Year's Best SF 9

This is the second of the Hartwell/Cramer anthologies I've read since my "reintroduction" to SciFi, and I continue to be thoroughly impressed by the selection of material. This volume is for 2003, so I would guess they're up to 19 now…I have some catching up to do, obviously.

As with most such collections, it's inevitable that the reader may find some of the stories just aren't palatable, but from my point of view there's nothing here anyone would consider "filler". There's no accounting for taste, true, but quality is quality, and it runs amazingly consistent throughout…if the first 150 pages don't convince you, well, nothing I could say would change your mind. It's just one amazing story after another and could easily be a "Best of show more the Best" in itself…I won't point to one story in particular, except to say that Nancy Kress's "Ej-Es" left me in tears, and Joe Haldeman packed an amazing wallop in four very short "do-overs" of famous novels. Wish I'd have thought of that one! And "The Violet Embryos"…wow! I can't successfully describe that one in the limited space I am allotting myself here.

I was impressed with Cory Doctorow's effort, also that of Kage Baker. Great stuff from new names, for me at least. Add to those Nigel Brown's "Annuity Clinic", which shows the downside of "assisted living" in the future (yikes!) and Allen Steele's introduction to his world of Coyote (the planet, not the Native American trickster…though that Coyote DOES put in a surprise appearance earlier in this collection) and you've got just shy of 500 pages of great SF entertainment.

And then finally there is Rick Moody's "The Albertine Notes". Now, the editors' notes preceding this suggest it was the best short story of the year. Well, maybe. It's lengthy and wordy, but you'd have to read it to understand why it is thus, and I hope you do. I will confess it was at times a chore to wade through it all but ultimately it paid off. Best short story of the year? I might disagree, but then again what do I know? Either way, it definitely belongs in this collection, which we have now managed to find 11 of the 19 volumes, and if the quality stays this high I expect we'll keep getting them once we get caught up. show less

I skipped some stories, but it was a good read. The Octavia Butler story creeped me out the more I thought about it. The Nancy Kress was good--she might be better in short form than novels. This was the first I'd read by Angélica Gorodischer, clearly a different voice. Always glad to read more Gene Wolfe. What a delight to find a Kage Baker story from The Company that I had not read.

I am on what is apparently going to be an eternal search for the perfect “Year’s Best of” collection. It all started many, many years ago when I discovered the Wollheim series (and to give you an idea how many “many’s” I’m talking about, I discovered it in the mid-70s.) The selections were the perfect blend of all aspects of science fiction, and a perfect blend of award winners with unknown discoveries. And I have every single year of this collection up to the final one in 1990. And so I go on with my search, looking for a perfect replacement. At its root, the biggest problem I have is trying to find that blend. The Dozois collections and the Hartwell/Cramer series seem too invested in hard science fiction. Yet, to get any show more of the softer side, you seem to have to go into fantasy collections, and that is just a little too much elf, wizards, and quests for me.

And so, with that background, you can already tell I’m not overly pleased with this collection. It has some good stories and it is an overall somewhat satisfying read, but it is not the next great set of collections; it is not the “Year’s Best of” that I will make sure I collect from the past and collect into the future. To Hartwell/Cramer’s credit, they seem to have done a very good job looking outside the traditional publication routes to find the stories they selected, including internet publication and foreign language. There are nice choices in here - good reads, satisfying reads - but not rush to the award ballot caliber. And, as often happens with anthologies, some not so good, including one I could not finish. (Keep in mind, I do my best to finish EVERYTHING I start reading. Shoot, I even finished The Time Traveler’s Wife, and I should have gotten a purple heart for that.) However, as the author notes in the introduction, “…the average paperback anthology of fantasy or SF does not contain as many good stories as the average issue of Asimov’s or Fantasy & Science Fiction.” And so it is with this hardcover collection – it has about the same hit and miss ratio as those magazines.

And, as to the search for the perfect “Year’s Best”, I guess I’ll continue with the one sure source I’ve found; the annual publication of the Nebula Award winners. I’ve got them all, and I’m still buying them show less

http://nhw.livejournal.com/220669.html

Much the most interesting of the 2003 SF anthologies. The Dozois one remains definitive, and best value for money, and the Haber/Strahan one I found a bit disappointing. But this has a couple of my favourite stories from the Dozois again (none in common with Haber/Strahan, interestingly) and a number of gems. This includes two stories translated from Spanish, one of which I'm afraid I just couldn't get into, but the other one a fascinating riff on altering history (in this case, enduring that the post-Franco transition to democracy is not prevented). Lots of good stuff here which I wouldn't have otherwise been able to read. Recommended.

