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The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection
In science fiction's early days, stories often looked past 1984 to the year 2000 as the far unknowable future. Here now, on the brink of the twenty-first century, the future remains as distant and as unknowable as ever . . . and science fiction stories continue to explore it with delightful results:
Collected in this anthology are such imaginative gems as:
"The Wedding Album" by David Marusek. In a high-tech future, the line between reality and simulation has grown thin . . . and it's often hard to tell who's on what side.
"Everywhere" by Geoff Ryman. Do the people who live in utopian conditions ever recognize them as such?
"Hatching the Phoenix" by Frederik Pohl. One of science fiction's Grand Masters returns with a star-crossing tale of the Heechee---the enigmatic, vanished aliens whose discarded technology guides mankind through the future.
"A Hero of the Empire" by Robert Silverberg. Showing that the past is as much a province of the imagination as the future, this novelette returns to an alternate history when the Roman Empire never fell to show us just how the course of history can be altered.
The twenty-seven stories in this collection imaginatively take us to nearby planets and distant futures, into the past and into universes no larger than a grain of sand. Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents.
Supplementing the stories are the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.
Collected in this anthology are such imaginative gems as:
"The Wedding Album" by David Marusek. In a high-tech future, the line between reality and simulation has grown thin . . . and it's often hard to tell who's on what side.
"Everywhere" by Geoff Ryman. Do the people who live in utopian conditions ever recognize them as such?
"Hatching the Phoenix" by Frederik Pohl. One of science fiction's Grand Masters returns with a star-crossing tale of the Heechee---the enigmatic, vanished aliens whose discarded technology guides mankind through the future.
"A Hero of the Empire" by Robert Silverberg. Showing that the past is as much a province of the imagination as the future, this novelette returns to an alternate history when the Roman Empire never fell to show us just how the course of history can be altered.
The twenty-seven stories in this collection imaginatively take us to nearby planets and distant futures, into the past and into universes no larger than a grain of sand. Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents.
Supplementing the stories are the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.
689 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 5, 2000
27 people are currently reading
438 people want to read
About the author
Gardner Dozois
645 books360 followersGardner 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...
Wikipedia entry: Gardner Dozois
http://us.macmillan.com/author/gardne...
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
August 7, 2023
This "review" is simply to point you to Alan's detailed, story-by-story review of this great anthology: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I upped my rating to 5 stars after reading his story notes, and I can attest to the amount of work it takes to write a review like his. This is one of the better of Dozois' Years Best compilations -- but, really, they are all required reading for serious fans of short SF.
Dozois left a remarkable legacy in these volumes, leaving a detailed history of the best SF shorts for the past 35 years. I'm not sure who (if anyone) will take his place. The current Best-of anthols are all (ims) SF + fantasy, and I much prefer SF-only collections. Even if Dozois regularly pushed the boundaries of SF.
And I see some holes in my collection of these that need filling....
I upped my rating to 5 stars after reading his story notes, and I can attest to the amount of work it takes to write a review like his. This is one of the better of Dozois' Years Best compilations -- but, really, they are all required reading for serious fans of short SF.
Dozois left a remarkable legacy in these volumes, leaving a detailed history of the best SF shorts for the past 35 years. I'm not sure who (if anyone) will take his place. The current Best-of anthols are all (ims) SF + fantasy, and I much prefer SF-only collections. Even if Dozois regularly pushed the boundaries of SF.
And I see some holes in my collection of these that need filling....
July 5, 2018
Gardner Dozois' epic run of Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies has, perforce, reached its conclusion—Dozois passed away on May 27, 2018, while I was in the middle of reading The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection and writing this review. The timing was coincidence, but my opinion of this installment is no accident. Taken together, Dozois' Year's Best anthologies are quite possibly the best thing that has ever happened to collected SF, and this millennial entry in particular (published shortly after the odometer turned, in the science-fictional Year 2000) is an amazing time capsule.
The Introduction alone is worth the price of admission. Dozois began every Year's Best by analyzing the state of the entire field of SF, from novels to short fiction to film and television—someone really needs to put together a book collecting all of these essays, as I've suggested before—but the one that appears in the Seventeenth Annual Collection struck me as especially perceptive.
Take his analysis of a recent film whose theatrical run had not been especially impressive:
The stories that follow the introduction bear out Dozois' editorial acumen as well (although I did notice the relative paucity of female authors, both as mentioned on the cover—just one name out of nine—and in the table of contents inside)... they are all exemplars of an unusually unsettled year and harbingers of a more interesting future than anyone had anticipated.
My short takes on each:
"The Wedding Album," by David Marusek. An old friend, read several times in various places, but somehow containing more depth this time than I remember from my last reset...
"10^16 to 1," by James Patrick Kelly. Maybe we are the lucky ones... Set in 1962, and nostalgic in tone as well as topic.
"Winemaster," by Robert Reed. An unlikely future, even before it was overrun by the present (unless Buick really did produce '17 Gibraltars), but politically astute. I can't recall having read this one before—which is when I figured out for sure that I hadn't already read this anthology.
"Galactic North," from Alastair Reynolds. Great swathes of space and time, compressed quite well into a short story. Dozois describes both Reed and Reynolds as "new" although I'm not sure that applied even in the faraway and mythical Year 2000.
Eleanor Arnason's "Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance." Maybe it was the fur, or the sex, or maybe it was the complex and alien but utterly believable sociology—or maybe all three—but this one reminded me strongly and pleasantly of Ursula K. Le Guin.
"People Came from Earth," by Stephen Baxter. The Moon... abides.
"Green Tea," by Richard Wadholm. An ornate and convoluted narrative of physics and revenge.
