Year's Best SF 8 (Year's Best SF (Science Fiction)) [Kindle Edition]

David G. Hartwell (Author), Kathryn Cramer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The best science fiction short stories of 2002 and 2003, selected by David G. Hartwell, one of the most respected editors in the field.

The short story is one of the most vibrant and exciting areas in science fiction today. It is where the hot new authors emerge and where the beloved giants of the field continue to publish.

Now, building on the success of the first seven volumes, Eos will once again present a collection of the best stories of the year in mass market format. Here, gathered by David G. Hartwell, one of the most respected editors in the field, are stories with visions of tomorrow and yesterday, of the strange and the familiar, of the unknown and the unknowable.

With stories from some of the best and brightest names in science fiction, the Year’s Best SF 8 and SF9 is an indispensable guide for every science fiction fan.

About the Author

David G. Hartwell is a Senior Editor at Tor/Forge Books. He is the proprietor of Dragon Press, publisher and bookseller, which publishes The New York Review of Science Fiction. He is the author of Age of Wonders and the editor of many anthologies, including The Dark Descent, Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment, The World Treasury of Science Fiction, Northern Stars, The Ascent of Wonder (co-edited with Kathryn Cramer), and a number of Christmas anthologies. Recently he edited his sixth annual paperback volume of Year's Best SF and co-edited the new Year's Best Fantasy. He has won the Eaton Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Science Fiction Chronicle Poll and has been nominated for the Hugo Award twenty-four times to date.

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 506 KB
• Print Length: 512 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 006106453X
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (October 13, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000FC291Q
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #386,564 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Kathryn Cramer is a writer, anthologist, & Internet consultant who lives in Pleasantville, New York. She won a World Fantasy Award for best anthology for The Architecture of Fear, co-edited with Peter Pautz; she was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for her anthology Walls of Fear. She co-edited several anthologies of Christmas and fantasy stories with David G. Hartwell and now does the annual Year's Best Fantasy and Year's Best SF with him. She is on the editorial board of The New York Review of Science Fiction, (for which she has been nominated for the Hugo Award many times). She is a consultant with the Scientific Information Group for Wolfram Research.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best SF collection of the year, March 2, 2004

By 

R. Floyd (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Year's Best SF 8 (Mass Market Paperback)

I used to regularly have a problem with being so captured by a book that I'd neglect relatively unimportant things like eating and sleeping. I hadn't had that experience in quite a while, but this collection brought it back. Nearly every story is excellent. This book doesn't have the range of the massive _Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection_, but it benefits from its comparative selectivity. If you're only planning to get one of the two, I'd go for this one.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Number Eight in a Winning SF Series, April 10, 2010

By 

John M. Ford "johnDC" (near DC, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Year's Best SF 8 (Year's Best SF (Science Fiction)) (Kindle Edition)

Working my way further backward through the Year's Best SF series, I have encountered and assimilated number eight. It was, as usual, delicious. I keep worrying that I will pass the year in which David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer adopted their very effective editorial approach. No worries yet. I enjoyed all 23 stories, my appreciation sharpened by the brief, but informative introductions to each story.

Before I go off to download Year's Best SF 7 into my iPhone Kindle app, let me take a few minutes to praise my five favorites:

Geoffry Landis's "At Dorado" is a time-shuffled love story about a spaceman who braves wormhole travel between the starts and the girl who waits for him. They fight before he leaves on his last trip. There is one chance to change this sad ending to a better one.

Ken Wharton's "Flight Correction" introduce a couple and their child living on the future Galapagos Islands in the shadow of a working space elevator. She studies birds, he drinks to forget his research failures, and both watch their child's love not quite hold them together. Then their professional and personal interests come together.

Ursula Le Guin's "The Seasons of the Ansarac" describes the life patterns of an alien species that migrates between two different climates--and cultures. There is a lesson to be learned from another alien race's efforts to "cure" the Ansarac from their instincts. Le Guins story is ethnographic and excellent, if a bit moralistically heavy-handed. It is my favorite.

Terry Bisson's "I Saw the Light" takes us along with an astronaut who leaves her dog behind when she travels to the moon to help decipher a Sentinel-like artifact. We learn that powerful aliens knew humanity in the past. And are eager to see what we have become.

