Customer Reviews

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"I, Row Boat," by Cory Doctorow. In this homage to Asimov, a battle of wits between a sentient coral reef and a sentient rowboat raises mind-bending questions about the nature of intelligence in a digitized future. B

"Julian: A Christmas Story," by Robert Charles Wilson. A gloomy future America reverts to 19th century conditions thanks to the excesses of science and the deficiencies of religion. C

"Tin Marsh," by Michael Swanwick. "The Shining" goes to Venus. Two weary prospectors, one well past the end of his rope, battle the elements, each other, and insanity. B

"The Djinn's Wife," by Ian McDonald. Against the exotic backdrop of Delhi, a disastrous romance flares up and out between a famous dancer and a diplomat who happens to be an ethereal artificial intelligence. B+

"The House Beyond Your Sky," by Benjamin Rosenbaum. A haunting glimpse behind the curtain reveals that being the Creator ain't all it's cracked up to be. B

"Where the Golden Apples Grow," by Kage Baker. The stark, inhospitable terrain of Mars almost comes alive as two stranded young colonists struggle to get home. B+

"Kin," by Bruce McAllister. Elegant vignette about a boy and a roach-like alien assassin explores the mysteries of personal relationships and the nature of good and evil. B

"Signal to Noise," by Alastair Reynolds. Albeit touching and romantic, the plot doesn't quite measure up to the fascinating premise of a man who crosses over into a parallel universe to reconnect with his dead wife. B

"The Big Ice," by Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold. A frozen ocean of ice plays host to a scorching battle of wits between two politically powerful sibling rivals. B

"Bow Shock," by Gregory Benford. Frustrated astrophysicist on verge of losing bid for tenure observes an object in space that grows curiouser and curioser. Masterful blend of science, subtlety, sensitivity and suspense. A+

"In the River," by Justin Stanchfield. Unfathomable (no pun intended) squid-like aliens welcome a genetically altered human scientist aboard their six-kilometer long, liquid-filled ship. B

"Incarnation Day," by Walter Jon Williams. Some things never change. In a future society where parents raise virtual children, a rebellious digital teenager plays a high stakes game of chicken with her controlling mother. B

"Far as You Can Go," by Greg Van Eekhout. In a broken down future world, a scavenger and his profoundly human robot companion risk what little they for a place in the sun. Simultaneously tender and terrifying. A

"Good Mountain," by Robert Reed. A richly textured portrait of the distant future, in which worried travelers hope to outrun the fire and earthquakes that are consuming what little is left of their world. A

"I Hold My Father's Paws," by David D. Levine. Several stories herein explore genetic engineering, but this one goes whole hog, as Americans change species for reasons ridiculous and--at least in one case--sublime. B

"Dead Men Walking," by Paul J. McAuley. Rousing adventure pits one genetically engineered assassin against another on a prison in a remote corner of the solar system. B

"Home Movies," by Mary Rosenblum. Memory seller strikes deal with a manipulative client, forcing her to make a supremely difficult choice. B

"Damascus," by Daryl Gregory. Creepy, well-constructed story about a bizarre religious cult gives new meaning to the concept of forced conversion. B+

"Life on the Preservation," by Jack Skillingstead. "Groundhog Day" with scant uplifting tonic and a cataclysmic twist. B+

"Yellow Card Man," by Paolo Bacigalupi. Squalid Bangkok is particularly hellish for its former Chinese masters, and I felt every ounce of pain and humiliation while accompanying a fallen tycoon on his way to rock bottom. A+

"Riding the Crocodile," by Greg Egan. A virtually immortal couple's efforts to contact a mysterious life form span hundreds of thousands of years. Long tunnel, precious little cheese. C

"The Ile of Dogges," by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. Queen Elizabeth's censor gets a supernaturally rude awakening. C

"The Highway Men," by Ken MacLeod. Frozen Scotland, ravaged by terrorist-inspired war and global climate shift, receives a glimmer of hope from an unlikely hero. Highly effective use of local idiom. A

"The Pacific Mystery," by Stephen Baxter. In 1950, victorious Nazis attempt to circumnavigate the globe in an immense aircraft, and encounter something unexpected in any alternate universe. A

"Okanoggan Falls," by Carolyn Ives Gilman. When alien conquerors occupy a Wisconsin hamlet, the line between friend and foe becomes blurred. Superlative plot and characters, with a perfect ending. A+

"Every Hole Is Outlined," by John Barnes. Mathematicians aboard an interstellar cargo ship encounter ghosts. C

"The Town on Blighted Sea," by A.M. Dellamonica. Sick goings-on between the vanquished and their squid "allies" in a human refugee camp. C