"The Dragon of Pripyat," by Karl Schroeder. Another "new" author in Y2K. This is a powerful story, that resonates with reality (well, sort of) in several ways. The image of a lone motorcyclist touring Chernobyl made real-life headlines in 2004 (though that tale turned out to be fictional as well), and the isolation experienced by those who have only online friendships is certainly real enough.
"Written in Blood," from Chris Lawson. A pre-9/11 story deeply influenced by Islam, in a way that would have been difficult to manage even a year later.
"Hatching the Phoenix," by Frederik Pohl. I'll admit I liked this universe better when the Heechee were offstage, but the scientific hook for Pohl's story—the use of gravitational lensing from a black hole to improve astronomical observations—was solid, neat at the time, and even turns out to be of current interest (see, for example, this Sci*News article from May 2018).
"Suicide Coast," by M. John Harrison, is a complex tale set in a grimy future London, which touches on the aspirational nature of most sports equipment as easily as it delves into the darker aspects of immersive virtual realities. I wouldn't mind playing "Out There" myself, even without being cored.
Sage Walker's "Hunting Mother." Primitives of a sort, on a generation ship that hasn't broken down. I did not especially like its ambiguous conclusion, though.
"Mount Olympus," by Ben Bova. Another entry from SF's old guard—men, exploring Mars while quoting (mostly) Dead White Males—but I did find it agreeably tense.
"Border Guards," by Greg Egan. While the uploaded consciousnesses playing complex games rooted in quantum physics may be "typical" Egan, this one felt fresh to me.
"Scherzo with Tyrannosaur," from Michael Swanwick. Time travel (yes, with T. Rex), being exploited by insufferable capitalists as usual. The conclusion reminded me of "Hunting Mother"'s but somehow I liked it better this time.
"A Hero of the Empire," by Robert Silverberg. You'll tumble pretty quickly to the twist in this alternity, but it's an interesting counterfactual nonetheless. I am not sure , though.
"How We Lost the Moon, a True Story by Frank W. Allen," from Paul J. McAuley. Possibly the hardest SF story in this entire book.
"Phallicide," by Charles Sheffield. It's no Handmaid's Tale, but this is not the worst possible tale of a patriarchy and its comeuppance ever to have been written by a man.
"Daddy's World," by Walter Jon Williams. Jamie gets to grow up in a brightly-colored, magical world full of friends, like intelligent kites, Whirlikins, and even Don Quixote—what's not to love?
"A Martian Romance," by Kim Stanley Robinson. Standing as it does outside the continuity of Robinson's Mars trilogy, this one contains its own best epigram:
Tanith Lee's "The Sky-Green Blues." Not at all the sweaty story of jungle journalism it first appears to be—this one's much more complex than that.
"Exchange Rate," by Hal Clement. Clement's debut was in 1942, and although this story fits right in stylistically with the oldest of old-school scientifiction, full of Clement's signature hard-science extrapolation (and rather dry prose, including one literal "as you know, Bob" moment), it was also visibly influenced by the many changes in sf since then.
"Everywhere," by Geoff Ryman. I can't think of a better synopsis than Dozois' own:
"Hothouse Flowers," by Mike Resnick. Just a sweet younger couple tending their respective vegetable gardens...
"Evermore," from Sean Williams. A vivid story of uploads contending with error-correction algorithms aboard a little lost starship.
"Of Scorned Women and Causal Loops," by Robert Grossbach. Contains an ingenious solution to the Grandfather Paradox. Heh—this one's set in 2018.
Kage Baker's "Son Observe the Time." Evocative of the classic short story "Vintage Season" as well as of John Varley's "Air Raid," yet wholly its own, this was a fine way to round out the stories in this anthology.
But wait—there's also a long (and more gender-balanced) list of "Honorable Mentions" to be considered, six pages and change of works that Dozois couldn't include but felt deserved highlighting, enough to make another year's-best anthology or two.
When the stories in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection were written, Y2K hadn't happened yet. 9/11 hadn't happened yet. There were even people talking seriously about the "end of history"—but those people weren't sf writers. Gardner Dozois, and the authors included here as well, may not have known that the future would remain eventful... but they knew that'd be the way to bet.
And, so far, they've been right.
The Introduction alone is worth the price of admission. Dozois began every Year's Best by analyzing the state of the entire field of SF, from novels to short fiction to film and television—someone really needs to put together a book collecting all of these essays, as I've suggested before—but the one that appears in the Seventeenth Annual Collection struck me as especially perceptive.
Take his analysis of a recent film whose theatrical run had not been especially impressive:
One of the best movies of the year didn't make a dime, as far as I can see, and was pulled out of the theaters only a week or so into a disastrous theatrical first run—nevertheless, The Iron Giant is the kind of wonderful "family" entertainment that Disney animated movies promise to deliver, but (with recent exceptions such as Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and A Bug's Life) rarely ever do, with the added bonus of being intelligent, witty, thought-provoking, and even at times suspenseful, as well as warmhearted, with a much lower maudlin quotient, and no damn songs. In short, The Iron Giant is one of the best animated movies I've ever seen, as delightful for adults as for children, and I'd recommend going out and buying the videotape or CD (sic), since it's long banished from theaters, never to return.Except for that last clause, perhaps—for the film has slowly gathered a large and loyal audience, and it has returned to the big screen at least once that I know of in recent years—this is one tiny example of Dozois' ability to see beyond the infatuations of the moment, to the qualities that make a work of lasting significance.
—pp. xlv-xlvi
The stories that follow the introduction bear out Dozois' editorial acumen as well (although I did notice the relative paucity of female authors, both as mentioned on the cover—just one name out of nine—and in the table of contents inside)... they are all exemplars of an unusually unsettled year and harbingers of a more interesting future than anyone had anticipated.
