Customer Reviews

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection

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

 

 

Dozois's third Bluejay annual (1986, for 1985 work) follows the same format as his second. You can read no other sf-related book in a given year and still have a very good idea of what is happening in the current sf scene. Dozois believes that short fiction is the heart of the genre; it takes as much originality to execute an effective story as it does a genre novel, which generally spins out an equivalent concept at greater length. Moreover, the concentation of the short form forces writers into a concise presentation of their material. In an age of elephantine media-based novel series, that's a pleasure. This anthology picks up 24 stories, several of them long. I most liked Karen Joy Fowler's "The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things," a haunting meditation on Vietnam in which a woman interacts with a virtual version of a man she knew who died in the war. Another very good story included here, which won an award, is Frederik Pohl's "Fermi and Frost," a less satiric than usual portrait of surviving beyond armageddon. Additional stories I liked here include Robert Silverberg's long "Sailing to Byzantium," another award-winner in which Byzantium turns out not what it seems to be; Kim Stanley Robinson's "Green Mars," which became the basis for his Mars trilogy; S. C. Sykes's "Rockabye Baby," a moving story about a severely injured man who enters an experimental program to regenerate his body; and Lucius Shepard's "A Spanish Lesson," a picaresque mood piece about an expatriate American in Europe who finally confronts his own shallowness. Two other award winners reprinted are Nancy Springer's "Out of All Them Bright Stars" and James Blaylock's "Paper Dragons." One of the tensions in genre fiction of this period was the conflict between the cyberpunkers and the rest of the writers. Robinson was accused of being a fuddy-duddy for not joining the punker bandwagon. I think he had the last laugh.

For this third annual collection of best SF stories, Gardner Dozois selected a great number of real jewels. After a very complete analysis of what happened in the SF field in 1985, we can enjoy nineteen exellent short stories - and there are only two ("Snow", "Roadside rescue") which I personally consider as average and only three ("The lake was full of artificial things", "Out of all them bright stars" and "The war at home") which to my personal taste were rather weak. At the end as usual there is a (quite long) list of "Honorable mentions" - short stories considered by the editor as good, but which for lack of place (and it is already a huge book) couldn't be included. Below you will find my impressions about all the stories, with LIMITED SPOILERS.
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"The jaguar hunter" by Lucius Shepard - this is a very very well written and very high quality story, which actually reminded me more of the Latin American "magic realism" of Gabriel Garcia Marquez than of the "classical" science-fiction. I usually do not enjoy this style (I never could finish any of Marquez books) but "The jaguar hunter" is really a PLEASURE to read. I found however the main topic rather immoral and sad, as this story is mostly about a middle-aged man drifting away from his wife, who was once a beauty, but aged badly, used by the life of hard labour and struggle with poverty. Now that their children grew up and left the home, the man starts looking for a fresher female body and as usual finds all the rational, ideological, philosophical and ethical reasons and excuses to abandon the woman who stood by him for the last 25 years or so...

"Dogfight" by Michael Swanwick and William Gibson - this is an excellent "cyberpunk" (high technology, low-lifes) story, once again very well written, which is not surprising, considering that it is the result of co-operation of authors of respectively "Iron Dragon's daughter" and "Neuromancer". There are many lessons to draw from this story, but one of the most powerful is that no matter the times and the kind of society, college girls should not frequent the scum of the Earth, no matter how angry they are at their daddy...

"Fermi and frost" by Frederik Pohl - this Hugo Award 1986 winning story is again very well written, which is only normal considering that F. Pohl was already then one of the most prestigious veterans of science-fiction (and as of January 2012, he is still alive and at 92 he keeps writing!); the story is about the nuclear holocaust of World War III and what follows later - a quite typical obsession of many SF writers before Soviet Union collapsed in 1991; it is a very interesting thing mostly for younger readers, because it helps to understand how terribly many people were scared of nuclear weapons during Cold War - and ultimately how deeply unfounded were their fears...

