Science Fiction: The Best of the Year 2007 (Mass Market Paperback)

~ Richard Horton (Editor)
Key Phrases: death chamber, morph unit, fake dog, Science Fiction, The Best of the Year, Rich Horton (more...)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 476 pages
• Publisher: Leisure Books (May 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0843959045
• ISBN-13: 978-0843959048
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #575,671 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good collection, misleadning cover, May 26, 2007

By	Jim Mann (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

The cover of the mass market paperback of the 2007 version of this series lists the names "Joe Haldeman, Alastair Reynolds, Michael Swanwick." Yet none of those authors is represented here. Perhaps the publisher used the cover from another year, updated the year, but not the rest of the cover.

It's a good collection, but the publisher should have been more careful.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good collection, but some issues, January 23, 2008

By	Andrew Vasicek (Boston, MA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I loved most of the stories included, but was confronted by many typos and errors, such as missing words. Not enough to detract from the enjoyment of the story, but enough that I am writing a review. Also about 15 or so pages in the middle of my edition were simply missing...

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars reasonably ok - nothing great, April 24, 2008

By	T. Burket "tburket" (Potomac, MD United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The collection of stories from 2007 ranges from some duds to some very nice pieces, with nothing that challenges for greatness. The authors demonstrated some very creative ideas and themes, without the follow-through in several of those cases to make compelling enough stories.

Some favorites:

Okanoggan Falls - aliens invade Wisconsin and need what's underground. The relationship between a local woman and the alien leader makes this rather unusual. I'm not sure exactly why I liked this one quite a bit.

The Cartesian Theater - philosophical considerations about duplicate life and definition of humanity and the sould, similar in principle to AI debates, with a bit of mystery thrown in.

Incarnation Day - virtual children as a substitute for real, only they can become real with minds of their own. I liked how the virtual children can be purged from the system via reboot if the grownups want to get rid of them.

Exit Before Saving - morphing technology gets a spin here as a tool of espionage, with a little dangerous fun on the side, and a risk of being overtaken by a replacement technology that could make this obsolete. As with some of the other stories, this one could have been expanded.

Life on the Preservation - a piece of Earth is preserved in an endless cycle of repetition for interplanetary tourists to observe. Kylie is sent on a special mission and decides, hey, life here was pretty good. Pretty neat story that could have been better.

A Billion Eves - a novella about the propagation of humanity through a clever "ripper" technology that transports a group instantly to another world, from which the process expands indefinitely. With religious overtones and an ecological perspective. In fact, it has a bit of a jumble of ideas thrown together, creative enough to sustain interest.

Overall, three to four stars, rounded down for the appalling error in the cover and some sloppy editing.