My short takes on each:
"The Wedding Album," by David Marusek. An old friend, read several times in various places, but somehow containing more depth this time than I remember from my last reset...
"10^16 to 1," by James Patrick Kelly. Maybe we are the lucky ones... Set in 1962, and nostalgic in tone as well as topic.
"Winemaster," by Robert Reed. An unlikely future, even before it was overrun by the present (unless Buick really did produce '17 Gibraltars), but politically astute. I can't recall having read this one before—which is when I figured out for sure that I hadn't already read this anthology.
"Galactic North," from Alastair Reynolds. Great swathes of space and time, compressed quite well into a short story. Dozois describes both Reed and Reynolds as "new" although I'm not sure that applied even in the faraway and mythical Year 2000.
Eleanor Arnason's "Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance." Maybe it was the fur, or the sex, or maybe it was the complex and alien but utterly believable sociology—or maybe all three—but this one reminded me strongly and pleasantly of Ursula K. Le Guin.
"People Came from Earth," by Stephen Baxter. The Moon... abides.
"Green Tea," by Richard Wadholm. An ornate and convoluted narrative of physics and revenge.
"The Dragon of Pripyat," by Karl Schroeder. Another "new" author in Y2K. This is a powerful story, that resonates with reality (well, sort of) in several ways. The image of a lone motorcyclist touring Chernobyl made real-life headlines in 2004 (though that tale turned out to be fictional as well), and the isolation experienced by those who have only online friendships is certainly real enough.
"Written in Blood," from Chris Lawson. A pre-9/11 story deeply influenced by Islam, in a way that would have been difficult to manage even a year later.
"Hatching the Phoenix," by Frederik Pohl. I'll admit I liked this universe better when the Heechee were offstage, but the scientific hook for Pohl's story—the use of gravitational lensing from a black hole to improve astronomical observations—was solid, neat at the time, and even turns out to be of current interest (see, for example, this Sci*News article from May 2018).
"Suicide Coast," by M. John Harrison, is a complex tale set in a grimy future London, which touches on the aspirational nature of most sports equipment as easily as it delves into the darker aspects of immersive virtual realities. I wouldn't mind playing "Out There" myself, even without being cored.
Sage Walker's "Hunting Mother." Primitives of a sort, on a generation ship that hasn't broken down. I did not especially like its ambiguous conclusion, though.
"Mount Olympus," by Ben Bova. Another entry from SF's old guard—men, exploring Mars while quoting (mostly) Dead White Males—but I did find it agreeably tense.
"Border Guards," by Greg Egan. While the uploaded consciousnesses playing complex games rooted in quantum physics may be "typical" Egan, this one felt fresh to me.
"Scherzo with Tyrannosaur," from Michael Swanwick. Time travel (yes, with T. Rex), being exploited by insufferable capitalists as usual. The conclusion reminded me of "Hunting Mother"'s but somehow I liked it better this time.
"A Hero of the Empire," by Robert Silverberg. You'll tumble pretty quickly to the twist in this alternity, but it's an interesting counterfactual nonetheless. I am not sure , though.
"How We Lost the Moon, a True Story by Frank W. Allen," from Paul J. McAuley. Possibly the hardest SF story in this entire book.
"Phallicide," by Charles Sheffield. It's no Handmaid's Tale, but this is not the worst possible tale of a patriarchy and its comeuppance ever to have been written by a man.
"Daddy's World," by Walter Jon Williams. Jamie gets to grow up in a brightly-colored, magical world full of friends, like intelligent kites, Whirlikins, and even Don Quixote—what's not to love?
"A Martian Romance," by Kim Stanley Robinson. Standing as it does outside the continuity of Robinson's Mars trilogy, this one contains its own best epigram:
"In the end, it doesn't matter what kind of Mars you like best. They're all better than nothing."
—p.443
Tanith Lee's "The Sky-Green Blues." Not at all the sweaty story of jungle journalism it first appears to be—this one's much more complex than that.
"Exchange Rate," by Hal Clement. Clement's debut was in 1942, and although this story fits right in stylistically with the oldest of old-school scientifiction, full of Clement's signature hard-science extrapolation (and rather dry prose, including one literal "as you know, Bob" moment), it was also visibly influenced by the many changes in sf since then.
"Everywhere," by Geoff Ryman. I can't think of a better synopsis than Dozois' own:
{...}it's not utopia at all, just everyday life: nothing special, no big deal, just the way things are. Which, of course, is the way utopias feel to those lucky enough to live inside them...
—p.518
"Hothouse Flowers," by Mike Resnick. Just a sweet younger couple tending their respective vegetable gardens...
"Evermore," from Sean Williams. A vivid story of uploads contending with error-correction algorithms aboard a little lost starship.
"Of Scorned Women and Causal Loops," by Robert Grossbach. Contains an ingenious solution to the Grandfather Paradox. Heh—this one's set in 2018.
Kage Baker's "Son Observe the Time." Evocative of the classic short story "Vintage Season" as well as of John Varley's "Air Raid," yet wholly its own, this was a fine way to round out the stories in this anthology.
But wait—there's also a long (and more gender-balanced) list of "Honorable Mentions" to be considered, six pages and change of works that Dozois couldn't include but felt deserved highlighting, enough to make another year's-best anthology or two.
When the stories in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection were written, Y2K hadn't happened yet. 9/11 hadn't happened yet. There were even people talking seriously about the "end of history"—but those people weren't sf writers. Gardner Dozois, and the authors included here as well, may not have known that the future would remain eventful... but they knew that'd be the way to bet.
And, so far, they've been right.
January 16, 2012
Going down the list by order...
* "The Wedding Album" by David Marusek - One of my favorite sci fi stories period. It's a singularity story of an AI created in the moment of a wedding photograph. I can't even begin to describe it but trust me when I say it's totally unlike anything you've ever read.
