The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 24

by Gardner Dozois (Editor), Robert Reed, Lavie Tidhar

For over twenty years, Gardner Dozois's compelling annual has deservedly remained the single must-have collection for science fiction fans around the world. Unfailingly offering the very best new stories of the year, it showcases up-and-coming stars alongside established masters of the genre. This year's collection includes the work of over thirty writers.

Contents:
- Summation: 2010 by Gardner Dozois
- A History of Terraforming (2010) by Robert Reed
- The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String (2010) by Lavie Tidhar
- The Emperor of Mars (2010) by Allen M. Steele
- The Things (2010) by Peter Watts
- The Sultan of the Clouds (2010) by Geoffrey A. Landis
- The Books (2010) by Kage Baker
- Re-Crossing the Styx (2010, variant of Recrossing the Styx) by Ian R. MacLeod
- And Ministers of Grace (2010) by Tad Williams
- Mammoths of the Great Plains (2010) by Eleanor Arnason
- Sleeping Dogs (2010) by Joe Haldeman
- Jackie's Boy (2010, variant of Jackie's-Boy) by Steven Popkes
- Flying in the Face of God (2010) by Nina Allan
- Chicken Little (2009) by Cory Doctorow
- Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain (2010) by Yoon Ha Lee
- Return to Titan (2010) by Stephen Baxter
- Under the Moons of Venus (2010) by Damien Broderick
- Seven Years from Home (2010) by Naomi Novik
- The Peacock Cloak (2010) by Chris Beckett
- Amaryllis (2010) by Carrie Vaughn
- Seven Cities of Gold (2010) by David Moles
- Again and Again and Again (2010) by Rachel Swirsky
- Elegy for a Young Elk (2010) by Hannu Rajaniemi
- Libertarian Russia (2010) by Michael Swanwick
- The Night Train (2010) by Lavie Tidhar
- My Father's Singularity (2010) by Brenda Cooper
- The Starship Mechanic (2010) by Jay Lake and Ken Scholes
- Sleepover (2010) by Alastair Reynolds
- The Taste of Night (2010) by Pat Cadigan
- Blind Cat Dance (2010) by Alexander Jablokov
- The Shipmaker (2010) by Aliette de Bodard
- In-Fall (2010) by Ted Kosmatka
- Chimbwi (2010) by Jim Hawkins
- Dead Man's Run (2010) by Robert Reed
- Honorable Mentions: 2010 by Gardner Dozois

Front cover illustration by Joe Roberts

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Ebooks, Science Fiction Fantasy, Collections

720 pages, Paperback

First published July 5, 2011

About the author

Gardner Raymond Dozois was an American science fiction author and editor. He was editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine from 1984 to 2004. He won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, both as an editor and a writer of short fiction.
Wikipedia entry: Gardner Dozois

http://us.macmillan.com/author/gardne...

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read late 2016. Reread notes, Fall 2023. Standout stories for me are listed in order as published. I've combined notes from my two readings.
ToC plus story notes and sources: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?...

■ Geoffrey A. Landis, "The Sultan of the Clouds", novella. "A feel of the Golden Age about it," per Mark Watson. For me, 3.8+ stars.
■ Kage Baker, "The Books", short story. Her last published story. 3.6 stars.
■ Eleanor Arnason, "Mammoths of the Great Plains", novella. Philosophic alt-hist science-fantasy. 4 stars. My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
■ Joe Haldeman, "Sleeping Dogs", short story. Not a "Forever War" story, but close in feel. 3.5+ stars.
■ Steven Popkes, "Jackie’s Boy", novella. A boy and his elephant at the end of the world. 3.6 stars. My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
■ Cory Doctorow, "Chicken Little", novella. A major work: 4+ stars. Copy online at https://www.tor.com/2011/04/06/chicke... More opinions: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
■ Michael Swanwick, "Libertarian Russia", short story. Ultra-violent. Multiple rereads, and I still don't much like the ending. Likely Swanwick's best Russia story. 4+ stars.
■ Alastair Reynolds, "Sleepover", novelette. An unhappy and bizarre far future. For me, one of his best shorts: 3.9 stars. More details: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
■ Alexander Jablokov, "Blind Cat Dance", novelette. Beautifully written, another strange, hopeful future. 3.7 stars.

-- and plenty more stories just a hair behind these! One of Dozois' better collections. Very few clunkers.

Other opinions:
I like Dave's review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And, for the details, Mark Watson's:
http://bestsf.net/the-years-best-scie...
-- which has links for stories available online.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there's a theme that runs through this collection, it's that technologies for dramatic life extension, long a staple of science fiction, may only benefit a privileged few, and may not end up working as well as hoped. This topic is among those explored by the best two stories: Cory Doctorow's effervescent Chicken Little, and Alastair Reynolds's intriguing Sleepover.

