Note to readers – This post is a real departure, but I’ve been reading The Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology, edited by Gardner Dozois, every year since it first came out in 1984. For the last several years, I’ve reviewed these collections on Amazon, where people seem to find them helpful. Since I’m no longer writing reviews there, I decided to post this year’s review here. Whether or not you’re a sci fi fan, I wager you will enjoy the Year’s Best short story collections – true to their name, they feature the best work of the best writers in the field, across a wide range of themes and styles from hard science to fantasy.

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection

Overview

This is one of the strongest collections in memory, especially in terms of storytelling and mood. However, the very fact that so many of these stories appeal so strongly to me may be bad news to some, in the sense that the twenty-sixth collection lacks the amazing breadth of style and theme that has more than anything characterized previous collections.

Within these 628 pages (excluding the editor’s extensive annual summation), we have a surplus of hard-boiled mystery and tense drama, and repeated emphasis on genetic engineering, alien encounters, and alternate histories in which some non-Western culture dominates. Nearly every one of the 30 stories herein has an extremely tight plot: almost entirely missing are the open-ended, difficult to interpret tales that have cropped up so frequently in past years. This collection, too, contains a relatively high percentage of stories striking a note of optimism. This runs in stark contrast to many a previous collection, where gloom and doom were the orders of the day. Along the same lines, surprisingly few stories tackle our most significant, immediate, and intractable problems – things such as environmental decay, economic suffering, and terrorism.

All these trends make the twenty-sixth collection substantively fresh. And perhaps the common elements are a sign of the times: when the world is uncertain, as it certainly was in 2008 and continues to be in 2009, we are attracted to certainty, entertainment, and drama that doesn’t hit too close to home. Most of this year’s stories offer all of that, and much more.

The Stories

“Turing’s Apples,” by Stephen Baxter. In the near future, humankind is shaken and stirred by a hopelessly complex alien message. Well paced blend of hard science and suspense.

“From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled,” by Michael Swawnick. Information-based human culture locks horns with trust-based alien culture on Europa. Abstract themes contrast neatly with action packed plot and richly embroidered setting.

“The Gambler,” by Paolo Bacigalupi. Can integrity survive the internet? A diligent journalist makes his last stand in a world obsessed with pop culture, where success is measured in click-throughs and backlinks. Elegant plot, which grows more poignant with every page, exposes the devastating superficiality of our very likely, near future.

“Boojum,” by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. When horrific danger descends on a pirate spaceship, a crew mate teams up with an unlikely partner in an attempt to cheat death. Tense plot populated with memorable characters – including the ship herself.

“The Six Directions of Space,” by Alistair Reynolds. Spy investigating alien sightings on the frontier of a galactic Mongol Empire discovers things far stranger – and more threatening. A masterfully written, action packed adventure yarn with dazzling speculation about space and time.

“N-Words,” by Ted Kosmatka. Cloned Neanderthals experience blind and violent racism in a blistering indictment of human nature. Somehow, the story transcends its bitterness to present a moving depiction of the genetically complex world we are rushing toward.

“An Eligible Boy,” by Ian McDonald. Exceedingly complex narrative about a future India where prenatal gender selection has led to a 4:1 ratio of females to males, with predictable results. Overflowing ideas and details distract attention from fascinating premise.

“Shining Armour,” by Dominic Green. Over matched villagers confront a corporate army on a mining planet in a whimsical blend of Kung-Fu, Pale Rider, and The War of the Worlds.

“The Hero,” by Karl Schroeder. Inarticulate juggler risks life and limb to save his Dyson sphere-like universe from barbarians at the gate, beginning with a dive into a topographically immense and amazing bug. Charming epic made memorable by its spectacular setting.

“Evil Robot Monkey,” by Mary Robinette Kowal. Chimp with brain implant struggles to overcome his base instincts with reason. A profound and chilling portrait of a non-human mind, all in a scant two pages!

“Five Thrillers,” by Robert Reed. Epic chronicle of a ruthless protector of Homo sapiens against the genetically re-engineered. Five edge-of-your-seat episodes combine for a most disturbing look at to what extent the means can justify the ends.

“The Sky That Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue and Into the Black,” by Jay Lake. Under the thumb of his Chinese master, a former space explorer seeks atonement for a colossal blunder in what may be slave labor … or a labor of love. Dark undertones lurk just beneath the tranquil narrative.

