Year's Best SF 14 (Year's Best SF (Science Fiction)) [Mass Market Paperback]

David G. Hartwell (Author), Kathryn Cramer (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 26, 2009 | Series: Year's Best SF (Science Fiction) (Book 14)

Unique visions and astonishments—new stories by:

Tobias S. Buckell and Karl Schroeder
Cory Doctorow
Neil Gaiman
Kathleen Ann Goonan
Alastair Reynolds
Michael Swanwick

Last year's best short-form SF—selected by acclaimed, award-winning editors and anthologists David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer—offers stunning new extrapolations on what awaits humankind beyond the next dawn. The art of the story is explored boldly and provocatively in this powerful new collection of Year's Best speculative fiction.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David G. Hartwell is a senior editor of Tor/Forge Books. His doctorate is in Comparative Medieval Literature. He is the proprietor of Dragon Press, publisher and bookseller, which publishes The New York Review of Science Fiction, and the president of David G. Hartwell, Inc. He is the author of Age of Wonders and the editor of many anthologies, including The Dark Descent, The World Treasury of Science Fiction, The Hard SF Renaissance, The Space Opera Renaissance, and a number of Christmas anthologies, among others. Recently he co-edited his fifteenth annual paperback volume of Year's Best SF, and co-edited the ninth Year's Best Fantasy. John Updike, reviewing The World Treasury of Science Fiction in The New Yorker, characterized him as a "loving expert." He is on the board of the IAFA, is co-chairman of the board of the World Fantasy Convention, and an administrator of the Philip K. Dick Award. He has won the Eaton Award, the World Fantasy Award, and has been nominated for the Hugo Award forty times to date, winning as Best Editor in 2006, 2008, and 2009.

Kathryn Cramer is a writer and anthologist. She won a World Fantasy Award for best anthology for The Architecture of Fear, co-edited with Peter Pautz; she was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for her anthology Walls of Fear. She co-edits anthologies with David G. Hartwell, such as the huge anthologies of hard sf The Ascent of Wonder, The Space Opera Renaissance, and The Hard SF Renaissance, and does the annual Year's Best Fantasy and the Year's Best SF with him. She is an editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction, for which she has been nominated for the Hugo Award seventeen times. Her dark fantasy hypertext, In Small and Large Pieces, was published by Eastgate Systems, Inc. She is employed by Wolfram Research and by L. W. Currey, Inc.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Harper Voyager; Original edition (May 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061721743
• ISBN-13: 978-0061721748
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.1 x 6.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #718,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent collection May 28, 2009

By Jon D

Format:Mass Market Paperback

One of my complaints with the annual "Year's Best" anthologies is that they usually appear to repeat each other, containing the same stories by the same authors. However, this anthology includes many stories which were overlooked by the other anthologies. Among my favorites which you will only find in this anthology are "Pump Six" by Paolo Bacigalupi, "Oblivion: A Journey" by Vandana Singh, "Fury" by Alastair Reynolds, "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen By Their Rain" by Jason Sanford, and "Mitigation" by Tobias Buckell and Karl Schroeder.

As for the previous reviewer's complaint about some of the stories being available online, that's true of every "Year's Best" anthology, while the pricing issue is not something to hold against the quality of this anthology.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Stories, Helpful Introductions November 1, 2009

By John M. Ford TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I read and enjoyed each of the 21 stories in David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's collection from 2008 science fiction stories. The introductions were just the right mix of author bios and pointers to other works. I particularly appreciated the inclusion of web addresses for most authors so I could find out more about them immediately after enjoying one of their stories.

My favorite six stories all had a strong character focus, using future settings and new technologies as background to the concerns of interesting people.

Carolyn Ives Gilman's "Arkfall" is a planetary romance that follows the developing relationships between crewmembers of a living submarine as it drifts through unmapped territory under an alien ocean.

Kathleen Ann Gooman's "Memory Dog" shows how the right dog can be a woman's best friend--and her best link to the past and future.

Alastair Reynolds' "Fury" reminds us that our oldest, darkest debts are sometimes paid by those we hold close.

Jeff VanderMeer's "Fixing Hannover" shows a castaway engineer's value to those who pull him from the sea--and those who come to take him home.

Mary Rickert's "Traitor" and Sue Burke's "Spiders" are each enjoyable on their own, but more so as a contrasting pair. Taking a darker and lighter view, respectively, they illustrate how a child, awash in too much information from the world, can muster the wisdom to focus on what is important. We wonder what becomes of them.

I offer my gratitude for the Kindle version that allowed me to read these stories unobtrusively during a series of boring monologues by the senior executives in my agency. Their collective misunderstanding of the smile on my face during their orations is certain to benefit my career.... This collection is worth your time in similar or better circumstances. Read more ›

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Reviews should be reviews of the book, not the pricing of some alternative form of the book June 11, 2009

By J P. Rich

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Hartwell's and Cramer's latest annual anthology is yet another an example of their consistently excellent taste in science fiction. I personally agree with the immediately preceding choices for the best stories, though there's not one in the book that's short of being very good. At $7.99, this is an incredible value.

If the other "reviewer" has a problem with the e-book pricing, he should take it elsewhere. That "review" should be removed by Amazon, since it significantly lowers the average stars for this book but has zero to do with the quality of the content.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent scifi readin August 22, 2010

By B. Landry

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Another fantastic book in the most consistently outstanding scifi short story series that I've encountered. I like rich, interesting, mind-bending scifi with good character development. This book delivers.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars good gift for a sci-fi reader October 26, 2009

By Reading On

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I purchased this as a gift for my son-in-law who is a sci-fi enthusiast. My daughter said that as soon as it arrived he sat right down that evening and began reading it. He found it an interesting book of short stories as he could finish one in a sitting; also, he was able to read some of the new offerings for the year this way.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent collection of "new" shorts August 19, 2010

By Christopher N. Parker

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I usually make it a (sometimes hurtful) habit to ingest these yearly anthologies. I grabbed this one at the library last week and, as tropish as it sounds, haven't been able to put it down. Reynold's "Fury" is a fun, entirely interesting little space opera with a universe paradoxically well fleshed out for a short; it had me wishing there was an entire saga out there, somewhere. Certainly more upbeat than Reynold's usually plodding fare. "The Scarecrow's Boy", rightly compared to "The Littlest Toaster" I went into with lowered expectations and came out deeply impressed. "N-Words", while a fairly typical story of its type, I enjoyed. Those were the stories that really stuck out to me. The rest were certainly good.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Well Chosen October 6, 2009

By Flapjack

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a well chosen collection. I enjoy the format for the SF## series. The short introductory bios, with web addresses, allow me to further explore the authors of stories I liked. I have to agree with those that have said the price it right. In contrast to the negative reviewer, I am buying the book so that I *don't* have to explore the internet, reading everything published to find the gems. I am paying for the curatorial effort and for the story in print so I can read it wherever and whenever I care to, and to have someone recommend new authors I may like. This years collection is very satisfying and entertaining.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding hard scie-fi anthology!! July 20, 2009

By D. Elliott

Format:Mass Market Paperback

This anthology is, without a doubt, the best hard sci-fi I have enjoyed in a long time! Each and every story in the book is well-written, intelligent & fun! As a pathologically fast reader I relish anthologies to find new authors & now I have 20 (already read most of Gaiman & he has one in here,too!) Most are hard sci-fi! Several are written by scientists & all of them are fresh!