* "10^16 to 1" by James Patrick Kelly - Amazingly well done story taking place in the 1960s where a young boy is told he must change history. It's a lot of pressure for a kid to handle...sometimes children take on too much responsibility...
* "Winemaster" by Robert Reed - Didn't Eddie Murphy kind of steal the plot to this for "Meet Dave"? He did? Oh. Awkward.
* "Galactic North" by Alastair Reynolds - I love me some Reynolds and this is no exception. A truly epic, no holds barred space opera thriller.
* "Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance" by Eleanor Arnason - ugh. Just. Ugh. Just skip this one. You'll thank me.
* "People Came From Earth" by Stephen Baxter - zzzzzzzzzz
* "Green Tea" by Richard Wadholm - Semi okay vengeance story but somewhat typical of its genre.
* "The Dragon of Pripyat" by Karl Schroeder - Meh.
* "Written in Blood" by Chris Lawson - Future Muslims doin their future Muslim thing. Not that interesting.
* "Hatching the Phoenix" by Frederik Pohl - Neat little story of humans spying on a species that used to be like us as they have their own Cold War and nuclear showdown. Pretty decent.
* "Suicide Coast" by M. John Harrison - Dark, depressing
* "Hunting Mother" by Sage Walker - very Darwinian story that takes survival of the fittest literally. I was not a fan of the ending.
* "Mount Olympus" by Ben Bova - zzzzzzzzzz
* "Border Guards" by Greg Egan - Not horrible but not really thrilling, either.
* "Scherzo with Tyrannosaur" by Michael Swanwick - Yay dinosaurs! Yay time travel!
* "A Hero of the Empire" by Robert Silverberg - alternate universe where Mohammad got killed off by the Roman Empire, which survived. Not really a point, but I think definitely conservative wank fodder.
* "How We Lost the Moon, A True Story by Frank W. Allen" by Paul J. McAuley - Meh.
* "Phallicide" by Charles Sheffield - Woman gets back at her ultra religious rapist Mormon relatives by making the men infertile. Kickass.
* "Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams - One of the most brilliant virtual reality or dystopia stories I've ever read. Hell is your parents trying to make you live in their universe.
* "A Martian Romance" by Kim Stanley Robinson - Semi okay.
* "The Sky-Green Blues" by Tanith Lee - Lyrical. Tanith Lee always writes lush, oddly beautiful stories.
* "Exchange Rate" by Hal Clement - boring
* "Everywhere" by Geoff Ryman - Awesome.
* "Hothouse Flowers" by Mike Resnick - Hitting us over the head with the moral of treating elderly people well. Satire dystopia, but good.
* "Evermore" by Sean Williams - Atmospheric, creepy, deserving of the Raven semi reference.
* "OF Scorned Women and Causal Loops" by Robert Grossbach - A great story of teleportation and irony.
* "Son Observe the Time" by Kage Baker - Kage Baker always rocks the house.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 3, 2018
I have been working on The Year's Best Science Fiction 17th Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois all year. When I signed up for Jay's Deal Me In Challenge, it required that we submit a list of short stories that we we would like to read over the course of the year--one per week, dealt to us at random with the luck of the draw. I decided that this would be the chance to finally read this huge collection of science fiction stories that I got for Christmas one year. Dipping into it now and then would be less difficult than reading 640 pages all in one go.
Dozois does an excellent job selecting stories representative of each year in science fiction--the stories range from hard science fiction to fantasy and everything in between. There are cautionary tales and what ifs; there are peaks at the future and the past. Overall, a fine collection.
Please see full review at my blog My Reader's Block for short summaries of each story.
Dozois does an excellent job selecting stories representative of each year in science fiction--the stories range from hard science fiction to fantasy and everything in between. There are cautionary tales and what ifs; there are peaks at the future and the past. Overall, a fine collection.
Please see full review at my blog My Reader's Block for short summaries of each story.
August 25, 2008
A dense volume packed full of a nice variety of scifi and fantasy from some well-known authors (and a few I'd never heard of). It just happened to be on the shelf at the beach house we rented for our '07 vacation. So when I finished A Dirty Job and Oryx and Crake and Cat's Eye, this one was there to fill in.
Includes:
* "The Wedding Album" by David Marusek - ★★★★
* "10^16 to 1" by James Patrick Kelly - ★★★★★
* "Winemaster" by Robert Reed
* "Galactic North" by Alastair Reynolds - ★★★★
* "Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance" by Eleanor Arnason
* "People Came From Earth" by Stephen Baxter - ★★★★
* "Green Tea" by Richard Wadholm
* "The Dragon of Pripyat" by Karl Schroeder - ★★★★★
* "Written in Blood" by Chris Lawson - ★★★★★
* "Hatching the Phoenix" by Frederik Pohl
* "Suicide Coast" by M. John Harrison
* "Hunting Mother" by Sage Walker
* "Mount Olympus" by Ben Bova - ★★★
* "Border Guards" by Greg Egan
* "Scherzo with Tyrannosaur" by Michael Swanwick - ★★★★★
* "A Hero of the Empire" by Robert Silverberg
* "How We Lost the Moon, A True Story by Frank W. Allen" by Paul J. McAuley - ★★★★
* "Phallicide" by Charles Sheffield - ★★★
* "Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams
* "A Martian Romance" by Kim Stanley Robinson
* "The Sky-Green Blues" by Tanith Lee
* "Exchange Rate" by Hal Clement
* "Everywhere" by Geoff Ryman
* "Hothouse Flowers" by Mike Resnick
* "Evermore" by Sean Williams
* "OF Scorned Women and Causal Loops" by Robert Grossbach
* "Son Observe the Time" by Kage Baker
(disclaimer: dropping in ratings for the stories that I remember actually reading...)
