Customer Reviews

Year's Best SF 13 (Year's Best SF (Science Fiction))

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I guess it's a matter of taste. The anthology has a broad variety of sci-fi. Some of it I really liked.

I particularly disliked Memorare by Gene Wolfe, which never seemed to end and had dialog that grated at my bones.

I particularly liked Plotters and Shooters by Kage Baker, which surprised me and made me laugh. I never would have guessed this would interest me.

I don't normally read anothologies, so I can't compare it to anything. Sampling so much stuff reminded me how much I like my favorite authors, though, and warned me from straying from them for too long.

I did feel that the story introductions were annoying. Knowing something about the author and their normal writing is fine. But the short descriptions of the story didn't always match the tone and often ruined the atmosphere that the author would try to set in the next sentence. Why do I need a teaser for something I'm about to read?

The collection started slow, with the first few stories actually disappointing me. However, somewhere along, the stories got better and I started liking most of the rest. A few of my favorites include "Memorare" by Gene Wolfe, "End Game" by Nancy Kress (this one was particularly scary), and "The Bridge" by Kathleen Ann Goonan. One especially disturbing story I didn't like for its theme was "Pirates of Somali Coast" - not because it was not well written, but because it's just plain disturbing. All in all, it's a book with a good selection.

The collection was rather disappointing for a "best of" and got off (to me) with a terrible start with the somewhat offensive "Baby Doll", which doesn't even seem to qualify as SF and is very heavy-handed in its message. The start wasn't helped by "Memorae", by Gene Wolfe, in the fourth slot, a story with excellent potential marred by the romantic and anti-romantic interactions of the characters.

"Plotters and Shooters" may be the best, snappy and amusing. Another favorite, "How Music Begins", was a very fresh (to me) take on alien abduction with an unusally dominant role for music for a SF story.

The others range from a few that are pretty good to some with no appeal, leading to an overall average rating. Don't be afraid to skim or abandon some of the stories if they don't engage fairly early.

I don't know. Maybe I'm spoiled by John Varley, but none of the stories in this collection were that interesting, including the Gene Wolfe one that they felt was "the best sci-fi story of the year."

Very 'meh' collection, my opinion. Very disappointed.

The thirteenth in David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's Year's Best SF series was hard to find, even as a used paperback--there is no Kindle version. I found several of the 25 stories enjoyable, but the collection as a whole had less sparkle than I've grown used to reading the other fourteen books. Perhaps this book is cursed, somehow.

If this faint praise makes you reluctant to pick up the thirteenth book, let me try to entice you. Here are the five shortest stories in the book. It's a minimal investment of your time to try one or two of them. Maybe you will be hooked. Or trapped, somehow.

Tony Ballantyne's "Aristotle OS" is about upgrading the main character's computer, if not his expectations.

Peter Watts' "Repeating the Past" is about the emotional cost of playing video games. There's some sort of moral lesson there, too, if you can put your finger on it.

Robyn Hitchcock's "They Came from the Future" is a poem, for crying out loud--it's hard to know what it's about. It's hard to even keep the tenses straight.

Tim Pratt's "Artifice and Intelligence" is about coping with the world's first machine intelligence. It poses a challenge.

John Hemry's "As You Know, Bob" seems to be about Bill's continual fascination with Jane's breasts, as much as it is about anything. Like Hartwell and Cramer, I find that it reminds me of "The Nine Billion Names of God." No, not that one. The other one.

You might as well read the collection; you've probably invoked the curse already by reading this review. If it matters, my favorite stories were Gene Wolfe's "Memorare" and Kage Baker's "Plotters and Shooters." They can speak to you for themselves. If you find yourself spending time with them.

I am seriously considering avoiding anthologies edited by Hartwell. I opened his book and about 2 pages in, they have a whole page
ranting about how someone deposited a fraudulent check drawn on their (his) bank account. That' really too bad, but what in the heck is this doing in a years best anthology? His pick for best SF short story of the year is some mediocre story by his personal god, gene wolfe, which is for the most part incoherent. Then in the preface to the greg egan story 'preface', hartwell says "he tends to write what we sometimes call neuropsych hard sf". Well, jolly good for you mr.hartwell, I applaud that amazing creation of a new genre of science fiction. How dumb do you think
most sf readers are?
There are only about 5 stories in this volume worth reading.
I generally buy this as a time killer until Dozois comes out with his anthology of The Years Best Science Fiction. Maybe it is me, I just came off of a jag reading most of Iain M. Banks books, but a lot of the stories
in Hartwell's anthology are just childish or inane. The story by Nancy Kress was very dismaying - the characters in her story are at best cartoons, which was dismaying considering some of her previous work.
This book is ok if you are really jonesing for some SF, but don't expect to be thrilled.

The stories range from okay to down right bad. Some are so boring I struggled to reach the end without falling asleep. Nothing original, new, or exciting in this book. Many of the characters were shallow bordering on one dimensional. What were Hartwell and Cramer thinking? Did they just pick a bunch of stuff at random and call it the best? I've read stories (by so-called amateurs) better than most of those in this book on the internet for free! Even at used books prices, this wasn't worth it. And if this is what Cramer and Hartwell consider "The Best," I'll be avoiding anything with their names on it from now on.

This volume is less interesting, on the whole, than other recent entries in the series. Gene Wolfe's "Memorare", Bernhard Ribbeck's "A Blue and Cloudless Sky", and perhaps Ian McDonald's "Sanjeev and Robotwallah" are the standout stories; Kage Baker's "Plotters and Shooters" and Terry Bisson's "Pirates of the Somali Coast" are fine lighter fare (though the latter is hardly "science fiction" on even the most generous understanding of the term). Honorable mention: Tony Ballantine's "Third Person". There are some other OK stories in here, but in all honesty it's not what you'd expect from a "Year's Best" compilation.

