50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Still above average, but not as good as last year's, August 16, 2008
David Moles, "Finisterra". Unsavory traders butcher floating, mountainous organisms in this ominous but perhaps overly detailed slice of far future life. B-
Ken MacLeod, "Lighting Out". Neatly capturing the feel of life when humanity has morphed into a blend of reality, virtual reality, and bioengineered reality. C
John Barnes, "The Ocean is a Snowflake, Four Billion Miles Away". The third straight far future, hard science story with thick atmosphere and rather thin plot. This time the star is the dazzling landscape of Mars as it undergoes terraforming. C
Gwyneth Jones, "Saving Tiamaat". As human ambassadors assist two hostile races from a distant planet in settling their political dispute, cutthroat tactics abound, figuratively and literally. B-
James Van Pelt, "Of Late I Dreamt of Venus". The author weaves a tender love story into this riveting, millennium-spanning saga about a plutocrat, her quest to terraform Venus, and her quiet male companion. A+
Ian McDonald, "Verthandi's Ring". Alas, much of this epic tale of all-out intergalactic war was wasted on me due to its epic amount of scientific terminology and concepts. NR
Una McCormack, "Sea Change". From lots of science to hardly any in this chilling depiction of growing pains for the rich and snobbish in the near future. C
Chris Roberson, "The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small". In an alternate world with no Western civilization and dominated by a vast Oriental empire, an aspiring bureaucrat believes an obscure political prisoner who visited a civilization across the ocean holds the key to advancement. A haunting yet entertaining demonstration of how the pace of scientific progress is relative. A+
Greg Egan, "Glory". A couple of aliens try to unearth a profound secret on the distant planet of a glorious but dead civilization. Subtle philosophical insight, but surprisingly little action, follows the aliens' mind blowing grand entrance. B
Robert Silverberg, "Against the Current". With the waking nightmare atmosphere of a Twilight Zone episode, a Bay Area car dealer and his trusty Prius are propelled backward in time, about two decades a day. Superb execution of the "it could almost happen to you"motif. A+
Neal Asher, "Alien Archeology". A thrilling space adventure and battle of wits unfold following the discovery of an invaluable and dangerous relic. Grotesque and violent images punctuate the narrative, along with fascinating embellishments, including a race of talking beasts that never repeats the same word twice. A+
Ted Chiang, "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate". Exotic metaphors add dreamy texture to this tapestry of time travel, a story within a story within a story, set in ancient Baghdad. A
Justin Stanchfield, "Beyond the Wall". An enigmatic wall on a Saturn moon, designed by an alien M.C. Escher, tests the mettle of a band of explorers from Earth. Suspenseful, with a fittingly enigmatic flavor. A
Bruce Sterling, "Kiosk". Technology advances but politics, business, and human nature remain the same when a shop owner in a broken-down future Eastern Europe launches a breakthrough enterprise. Truth rings loudly in this tragicomic morality play. A
Stephen Baxter, "Last Contact". The end of the universe poignantly experienced by a mother and daughter in an English garden. A
Alastair Reynolds, "The Sledge-Maker's Daughter". Villagers in a far future, medieval like England grapple with privation, brutality, and alien combat slightly beyond their comprehension. B
Ian McDonald, "Sanjeev and Robotwallah". An Indian youth, robotics wars, and rampant confusion are all I gleaned from this jargon laden whirlwind of adventure. C
Michael Swanwick, "The Skysailor's Tale". A brilliantly composed alternate history, set in the British colony of America in the early 1800's, in which an old man tells the tale of his amazing journey aboard a vast military airship. A
Vandana Singh, "Of Love and Other Monsters". The sad but lyrical autobiography of a damaged and lonely alien, trapped on Earth in more ways than one. B
Greg Egan, "Steve Fever". An ailing scientist unwittingly lets loose a determined nanovirus that is infecting and steadily destroying mankind - without even trying. Subtly spine tingling. A
