Customer Reviews

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighth Annual Collection

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Book publishing numbers up again, according to Dozois. He points out one interesting statistic - 57% of new SF books were part of a series or something like that, as opposed to original.

This volume too is up from the last one, making it to 3.70, so with the usual long summary and recommended reading list bonus points, a solid 4.5 on its now.

Three standout stories, too.


Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Mr. Boy - James Patrick Kelly
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : The Shobies' Story - Ursula K. Le Guin
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : The Caress - Greg Egan
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : A Braver Thing - Charles Sheffield
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : We See Things Differently - Bruce Sterling
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : And the Angels Sing - Kate Wilhelm
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Past Magic - Ian R. MacLeod
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Bears Discover Fire - Terry Bisson
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : The All-Consuming - Lucius Shepard and Robert Frazier
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Personal Silence - Molly Gloss
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Invaders - John Kessel
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : The Cairene Purse - Michael Moorcock
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured His Larinks A Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk - Dafydd ab Hugh
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Tower of Babylon - Ted Chiang
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : The Death Artist - Alexander Jablokov
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : The First Since Ancient Persia - John Brunner
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Inertia - Nancy Kress
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Learning to Be Me - Greg Egan
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Cibola - Connie Willis
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Walking the Moons - Jonathan Lethem
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Rainmaker Cometh - Ian McDonald
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Hot Sky - Robert Silverberg
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : White City - Lewis Shiner
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : Love and S3x Among the Invertebrates - Pat Murphy
Year's Best Science Fiction 08 : The Hemingway Hoax - Joe W. Haldeman


Not wanting to grow up attitude certainly isn't helped by mum's mechanical approach to parenting.

3.5 out of 5


Look, it's full of stars.

3 out of 5


An enhanced policeman gets entangled in a billionaire's bizarre Dr Moreau creations as art and save the child schemes.

4 out of 5


Black bagged mate's Nobel notebook space travel cribbing award speech shocker.

4 out of 5


Downtrodden rock tour coke killer.

4 out of 5


Alien escapee local journalism.

4 out of 5


Nailing the ex for cloning.

3.5 out of 5


Hibernatin's a big ol' waste of time.

4 out of 5


Deadly deviant dishes means fungus faced diner's chef leavetaking.

4 out of 5


Boat builder death story.

3.5 out of 5


Alien Flash of conquistador history waffle.

3 out of 5


Sister's alien lovechild leaving lethality.

4 out of 5


Plague Dogs leveler love.

4.5 out of 5


Built like a brick lighthouse tunnelway to heaven.

3.5 out of 5


Please kill the real me, I deserve it.

3.5 out of 5


No Xerxes, no Spartans, no kids.

4 out of 5


Quarantine lack of collapse restraint.

4.5 out of 5


A man learns to come to terms with the Jewel or Ndoli device - which is also mentioned in Border Guards, and has a bit of a different reaction with a glitch to others.

3 out of 5


Sunshine city time.

3.5 out of 5


Virtually stuck here, by Jove.

3 out of 5


Seven year drought breaker stranger sighting.

3 out of 5


Berg SOS mutiny seeya.

4 out of 5


Big night light.

4 out of 5


Radiation rooted robomum.

3 out of 5


Multiple serial murder mayhem over Ernie's multiversal missing manuscript mania.

4.5 out of 5





4.5 out of 5

These 25 stories from 1990 represent the best of the year's science fiction. The book opens with a summary of the year's important events in SF. The stories are introduced by well-written author bios, descriptions of other publications and enticing story previews. In other words, it is a typical Dozois annual collection. No surprises.

Four of my favorite stories:

James Kelly's "Mr. Boy" reaffirms our belief that giving a child everything creates a spoiled brat who never grows up. It redefines the extremes of this stereotype a little bit.

Terry Bisson's "Bears Discover Fire" is one of my very favorite stories. Enough with super-intelligent aliens and artificial intelligences! What would it be like if ordinary animals became just a little bit smarter? Well...

Greg Egan's "Learning to Be Me" explores the implications of implanting a high-tech "jewel" that gradually learns to model everything your brain does. Eventually it can replace your brain and you can live forever. Well, somebody lives forever--but is it you? This is a far more thoughtful examination of the "total backup" of human minds assumed to be unproblematic in hard science fiction works like Iain M. Banks' Surface Detail.

Joe Haldeman's "The Hemingway Hoax" starts off as a 1950's crime story--and could have worked equally well staying within that genre. An aging college professor conspires with his former-student wife and an experienced con man to forge a few of Ernest Hemingway's lost manuscripts. This creates ripple effects everywhere.

All 25 stories are readable and worth your time. You may have different favorites, but will likely feel the same about the collection as a whole. Enjoy!

As a die-hard fan, you can't go wrong with Gardner Dozois' collections. However, please note that Amazon's reviews have gone haywire on these compilations. The attached text refers to the 13th annual edition, not this one.