend these anthologies to a sci-fi reader? No. Absolutely not. I would recommend them to someone who enjoys literary works as there is very little sci-fi to distract the reader.
I should've been forewarned as I slogged my way through the summation. It, like most of the tales, could lose a great deal of content and not losing anything. show less
To lay this on at the most basic - with the exception of only two tales, these are literary works with just enough sci-fi elements to fit poorly into the sci-fi category. I'd say more on that, but that pretty much sums it up. Will I pick up another of these anthologies? No.
Most of the stories were wordy enough to border on tedious, had no climax I could discern with flat endings that seemed to just...end. I felt no excitement, had trouble identifying with any of the characters and was highly disappointed that there was so little show more sci-fi here. I think the people who put these collections together need to be something other than literary critics. They need to find out what it is that makes true sci-fi, not disguised literary pieces.
Would I recommend these anthologies to a sci-fi reader? No. Absolutely not. I would recommend them to someone who enjoys literary works as there is very little sci-fi to distract the reader.
I should've been forewarned as I slogged my way through the summation. It, like most of the tales, could lose a great deal of content and not losing anything. show less
Either 2001 was a bummer year for sci fi, or this anthology isn't very good.
Mighty poor pickings
Good fun!
POST HUMAN FUTURES TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
Gardner Dozois was born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 23, 1947. After working as an Army journalist, he became a science fiction and fantasy editor and author. He was the founding editor of The Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies and editor of Asimov's from 1984 until 2004. His work as an editor received more than 40 Hugo Awards, 40 Nebula show more Awards, and 30 Locus Awards. He received the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor 15 times between 1988 and his retirement from Asimov's in 2004. He wrote books including Strangers and short stories including The Peacemaker and Morning Child, which won the Nebula Award for Short Story in 1983 and 1984, respectively. He also collaborated with George R. R. Martin on a series of themed anthologies including Songs of the Dying Earth, Old Mars, Dangerous Women, and Rogues. In 2011, Dozois was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. He died on May 27, 2018 at the age of 70. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
All Editions
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Awards
Distinctions
Series
Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction
29 works (15)
Dozois Year's Best Science Fiction
35 works (19)
Belongs to Publisher Series
Mammoth Books (Mammoth Books 235)
Work Relationships
Contains
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection
- Alternate titles
- The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 15th Annual Collection
- Original publication date
- 2002
- First words
- Right here in this space last year I talked about how we were unlikely to do any better a job forecasting what's ahead of us in the twenty-first century then prognosticators at the beginning of the twentieth century did peeri... (show all)ng ahead at what lay in store for them, and made a (safely generalized) prediction of my own: unprecedented and unanticipated horrors and wonders both lay ahead for us. (Introduction)
- Original language
- Mammoth Books
- Disambiguation notice
- This is a different series from Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year (also by Dozois)
Reprinted as The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 15 in the UK.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Science Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 813.0876208 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English By type Genre fiction Adventure fiction Speculative fiction Science fiction Collections and anthologies Anthologies
- LCC
- PS648 .S3 .Y38 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Collections of American literature Prose (General)
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 558
- Popularity
- 52,607
- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (3.70)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 5