“Incomers,” by Paul McAuley. Boys will be boys, even on the Saturn moon of Rhea in the 24th century. Two adolescents take an oddball herbalist for a spy, and the more they learn, the more they grow up.

“Crystal Nights,” by Greg Egan. Tycoon with God complex and lightening fast processor evolves his own race of cyber beings. I’ve seen it before, but never with so many deep philosophical and theological connections … and a great twist ending, to boot.

“The Egg Man,” by Mary Rosenblum. A lonely Mexican apothecary chases ghosts and helps scattered Americans in the sun blistered, post apocalyptic Sonoran Desert. In the midst of thirst, disease, and hopelessness, he chances upon something of value. Bitter political commentary; sweet praise of the human spirit.

“His Master’s Voice,” by Hannu Rajaniemi. When humans gain the ability to digitally reproduce their minds, matter and mind mix in bizarre ways: a sentient cat and dog rocket to the aid of their master, who has violated digital copyright laws in a far future and stunningly otherworldly Earth.

“The Political Prisoner,” by Charles Coleman Finlay. During a political purge on a planet market by ruthless intrigue, bigotry, and fundamentalism, a political officer winds up in a situation where survival is measured in minutes. The author combines disparate historical elements into a frightfully strange yet familiar setting, and demonstrates the power of the human spirit in the face of depravity.

“Balancing Accounts,” by James L. Cambias. The science is as entertaining as the fiction when an all-robot cast of characters face off over a mysterious shipment heading from one Saturn moon to another.

“Special Economics,” by Maureen F. McHugh. Uncomfortably realistic glimpse of life in the not too distant future, featuring two Chinese factory girls who struggle to survive in a post-bird flu plague economy teeming with mixed revolutionary and capitalist signals.

“Days of Wonder,” by Geoff Ryman. Extinct humans preserve their legacy by implanting pieces of their knowledge in different animals, but one mare possesses something far more important and dangerous – the desire to learn more. A lyrical, bittersweet narrative quite relevant despite its far future setting.

“The City of the Dead,” by Paul McAuley. A colony of dangerously organized rats draws the attention of an eccentric scientist and a band of thugs. A spellbinding if not macabre mystery set on a faraway planet littered with the remnants of vanished alien civilizations.

The Voyage Out,” by Gwyneth Jones. Dreamy, dreary psychodrama has a fascist United States of Earth playing mind games with prisoners before throttling them into space to meet an uncertain fate.

“The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm,” by Daryl Gregory. The latest and greatest incursion by strange American forces into an even stranger country shakes up the citizenry. Amazing visual pomp, but I could not fathom the circumstance.

“G-Men,” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Taut alternate history whodunit featuring LBJ, Robert Kennedy, and a grisly multiple murder in the back alleys of New York City. Screams for a Part Two!

“The Erdmann Nexus,” by Nancy Kress. Residents of an assisted living community experience a series of synchronous psychic anomalies. One of the victims, who happens to be a theoretical physicist, attempts to unravel the mystery. Brisk narrative and sharply drawn characters bring a rather impalpable premise to life. (Note – This story won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novella.)

“Old Friends,” by Garth Nix. A shape shifting, cosmic knight recuperates in a seaside apartment and awaits his next battle, which is creeping upon him like a weed. Highly entertaining blend of the mundane and the Medieval.

“The Ray-Gun: A Love Story,” by James Alan Gardner. Ponder the mysteries of cause and effect in everyday life as you read this clever tale of a boy who finds a ray-gun in the woods. The story starts out like a whole lot of nothing, and then zaps you in the brain like a … like a ray-gun.

“Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues,” by Gord Sellar. Sax player picks up a gig on a space ship where frog-like aliens take jazz up a notch. Creepy alternate-1948 setting with subtle historical and technological differences along with some truly disgusting Frog men.

“Butterfuly, Falling at Dawn,” by Aliette de Bodard. Hernan Cortes is sent packing by the Chinese, and upon that premise the author serves up a modern day murder mystery: part Aztec, part Chinese, with a dash of Euro-American. The plot may be routine, but the vivid cultural particulars are anything but.

“The Tear,” by Ian McDonald. Alas, the facts come too fast and the science too furious for me to comprehend this expansive tale of cosmic battle between races of super beings.

Other Recommended The Year’s Best Science Fiction Collections
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (Year’s Best Science Fiction)
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection

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