I admit: I read only 14 stories out of 26, but please understand me: I just couldn't take it any more! For me, Dozois' yearly Best of SF were always a so-so mix: some good, many bad. But in this Best of Best he overdid himself: it's actually Worst of the Best! From 20 years!
The first problem: almost none is actually scifi, but, you know, "edgy", "slippy" and so on. Second and bigger problem: they are exactly the kind of artsy texts going for the ravishing, highly polished form and completely forgetting the need for an actual, original and good story. Just what usually Dozois and Datlow are looking for, and exactly what I run away from.
From the first 14 I actually enjoyed 3 (Greg Bear, Pat Cadigan, Eileen Gunn) and strongly disliked the others (even Gene Wolfe, a first for me). The average rating was 2,2/5, but I felt so badly cheated in not actually getting scifi for my bucks, that the overall feeling is even worse. It is a firm "Did not like it." ( )

Reviews of some of the stories:

Blood Music, by Greg Bear--Medically Adaptable Biochips are injected into the bloodstream of their creator.

Salvador, by Lucius Shepherd--the ugly truth of our troops in a 3rd world country, stoned out of their minds on drugs and armed with state-of-the-art weapons.

Trinity, by Nancy Kress--an experiment to bring God to sense his humans. 5 🌟 for this one.

Snow, by John Crowley--Living your life, you will have countless hours of the dull, ordinary stuff of life. The countless hours of cleaning, washing dishes, grocery shopping; then you will have a few hours of exciting and/or fear-ridden, grief-stricken ones. When you're old, and you look back at your life, what do you access in your memory? How does it look to you?

Even the Queen by Connie Willis--In the future, women are more liberated than we are now. Hard to believe that there exist groups of women who would shun that liberation and go back to a bondage that even the Queen had to suffer.

Guest of Honor by Robert Reed--What do rich people do for fun? Money buys everything, so after awhile you're just bored, and you struggle to find meaning in your life. This is the theme of this short story...

Mortimer Gray's History of Death by Brian Stableford--I like this author and how he thinks. I like his character Mortimer Gray, who lives in a universe where people have emortality--this means they CAN be killed by a deadly accident. Mortimer takes on the century-encompassing task of writing a 10-volume opus on mankind's hate, fear and relationship of and with death, beginning with the Crimean war and ending in the 31st century. Curiously, humans in Stableford's novella never did anything to help non-human animals achieve a longer or happier life, though at one point he mentions that tissue culture is taking place in factories.

Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula LeGuin--How would you like it if, when you get puberty and you get horny, you don't get shamed, you don't have to suppress it, you don't get boys playing/preying on your innocence? Instead, you get encouragement, love, support, and a safe place for it to happen? Plus, you get to choose what gender you'll be while you're in "kemmer." When you're not in kemmer, you're gender-less. How cool is that?

The Dead by Michael Swanwick--I lost my job to technology early in adulthood, and never was able to have as good of a job since then. You can imagine how this affected me and my earnings, and how angry I was about it. Now imagine losing your job to a zombie. Yep, a zombie who requires no pay, no sick days, can be catheterized so no bathroom breaks. Swanwick has written a story that may make you feel ill.

The Undiscovered by William Sanders--Shakespeare gets on the wrong ship and ends up in a tribe of Indians early 1500s.

Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang--5 Stars for this novella, for originality and for making your brain go in directions that it never went before. Aliens come to visit, but they won't meet us in person, they won't say why they're here, beyond communicating to the people of Earth, "seeing and observing." Earth is expecting a"gift exchange," not seeing the gift for what it is.

The Wedding Album by David Marusek--A story about Sim City, and what life is like for the Sims.








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This is a large book with a treasure-trove of short fiction. The best part is that there is hardly a dud in the bunch. Some stories appealed more than others but this collection is highly recommended. ( )

There are gems here for every science fiction reader. I loved the stories connected to biology, race and gender. Some of the more futuristic stories relating to multiple identities or space/time travel or technology are not to my liking, but that's just personal.

There are Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Theodore Sturgeon award winners scattered throughout. The Best of the Best is great introduction for new science fiction readers or for those looking to survey the breadth of achievement within this genre.

When I consider short stories I love, I consider primarily sticking power. What I mean by this is I can recall at a whim a character or moment of realisation at the core of the story. How and why are often more important than what. It's no coincidence it's often the best written stories that have this knack.

Loved

Blood Music by Greg Bear - Fast-paced short story covering themes such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and consciousness. Cleverly structured to reflect the life cycle of a cell.

Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick - More anthropological study than sf. What happens when an educated man decides to lead a colony steeped in spiritual and pre-modern practices? How does the outside "civilised" world react?

Dinner in Audoghast by Bruce Sterling - A great example of why science fiction shouldn't just be concerned about the future. On the surface, this story is about a conversation among a group of feasting African aristocracy. Its striking ironic significance only comes to light towards the end.

The Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang - Beautiful, thought-provoking novella. A moving combination of psychology, linguistics and cultural dynamics. Template for the acclaimed 2016 movie Arrival.

Even the Queen by Connie Willis - Humorous and humanistic. This is the kind of story you can actually imagine playing out in the not-so-distant future. My wife does not read science fiction, the fact she enjoyed this speaks volumes.

None So Blind by Joe Haldeman - Science fiction horror from the author of The Forever War. It's well known that blindness augments other senses. But why is this? And what happens when this knowledge is used for human advancement?

Liked
Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula K. Le Guin
Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson
Tales from the Venia Woods by Robert Silverberg
The Dead by Michael Swanwick
Snow by John Crowley
The Undiscovered by William Sanders
A Dry Quiet War by Tony Daniel
Daddy's World by Walter Jon Williams
The Lincoln Train by Maureen F. McHugh
Salvador by Lucius Shepard
10^16 to 1 by James Patrick Kelly

Undecided
Trinity by Nancy Kress
Roadside Rescue by Pat Cadigan
Recording Angel by Ian McDonald
The Winter Market by William Gibson
The Pure Product by John Kessel
A Cabin on the Coast by Gene Wolfe
People Came from Earth by Stephen Baxter
The Real World by Steven Utley

Loathed
Flying Saucer Rock & Roll by Howard Waldrop
Mortimer Gray's History of Death by Brian Stableford
Have Not Have by Geoff Ryman
Lobsters by Charles Stross
Breathmoss by Ian R. MacLeod
The Wedding Album by David Marusek
Wang's Carpets by Greg Egan
Guest of Honor by Robert Reed
Second Skin by Paul J. McAuley
Stable Strategies for Middle Management by Eileen Gunn
Lambing Season by Molly Gloss ( )

All star review of the best short sci fi over the last 20 years. ( )