"Green days in Brunei" by Bruce Sterling - a very well written, very interesting and ultimately very funny story, happening in a future emirate of Brunei once the oil and gas were all extracted and after a mostly low technology, zero growth model of society was adopted; the story is shown from the perspective of a Canadian-Chinese informatician who is supposed to fix one of the few industrial plants tolerated by the sultan's governement; I enjoyed it greatly!

"Snow" by John Crowley - the renowned author of "Little, Big" offers here a short and rather sad story of loss, grief and memory; it is not bad, but definitely not his best and certainly below the top quality of the four previous ones

"The fringe" by Orson Scott Card - the author of "Ender's Game" offers here an excellent story about a heavily handicapped but brilliant scientist (in my modest opinion probably inspired to author by Stephen Hawking) who decides to work for a time as a high school teacher in a remote farm "border" community, where people labour heavily to recultivate the fertile farmlands poisoned and sterilized long time ago by some horrible cataclysm; his opposition to local corruption will lead to a dramatic confrontation and a tragedy... It is a very good story.

"The lake was full of artificial things" by Karen Joy Fowler - this is one of the shortest and also the weakest stories in the collection; it is somehow linked to the Vietnam War, but I must admit that I couldn't really understand what this story was about and I didn't get the conclusion either; may be you will have more luck with it...

"Sailing to Byzantium" by Robert Silverberg - it is always a pleasure to read texts of this veteran writer; this quite long Nebula Award 1986 winning story is a very good one indeed; it happens in an incredibly decadent and slightly disgusting world of distant future, in which a XXth century time traveler tries to find his place; I must say that I found most of the inhabitants of this "Brave New World" rather despicable and I would not feel a little bit sorry, if they were one day eliminated by their slaves, robotic and others... But once again, the story is very good.

"Solstice" by James Patrick Kelly - a very interesting and very well written story about a future society in which all kind of mind affecting drugs and hallucinogenics substances are not only legal but even considered as part of every day life; in this society a man living alone can order an artificially conceived child and raise him/her all by himself and nobody finds a problem in parents giving children drugs already in their pre-teen years... I absolutely hated the picture of this future society, but I must admit that the story is really very good.

"Duke Pasquale's ring" by Avram Davidson (sadly, deceased only three years later) - this is a fantasy rather than a science-fiction story, but I am absolutely NOT complaining, as it is a wondeful read; it occurs in a kind of alternate history Balkanic Empire, placed in the alternate XIX century between Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey; the main hero of the story is a distinguished scholar and adventurer, Doctor Englebert Esterhazy and his adversary is a particularly nasty, clever, powerful and ambitious warlock; Avram Davidson wrote more adventures of Dr Esterhazy and after discovering this character in this story I will certainly read the others too. Top quality writing and a wonderful sense of humour!

"More than the sum of his parts" by Joe Haldeman - the author of "Forever War" offers here a very clever and twisted story about a horribly mutilated man who receives experimental new prosthesis and as a result turns into... well, I guess you will have to discover it by yourself. Let's just say, that it is not a wise thing to give to a frustrated and not very brilliant looser too much power...

"Out of all them bright stars" by Nancy Kress - for my personal taste this is another rather weak story, but good news is that it is only six pages long; the topic is xenophobia against aliens; it ends without any kind of conclusion and really should not figure in this collection.

"Side effects" by Walter Jon Williams - this is in my modest opinion the SECOND BEST story in this collection; on the surface of things the story is a kind of social criticism of current (for 1985) American health system and it is in itself excellent - but just before the end you will discover what EXACTLY this story is about and you WILL be shocked, disgusted and terrified, because this kind of thing could actually already have happened...

