The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 7

by Neil Clarke

A remote village is determined to keep their robot teacher from being fired. A poetry-loving AI controls the wastewater treatment facility, but a series of malfunctions are beginning to cause concern. The biggest pop idol of the twenty-second century is trapped on Enceladus, and deeply alone. Latchko can talk to the banned AIs and now that his secret is out things are about to get complicated. A former child soldier is raised by a plant-like species but struggles to understand them. Ice fishing on Europa just keeps turning up rocks and things just got worse … something is changing the world, making it better, but for whom?Short fiction is the heart of science fiction, introducing new voices, experimenting with ideas and technique, and paving the way for the future of the field. Thousands of stories are published every year in the many genre magazines, anthologies, collections, podcasts, and websites, as well as other less common venues. Each year, Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning editor Neil Clarke sifts through the myriad of offerings to select works that represent the best and the brightest, report on the state of the field, and recommend additional stories for further reading. In this volume, covering 2021, you'll find works by Aliette de Bodard, Meg Elison, Rich Larson, Ken Liu, Ray Nayler, Suzanne Palmer, Hannu Rajaniemi, Robert Reed, Karl Schroeder, Vandana Singh, Tade Thompson, and many more.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies

626 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 5, 2023

About the author

Neil Clarke is best known as the editor and publisher of the Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning Clarkesworld Magazine. Launched in October 2006, the online magazine has been a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine four times (winning three times), the World Fantasy Award four times (winning once), and the British Fantasy Award once (winning once). Neil is also a ten-time finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form (winning once in 2022), three-time winner of the Chesley Award for Best Art Director, and a recipient of the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award. In the fifteen years since Clarkesworld Magazine launched, numerous stories that he has published have been nominated for or won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Locus, BSFA, Shirley Jackson, WSFA Small Press, and Stoker Awards.

Additionally, Neil edits  Forever —a digital-only, reprint science fiction magazine he launched in 2015. His anthologies include: Upgraded, Galactic Empires, Touchable Unreality, More Human than Human, The Final Frontier, Not One of Us,  The Eagle has Landed, , and the Best Science Fiction of the Year series. His next anthology, The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Seven will published in early 2023.

He currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and two sons.

Reviews

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neil Clarke draws mostly from the major SF publications like Asimov's, Analog, Lightspeed, Uncanny, and his own Clarkesworld, to give us a wide range of SF (not fantasy, mind you). There are notable stories from anthologies also such as Sinopticon (Chinese SF) and Make Shift: Dispatches from the Post-Pandemic Future (4 stories).

While other 'best of' anthologies focus on both SF and fantasy, or just fantasy or horror, this one sticks with the hard SF. It's SF that may seem sort of fantasy-like, but it's got a plausible science behind it (even if that science doesn't exist yet).

As always, Clarke's introduction offers a knowledgeable and perceptive look at the state of SF short fiction in the past year.

There are 31 stories here, and a Recommended Reading list in the back offers more suggestions, especially for things like novellas that are too long for this book.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best anthologies I have read this year. Almost all of the stories good to very good.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stories. I recommend skipping whatever doesn't grab you right away.

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Average rating per story was 3.6, so I've rounded up to 4)
This is an interesting collection from 2021, some stories from authors already well known to me and others from names I have never heard before. Neil Clarke has chosen pieces from many sci-fi subgenres and there is no connecting tone or theme except they are all science fiction in one form or another.
It was a very mixed bag in terms of enjoyment, too, running the gamut from 1 to 5 stars - not uncommon for anthologies - but there were more hits than misses. I won't name and shame my two 1-stars, but the 5-star stories for me were "The Pizza Boy" by Meg Elison, "A Necessary Being" by Indrapramit Das, "Quiankun and Alex" by Hao Jingfang, "Jaunt" by Ken Liu, "The Streams are Paved with Fish Traps" by Octavia Cade, and "Bots of the Lost Ark" by Suzanne Palmer.
Overall, I looked forward to picking the collection up each night, and I will read more of Clarke's anthologies in the future.

[Earl Truss · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been disappointed in this series. This volume started off well with three good stories but only one of the remaining stories were good.

[Paul Morisset · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ratings:

'Vaccine Season' by Hannu Rajaniemi - 4 stars.
'Bots of the Lost Ark' by Suzanne Palmer - 4 stars.
'A Rocket for Dimitrios' by Ray Nayler - 4 stars.
'Paley's Watch' by Anil Menon - 3 stars.
'The Pizza Boy' by Meg Elison - 3 stars.
'Jaunt' by Ken Liu - 3 stars.
'Mulberry and Owl' by Aliette de Bodard - 3 stars.
'Muallim' by Ray Nayler - 2 stars.
'Proof by Induction' by Jose Pablo Iriarte - 2 stars.
'Complete Exhaustion of the Organism' - by Rich Larson - 2 stars.
'Philia, Eros, Storge, Agape, Pragma' by R.S.A. Garcia - 1 star.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This appears to be the last surviving Year’s Best SF collection, and it was seriously delayed by the pandemic lockdowns. Volume 7 collects stories from 2021. It wasn’t published until Sept 2023, and the ebook edition I’m reading was published in December. Tough times for fans of short SF!