Like Doctorow's earlier Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Chicken Little delighted me with its wonderful characters, funny situations, and flourishes of peripheral detail, including engineered dancing bears (perhaps influenced by Disney's Country Western Bears Jamboree.) They make it easy to forgive the narrator for awkwardly concealing an important detail about the protagonist's background.

I can't write much about Sleepover without spoilers, but suffice to say that the cosmology underpinning its universe is surprising and fascinating.

The same things are true about another of my favorites, Yoon Ha Lee's excellent Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain.

Geoffrey A. Landis's Sultan of the Clouds wins my prestigious Terraforming Study Group Award, with its appealing ideas for colonizing Venus.

I was also intrigued by Stephen Baxter's depiction of Saturn's largest moon in Return to Titan, but the actions of its characters so angered me as to make me dislike the story in retrospect.

Sentimental favorites The Emperor of Mars (by Allen M. Steele) and The Starship Mechanic (by Jay Lake and Ken Scholes) infect with their love of the genre.

Another theme that pervades the collection is the genetic re-imagining of giant terrestrial mammals. Doctorow's dancing bears are joined by a talking elephant in Steven Popkes's Jackie's Boy, and by the oblivious cougar of Alexander Jablokov's truly original (though somewhat oddly-organized) Blind Cat Dance, in which wilderness is restored to Earth by engineering animals that can't perceive humans.

I found Brenda Cooper's short My Father's Singularity deeply moving, and appreciated its outlier skepticism about promises that we will soon by uploading ourselves into computers and chatting with self-aware software.

I really enjoyed Rachel Swirsky's Again and Again and Again, which I might have titled "Parents Just Don't Understand".

As always, Dozois annual summary of the state of science fiction is worth the price of admission. So perhaps he can be excused for later bestowing an honorable mention upon his own 2010 short story.

There are a few interlopers here… Dozois clearly thinks Damien Broderick's Under the Moons of Venus is brilliant, but I found it bewildering and deranged.

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Years ago, I had a subscription to two magazines: Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Analog Science Fiction and Fact. For about four or five months I was able to keep up with reading the two. After that, I ended up reading only one or two more issues (of both magazines) and the rest of my subscription (two year's worth) lay unread for a long time. There was something that took me by surprise while reading them, though. After all, one was of a genre I greatly enjoyed and had been exploring lots when I first ordered the magazine. The other I had read when I was much younger and, even then, had not focused on the genre as such, just a couple of series. Yes, I was really into sf and the mystery was just something extra that I was curious about. What struck me as strange, though, was that every month, there was great consistency in which issue inspired me most.

It was Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

The difference between the two was strange for me to grasp at that age ... and still confuses me (I'm sure someone in the comments will give me some explanation I haven't thought of). Whereas Analog had quality sf, none of it seemed much different from the rest of the stories in that book. As the months wore on, the stories all felt the same. As if the sf world had stagnated and thought talking about new technology was enough to make their retold story new. Hitchcock, on the other had, provided stories unique within each issue as well as between issues. Sure, some made references to certain famous detectives or the style of those detectives ... but most found new ways to create mysteries that truly kept me guessing. None of them felt like retreads of the same story, even when the crime committed was the same as the three stories that came before. They were authors exploring the outer fringes of their literary boundaries and that was exciting. The sf world, on the other hand, could explore the entire universe and I never felt as if I left Earth (in a bad way).

This was something I thought of often while reading this collection. Oh sure, there are some fascinating stories in here (I have a story-by-story commentary below ... I might be missing one or two entries, but don't care), but even those that were cool or knowingly referenced the past and built on it left me flat. Those that experimented with literary devices or strange narrators often let their experiment get in the way of the story (there are numerous examples including "Blind Cat Dance" and "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain"). The ones I liked best of this set were usually simpler stories ("Dead Man's Run" being the exception ... but that was also part mystery!) told quickly with no special tricks about how they were told.

Sure, the last story was cool. Yeah, I liked about half of the stories (give or take). But for a "Best of" collection, I need to leave with more than just "liking" a group of stories. I need to be blown away, and there was nothing here that did that. That's part of the reason why this collection took me almost two years to read. TWO YEARS!

Needless to say, I'm happy to sell my copy to someone else who wants it. If this is the current state of sf ... wow, where have all the interesting writers gone?

And before you get all up in my face about short stories aren't long enough for experimentation, note that not only are their novellas included in this set, but also I'd point out collections like The Dark Descent, Dangerous Visions or even Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison. Both of those are genre specific short story collections (one is even author specific) and they still contain stories that vary wildly in tone, style, atmosphere, writing styles ... in short, they feel inspirational. This collection just feels like Analog Science Fiction and Fact pieces.
----
Though originally I started reading this as potential for an SF class (that was never taught), by about "Mammoths" I was just reading the book to finish it.

"History of Terraforming": Meandering story focused on a non-ambitious protagonist ... meaning rather boring. Lots of great isolated moments, but not what I would start students with.

"Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String": Ok short piece that uses technology to imply an old story told many times.

"Emperor of Mars": Important story dealing with the sf that came before it. We will definitely read this!

"The Things": Neat idea of retelling "Who Am I"/"The Thing From Another World"/"The Thing" from the alien's perspective. The time structure was a little off, though, and that kept this from truly being a classic.

"The Sultan of Clouds": Seemed a little long for the story it was telling. Neat sky pirates though!

"The Books": Nice short story about life after "the event" without falling into (too many) cliches.

"Recrossing the Styx": Enjoyable short focused on a tale oft-told and how to use SF means to tell it anew.

"And Ministers of Grace": A tad heavy handed, but interesting take on jihad. I kept hoping for more sympathy towards religion, though.

"Mammoths of the Great Plains": It will be hard to find a better story. This was amazing and moving.

"Sleeping Dogs": Really nice short piece about reestablishing memories that don't matter.

"Jackie's Boy": The Jungle Book meets I Am Legend minus vampires ... but still really awesome.

"Chicken Little": Scary and good and dark and cool.

"Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain": A nice try of an experimental style that seems to reach a little farther than it could actually grasp.

"Return to Titan": A nice exploration piece. A bit long for teaching, but still nice.

"Under The Moons of Venus": If Ballard is first introduced, then this could work ... but I have read no Ballard and it just seems strange and surreal instead.

"Seven Years From Home": Interesting idea got bogged down in boring writing and left me feeling rather cheated.

"The Peacock Cloak": Alright as a superpower/god-centered story.

"Amaryllis": Incredibly realistic and plausible future ... but I know I've read that same story before.

"Seven Cities of Gold": Apocalypse Now and Aguirre: The Wrath of God told in a futuristic setting. The similarities to those two films kept this from transcending those reference points.

"Again and Again and Again": Best line - "Gyptia waited until she regrew her eyes, and then she rolled them." Not a story so much as an exploration in shocking previous generations. Cute.

"Elegy for a Young Elk": Like Dhalgren in the best of ways. Only shorter and easier to grasp.

"Libertarian Russia": A short piece that was interesting. Really, with the exception of the genetically encoded technology mentioned, this could have been found in any short story collection ... and I like that.

"The Night Train": Really neat sf told with fluxing timelines in a future that resembles Triton and the other Delany short story "Aye, and Gomorrah" if they were mixed together with the anime series, Cowboy Bebop.

"My Father's Singularity": Another generation gap story in the collection. Not as funny as the last, but a little more moving.

"The Starship Mechanic": I really liked this short story. Somewhat funny, even when deceptively simple. Maybe not so deceptive either ... who knows.

"Sleepover": Lots of fun with a slight dark fantasy twist. Pretty neat overall.

"The Taste of Night": I think this would have been better if it had been longer, darker, or ended later. Akin to the main thread, there was something missing, just out of reach of the story.

"Blind Cat Dance": I feel like the story was made more complicated than it needed to be. This is another cautionary environmental tale with a glimpse of human involvement ... but too many twists keeps it from being completely clear.

"Infall": Very short. A bit of flash fiction that plays with the ideas in a nice way.

"Chimbwi": Made more interesting by its lack of reliance on technology, though it still feels like only part of the full story.

"Dead Man's Run": Possibly the most original and interesting story in the set.

[Johan Haneveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

8,5 points for this one. I read some comments on here stating that the quality of this collection was low, or disappointing, and that given these stories the state of the SF-genre was desperate. So I went in with low expectations. But I was very pleasantly surprised. More so than with more recent instalments of this series the stories were to my taste and delivered what I seek in the SF-genre. Yes, there were some esotheric stories where it was hard to make out what was going on or what the science fictional idea underpinning the tale was (Lavie Tidhar will never be my favorite author). There were a couple of near future stories, as well. Most stories however were real SF with great ideas, other worlds and circumstances and speculation thrown in. I love hard SF and reading the stories by Baxter and Reynolds brought me joy (even though I had read both of them before, just like the story The Things). Baxters tour across Titan was inspiring and evocative, even though his characters are not that rounded. I was surprised by the tense story written by Tad Williams. It's easy to forget he also writes SF, as he is known because of his fantasy tomes, but his story about religious conflict, though it lacked nuance, was a roller coaster ride. Hannu Rajaniemis story was rich in ideas (I had read that one before as well), and I liked the elegiac alternative history tale 'Mammoths of the great plains' - beautifully written and atmospheric. Lots of great stories here for the hard SF-fans in my opinion.

[Nemezida · Rating 3 out of 5]

I realized I hadn’t read science fiction books in a long time. Therefore, I decided to start small – from the anthology The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection edited by the famous Gardner Dozois.

This collection was first published in 2011 and consists of 33 short stories and novellas.