Includes:
* "The Wedding Album" by David Marusek - ★★★★
* "10^16 to 1" by James Patrick Kelly - ★★★★★
* "Winemaster" by Robert Reed
* "Galactic North" by Alastair Reynolds - ★★★★
* "Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance" by Eleanor Arnason
* "People Came From Earth" by Stephen Baxter - ★★★★
* "Green Tea" by Richard Wadholm
* "The Dragon of Pripyat" by Karl Schroeder - ★★★★★
* "Written in Blood" by Chris Lawson - ★★★★★
* "Hatching the Phoenix" by Frederik Pohl
* "Suicide Coast" by M. John Harrison
* "Hunting Mother" by Sage Walker
* "Mount Olympus" by Ben Bova - ★★★
* "Border Guards" by Greg Egan
* "Scherzo with Tyrannosaur" by Michael Swanwick - ★★★★★
* "A Hero of the Empire" by Robert Silverberg
* "How We Lost the Moon, A True Story by Frank W. Allen" by Paul J. McAuley - ★★★★
* "Phallicide" by Charles Sheffield - ★★★
* "Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams
* "A Martian Romance" by Kim Stanley Robinson
* "The Sky-Green Blues" by Tanith Lee
* "Exchange Rate" by Hal Clement
* "Everywhere" by Geoff Ryman
* "Hothouse Flowers" by Mike Resnick
* "Evermore" by Sean Williams
* "OF Scorned Women and Causal Loops" by Robert Grossbach
* "Son Observe the Time" by Kage Baker
(disclaimer: dropping in ratings for the stories that I remember actually reading...)
June 23, 2015
Gardner Dozois' annual science fiction collections were first brought to my attention by my neighbor, Nate. Then, later, I noticed quite a number of them at the San Francisco home of another friend. Nate's an SF fan, but Tom, the other fellow, is more oriented towards straight science. Together, their recommendatons led me to buy one of the annuals, then to trade it for another with Nate. These two collections and a partial perusal of a third collection at Tom's home allow me to recommend the series as a whole as representing some exceptionally good writing in the genre, writing ranging in length from ten pages to novella length.
August 31, 2014
A decent crop of stories from 1999 many of which seem preoccupied with the theme - either subtly or overtly - of longevity or perhaps to be more accurate the preservation of body and/or personality.
It's a mixed bag, but the overall quality is high.
The Wedding Album (1999) David Marusek (Asimov's 1999.06)
Marusek takes the basic concept that photographs will develop into 'sims' - 3D sentient captures. He then runs with the idea on a surprising and twisting journey into the future.
10 to 16 to 1 (1999) James Patrick Kelly (aka 1016 to 1) (Asimov's 1999.06)
A visitor from the future to the 1960s has to recruit a young boy into a mission to save the world from nuclear holocaust. Emotive and well-characterised.
Winemaster (1999) Robert Reed (F&SF July 1999)
Robert Reed is a master of strangeness and envisions a plague which destroys and recreates humans as digitised entities. Very clever.
Galactic North (1999) Alastair Reynolds (Interzone #145)
Reynolds here - over a vast span of time - tells us the origin of a situation detailed in his Revelation Space novels and a long chase across time and space. Marvellous stuff. An exemplary example of new space opera.
Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance (1999) Eleanor Arnason (Asimov's 1999.09)
A romantic tale of a young female alien belonging to a curious species. They are gay by nature and only turn to heterosexuality in order to breed. The girl wants to be an actor but as this is a strictly male occupation she disguises herself as a boy in order to pursue her career.
A romantic and poetic piece.
People Came from Earth (1999) Stephen Baxter (Moon Shots, July 1999)
Following a nanocaust the survivors of a moon colony struggle to keep the human race alive. Another piece which is romantic in nature and despite being scientifically accurate is more poetic than realistic.
Green Tea (1999) Richard Wadholm (Asimov's, October 1999)
Dense and slightly baroque Hard SF here in which exotic matter is stored on the vane of a spaceship in order that it will be transmuted and destroy a nearby star in an act of revenge. Cleverly structured first person piece. Hard work, but worth persevering with.
The Dragon of Pripyat (1999) novelette by Karl Schroeder (Tesseracts 8, October 1999)
One of the best in this collection. A freelance troubleshooter is sent to the Chernobyl site as intelligence suggests that terrorists may be planning to blow open the 'sarcophagus' containing the failed reactor. However, tales of a dragon living in the poisoned town seem to point to something else going on. Excellent writing and characterisation.
Written in Blood (1999) Chris Lawson (Asimov's June 1999)
Another excellent piece, the title of which refers to a muslim and his daughter on their Hajj, who meet a man who can write the text of the Koran into DNA. Again, excellent characterisation, and containing a hefty swipe at the practice of female genital mutilation.
Hatching the Phoenix (1999) Frederik Pohl (Amazing Stories, Fall 1999)
A late Heechee story in which Gelle-Klara Moynlon visits a project she has funded which is capturing and enhancing the light from a system that has already been destroyed. The enhanced resolution means they can observe an intelligent species on the surface before the nova rendered them extinct.
Suicide Coast (1999) M. John Harrison (F&SF Jul 1999)
A very dark tale from Harrison about dangerous sports, software and the nature of friendship.
Hunting Mother (1999) Sage Walker (Not of Woman Born - Mar 1999)
On a converted asteroid, an elderly genetic scientist and her half-cougar 'son' dance with death in a very poetic, romantic piece on the theme of how the old have to give way to the new.