"The only neat thing to do" by James Tiptree Jr. - for me this is THE BEST story in this collection - and this is a high praise coming from me, for the reasons which I will immediately state. As you may be know already, James Tiptree Jr was the pseudonyme of Dr. Alice B. Sheldon, a psychologist, a former major in US Army, a former CIA analyst and also a very gifted science-fiction writer who for a long time dissimulated her true identity and even her gender to the general public, writing under numerous pen names.
Doctor Sheldon suffered during most of her life of depression and attempted many times to kill herself - and she ultimately succeded in 1987, at the age of 71, after killing her grievously ill 84 years old husband. This lifelong history of depression influenced her writing and most of her stories are very dark, pessimistic and even - in my opinion - nihilistic. I always appreciated her writing but the omnipresence of darkness and hopelessness also made the lecture of her works a very depressing experience.
However in this most excellent story, which was also to be one of her last, this feeling of absence of hope and lack of sense in life is totally absent and although it still is a very dramatic and dark tale, the ending is glorious and majestic. Also the heroin, Coati Cass, is one of the bravest and most touching characters I ever found in all SF books. To my personal taste this is Alice Sheldon's best story ever - and in a sense also a premonition of what she feared (hoped?) would happen to her soon...

"Dinner in Audoghast" by Bruce Sterling - a very clever, very funny and sadistically twisted story about a man who lives in a Saharan town in XI century AD and who REALLY can foresee the future... A little jewel with a punch line so delightful that I really advise you against eating or drinking when reading the last page - it could be life threatening. I foresee it!

"Under siege" by George R.R. Martin - another great name, another GREAT story. The author of "Game of Thrones" tells here the story about an attempt of fixing the history made by the last surviving humans, after our civilization was destroyed by (what else? sigh...) nuclear war between USA and USSR. A very unhappy handicapped mutant able to connect himself to some people in the past is possibly the very last chance of humanity to change history and prevent the total destruction of our species. There are a thousand things that could go wrong - and then there is always this one thousand and one, unseen and unexpected...

"Flying saucer rock & roll" by Howard Waldrop - a very funny and very well written short story about a quite unique singing contest in a New York ghetto in the 60s, with a special appearance of UFO...

"A Spanish lesson" by Lucius Shepard - this rather long but very good story also is on the border of "magic realism" mainstream literature but with much more elements of SF than in "The jaguar hunter". Very well written and very interesting, it includes also a very short but very intense glimpse into an alternate world so evil and dark, that even me, after more than 30 years of reading of SF, fantasy and horror, I felt a cold chill in the spine... A very good and very powerful story.

"Roadside rescue" by Pat Cadigan - basically this is a story about a rape and it is as much porn as SF - but it is also true, that in this story the sexuality of a race of aliens very different from humans is particularly well described; ultimately it is not bad, but still a little bit gross...

"Paper dragons" by James P. Blaylock - a very poetic fantasy story in which ultimately not so much happens but which is still a very good read, because of the unique style and sense of humour; a rather peculiar, even a little weird thing but with considerable charm too.

"Magazine section" by R.A. Lafferty - a humoristic tale about a "journalist hobo" roaming the country and selling "incredible but absolutely true" stories, when trying to stay ahead the lawyers hired by his three (definitely not former) wives...

"The war at home" by Lewis Shiner - the shortest and also the WORST story in the collection; I absolutely couldn't understand what it is about; also, although only two pages long it managed to bore me nevertheless; my advice - skip it and go to the next one, which is excellent

"Rockabye Baby" by S. C. Sykes - that is a VERY good story about a quadriplegic man, wrotten by a very elusive but clearly very gifted female writer (no way to find her biography anywhere - it just seems that her first name could be Sandy or Sandra); this is one of the deepest and more troubling things in this whole collection and it made me think about... well, the topic, late in the night. Very impressive and very well written.

"Green Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson - just to be clear - this novella is NOT part of the later published novel "Green Mars", by the same author; other than the title the novella and the novel are connected by the same place of action (Mars after terraforming), but that is all; I believe however that this story was the departure point for Kim Stanley Robinson's work on his opus magnum, the Martian Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars). In this EXCELLENT story a team of future alpinists tries to escalate the highest wall of the Olympus Mons, which is itself the highest mountain in the Solar system. This novella is quite long but frankly I didnt't even notice it - I was immediately taken by the magic of the story and remained under the spell until the end, even though I am not really a big fan of climbing stories (suffering from critical vertigo already on the fifth floor, I never could see any charm in high mountain climbing). This is the THIRD BEST story in the collection and a very pleasant closure for this really excellent book.
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Conclusion: A most excellent collection, to buy, read, keep and pass to your children. Enjoy!