Basically, the works are average, but I enjoyed 5 of them:
- Recrossing the Styx by Ian R. MacLeod;
- Sleepover by Alastair Reynolds;
- Elegy for a Young Elk by Hannu Rajaniemi;
- The Shipmaker by Aliette de Bodard;
- The Emperor of Mars by Allen M. Steele.

Generally, I look positively at such an experience : I discovered many new writers for myself, and I can even make a couple of remarks in which direction SF was moving that year.

[John Hodgkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gardner Dozois was a master at building up these SF collections of new stories and this is no exception. Some are a surprise, such as the Robert Reed one, and others are a comfort to read from old and new SF authors.

[Meran · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories and authors with their ratings are below:

A History of Terraforming by Robert Reed - 3 stars
The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String by Lavie Tidhar - 4 stars
The Emperor of Mars by Allen M Steele - 5 stars
The Things by Peter Watts - interesting take from the "monster's" viewpoint, 4 stars
The Sultan of the Clouds by Geoffrey A Landis - 4 stars
The Books by Kage Baker - !! Books! 4.5 stars
Re-Crossing the Styx by by Ian MacLeod - 3.5 stars
And Ministers of Grace by Tad Williams - 5 stars
Mammoths of the Great Plains by Eleanor Arnason - great dream! 4.5 stars
Sleeping Dogs by Joe Haldeman - 3 stars
Jackie's Boy by Steven Popkes - 4 stars
Flying in the Face of God by Nina Allen - 3 stars
Chicken Little by Cory Doctorow - tooo looonnngggg 3 stars
Flower, Mercy, Needle Chain by Yoon Ha Lee - 4 stars
Return to Titan by Stephen Baxter - though a bit long, the story, filled with moralities, human frailty, and wondrous other worldly descriptions deserves 5 stars!
Under the Moons of Venus by Damien Broderick - 3 stars
Seven Years from Home by Naomi Novik - well crafted storyline, 5 stars
The Peacock Cloak by Chris Beckett - llloongg 3 stars
Amaryllis by Carrie Vaughn - well written 4 stars
Seven Cities of Gold by David Moles - 3 stars
Again and Again and Again by Rachel Swirsky - very funny, answers questions many of us have asked of each new generation 4.5 stars
Elegy for a Young Elk by Hannu Rajaniemi - delicious! 5 stars
Libertarian Russia by Michael Swanwick - 3 stars
The Night Train by Lavie Tidhar - 3 stars
My Father's Singularity by Brenda Cooper - 3 stars
The Starship Mechanic by Jay Lake and Ken Scholes - 2 stars
Sleepover by Alastair Reynolds - excellent storytelling 4 stars
The Taste of Night by Pat Cadigan - 4 stars
Blind Cat Dance by Alexander Jablakov - 4 stars
The Shipmaker by Aliette de Bodard - 5 stars
In-Fall by Ted Kosmatka - 5 stars
Chimbwi by Jim Hawkins - 4 stars
Dead Man's Run by Robert Reed - 3 stars

[Dale H · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great series of books, but this particular volume was a bit more hit-and-miss.

Some of my Favorites:

"The Emperor of Mars" by Allen M Steele is the tale of a physical laborer from Earth who hears of a tragedy back home and goes a little bit crazy - but he is saved by the power of losing himself in literature.

"The Things" by Peter Watts is the story of John Carpenter's "The Thing" but told from the perspective of the alien.

"The Sultan of The Clouds" by Geoffrey Landis is about an extremely wealthy family who have based their kingdom in the clouds of Venus, and their very unusual courting rituals.

"And Ministers of Grace" by Tad Williams is an intriguing story of right-wing religious terrorism in the future.

"Jackie's Boy" by Steven Popkes is a story set in post-apocalyptic future America between an orphan and a genetically manipulated talking elephant.

"Chicken Little" by Cory Doctorow takes us to the distant future where the rich are Super Rich and have the technology to live for hundreds of years but in a vastly different form.

"Return to Titan" by Stephen Baxter is a novella about an adventure on the surface of Saturn's moon.

"Sleepover" by Alistair Reynolds is the story of a wealthy man who paid big bucks to be cryogenically frozen and woken up in a future paradise, not woken up because the facility that housed him needed another worker.

Recommended!

[7thTrooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

En ganska frisk blandning, minst sagt, med höga toppar och djupa dalar. Inte en enda var i och för sig rent ut dålig men många orkade jag inte läsa hela då det inte fanns något alls i dem som lockade, inte språket, inte karaktärer eller världsbyggen. Några jag läst innan men de flesta helt nya. Bäst i samlingen är nog utan tvekan "Jackie's Boy", av Steven Popkes, och "Elegy for a Young Elk" av Hannu Rajaniemi. Lavie Tidhars två bidrag är och de som kommer närmast och han har onekligen den bästa stilen i samlingen, liknande en Samuel R. Delany utan bromspedal. Samlingens absoluta förlorare är tyvärr Robert Reed vars två bidrag jag inte kunde ta mig igenom alls. Den får tre stjärnor för att topparna vägde upp mot resten.