Mount Olympus (1999) Ben Bova (Analog Feb 1999)
A workmanlike but unoriginal tale from Bova which features a rescue from the caldera of Olympus Mons on Mars
Border Guards (1999) Greg Egan (Interzone #148 Oct 1999)
Egan postulates a future where immortal humans live in an infinite array of worlds called The Territories. A young man around a century old meets one of the creators of the Jewel, the device which, when implanted, absorbs the cells and functions of the brain. Mind blowing stuff.
Scherzo with Tyrannosaur (1999) Michael Swanwick (Asimovs July 1999)
A prelude to 'Bones of the Earth', set in a future where enigmatic aliens have given humans the secret of Time Travel. Tourists can travel to a thousand years before the dinosaurs are wiped out and dine on plesiosaur steaks. Swanwick examines some of the benefits, consequences and pitfalls of time travel very cleverly here.
A Hero of the Empire [Roma Eterna] (1999) Robert Silverberg (F&SF Oct 1999)
Silverberg in his alternate world where the Roman Empire continues to the present day. An exiled favourite of the Emperor is sent to Mecca where he encounters a modern-day Mohamed.
Expertly done, giving much food for thought.
How We Lost the Moon, a True Story by Frank W. Allen (1999) Paul J. McAuley (Moon Shots, July 1999)
A great short piece by McAuley which details what happens when a small black hole escapes from a research facility on the dark side of the moon. As expected, well written with interesting characterisation. Much better than Greg Benford's novel 'Artefact' which uses a similar premise (on Earth) but falls down on the one dimensional characters.
Phallicide (1999) Charles Sheffield (Science Fiction Age Sep 1999)
Sheffield writes here from the viewpoint of a young woman brought up in a US cult, who is allowed certain liberties because she has a talent for Chemistry and pharnaceuticals. The cult employ her skills to develop Viagra-style drugs to keep the elderly Patriarch and his aging minions sexually active. When one of the eldwrs plans to marry her thirteen year old daughter, she decides to rebel.
It raises many social and ethical questions and may have benefited from being developed into a longer format.
Daddy's World (1999) Walter Jon Williams (Not of Woman Born - Mar 1999)
A very decent piece about the digitisation of consciousness and what it may mean in real terms.
A Martian Romance (1999) Kim Stanley Robinson (The Martians - 1999)
One of Robinson's alternate tales of his terraformed Mars in which the terraforming has failed. Some of the residents embark on a trip across one of the frozen seas.
The Sky-Green Blues (1999) Tanith Lee (Interzone #142 - 1999)
A tale of alien love and the reality experienced by a fictional character. Poetic but a little odd.
Exchange Rate (1999) Hal Clement (Absolute Magnitude, Winter 1999)
Clement does what he does best here which is to postulate exploration of life on a planet five times the radius of the earth. It's ravaged by earthquakes, has very little hydrogen, and a complex atmospheric mix. Despite his years Clement has managed to keep pace with the younger writers.
Everywhere (1999) Geoff Ryman (Interzone, #140 February 1999)
A positive view of the future from Ryman at a time when The Angel of The North is a historical landmark. Superlative writing.
Hothouse Flowers • (1999) • shortstory by Mike Resnick (Asimov's Science Fiction, October-November 1999)
The concept of keeping old people alive taken to a logical but absurd conclusion.
Evermore (1999) Sean Williams (Altair #4, August 1999)
A probe containing the digitised copies of prospective colonists has its main drive destroyed by an encounter with a micrometeor. The human personalities, living in isolated virtual worlds and after thousands of years being borderline insane are brought together for a radical proposition.
Of Scorned Women and Causal Loops (1999) Robert Grossbach (F&SF Jan 1999)
The hadron collider is the setting for this intriguing time travel murder investigation.
Son Observe the Time (1999) Kage Baker (Asimovs May 1999)
Part of Baker's 'Company' series which features an organisation of immortal time travellers. Here they are in San Francisco before the great earthquake of 1906 attempting to conserve art and literature that would otherwise have been destroyed. Someone else is there, however, with an altogether different agenda. Excellent stuff.
It's a mixed bag, but the overall quality is high.
The Wedding Album (1999) David Marusek (Asimov's 1999.06)
Marusek takes the basic concept that photographs will develop into 'sims' - 3D sentient captures. He then runs with the idea on a surprising and twisting journey into the future.
10 to 16 to 1 (1999) James Patrick Kelly (aka 1016 to 1) (Asimov's 1999.06)
A visitor from the future to the 1960s has to recruit a young boy into a mission to save the world from nuclear holocaust. Emotive and well-characterised.
Winemaster (1999) Robert Reed (F&SF July 1999)
Robert Reed is a master of strangeness and envisions a plague which destroys and recreates humans as digitised entities. Very clever.
Galactic North (1999) Alastair Reynolds (Interzone #145)
Reynolds here - over a vast span of time - tells us the origin of a situation detailed in his Revelation Space novels and a long chase across time and space. Marvellous stuff. An exemplary example of new space opera.
Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance (1999) Eleanor Arnason (Asimov's 1999.09)
A romantic tale of a young female alien belonging to a curious species. They are gay by nature and only turn to heterosexuality in order to breed. The girl wants to be an actor but as this is a strictly male occupation she disguises herself as a boy in order to pursue her career.
A romantic and poetic piece.
People Came from Earth (1999) Stephen Baxter (Moon Shots, July 1999)
Following a nanocaust the survivors of a moon colony struggle to keep the human race alive. Another piece which is romantic in nature and despite being scientifically accurate is more poetic than realistic.
Green Tea (1999) Richard Wadholm (Asimov's, October 1999)
Dense and slightly baroque Hard SF here in which exotic matter is stored on the vane of a spaceship in order that it will be transmuted and destroy a nearby star in an act of revenge. Cleverly structured first person piece. Hard work, but worth persevering with.