Kage Baker, "Hellfire at Twilight". A sense of impending doom fills the air when a bookish, time traveling cyborg infiltrates the secret rites of a princely pagan in 1774 England. B
Brian Stableford, "The Immortals of Atlantis". A down and out slum dweller gets a visit from an icy immortal on a recruiting mission. Bio science with dramatic punch! B+
Pat Cadigan, "Nothing Personal". Slow developing combination whodunit and character study of an aging cop suffering from the mother of all midlife crises. (A brush with alternate realities will do that to you.) B
Elizabeth Bear, "Tideline". In the aftermath of a devastating war, a dying robot soldier asks a boy to complete her rather peculiar mission. B
Keith Brooke, "The Accord".The delicate balance of a far future world where life and afterlife commingle is disrupted by an anomalous stranger. B
Nancy Kress, "Laws of Survival". A woman is abducted by aliens to train dogs, for purposes that grow more mysterious even as they become more clear. Spellbinding portrayal of what it might be like to confront the complete unknown. A+
Tom Purdom, "The Mists of Time". History comes alive as two time travelers observe a naval skirmish between a slaver and a British warship. The time travel subplot is somewhat contrived, but the historical narrative is rich beyond measure. A
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, "Craters". Terrifying and tragic extrapolation of life after several more decades of escalating Islamic terrorism. Surprised this theme isn't more prevalent this year. B
Ted Kosmatka, "The Prophet of Flores". One form of zealotry is exchanged for another in this sideways world (as editor Dozois calls it) where Creationists have the upper hand. C+
Benjamin Rosenbaum & David Ackert, "Stray". Omnipotent immortal is sorely tempted as he tries for a humble human life in Depression Era America. C
Robert Reed, "Roxie". Heartwarming celebration of life about an ordinary family man's relationship with his dog, set against the backdrop of a perilous future. A
Gregory Benford, "Dark Heaven". A homicide cop in Mobile follows a murder trail to colonizing amphibious aliens, and learns far more than he bargained for. B
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Worth the price of admission, August 27, 2008
I have several of Dozois' collections, and this one is--as reviewer Brad Schorr also said--above average. I didn't love every one of its thirty-two stories, and I couldn't even bring myself to finish two of them, but that's par for the course. In my experience, about 25 percent of a decent edited volume is really enjoyable, 25 percent is a chore to read, and the middle fifty percent falls between "blah" and "not bad." In this collection, I'd say that only the two aforementioned stories were really a chore to read, and though several stories were "blah," most fell between "not bad" and "pretty good". That's not too shabby if you subscribe to Sturgeon's Law ("Ninety percent of everything is crap").
I'm not going to run down all of the stories since Brad Schorr's done that for us already, but I do want to point out that there's plenty of room for disagreement with his take on them. Two stories that Schorr graded "A" -- "Roxie" and "The Skysailor's Tale" -- were the two that I couldn't read, the former because it was so drippingly sentimental, and the latter because it was so mannered and slow. Most of the stories he graded "C" fall into my "not bad" category, including Ken McLeod's "Lighting Out", which is a decent if pretty standard McLeod/Stross "singularity" tale, and McDonald's "Sanjeev and Robotwallah," which is a craftsmanlike near-future piece about how new technologies disrupt traditional life in the underdeveloped world. On the other hand, we agreed about several of the stories, including Chris Roberson's "The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small," a subtle alternate history piece that appears to be the most anthologized story of the year.
Bottom line: If you're in the mood for some stories and you don't need them all to be absolutely amazing, this collection is a good deal.
P.S. If you've read Dozois' THE NEW SPACE OPERA anthology, you should be aware that three of the stories collected here are drawn from there ("Saving Tiaamat," "Verthandi's Ring," and "Glory"). On the other hand, if you haven't read that anthology, I recommend it. Don't judge the book by the quality of those three stories -- they are NOT the best of the bunch.
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