[Dmitry Verkhoturov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Хорошие на мой взгляд рассказы, в порядке появления в сборнике:
- Кори Доктроу - Цыплёнок Цыпа
- Дэмиен Бродерик - Под лунами Венеры
- Наоми Новик - В семи годах от дома
- Крис Бекетт - Павлиний плащ
- Дэвид Моулз - Семь золотых городов
- Ханну Райанеми - Эллегия о молодом лосе
- Майкл Суэнвик - Либертарианская Россия
- Бренда Купер - Сингулярность моего отца
- Джей Лейк и Кен Скоулз - Механик космического коробля
* Александр Яблоков - Танец слепого кота
- Тед Косматка - В свободном падении
- Роберт Рид - Мертвец бежит

[Janet Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Standouts- *** “the things,” “and ministers of grace,” “recrossing the Styx,” “mammoths of the Great Plains,” “Jackie’s boy,” “chicken little,” peacock cloak, again and again and again, elegy for a young elk, libertarian Russia, chimbwi, dead mans run”

[James Aura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have yet to read a bad edition of these yearly anthologies by the late, great Dardner Dozois.
Nary a clinker in the bunch and a great many ScFi short stories and novellas I would rate at
4 or 5 stars. If you're a Science Fiction fan, you will likely enjoy this one.

[Ryan Lavallee]

Nice mix of a variety of styles of science fiction (alternate history, other world, space, biological, space opera) and length. I'd say about 50% were very good, 25% were decent and 25% was pointless drivel.

[AlaraChan IDA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some stories were interesting and I enjoyed them, but some were not. Still a good read.

[Marjan Liovic · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gardner Dozois is the worst editor in the world, he always chooses the lamest stories..

[Bill Borre]

"The Starship Mechanic" by Jay Lake - wc
"The Things" by Peter Watts - wc

[Noah Rozov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kage Baker "The Books" 2010. Another example of how the book should be written.

[IAX XAI · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will edit this review as I go.

Alastair Reynolds's Sleepover is an interesting dystopia but ultimately left me feeling a bit...empty.. 4/5

[Mouldy Squid · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strangely disappointing outing in this venerable series. While there is nothing in here that is terrible, or in anyway below Dozois' usually exacting standards, the Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection under-performs.

These annuals usually clock in at 500, 000 or so words, but #28 comes in significantly less. On the shelf, the volume is half of its neighbours, and this is with the new dimensions that St. Martins is printing their trades at. The size is a disappointment. I won't hazard a guess to why there are fewer stories; perhaps much of what was published didn't make the cut. It certainly isn't because there is less good science fiction being published these days, quite the opposite. Dozois does have a bias towards old style print rather than on-line sources, and print (at least at short fiction lengths) is a dying medium. I won't say that Dozois picked less stories because most things are on-line since a glance at the Sources page shows that several of the stories that made the volume are from on-line sites. Perhaps Mr. Dozois is simply showing his age and is unable to keep up with the planet wide barrage of science fiction short stories being published. This is not a slight; I certainly wouldn't be able to keep up such a prodigious reading pace as he has for the past 28 years.

The half-pint volume does disappoint me. I rely on the Year's Best… to keep me up on the trends, the best stories and the newest writers of the year so that I don't have to undertake the Herculean task that Mr. Dozois does. Because there is less here than in previous years, the-usual-suspects to new-and-exciting ratio is significantly skewed. While I do very much enjoy most of the usual suspects, it is always refreshing to have new writers to discover.

If the size wasn't the greatest disappointment of this year's volume, the stories actually are. This is not to say that it is full of bad stories, (quite the opposite, Dozois' standards haven't slipped a bit) but it is full of stories I didn't really enjoy. There has been a trend recently towards short, rambling plotless "feelies" (best exemplified by J.J Adams anthologies) told usually from the point of view of a child or other such powerless observer. While there is some artistic merit in this kind of story, too many at once becomes grating and annoying. These types of stories always seem incomplete to me, as if the author used up all the words describing the world and left none for anything to actually happen. The Kage Baker in this volume exemplifies the kind of story I am talking about. This volume is packed with them, to the detriment I think, of more compelling and exciting stories.

None of these stories are bad, as I have said, they are just not to my taste. Even my favourite authors who make an appearance here left me feeling "meh" and that in itself is unusual. There are, however, a couple of standouts.

Peter Watts' "The Things" is one of the best, most daring and horrific stories I have read this year. A re-telling of John Carpenter's The Thing from the point of view of the Thing is no easy task and Watts pulls it off with grace, panache and a good deal of disturbing imagery. Easily the best story in the volume.