"Nightengale," by Alistair Reynolds. By far, the most amazing character in this page-turner about adventurers invading a deserted hospital ship to retrieve a war criminal is ... the ship itself! A+

I agree with the previous review - this is the best Dozois collection in some time. Some of the highlights: "The Djinn's Wife" deals with a future India, where a young superstar marries a man who isn't actually real; Paolo Bacigalupi's "Yellow Card Man" involves a formerly successful Chinese businessman struggling to stay alive in a future Bangkok; "Incarnation Day" by Walter Jon Williams shows us what may happen if adults have the ultimate say on whether or not a child reaches maturity; Robert Charles Wilson's "Julian: A Christmas Story" is my favorite, a story set in the near future with two boys from very different types of families; Robert Reed's "Good Mountain" takes us so far into the future we see a group of people who may literally be outrunning the destruction of the Earth.

Alastair Reynolds has two stories here. "Signal to Noise" is silly and uninteresting, but "Nightingale" is a fantastic space opera with a devestating shot of horror for a finale. John Barnes' "Every Hole is Outlined" ends up being a tender, but odd, love story. There is much to enjoy in this collection. I suggest you get this book and do just that.

A better-than-average edition of this series. Although there was not too much that really amazed me, almost everything in the book was a very good story with nothing I totally disliked.

My favorites:
"The Djinn's Wife" - Ian McDonald
"Incarnation Day" - Walter Jon Williams
"Riding the Crocodile" - Greg Egan

Least favorite:
"The Big Ice" - Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold
"Okanoggan Falls" - Carolyn Ives Gilman
"Every Hole Is Outlined" - John Barnes

"I Row-Boat" - Cory Doctorow 4/5
An intelligent rowboat has to deal with a belligerent intelligent coral reef. Humorous post-singularity story.
"Julian: A Christmas Story" - Robert Charles Wilson 3.5/5
Two teens start to learn about the past in a post-apocalyptic future that suppresses knowledge of science.
"Tin Marsh" - Michael Swanwick 4/5
Venus miners get cabin fever. Entertaining action.
"The Djinn's Wife" - Ian McDonald 5/5
An Indian dancer marries an AI. Very good story in an interesting setting.
"The House Beyond Your Sky" - Benjamin Rosenbaum 3/5
A denizen of a house at the end of the universe, interacts with some of the inhabitants. Interesting.
"Where the Golden Apples Grow" - Kage Baker 3.5/5
On Mars, a boy from a farm colony and one who grew up with truckers share an adventure. Fun story.
"Kin" - Bruce McAllister 3/5
A boy hires an alien hitman.
"Signal to Noise" - Alastair Reynolds 4/5
People are able to temporarily switch into the bodies of their doubles in very similar parallel timelines. A man uses this to visit his wife, who just died in his own timeline. Good ideas about identity.
"The Big Ice" - Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold 2/5
A near-immortal member of the galactic ruling class is transformed by alien biological traces in an ice sheet.
"Bow Shock" - Gregory Benford 4/5
Academic politics and personal life conflict with a scientist's study of fast-moving neutron stars.
"To the River" - Justin Stanchfield 3.5/5
A woman is surgically altered in order to communicate with aquatic aliens. Good, but a little melodramatic.
"Incarnation Day" - Walter Jon Williams 4.5/5
In the outer solar system, children are raised as computer simulations and then incarnated into physical bodies when they come of age. Nice concept with some thought about what it takes to be considered a person.
"Far As You Can Go" - Greg Van Eekhout 3/5
A teenager and his robot friend try to find the ocean in an environmentally degraded future.
"Good Mountain" - Robert Reed 4/5
Disaster strikes a world where the inhabitants live on a continent made of floating vegetation. Great, original setting.
"I Hold My Father's Paws" - David D. Levine 3/5
A man has himself transformed into a dog in order to avoid the stresses of life.
"Dead Men Walking" - Paul J. McAuley 3.5/5
A bioengineered soldier attempts to blend in on a Uranus colony after a war.
"Home Movies" - Mary Rosenblum 4/5
A woman who creates surrogate memories for rich clients faces a difficult assignment. Good concept.
"Damascus" - Daryl Gregory 4/5
A blood-borne brain disease creates feelings of religious ecstasy. A scary, realistic story.
"Life on the Preservation" - Jack Skillingstead 4/5
Modern Seattle is preserved in a repeating time bubble in a post-apocalyptic world. Interesting concept.
"Yellow Card Man" - Paolo Bacigalupi 3/5
A refugee struggles to survive in Bangkok in a post-oil world. Good story, but with a very limited sf element.
"Riding the Crocodile" - Greg Egan 4.5/5
A couple attempts to contact the enigmatic aliens at the center of the galaxy as the last achievement of their lives. Great portrayal of a far-future civilization.
"The Ile of Dogges" - Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette 3/5
Time travelers attempt to rescue a lost play by Ben Johnson.
"The Highway Men" - Ken MacLeod 3.5/5
Conscripted highway workers meet up with a community living outside the system in a decaying future Britan., Fun but fairly typical MacLeod.
"The Pacific Mystery" - Stephen Baxter 4/5
Alternate history is a world where the Pacific contains a fold in space-time. Good, original concept.
"Okanoggan Falls" - Carolyn Ives Gilman 3/5
The citizens of a small town try to save it from occupying aliens who wish to build a mine there. I didn't find the aliens convincing.
"Every Hole Is Outlined" - John Barnes 3/5
Starship crews see ghosts about between the stars. Has an interesting culture, but the story never really makes sense.
"The Town on Blighted Sea" - A. M. Dellamonica 3/5
The losers from an alien-backed war on Earth deal with being refugees on an alien world.
"Nightingale" - Alastair Reynolds 4/5
A mercenary group is hired to extract a war criminal from an abandoned hospital ship. Good suspense with a nasty ending.