Two editorial decisions that puzzled me: the inclusion of a number of rather annoying "short-short"s (1-3 page stories); and the inclusion of Ken McLeod's "Who's Afraid of Wolf 359?" The latter is a decent read, but it is culled from a collection of original stories that contains quite a few stronger entries: the excellent The New Space Opera edited by Gardner Dozois.

Here's hoping next year turns out better. In the meantime, we have Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (Year's Best Science Fiction) to look forward to.

The thirteenth volume of this series is down on quality from the twelfth, which was outstanding, at 3.90. This one averages 3.71.

However, there is one great story, Terry Bisson's 'Pirates of the Somali Coast'. When they are that good I suppose you can forgive the fact that it may only be SF in the nearest of near future senses, perhaps. However, you could call it a horror story, or satire so black you have to find out what call the Old Ones from Out Of Space call their colour darker than black to categorise it.
The weakest part of the book is after this story, where it trails off in quality from there.

The other standout is Kage Baker's amusing Plotters and Shooters.

It was a pleasant surprise to find the ebook of this after not seeing one for volume 12, meaning no waiting around, not paying someone with a plane the same price as the cost of the book to get it here, or more, etc. So well done publishers for bringing that back.

There's the usual brief overview at the start, pointing out JBU and Strange Horizons online, and several original anthologies being good - New Space Opera, Fast Forward, Solaris 1, etc. They also included a poem.

The editors are also quite keen on Tony Ballantyne this year, mentioning him multiple times - but neither of these stories I thought were that good.

So, call this volume a bit over a 4.25, or 4.5 on the usual scale.

Year's Best SF 13 : Baby Doll - Johanna Sinisalo
Year's Best SF 13 : Aristotle OS - Tony Ballantyne
Year's Best SF 13 : The Last American - John Kessel
Year's Best SF 13 : Memorare - Gene Wolfe
Year's Best SF 13 : Plotters and Shooters - Kage Baker
Year's Best SF 13 : Repeating the Past - Peter Watts
Year's Best SF 13 : No More Stories - Stephen Baxter
Year's Best SF 13 : The Tomb Wife - Gwyneth Jones
Year's Best SF 13 : An Evening's Honest Peril - Marc Laidlaw
Year's Best SF 13 : End Game - Nancy Kress
Year's Best SF 13 : Induction - Greg Egan
Year's Best SF 13 : A Blue and Cloudless Sky - Bernard Ribbeck
Year's Best SF 13 : Reasons not to Publish - Gregory Benford
Year's Best SF 13 : Objective Impermeability in a Closed System - William Shunn
Year's Best SF 13 : Always - Karen Joy Fowler
Year's Best SF 13 : Who's Afraid of Wolf 359? - Ken MacLeod
Year's Best SF 13 : Artifice and Intelligence - Tim Pratt
Year's Best SF 13 : Pirates of the Somali Coast - Terry Bisson
Year's Best SF 13 : Sanjeev and Robotwallah - Ian McDonald
Year's Best SF 13 : Third Person - Tony Ballantyne
Year's Best SF 13 : The Bridge - Kathleen Ann Goonan
Year's Best SF 13 : As You Know Bob - John Hemry
Year's Best SF 13 : The Lustration - Bruce Sterling
Year's Best SF 13 : How Music Begins - James Van Pelt


Accelerated cradle snatching.

3.5 out of 5


Accelerated cradle snatching.

3 out of 5


DAS Biography.

4 out of 5


Space vault menace.

3.5 out of 5


Deathlok defense defeat predicted, Avenger!

4.5 out of 5


Holocaust memories, game boy.

4 out of 5


Interbreeding expansion remnant conversation.

3.5 out of 5


Extradimensional big brain spaceflight fun, Batman.

4 out of 5


Multiplayer tomb raid.

3.5 out of 5


Grandmaster class tunnel vision.

4 out of 5


Orchid Flower followup Duty.

4 out of 5


Colonization time adjustments.

3 out of 5


Omnipotence? Bah. Pass the grog.

3 out of 5


Possible past wife hookup system.

4 out of 5


Static cult life.

3.5 out of 5


Empire threat impetus attack gives boomerang inspiration.

4 out of 5


Bad ghosts, bad machine, bad game.

4 out of 5


Yo Ho Ho, and many machine guns. With internet access, hats, and a lot less relatives than at the beginning.

5 out of 5


Battletech comes and goes, but pizza always popular.

4 out of 5


A walk-on part in the war, a lead role in the Sarge.

3.5 out of 5


Artificial revelation recreation.

3.5 out of 5


Genre written commercial adjustment.

3.5 out of 5


"You've secretly discussed artificial intelligence for forty thousand years?" "Thirty thousand," the metaphysician admitted. "Unfortunately, it took us ten thousand years to admit that the system's behavior had some unaccountable aspects."

3 out of 5


Band camp space shanghaied.

3 out of 5




4.5 out of 5

If you enjoy science fiction that is timeless, such as Niven, Pournelle, Asimov, Clarke, Cherrye, then you won't enjoy this collection at all. These stories were dated before they made it to the press. The previous reviewer mentioned it being a near future.... The first story is a thinly veiled reference to Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Miley Cyrus.... There are many collections that will be read for decades to come. This collection of stories details todays political and moral scene, decades from now people will be scratching their heads reading this.

In short, this was a waste of my time and will make the trash can... I can't even bear taking it to Half Price Books lest someone else will waste their money on it.