Joe Haldeman's "Sleeping Dogs" is solid as is Tidhar's "The Night Train". Chris Beckett's "The Peacock Cloak" is a tour de force Zelaznyesque examination of creation, rebellion and free will. I quite enjoyed Swanwick's "Libertarian Russia" even though it isn't as strong as some of the others in the volume. Alastair Reynolds (one of my favourite authors) made me by turns depressed, anxious, mystified, terrified and depressed again with "Sleepover"; the only story that really offers "The Things" a challenge for best in show.

All in all, the volume is worth the price and effort of reading, even if it is a disappointing instalment. Dozois' own Summation (of the genre for the year) is worth the hard earned cash and I would keep buying the volumes just for that even if the volume was filled with stories I hate. If you want the best possible view of the science fiction field for the year, Dozois' is the one to get. Disappointing or no, it is still the best re-print anthology of the year.

I do hope that the Twenty-Nineth outperforms the Twenty-Eighth, however.

[Radu Harabula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Volumul 8 de la Nemira, a doua parte din Dozois #28.

Întoarcerea pe Titan - Stephen Baxter
Cândva, când vom avea spatioport și găuri de vierme, o expediție se duce pe Titan ca sa cerceteze dacă exista viata (de fapt sa dovedească ca nu) și sa se apuce de exploatat temeinic și comercial metanul. Descrierea trecerii printr-o gaura de vierme seamăna cu ceea ce se vede în Războiul Stelelor când Han Solo bagă în treapta de viteza superioara de viteza.
Ajung pe Titan, rămân în atmosfera cu ajutorul unui balon cu aer cald dar sunt atacați de niște creaturi ca niște pasări, se prăbușesc pe suprafața unde sunt atacați de niște crabi care le sfâșie naveta în căutare de metal, și tot asa ... adică viata pe alte baze decât carbon.
Probabil ca clasicul grup de oameni de știința britanici și americani au mustăcit îndelung încercând sa caute breșe în construcția logico-științifică a lui Baxter
In final descoperă o gaura de vierme către un alt univers dar distrug totul, toate găurile și dovezile, pentru profit și un viitor luminos. Titan pe post de Rosia Montana.
Un hard sf cat se poate de sec, pur și dur, care pare scris în anii 60, cu multa xenobiologie, chimie, fizica, ca nu degeaba are Baxter diploma în matematica (Cambridge!) și un doctorat în aerospațiale(!).

Sub lunile lui Venus - Damien Broderick
Un câine ii vorbește unui supraviețuitor rămas pe Pământ după ce omenirea s-a mutat pe Venus. Sau e doar un bolnav psihic care își închipuie toate astea? Pacientul/eroul psihanalizat de o bunaciune de doctoriță e de fapt doctorul/psihologul bunaciunii care crede invers.
Nu am înțeles nimic și am renunțat.

Șapte ani departe de casa - Naomi Novik
O birocrata a Confederației (umane) este trimisa pe o planeta scindata intre doua populații :cei noi (al doilea val de colonizare) sunt mai hrăpăreți, mai energici, dornici de dezvoltare, ocupa continentul mai mic, consuma resursele și vor mai mult și cei vechi (primul val de colonizare, cu câteva sute de ani înainte) de pe continentul mai mare, sunt mai eco, mai conservativi & mai integrați cu mediul, mai eco-friendly, cu o alta filozofie de viata, care aveau aripi datorita unui parazit pe care îl cultivau.
Tipa ajunge la cei vechi pe continentul mare, la cei vechi, unde este primita cu răceala și este ignorata total de adulți dar nu și de copii care o ajuta și învață, fiind un fel de instructori americani care ajuta forțele locale sa utilizeze noile tehnologii.
Coloniștii noi vin cu tehnici de terra formare care implica raderea bio a tot ce e băștinaș.
Localnicii le-o dau peste bot confederației și coloniștilor veniți mai de curând cu biotehnologii de moda veche, ecologiste, antrenând de exemplu furnici sa caute și sa dezamorseze mine :).
Din seria râul, ramul mi-e prieten numai mie ... și cu astea de partea mea te fac de nu te vezi.
Arata cumva subtil admirația mediului academic fata de acest mod de viata eco și cam hippie, dar care se pare ca nu e chiar asa.
Un pic de aroma din Ursula K. Le Guin, din familia Lumii ii spuneau pădure.

continuarea pe ... si vreme(a) e ca sa citim

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me start by saying that I don't like short story collections. I've always avoided them as a reader - to me a story cannot be done proper justice unless it is in novel format.

That said, I absolutely loved this anthology. True, there was a selection or two that were infuriating in their brevity and lack of conclusion. Lavie Tidhar's "The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String" springs immediately to mind - though the language was mystical, the imagery beautiful, the story seemed to begin and end before a breath could be drawn, before a plot could even be fully formed.
Nevertheless, the who's-who stable of talent does not fail to deliver. Steele's "The Emperor of Mars" was a fantastic homage to classic sci-fi with a solid grounding in the "reality" of life on Mars. Watts' "The Things" was a confusing jumble of impressions that still managed to convey the plot of a movie I'd never seen and made me want to watch it. MacLeod, Williams, Baker, Doctorow, Reynolds, the list goes on and on.