Fortunately, Neil Clarke’s taste and mine are usually a pretty good match. Unfortunately, Clarke wasn’t able to find enough first-rate material to fill a 600 page volume, in my opinion. Overall, I’d rate the collection at 3 stars. I read all but 2 stories.

I’ve listed my favorite stories in order of my rating. Here’s the complete ToC with story info, award status, and previous reprints: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?...

■ “Bots of the Lost Ark” by Suzanne Palmer. Won the 2022 Hugo for best novelette. Online copy: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/palm...
5-star story! #2 of 3 so far, all online, all first-rate. Don’t miss!

■ “A Rocket for Dimitrios" by Ray Nayler, nominated for the 2021 Locus Award for best novella. Online copy: https://www.raynayler.net/a-rocket-fo...
A fine, complex story set around 1960 in an alternate Cold War, after the US and the Allies won WW2 decisively with alien technology from a crashed alien saucer found in a western US desert. Death Rays! Flying cars! Wonderful old-fashioned SF, with a humane heart and a lovely finish. 4.5 stars, rounded up. My full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

■ “Paley's Watch” by Anil Menon, short story. A mysterious soup-can size object, found by a fisherman in the Gulf of Alaska, turns out to be somewhere between 4 to 5 billion years old. It attracts the attention of a Cal Berkeley physicist, and then the Men in Black. Maybe it’s a model of the universe? Hijinks ensue, and the Watch costs its young co-discoverer his life. Very fast-paced story: 4 stars. High marks. Not online.

■ “Hanai” by Gregory Norman Bossert, novelette. A romp through a future Native Hawaiian cultural reserve, alien starships, drones galore, Wandering Willie D a BIG aquatic alien, water hulu, and heavy-duty hugger-mugger. It’s quite a story, and over-complicated. But good fun, and moves right along. Weak 4 stars, good stuff. Not online.

■ “The Trolley Solution” by Shiv Ramdas, short story. A new take on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley..., academic politics, budget infighting, and a novel (and obvious) solution to the ancient thought-xperiment. AI is involved. Good story: 3.5 stars. Copy online: https://slate.com/technology/2021/03/... Note it will load with the ads blocked. Trust me: you do NOT want those ads!

Beyond here we enter the zone of 3 star and lower stories, for me. Not many are truly dire: to my regret, the Ken Liu was a 2-star, for preachiness. And there seem to be a lot of stories centered on personal pronouns….
If your library has copy of the book, you may wish to try some of these - or take a look at the freebies. Tastes differ. Have fun!

The sad story of the Year’s Best anthologies vs. the pandemic: https://www.blackgate.com/2023/10/03/...

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of bots and dystopias ravaged by climate change and pandemics. Too many over written stories that were more of a maze of puzzles than well paced stories due to “clever” POV and disjointed timelines.

My favorites:
Muallim- Ray Naylor.
Dark Waters Still Flow and The Water Beneath Our Feet- Alice Towey.
Proof by Induction- Jose Pablo Iriarte.
Integral Nothings- Robert Reed.
The Price Of Attention- Karl Schroeder.
The Pizza Boy- Meg Elison.
Necessary Being- Indraparmit Das
Qianken and Alex-Hao Jingfang.
Elegbas Valley- Tade Thomson.
Complete Exhaustion of the Organism-Rick Larson.
Bots of the Lost Ark-Suzanne Palmer.

[The Reading Ruru (Kerry) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this - I think there was only about 5 stories I didn't really enjoy and so skim read those. These stories are picked from a wide variety of magazines, fanzines, Hugo and Nebula winners and while a number of authors are now writing to World acclaim there are a few stand out new authors i enjoyed. Anthologies are always great to read if you want to find new authors and to see if they're worth committing to as well as reading authors you already enjoy.

[Geoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

favourites:

Elegba’s Valley by Tade Thompson
Without Lungs or Limbs to Stay by Shauna O’Meara
Where There are Cities, These Dissolve Too
Vaccine Season by Hannu Rajaniemi
Bots of the Lost Ark by Suzanne Palmer

[Mark Catalfano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked "Jaunt" by Ken Liu

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best in some time

This was the best edition in some time. Discovered lots of fresh and new authors.

I hope next year is just as diverse

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining enough but nothing outstanding in this collection.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very good stories. For my taste, many were too introspective? literary? convoluted? Still, a good anthology.