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Neil Clarke

The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Five Paperback – October 27, 2020

by Neil Clarke (Editor)

57 ratings

Book 5 of 5: Best Science Fiction of the Year

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From Hugo Award-Winning Editor Neil Clarke, the Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year Collected in a Single Paperback Volume

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more—a task that can be accomplished by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to present the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, a yearly anthology compiled by Hugo and World Fantasy Award–winning editor Neil Clarke, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Clarke, publisher and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed and award-winning magazine Clarkesworld, has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year’s writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome “sensawunda” that the genre has to offer.

Print length

624 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Night Shade
Publication date

October 27, 2020
Dimensions

6 x 1.9 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

194910222X
ISBN-13

978-1949102222
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Editorial Reviews

Review

PRAISE FOR ANTHOLOGIES FROM NEIL CLARKE AND NIGHT SHADE BOOKS

“Readers should savor the stories a few at a time to get the most out of Clarke’s superior selections . . . but there are no inferior pieces here. This is a fine, thoughtful book.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review for Not One of Us

“Well-known SF authors grace this . . . top-notch selection of imaginative and thought-provoking stories.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review for More Human Than Human

“Clarke’s stellar reprint anthology explores the expansive variety of space exploration stories. . . . Outstanding works in which extreme environments bring out the best and worst of human nature.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review for The Final Frontier

“Masterful editor Neil Clarke has assembled an exotic, bountiful treasure chest of reprint tales dedicated to that mode of SF that can arguably be said to constitute the very core of the field, the space opera.”
—Asimov’s on Galactic Empires

“Over all this anthology is mostly hits, remarkably few misses. Highly recommended.”
—New York Times on Galactic Empires

About the Author

Neil Clarke is the editor of Clarkesworld and Forever Magazine and owner of Wyrm Publishing, and a six-time Hugo Award Nominee for Best Editor (short form). He currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and two children.

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Product details

Publisher : Night Shade (October 27, 2020)
Language : English
Paperback : 624 pages
ISBN-10 : 194910222X
ISBN-13 : 978-1949102222
Item Weight : 1.6 pounds
Dimensions : 6 x 1.9 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #200,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #307 in Science Fiction Short Stories
- #535 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Books)
- #1,232 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
57 ratings

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5 star		57%
4 star		25%
3 star		11%
2 star		3%
1 star		4%

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Jon Ives

A Series Coming Into It's Own

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2021

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Previously, this series suffered a bit when compared to the incomparable Gardner Dozois collections, but Neil Clarke has taken it upon himself to step into those shoes now that we have lost Mr. Dozois...and he has definitely stepped up his game. It's not just the inclusion of the "State of Science Fiction" Preface Section which was very well done and researched, he has stepped up the quality level of the stories included in the book. All of the stories are enjoyable, but some rise above the rest as really excellent. This particular edition is the best so far and makes me very hopeful for the future of this anthology series. One request, though, if the editor reads this. Would you please include in your "Year in Science Fiction" a critique of the year's offerings of TV and Movies? I always loved Gardner's take on that media, which is how the average Joe is usually exposed to Sci Fi. With that you would truly be the heir to the crown.

6 people found this helpful

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Solid Scot

Don't waste your money

Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2021

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Despite all of the accolades and "prestige" that Clarke panders to, this collection is a steaming pile of horse pucky. If you're into gender dysphoria, dangling plots, pandering to foreign writers who really aren't all that good, or plots set in exotic locals that still fall flatter than a pancake, then this collection is for you. The state of SF in general is crap because room is made to promote social justice issues over good writing. In short, the Disney effect. Just pass. Clarke has zero clue as to what good fiction. About two of the stories in this collection are any good, but that hardly makes it worth the cost. The world of SF is definitely declining, but it's not due to a lack of good writers, rather an industry that panders to this garbage....

5 people found this helpful

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Margaret

A Real Disappointment For Gardner Dozois Fans

Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2021

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For those who were hoping that Neil Clarke's "Best Science Fiction" series would manage to fill the void left by Gardner Dozois' passing, this is a reminder of what we once had.

There are perhaps a tiny handful of enjoyable stories in this entire volume; The Work Of Wolves, and In The Stillness Between Stars stand out, but sadly, so many others are trite exercises in social consciousness, lacking in both subtlety and style. And endings. How is it possible to have some many stories with astonishingly weak endings?