I particularly enjoyed Dozois' arrangement. Opening and closing with Robert Reed, "A History of Terraforming" starts us out with a story encompassing an entire (singularity-extended) life across multiple planets, throwing open the doors of imagination and preparing the palate for what is to come. The fantastical, the gritty, alternate histories and digital ones; Dozois presents every facet of the genre. Closing with "Dead Man's Run" we are presented with a digestif to complement the aperitif: a palate cleanser of a story that grounds us in a time and place not so different from our own, but still sweeps the reader up in a uniquely sci-fi murder mystery, following breathless in the chase.

A final nod to the brief history of the writer at the beginning of each story; as one who dreams someday of writing my own stories, I appreciated the peek behind the curtain each summation allowed. Getting a glimpse into the industry to which my favorite authors belong was fascinating.

I would highly recommend this set of short stories to anyone who likes the whole range of sci-fi and could use a little rapid-fire journey through the imagination.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this was the best science fiction that 2010 had to offer I'd hate to see the worst.

There are some notable stories in this volume. "The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String" is interesting, although the prose style Lavie Tidhar uses can be somewhat distracting. "Jackie's Boy" by Stephen Popkes was surprisingly good. Popkes pulls off a story that could easily have been a waste of reading time. "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" by Yoon Ha Lee is one of the few experimental shorts that actually works. It's narrative style doesn't get in the way of the story itself, which is quite interesting. Chris Beckett's "The Peacock Cloak" was a surprisingly good tale about the end of the world, though not in typical dystopian tropes (more than one example of which are included in this volume). "Sleepover" by Alastair Reynolds is, on balance, well done. Reynolds' take on a dystopian future has a unique twist to it but he doesn't seem to carry off his initial idea as well as he could've. Still a strong offering, though. Robert Reed's "Dead Man's Run" is also a good offering.

Many of the remaining stories are disappointing for a variety of reasons, though the most often causes are:

Using profanity for no reason. Yawn.

An obsession with genitalia.

Portraying religion and religious characters, without exception, as being prejudiced/stupid/evil/whatever.

A seemingly infantile obsession with bodily functions.

The desire to show how "edgy" the author is by presenting technological advances as allowing all sorts of immoral behaviors to be normalized. Except the behaviors the authors decide they're going to criticize, of course.

G.K. Chesterton said, "A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author." If that holds true for short stories then not a few of the authors in this anthology are in some pretty desperate straights.

[Alytha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Complete list of stories:
Robert Reed: "A History of Terraforming"
Lavie Tidhar: "The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String"
Allen M. Steele: "The Emperor of Mars"
Peter Watts: "The Things"
Geoffrey A. Landis: "The Sultan of the Clouds"
Kage Baker: "The Books"
Ian R. MacLeod: "Re-Crossing the Styx"
Tad Williams: "And Ministers of Grace"
Eleanor Arnason: "Mammoths of the Great Plains"
Joe Haldeman: "Sleeping Dogs"
Steven Popkes: "Jackie's Boy"
Nina Allan: "Flying in the Face of God"
Cory Doctorow: "Chicken Little"
Yoon Ha Lee: "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain"
Stephen Baxter: "Return to Titan"
Damien Broderick: "Under the Moons of Venus"
Naomi Novik: "Seven Years from Home"
Chris Beckett: "The Peacock Cloak"
Carrie Vaughn: "Amaryllis"
David Moles: "Seven Cities of Gold"
Rachel Swirsky: "Again and Again and Again"
Hannu Rajaniemi: "Elegy for a Young Elk"
Michael Swanwick: "Libertarian Russia"
Lavie Tidhar: "The Night Train"
Brenda Cooper: "My Father's Singularity"
Jay Lake and Ken Scholes: "The Starship Mechanic"
Alastair Reynolds: "Sleepover"
Pat Cadigan: "The Taste of Night"
Alexander Jablokov: "Blind Cat Dance"
Aliette de Bodard: "The Shipmaker"
Ted Kosmatka: "In-Fall"
Jim Hawkins: "Chimbwi"
Robert Reed: "Dead Man's Run"

I was quite underwhelmed by this collection. A high percentage of stories are very long and tedious, and I often had to force myself not to skip to the next one.