The earliest of these that I have come across. In fact, it would seen you could just about get secondhand every volume of this series for the price of the first two, with bonus books if you were in the USA.

Pretty much right on the standard, two, at a 3.77 average. Although some will be annoyed by the multiple instances of the dirty fantasy story low-blows thrown in, one of them even a World Fantasy short story award winner, apparently. Balanced by nothing disliked particularly, and a really cool Tiptree story.

This one is a secondhand book, and the story Green Mars provided a surprised - having read that elsewhere I had never bothered to look at the one in here, but it appears that it just may be autographed at the beginning by Kim Stanley Robinson himself! Very cool find if it is.

An interesting contrast is the length of the editor's summary, now roughly a novella, this one is only around 10 pages, or a short short story, and only a few pages of standard type story recommendations.

Perhaps this is a factor of more stuff out there, as the summary mentions around 1300 sf-type books published per year, and it may be closing on double that now I think I read.

Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : The Jaguar Hunter - Lucius Shepard
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Dogfight - Michael Swanwick and William Gibson
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Fermi and Frost - Frederik Pohl
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Green Days in Brunei - Bruce Sterling
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Snow - John Crowley
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : The Fringe - Orson Scott Card
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : The Lake Was Full Of Artificial Things - Karen Joy Fowler
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Sailing to Byzantium - Robert Silverberg
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Solstice - James Patrick Kelly
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Duke Pasquale's Ring - Avram Davidson
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : More Than The Sum Of His Parts - Joe Haldeman
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Out Of All Them Bright Stars - Nancy Kress
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Side Effects - Walter Jon Williams
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : The Only Neat Thing To Do - James Tiptree Jr.
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Dinner in Audoghast - Bruce Sterling
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Under Siege - George R R Martin
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Flying Saucer Rock & Roll - Howard Waldrop
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : A Spanish Lesson - Lucius Shepard
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Roadside Rescue - Pat Cadigan
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Paper Dragons - James P. Blaylock
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Magazine Section - R. A. Lafferty
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : The War at Home - Lewis Shiner
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Rockabye Baby - S. C. Sykes
Year's Best Science Fiction 03 : Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson


Man decides sexy werejaguar is better than bad American cop show.

4 out of 5


Gonna pay for the pilot enhancement.

3.5 out of 5


Immaturity means contact chances slim.

4 out of 5


Mini country definitely getting away from it all for engineer boy if the best his mates can get him is Foster's.

3.5 out of 5


Memorial replay random deterioration.

4 out of 5


Not quite up in cr1pple creek without a paddle.

4 out of 5


Reunion memory.

3.5 out of 5


Tedious travelogue and artificial lifetime constraints.

3 out of 5


Bioguru woman's Stonehenge drwg binge unhinges into cryogenic desperation.

4.5 out of 5


Leopard watch.

3 out of 5


We can rebuild him, better, faster, stronger. Also with bigger p33-33. Pity about the crazy, though.

4 out of 5


Aliens make me mad.

4 out of 5


Trial sc@m.

3.5 out of 5


Far Traveller broken by bitty brainbiter, makes combo decision to go out in early Pink Floyd style.

4 out of 5


Prophetic annoyance.

3.5 out of 5


Time to be chess champion, if I can save the world first.

3.5 out of 5


Blackout showstopper.

3.5 out of 5


Twin alternate traveller Disciple tunnel t3rror Tibetan exile ending.

4 out of 5


Sounds like p3rversion.

4 out of 5


Crabby about dead one.

3.5 out of 5


Feature stretched truth.

3.5 out of 5


Vietnam not memories.

3.5 out of 5


Quad replay memory records.

4.5 out of 5


High point achieved.

3.5 out of 5


5 out of 5