Since I joined GoodReads I've fallen way behind on my SF anthology reading. Too many other shiny books get recommended to me, and reviews of anthologies are not convenient. Ty to whoever added the list of stories so I could copy them here:

* Amnesty • Octavia E. Butler 3.5 stars. Mostly exposition, but still a great What If. Typical Butler as in disquieting, sort of creepy even. I'm pretty sure I'd rather be jobless than enfolded... but maybe not....

* Birth Days • Geoff Ryman 3 stars. Major loss of logic, but interesting characters and What If. Am not tempted by this to read more by the author.

* The Waters of Meribah • Tony Ballantyne 3 stars. Very smart. Crazy original; lots of world-building ideas crammed in. I don't want what show more he's having, nor do I want to read more of his talent.

* EJ-ES • Nancy Kress. 4 stars. MedCorps visits colonies, offers succor... like missionaries offering succor for the soul, with the same conflict. That is, is 'curing disease' always the ethical thing to do? What if only one of the team thinks so, and why is she the one with the divergent sense of what's right? Would make a great book club discussion. Strong Sense of Wonder and What If. I will continue to read more of the author when other influences also tempt me.

* Four Short Novels •Joe Haldeman 2 stars. Maybe would have been worth more if the long novels referenced had more of relevance than their names, but I've not read them and so don't know. Actually just four clever variations on a theme. No real SoW or WI.

* Rogue Farm • Charles Stross Reads like a fragment. Stross knows the world he builds (I assume) but we don't. And I'm just not satisfied. Why did the farm want to go take our hero to Jupiter? :shrug:

* The Violet’s Embryos • Angélica Gorodischer DNF. Too, what, 'experimental' for me.

* Coyote at the End of History • Michael Swanwick Or is it "Coyote and the Star People?" In any case, it's funny, and melancholy, and very cool, and maybe I should look for more by the author. Otoh, no actual SoW or WI.

* In Fading Suns and Dying Moons • John Varley Definite SoW, no WI. I think any number of endings would have fit and not changed the main theme of the story, and many would have been preferable to me, and some of them would have added another layer of meaning. Basically the theme is that we have no way of knowing an alien intention... but the ending reveals one.... I really should get up the wherewithal to read more Varley.

* Castaway • Gene Wolfe Very short fable. Took me awhile, but I figured out that the 'woman' is that planet's version of Gaia. I might consider more from the author, as there was a bit of SoW.

* The Hydrogen Wall • Gregory Benford Dang that was difficult. My advice is to just read it once, because near the end the author starts talking English. Then reread it for the mastery of the creative imagination. Good SoW.

* The Day We Went Through the Transition • Pedro Jorge Romero and Ricard de la Casa Too much world-building/ exposition, but a hell of an Ah-ha moment at the end. For that poignancy, I'll give it credit for SoW and WI.

* Nimby and the Dimension Hoppers • Cory Doctorow Creative, hyper, good SoW and WI just as one expects from Doctorow.

* Night of Time • (2003) • Robert Reed The question raised at the beginning wasn't answered... I think the author was trying for a mystical affect style and didn't realize what bs was going on. Potential for SoW & WI and I would consider more by him.

* A Night on the Barbary Coast • Kage Baker It does help to know something about The Company... this is my second read and this time I 'get' it and find it sort of amusing. A different modus than SoW or WI, more like adventure with humor and attempts at insights.

* Annuity Clinic • Nigel Brown Again with the elliptical writing style, still not impressed. The idea of old people selling off body parts is interesting though... great What If here. No real SoW but not missed.

* The Madwoman of Shuttlefield • Allen M. Steele Interesting What If, probably more interesting read in context. What would colonies actually look like, if we think about who might actually move to them?

* Bread and Bombs • M. Rickert A response to Lord of the Flies or The Lottery? Impressive amount of World-Building in a very short story; I do wonder if there are related works by the author. Adequate and apt doses of SoW and WI.

* The Great Game • Stephen Baxter Marines enable the hawks to start a war against the Xeelee. Not my thing.

* The Albertine Notes • Rick Moody A drug that makes memories seem more real helps (?) survivors of the destruction of Manhattan. DNF. show less

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