It's difficult to believe that there weren't better examples of good speculative fiction to have chosen, because these are enough to make one give up on the genre.

4 people found this helpful

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Rhonda A. Atlanta

Good read.

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2021

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Very good collection of stories to while away the hours. Not all my cup of tea but definitely worth the read.

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Kindle Customer

Some very good stories, but some inconsistency

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2021

This is a great collection (and great cover art as well). Most of the stories are original, well written, and I wish they had been novels. In fact, "Permafrost", probably the best story in the collection, is nearly a novella, and I wanted it to be longer. But some fell a little short, and for a compilation, I thought they could have found some better examples.

I've been reading sci-fi for forty years, and I've become a bit picky. There are some tropes in sci-fi that I will still fall for (the military sci-fi where the hardened soldier outwits both the evil aliens and the incompetent generals to find out we all, in fact, should get along), but in general, I need something new or interesting to get me to finish a five page story, much less a book.

I've watched sci-fi expand from sort of a white male power fantasy to a more diverse and interesting genre (Arkady Martine's "A Memory Called Empire" or Nnedi Okorafor's "Binti"). However, I've also seen where some of this diversity is reduced to stereotyped tropes and themes, and unfortunately there are a few stories in this collection that follow this trend, rather than actually developing unique and characters.

*Spoilers below*
For example, one story has a troubled lesbian protagonist, which is fine, even if it's kind of common now in sci-fi (I am reading two novels at the same time as this collection, every female in them is a lesbian, and half the men are gay as well), working in a moon station. They discover something interesting possibly alien, possibly mind-control, "2001"ish, and I was thinking "this is going to be pretty good". Then they start talking about the 1% (they actual said 1%) and how evil they were (a trope), then the protagonist turns out to be both not-liked-but-also-sympathized-with (a trope), and the boss is an a-whole (trope again). Then the characters start seeing dead relatives from a disaster that befell earth recently (hence the 'troubled', but they ALL are troubled, we now discover). Their reaction? Take off their helmets while outside the station. What? If I'm driving a car down the road and see my dead mother or brother, I don't jump out the window, I stop the car. I thought the story would develop into some sort of mind control, but no, it's something much simpler. And the worst part, it apparently killed a whole other team before (and also before the disaster, so not sure why it affected that previous team), except, somehow, the leader of the current team. Who said nothing. To anyone. And nothing was done to fix the issue, apparently because the 1% couldn't be bothered with the poor female/non-white males who make up the team (?). Even when the team told the supervisor they were working in the area of the anomaly, she took no action (even though it killed her previous team and almost killed her) and it was never clear why (the bottom dollar?).

So, I thought, is this a bad story, or are the tropes overshadowing the story and I'm just being cynical? So I did the Hawkeye Project approach. The Hawkeye project is from comics, and it shows how stupid and degrading female superheroes are depicted in art. Take a female superhero artwork, do the same artwork with Hawkeye, and if it looks ridiculous, it is. So I did that with this (and a couple other) stories: I changed all the characters into SWMs (straight white males), and the story(ies) completely fell apart.

This is kind of a long review for what is, after all, still four stars, but I find myself reading more short story complications at the end of the year because I don't have the energy to immerse into a full fledged novel, sometimes I can't read for weeks, and I forget the story. In doing so, I'm finding myself skipping stories, because they are falling into the same patterns for the characters. So I focus on 'end of the year' compilations, because they have 'the best of the best', but even these now are seeing the same trend of "establish a popular worldview, and cram some story in there as well". It's like the "Gor" novels in reverse.

In this time of increased diversity, where reviews always seem to say "a unique perspective with unique characters" in actuallity they seem to all be exactly the same, with the same development, the same 'bad guys' and no story. Yet, if some of the details had been made more universal (like, no one knew Rico was Filipino in Starhip Troopers until like the last two pages), and more focus was on the actual story, I think the diversity of the characters would come more naturally, and the stories would be better.

5 people found this helpful

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Douglas Clark

A good substitute for the Gardener Dozois edited books.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 11, 2021

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I enjoyed most of the selection of stories in this anthology Of course, not everyone will be to every reader's taste but the overall quality was high and the proportion I was not grabbed by was low. I can recommend the Kindle edition in which I have not noticed any glaring errors. I used to buy the annual anthology edited by GD and I think that I will now buy this one each year. I was really quite disappointed when the publication got delayed by Covid.

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