Paul Di Filippo's "Ailoura" retells the "Puss and Boots" fairy tale in a futuristic setting. Clever technology, alien human-animal hybrids and an intriguing planetary setting bring new life to a familiar story.

The collection is recommended for science fiction fans and would be critics. I learned some things about storytelling from a few of these stories. I enjoyed them all.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Free SF Reader, January 28, 2008

By 

Blue Tyson "- Research Finished" (Legion clubhouse) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Year's Best SF 8 (Mass Market Paperback)

As per the last several, Hartwell and Cramer point out they could have done three volumes this size with all the good stories they found.

The editors mention a couple of anthologies as decent, but mostly not for SF, and single out Peter Crowther's Mars Probes as the best of the lot for the year, although not with huge enthusiasm - however they have selected some stories from this book.

Not as many standout stories here this year, and as such, only a 3.77 average.

Year's Best SF 08 : In Paradise - Bruce Sterling
Year's Best SF 08 : Slow Life - Michael Swanwick
Year's Best SF 08 : Knapsack Poems - Eleanor Arnason
Year's Best SF 08 : At Dorado - Geoffrey A. Landis
Year's Best SF 08 : Coelacanths - Robert Reed
Year's Best SF 08 : Flight Correction - Ken Wharton
Year's Best SF 08 : Shoes - Robert Sheckley
Year's Best SF 08 : The Diamond Drill - Charles Sheffield
Year's Best SF 08 : The Seasons of the Ansarac - Ursula K. Le Guin
Year's Best SF 08 : Halo - Charles Stross
Year's Best SF 08 : I Saw the Light - Terry Bisson
Year's Best SF 08 : A Slow Day at the Gallery - A. M. Dellamonica
Year's Best SF 08 : Ailoura - Paul Di Filippo
Year's Best SF 08 : The Names of All the Spirits - J. R. Dunn
Year's Best SF 08 : Grandma - Carol Emshwiller
Year's Best SF 08 : Snow in the Desert - Neal Asher
Year's Best SF 08 : Singleton - Greg Egan
Year's Best SF 08 : Geropods - Robert Onopa
Year's Best SF 08 : Afterlife - Jack Williamson
Year's Best SF 08 : Shields of Mars - Gene Wolfe
Year's Best SF 08 : Patent Infringement - Nancy Kress
Year's Best SF 08 : Lost Sorceress of the Silent Citadel - Michael Moorcock

Phone dead? Let's walk instead.

3 out of 5


Flying first contact breakdown breakthrough confession comeback.

4 out of 5


Single bodied monster.

3 out of 5


Port wife.

3.5 out of 5


Life history lesson appearance.

3 out of 5


Space elevator a bit of an albatross.

4 out of 5


Smart footwear very annoying.

3.5 out of 5


Alien artifacts are a boy's best friend.

3.5 out of 5


Migratory pattern.

4 out of 5


Life aboard the Field Circus for Amber, with some occasional advice from dad.

5 out of 5


Moonlight message SETI trip.

4 out of 5


Alien art, human art, crazy people.

4 out of 5


Rejuvenation prevention murder motives.

4 out of 5


AIs, ain't Jacks worth it?

4 out of 5


Superpowers not inherited it seems, as a young girl is taken in by her famous grandmother after the death of her parents.

4 out of 5


Immortality bounty is more than a load of old bollocks.

4 out of 5


A scientist couple decide to have an artificial child, some years after a natural pregnancy miscarries.

"Carlos said breezily, 'Why not? There are so many others now. Sophie. Linus. Theo. Probably a hundred we don't even know about. It's not as if Ben's child won't have playmates.' Adai ' Autonomously Developing Artificial Intelligences ' had been appearing in a blaze of controversy every few months for the last four years. A Swiss researcher, Isabelle Schib, had taken the old models of morphogenesis that had led to software like Zelda, refined the technique by several orders of magnitude, and applied it to human genetic data. Wedded to sophisticated prosthetic bodies, Isabelle's creations inhabited the physical world and learnt from their experience, just like any other child."

There is plenty of discrimination, but their daughter has plans for all the other quantum branches in the long run, given the technology she has already.

4 out of 5


Old fashioned posse.

3.5 out of 5


Death scam skip.

3.5 out of 5


Planetary romance end.

4 out of 5


Gene litigant genie.

4 out of 5


Are your MacShards, gunning?

3 out of 5




4.5 out of 5