The Dragon of Pripyat (1999) novelette by Karl Schroeder (Tesseracts 8, October 1999)
One of the best in this collection. A freelance troubleshooter is sent to the Chernobyl site as intelligence suggests that terrorists may be planning to blow open the 'sarcophagus' containing the failed reactor. However, tales of a dragon living in the poisoned town seem to point to something else going on. Excellent writing and characterisation.
Written in Blood (1999) Chris Lawson (Asimov's June 1999)
Another excellent piece, the title of which refers to a muslim and his daughter on their Hajj, who meet a man who can write the text of the Koran into DNA. Again, excellent characterisation, and containing a hefty swipe at the practice of female genital mutilation.
Hatching the Phoenix (1999) Frederik Pohl (Amazing Stories, Fall 1999)
A late Heechee story in which Gelle-Klara Moynlon visits a project she has funded which is capturing and enhancing the light from a system that has already been destroyed. The enhanced resolution means they can observe an intelligent species on the surface before the nova rendered them extinct.
Suicide Coast (1999) M. John Harrison (F&SF Jul 1999)
A very dark tale from Harrison about dangerous sports, software and the nature of friendship.
Hunting Mother (1999) Sage Walker (Not of Woman Born - Mar 1999)
On a converted asteroid, an elderly genetic scientist and her half-cougar 'son' dance with death in a very poetic, romantic piece on the theme of how the old have to give way to the new.
Mount Olympus (1999) Ben Bova (Analog Feb 1999)
A workmanlike but unoriginal tale from Bova which features a rescue from the caldera of Olympus Mons on Mars
Border Guards (1999) Greg Egan (Interzone #148 Oct 1999)
Egan postulates a future where immortal humans live in an infinite array of worlds called The Territories. A young man around a century old meets one of the creators of the Jewel, the device which, when implanted, absorbs the cells and functions of the brain. Mind blowing stuff.
Scherzo with Tyrannosaur (1999) Michael Swanwick (Asimovs July 1999)
A prelude to 'Bones of the Earth', set in a future where enigmatic aliens have given humans the secret of Time Travel. Tourists can travel to a thousand years before the dinosaurs are wiped out and dine on plesiosaur steaks. Swanwick examines some of the benefits, consequences and pitfalls of time travel very cleverly here.
A Hero of the Empire [Roma Eterna] (1999) Robert Silverberg (F&SF Oct 1999)
Silverberg in his alternate world where the Roman Empire continues to the present day. An exiled favourite of the Emperor is sent to Mecca where he encounters a modern-day Mohamed.
Expertly done, giving much food for thought.
How We Lost the Moon, a True Story by Frank W. Allen (1999) Paul J. McAuley (Moon Shots, July 1999)
A great short piece by McAuley which details what happens when a small black hole escapes from a research facility on the dark side of the moon. As expected, well written with interesting characterisation. Much better than Greg Benford's novel 'Artefact' which uses a similar premise (on Earth) but falls down on the one dimensional characters.
Phallicide (1999) Charles Sheffield (Science Fiction Age Sep 1999)
Sheffield writes here from the viewpoint of a young woman brought up in a US cult, who is allowed certain liberties because she has a talent for Chemistry and pharnaceuticals. The cult employ her skills to develop Viagra-style drugs to keep the elderly Patriarch and his aging minions sexually active. When one of the eldwrs plans to marry her thirteen year old daughter, she decides to rebel.
It raises many social and ethical questions and may have benefited from being developed into a longer format.
Daddy's World (1999) Walter Jon Williams (Not of Woman Born - Mar 1999)
A very decent piece about the digitisation of consciousness and what it may mean in real terms.
A Martian Romance (1999) Kim Stanley Robinson (The Martians - 1999)
One of Robinson's alternate tales of his terraformed Mars in which the terraforming has failed. Some of the residents embark on a trip across one of the frozen seas.
The Sky-Green Blues (1999) Tanith Lee (Interzone #142 - 1999)
A tale of alien love and the reality experienced by a fictional character. Poetic but a little odd.
Exchange Rate (1999) Hal Clement (Absolute Magnitude, Winter 1999)
Clement does what he does best here which is to postulate exploration of life on a planet five times the radius of the earth. It's ravaged by earthquakes, has very little hydrogen, and a complex atmospheric mix. Despite his years Clement has managed to keep pace with the younger writers.
Everywhere (1999) Geoff Ryman (Interzone, #140 February 1999)
A positive view of the future from Ryman at a time when The Angel of The North is a historical landmark. Superlative writing.
Hothouse Flowers • (1999) • shortstory by Mike Resnick (Asimov's Science Fiction, October-November 1999)
The concept of keeping old people alive taken to a logical but absurd conclusion.
Evermore (1999) Sean Williams (Altair #4, August 1999)
A probe containing the digitised copies of prospective colonists has its main drive destroyed by an encounter with a micrometeor. The human personalities, living in isolated virtual worlds and after thousands of years being borderline insane are brought together for a radical proposition.
Of Scorned Women and Causal Loops (1999) Robert Grossbach (F&SF Jan 1999)
The hadron collider is the setting for this intriguing time travel murder investigation.
Son Observe the Time (1999) Kage Baker (Asimovs May 1999)
Part of Baker's 'Company' series which features an organisation of immortal time travellers. Here they are in San Francisco before the great earthquake of 1906 attempting to conserve art and literature that would otherwise have been destroyed. Someone else is there, however, with an altogether different agenda. Excellent stuff.
January 19, 2021
Mixed bag of stories, half of which I did not finish. Some of them were too technical or not easy to follow, with hard sci-fi themes. However the ones I did read were excellent, my favourites were
Phallicide
Green tea
The Dragon of Pripyat
Scherzo with Tyrannosaur
Daddy’s world
Sky Green Blues
Hothouse Flowers
Of scorned women n casual loops
Son observe the time (heart wrenching)
I’ve read other books in this series, and have read most of the stories, so this was a little disappointing.