The Dozois best science fiction anthology is always a doorstop, and I can't complain that they skimp on word count. He always includes a number of novellas as well as the many short stories. But I've noticed in the past few years, and this year is no exception, that the stories tend to take on a certain sameness toward the end. Those last few stories get to be a slog, and it doesn't really matter whose stories they are.

The stories here merit inclusion, but there are too many of similar theme and tone, and most are grim. Few pages are devoted to short fiction by women, and you see the same authors year after year. They are good authors, but I would think that in any given year the best stories should come from a more diverse group. Possibly not -- I haven't read all of them.

But of the stories that did stand out to me:

Kage Baker's "Where the Golden Apples Grow" is an affecting, stark, city mouse/country mouse-type story about two martian-born boys trying to grow up in difficult times.

"The Djinn's Wife," by Ian McDonald, starts slow but builds as it chronicles a dancer's infatuation with an artificial intelligence in a future India.

"I Hold My Father's Paws," by David Levine, is a rare spot of humor in the anthology, although the humor is pretty dark. It is about a man relationship to his absentee father, and to say any more would probably just ruin it.

Best of all (and yes, I'm biased, since I live in a very small town in Wisconsin) is Carol Ives Gilman's "Okanoggan Falls." It may be that loving this story requires understanding how thoroughly Gilman nails small town life, but trust me, it's accurate. It's also a nice little story of alien invasion.

Altogether, a lot of end-of-the-world (in one way or another) going on in this anthology. It may be best taken in small doses.

I stopped reading this series years ago, but I randomly picked this one up at the book store and started to skim. Within minutes, I was hooked. This is a superb collection of short stories from a wide variety of authors that just made all my other "best" anthologies of the year hang their dog ears in shame.

I have like 4 or 5 of these Gardner Dozois and if you like Sci Fi, you should get one of these,
I recommend the Kindle versions as these books are HUGE 1000 page volumes --

These 28 stories from 2006 are well-written, well-chosen and well-documented. The volume begins with a comprehensive summary of important events in the SF genre during 2006. The stories that follow are introduced by concise author bios, descriptions of major publications and intriguing story previews. All as Dozois readers have come to expect.

My six favorite stories are:

Alastair Reynolds' "Signal to Noise" stands out first of all as a story outside his usual high-tech, far-future universe. A near-future researcher sends a colleague to an alternate timeline where his recently-deceased wife is still alive. And their time together is limited.

Robert Reed's "Good Mountain" feels like a darker, more surreal version of a Frank Herbert Dune novel. Our characters flee disaster by riding a giant worm and intrigue against one another as their world warps beyond their experience or understanding.

Mary Rosenblum's "Home Movies" introduces a member of one of the world's newest professions, a trained rememberer who stores experiences to be sold and lost completely to her employer. Until she experiences some things worth remembering.

Greg Egan's "Riding the Crocodile" is space opera at its high-tech, futuristic best. A long-lived couple tire of existence and set themselves a near-impossible task as a culmination of their mortal spans. After much toil, they decide upon an ending.

Ken MacLeod's "The Highway Men" takes us to a bleak future in the United Kingdom filled with conflict and uncertainty--the kind of setting in which men become heroes.

Alastair Reynolds' "Nightingale" smuggles us along as a carefully-picked assault team works to bring a war criminal to justice. Any mission the whole team can walk away from is a success, is it not?

This book is good reading and highly recommended. There are few more rewarding ways to spend your time.

This is honestly one of the best books I've read (ever). It's taken me a while but part of that is that the stories are just so enjoyable to read that it's great to savour the stories and their ideas - it's a pleasure to take your time. In addition, just about all of the stories are very thought-provoking, staying with you for days afterwards.