I underlined the ones I actually liked ;)

[Alison C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I look forward every year to the publication of the long-running anthology series, The Year's Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois; this year it's up to the 28th edition, and I'm pleased to note that it's still going strong. As always with such anthologies, different readers will prefer different stories, but no one can deny the quality of the work throughout. This crop includes short stories and novellas by Allen M. Steele, the late great Kage Baker, Eleanor Arnason, Joe Haldeman, Cory Doctorow, Naomi Novik, David Moles, Michael Swanwick, Alastair Reynolds and Robert Reed, among others; I particularly liked the Steele, Baker, Haldeman, Swanwick and Arnason stories, but no doubt other readers will prefer other stories. If you're interested in science/speculative fiction (as it's more often being called these days), particularly in short form, this is an invaluable book. Dozois also gives us a comprehensive Summation at the beginning of the book, which tracks the state of the sf field in books, art, film and television, and a lengthy Honorable Mention list at the end, which helpfully includes the magazines or anthologies or websites where those stories were originally published so that the interested reader can track them down him- or herself. Very highly recommended; if you read only one anthology of science fiction tales, make it this one!

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was worse than what I'm used to from Dozois's collections. It had quite a few good short stories in it, but too many that were too long and most importantly too damn boring. I'm not sure if the latter part was better or if it just helped that the short stories were shorter, but it went a lot faster than the first half or so.

Can't really recommend this to anyone as a whole, unless you want to try out new writers in a shorter form than a novel. Or, uh, there were several that were new to me, at least. But anyway, I'd rather shove some other book such as this at you for that purpose, anyway, an older version perhaps, or maybe the newer one that I still haven't read myself... But I like having this in my shelf at least for the Hannu Rajaniemi's short story, since it made me smile (because I'm a Finn, nothing that funny in it, really) and since it made me realize how badly I'm actually starting to analyze what I read in an annoyingly academic way. "I wonder if this poem in the story is in the same form as Kalevala poems!" (The damn guy omitted the whole poem in the Finnish version, dammit, so much for more substance for my Master's thesis...) Anyway, uh, only read if seriously interested, read a few, skip the ones that seem boring, they probably are.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

every single one of these collections is essential reading for true fans of science fiction short stories... each lengthy volume has a stellar array of all mini-genres and areas of powerfully influential science fiction: hard science, speculative, steampunk, alien invasions, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, space opera, fantasy, aliens, monsters, horror-ish, space travel, time travel, eco-science, evolutionary, pre-historic, parallel universes, extraterrestrials... in each successive volume in the series the tales have advanced and grown in imagination and detail with our ability to envision greater concepts and possibilities... Rod Serling said, "...fantasy is the impossible made probable. science fiction is the improbable made possible..." and in the pages of these books is the absolute best the vastness of science fiction writing has to offer... sit back, relax, and dream...

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently 2010 was a really bad year in science fiction. You have to slog through about 500 utterly forgettable pages to find just over 100 pages worth reading. And the typos were incredible. How hard can it be to make sure the damn quotation marks are where they should be? Too hard, I guess.

I guess 2010 was the Year of the Elephant (as well as the Year of Kissing Ass to Previous Science Fiction Writers) because more than a few featured or at least mentioned elephants. The best selection here is the novella by Steven Popke, "Jackie's Boy" about life for elephants in America after a plague wipes out about 90% of humanity. I wished I could live there. The next best also touches on animals and a lack of humanity in Hannu Rajaniemi's "Elegy for a Young Elk."

This collection really pales in comparison to previous years' anthologies.

[Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another gem. My favorite stories were:

-- The Things by Peter Watts. "The Thing" (old movie about creature from outer space that takes over Antarctic science station), from a new perspective -- that of the alien itself, which sees the humans as 'the things'. Awesome.

-- And Ministers of Grace by Tad Williams. An enhanced assassin. Taut story, but so-so ending.

-- Jackie's Boy by Steven Popkes. I didn't think I was going to like this at first, but the story really grew on me, it became one of my favorites in this book. Loved the references to St. Louis Zoo and surrounding area, in post-apocalyptic setting.

-- In-Fall by Ted Kosmatka. Use of the time dilation effect of a black hole to interrogate terrorists. Cool.

-- Dead Man's Run by Robert Reed. A dead guy's AI plays a part in a murder mystery.

[Rift Vegan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hm. It's been a while since I've seriously read any scifi, and I am happy to get back to it. But this collection only had one story that I loved... "Jackie's Boy" about the elephants and going to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. (But then TES is one of my favorite charities, so of course I'm going to love that story!) The price of the book was worth this one story, so I won't complain too much about the rest, most of which were in the okay range.

I've been wanting to get back to scifi... and this book resulted in me re-subscribing to The Mag of Fantasy and Science Fiction so maybe it deserves four stars for all that?

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this collection every year for maybe the last 10 years and this is in the middle of the pack for me. There are not any really must read short stories here but there are plenty of thought provoking ones. The two Robert Reed stories stand out for me one huge in scope and the second a tight small scale re-examination of one of the most familiar themes in Sci-Fi. But there were plenty of other rewarding stories as well and only a couple which I really could not relate to.

If I could only read one Sci-Fi book each year it would be this, makes you think and is for the most part very rewarding.