Phallicide
Green tea
The Dragon of Pripyat
Scherzo with Tyrannosaur
Daddy’s world
Sky Green Blues
Hothouse Flowers
Of scorned women n casual loops
Son observe the time (heart wrenching)
I’ve read other books in this series, and have read most of the stories, so this was a little disappointing.
Currently reading
January 20, 2025"Scherzo with Tyrannosaur" by Michael Swanwick - After Hawkins is killed by a tyrannosaur the protagonist meets with an older version of himself to discuss time loops. The protagonist composes a memo depicting one timeline and his older version of himself offers another memo depicting a different timeline and leaving the protagonist to choose one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 22, 2011
FOUR WOMEN. FOUR. OUT OF TWENTY-SEVEN. I didn't do the research to check the ratio of authors of colour, but I'm pretty sure it's low to nonexistent; and, as usual, the authors are all Anglophones. Can you really say this is the 'year's best' when you haven't considered the rest of the world? I understand that the editor is somewhat constrained by other people's choices in a reprint anthology, but Dozois was a magazine editor himself at the time, so I don't let him off on those grounds. I might cut him some slack if he got anywhere near a reasonable ratio, but, as discussed above, FOUR.
I'm glad he supports Eleanor Arnason's short work (I got this out of the library for her story, which is wonderful), but there are probably other people-who-aren't-white-dudes doing great work that he could be supporting too, you know?
I'm glad he supports Eleanor Arnason's short work (I got this out of the library for her story, which is wonderful), but there are probably other people-who-aren't-white-dudes doing great work that he could be supporting too, you know?
February 7, 2018
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...
August 8, 2014
This was a tough read for me. I'm not sure if it was because of the genre or the short story format. I used to be a huge sci if fan as a teenager but I gradually got bored of it. I thought the short story format might be an interesting way to see how the genre has changed and the book really did open my eyes to different flavours of science fiction writing, not just the "alien space adventures" type of stories that I always associated with it. A good story is a good story no matter what the genre and this book had excellent ones, such as "The Dragon of Pripyat", "Dapple" and my favourite (and last story in the collection, "Son Observe the Time". I don't think it's a collection I would want not read every year but this edition certainly introduced me to some authors whose work I would like to explore further.
May 4, 2012
Even if it's not one of my favorites in the series, there was loads of good stuff, including memorable pieces by Reed, Baxter, Richard Wadholm, Karl Schroeder, Charles Sheffield, Walter Jon Williams, Resnick, and Sean Williams. My favorite story was David Marusek's "The Wedding Album", which I thoroughly enjoyed but I sadly can't remember why, :). This was my first introduction to Alastair Reynolds whose space opera I would later come to enjoy. There's also Swanwick's "Scherzo with Tyrannosaur" which I would later read multiple times.
June 18, 2022
From The Years Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois . Overall 4 stars. See my activity for some individual reviews.
son observe the time KAGE BAKER
The last story was a thought provoking tale of an ancient man apparently dedicated to his task of the just in time rescuing of cultural items and selected “mortals” from natural disasters. Time travel and cyborgs mixed with historical references and a shadowy elite with suspicious motives. Scraping though with 4 stars.
son observe the time KAGE BAKER
The last story was a thought provoking tale of an ancient man apparently dedicated to his task of the just in time rescuing of cultural items and selected “mortals” from natural disasters. Time travel and cyborgs mixed with historical references and a shadowy elite with suspicious motives. Scraping though with 4 stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2009
Skipped some stories, but LOVED some others. I can't remember which I particularly enjoyed, and the e-book reader I have (Sony PRS-505) is not very conducive to paging through to look for them, but I usually expect hits and misses in story collections anyway, and as long as there are enough hits to keep me happy, that's the main thing. This book had the hits, definitely. (I think I only skipped four stories, but I can't remember which ones.)
June 16, 2015
4.5 "The Sky-Green Blues" Tanith Lee A story that amazed me. It's the fall of Saigon or Pnomn Penh. until it's something different. I'm not certain that rereading this might be a letdown; the imagery is familiar though beautifully evoked, but the scenario is familiar. The elements that looked to become stereotypes were addressed by the end of the story. Recommended for any Tanith Lee fan.
April 9, 2007
If you read one sci-fi book a year, this is the one. Always stories of high caliber with a few tossed in that will keep you thinking weeks later, not to mention the collection is a primer for what science and technology everyone will be talking about five to ten years from now.
Read
May 11, 20131/25/12: "How We Lost the Moon: A True Story by Frank W. Allen" by Paul J. McAuley
1/28/12: "The Dragon of Pripyat" by Karl Schroeder
1/28/12: "Written in Blood" by Chris Lawson
2/2/12: "Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams
2/2/12: "Mount Olympus" by Ben Bova
1/28/12: "The Dragon of Pripyat" by Karl Schroeder
1/28/12: "Written in Blood" by Chris Lawson
2/2/12: "Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams
2/2/12: "Mount Olympus" by Ben Bova
September 8, 2008
A few great stories, some not to my taste. But that's why we read story collections, right?
March 15, 2013
As all of them are, a FIVE STAR collection of the year's best Sci-fi.
September 27, 2014
Liked about half of these.
June 16, 2015
As with any "Best of" collection, there were a couple I ended up skipping, many that I enjoyed, and one or two that made me pause to think about.
December 27, 2015
I have read this book a long time ago (10 years or more) but remember absolutely nothing about it, so it must have been pretty unremarkable (therefore the 2-stars rating).
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