My Grade = 70% - C-Published 2012I used to absolutely love reading these yearly anthologies of the best sci fi stories of the year. Unfortunately, in my dotage I find that I either can't understand what's going on, or the language is too confusing for me, or I am just not interested, or I have no idea what the concept of each is.Of the 29 stories presented here, I enjoyed (and completed) fewer than ten.

Loved "The Man" - Paul McAuley"Holmes Sherlock" - Eleanor Aranson"In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns" - Elizabeth Bear"Old Paint" - Megan Lindholm"Tyche and the Ants" - Hannu Rajaniemi"The Wreck of the 'Charles Dexter Ward'" - Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear (the story I was looking for when I bought this book)"Eater-of-Bone" - Robert ReedEverything else was OK to pretty good.

Different-level science fiction stories which were thankfully translated to Russian in 2018. I liked the two stories of Robert Reed the most. Some of others were as good, and some were worse, but I am glad I read this book and would recommend this series to everyone who already finished their classics read and want to taste something new and fresh.

Individual reviews, written as I read the stories, below. As always: worth reading, although overall not as strong a collection as I would have liked. Still, two new names for me. Brit Mandelo is one of them - I will have to look out for more of her work and really, really hope for a collection soon. And Robert Reed seems interesting and, judging from both his stories here, also not a one-hit-wonder. And honestly: new authors is what I am reading such collections for.***Indrapramit Das: "Weep fo...

Well, guess I'm just going to read all of these eventually. Nothing too exciting here, though.

Had a really hard time with this book, though I loved Andy Duncan's hilarious and heartfelt "Close Encounters," really enjoyed "The Man" by Paul McAuley (which has really stuck with me, will definitely read more of him) and "Holmes Sherlock" by Eleanor Arnason (which was charming), and liked "Old Paint" by Megan Lindholm, "Tyche and the Ants" by Hannu Rajaniemi, and "Katabasis" by Robert Reed... and parts of others too. But in general, this is a huge (700 page) book almost entirely comprised of

As usual, I'll review each tale as I come to it:Weep for Day by Indrapramit DasTo radically misquote Chekov ‘if an olde style knight shows up in the first act, he should be important in the third’. That doesn’t happen here and the fact that there are knights just becomes an odd little quirk, a touch to make the story a little more interesting, rather than something important and meaningful. We’re in a planet that’s half in light and half in darkness, where the humans of the light grow up scared

GR has a limit for review lengths. I've written reviews for most of the 29 stories in this doorstopper and easily reached the limit after half of the book. GR doesn't make it easy reviewing single stories, most don't have entries. That's why I decided to create a new Wordpress site where I can outsource story reviews. Large anthology containing 29 SF stories, all first published in 2012 and cover by my favourite artist, Michael Whelan. It gives room for longer stories, often in the form of novel...

Partial reread of what I think is the best stuff here. It's a good to great anthology. “Sudden, Broken, and Unexpected” (2012), novella by Steven Popkes. 5+ stars, very likely his masterwork. An AI popstar singer is learning to be human. A burnt-out guitarist, who is a world-class song-doctor, is helping her rewrite her songs, and prepare to launch Dot 2.0. The climax made me cry, and I’m still snuffling. Who would think that a workman-like story could reach apotheosis? Worth buying the antholog...

I tend to take ages reading this short story collections. It is so easy to just read a few stories, then read a novel (or a few), then read a few more stories, then a novel... But being short stories, it does not matter that you don't devour the whole book in one go. Actually I feel like it is actually better to read them in smaller portions. They feel fresher, somehow.The problem comes with the reviewing part: I had to glance through the names and some passages of the first maybe half of the s

3,5 stars. It was a big read, 711 pages, and I thought it had less stories in it that fitted my tastes than book 24 that I read a couple of months before. Still, a lot to enjoy here. Alastair Reynolds and Hannu Rajaniemi were very good, but I had read their stories before. I was suprised by how much I liked the Robert Reed stories. Tense adventure stories, in an interesting universe with well thought out biologies, and in both quite a bit of body horror thrown in (when humans are practically imm...

My average rating of the 27 tales I read is 3.34 stars [Ratings breakdown below]REVIEW:   29 short stories from 2012, selected by Gardner Dozois, along with his usual "Summation" (40-ish pages) about the year in science fiction publishing & quality.     Most of the chosen tales are regular SciFi (not much "hard" science or confusing physics here), and most are fairly quick reads (25 or fewer pages) that could be enjoyed even by folks who don't usually read SciFi.     Pretty good overall. Nothi...

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

I've been reading these every year since the mid-90s. Dozois without a doubt has the best taste in story selection. You can't go wrong with getting it. I've read a good selection of the stories before in the magazines I subscribe to, but this fills in the gaps of ones that I haven't read. In all, this one was slightly stronger than last year's, but not the best yearly collection. Still, it's a must have for any serious science fiction reader.

Some good stories and some not quite so good, but overall a good read.

This is another great collection from Gardner Dozois.My favorites were:"Weep for Day" by Indrapramit Das. This is about life on a tidally locked planet where people living on the Day Side battle creatures on the Night Side as they try to expand their habitat."The Stars Do Not Lie" by Jay Lake. Here we're introduced to a planet where the inhabitants ignore science and embrace religion when it comes to their origins and what happens when one man challenges these beliefs."Nightfall on the Peak of E...

I find this collection to be relatively typical of the Year's Best Science Fiction series - some excellent stories, a sizeable amount of "okay" stories, and quite a few stories that I read two or three pages and then skipped over. Several stories had a steampunk vibe, which I generally don't care for, but "Steamgothic", for example, was fascinating.

This year, the standard is slightly uneven. Although most of the stories are very readable, there are fewer than usual standout stories.http://opionator.wordpress.com/2013/0...

Let's do something different this time with GD's TYBSF: let's review each story on its own and then make an average by multiplying a short story's stars by 1, a novelette's by 2, and a novella's by 3, then adding them up and dividing to the sum of the multipliers.Indrapramit Das - Weep for Day (novelette): 3 starsThis began as a wonderfully written story with a very interesting tidally-locked world whose denizens are or were at war with dark-side monsters. The characters and their back stories a...

Another excellent collection. Nothing so outstanding and singular that I'll remember it forever, but still lots of quality tales.I am at least 5 editions behind in the series and now with my main man Gardner Dozois passing away, I fear these collections won't be as good as they once were. Or more to the point, they will vanish altogether. Mega BOOOOThank you Mr. Dozois for collecting some of the best science fiction I've ever read. Through the years you turned me onto authors and stories that wo...