If you are at all interested in science fiction, I whole-heartedly recommend this volume. It's spurred me on to buy the others in this series.

I am only half way through at this point but so far so good. Reading these anthologies is a great way to discover new authors to explore. The other reviews seem pretty accurate to me so there is no point in elaborating further.

You could call this an excellent example of this particular series perhaps, as the average for these stories is 3.86, and a couple I have read have gone over 4. Still, a rather good effort to put that together. You certainly won't be detecting much of a sense of humour in this one, though, in general.

As usual, the highly useful summation and introduction gives information, and tries to round up for the reader the magazine sources for those that are mostly interested in core science fiction, without generally having to put up with fantasy/horror/slipstream etc., when they don't want too. He also talks a bit about books and other media, and I agree with most of this except for V for Vendetta, a movie of which this household approved. It sounds like Dozois hadn't read this, from his comment.

By now you could fill one of these huge volumes with his intros, too, if he ever needs a project.

Overall, a top notch editorial job on display here.


Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : I ROW-BOAT - Cory Doctorow
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : JULIAN A CHRISTMAS STORY - Robert Charles Wilson
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : TIN MARSH - Michael Swanwick
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE DJINN'S WIFE - Ian McDonald
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE HOUSE BEYOND YOUR SKY - Benjamin Rosenbaum
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : WHERE THE GOLDEN APPLES GROW - Kage Baker
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : KIN - Bruce McAllister
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : SIGNAL TO NOISE - Alastair Reynolds
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE BIG ICE - Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : BOW SHOCK - Gregory Benford
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : IN THE RIVER - Justin Stanchfield
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : INCARNATION DAY - Walter Jon Williams
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : FAR AS YOU CAN GO - Greg Van Eekhout
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : GOOD MOUNTAIN - Robert Reed
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : I HOLD MY FATHER'S PAWS - David D. Levine
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : DEAD MEN WALKING - Paul J. McAuley
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : HOME MOVIES - Mary Rosenblum
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : DAMASCUS - Daryl Gregory
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : LIFE ON THE PRESERVATION - Jack Skillingstead
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : YELLOW CARD MAN - Paolo Bacigalupi
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : RIDING THE CROCODILE - Greg Egan
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE ILE OF DOGGES - Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE HIGHWAY MEN - Ken MacLeod
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE PACIFIC MYSTERY - Stephen Baxter
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : OKANOGGAN FALLS - Carolyn Ives Gilman
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : EVERY HOLE IS OUTLINED - John Barnes
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE TOWN ON BLIGHTED SEA - A. M. Dellamonica
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : NIGHTINGALE - Alastair Reynolds

Asimovian reef revival survival.

4.5 out of 5


Conscripts in a fallen future like snakes more than Indy does.

3 out of 5


"Naughty girl. Papa spank!" I wish! Wahhh!

4 out of 5


Computer cops crimp AI's carnal cavorting with calisthenic chick.

4 out of 5


Making a universal mess of it.

2.5 out of 5


Road trip not good.

3.5 out of 5


A boy and a alien hitman come to an understanding.

5 out of 5


Quantum reality spousal coordination.

4.5 out of 5


Sororcidecicle's inhuman regeneration return.

4 out of 5


An astronomer researching an obscure phenomenon struggles with tenure, a woman, and trying to work out if what he is seeing is natural or not.

4 out of 5


Underwater translation leavetaking gift.

4 out of 5


Parental supervision control program subversion.

4.5 out of 5


Witch robot sea stop swap.

3.5 out of 5


Colony vermiform prolongation oxygen depletion destruction.

3 out of 5


A dog's life for me.

4 out of 5


Clone killer uncovered confrontation.

4 out of 5


Memory recording transfer rejection.

4.5 out of 5


Jaysus, that's a hell of an idea to spread around.

3.5 out of 5


Daily alien revisit.

3 out of 5


Fallen biotech magnate takes insults badly.

4 out of 5


A couple of then 10K year old posthumans decide to attempt to contact some aliens known as the Aloof for obvious reasons. This inspires others to some innovation.

4 out of 5


Playing with past censorship.

3.5 out of 5


Air rage war road rollers into bandit chopper brake break.

4 out of 5


Alternate ratzi monster zeppelin expedition shows Pacific that time forgot lives up to hyperbole.

4 out of 5


Alien invasion imitation co-operation landscaping strategy.

4.5 out of 5


Long voyaging ship's sudden crew loss requires slave freedom and spectral viewing.

4 out of 5


Squid pr0n relatively Ruthless solution.

4 out of 5


Hospital ship joined.

4 out of 5