Another download from the library. Christopher Hurt is the narrator & he's pretty good. Not exciting, but not boring, either. He doesn't try for a lot of odd voices, but does vary enough to keep characters separated & the narrative flowing. I'll skip to the overall review: I now remember why I cancelled my subscription to Asimov's magazine years ago - Dozois took over as editor. I grew up reading the pulps and prefer fairly short stories, but most of these run long on words, short on insight & i...

This is a review reconstructed from mainly brief diary entries made on each of the stories as I read them in 2006-7. While I still recall some of the stories, I have forgotten others in the seven-eight years since reading this book. For this reason, it’s regrettable that I did not record anything about nine of the stories in this anthology, although I did read them. Seven more (listed at the end) I merely noted as having read but the lack of commentary does not mean that I disliked them. This re...

I've had this intimidating volume collecting dust since it was close to new, over several moves. Time to move it along. To that end I read at least the first paragraph or so of every one, often a page or two, but seldom wound up finishing the stories (maybe about 1/4). New-to-me authors to consider are Daryl Gregory, Steven Popkes, Chris Roberson. I really liked the story 'Zima Blue' by Alastair Reynolds but suspect it's unique among his works in its appeal to me. Skimmed Sept 2021

This anthology didn't have any "must-read" stories and a few downers, so it only gets 2 stars. My rankings may be lower than normal since I'm not feeling well. The format for the story reviews is story / author / review / rating (number of stars). ---The Little Goddess, by Ian McDonald. Loses some points for a few paragraphs about the aborted start of an Indian wedding night. I liked the ending. 2.5*The Calorie Man, by Paolo Bacigalupi. A rant against intellectual property laws. A future control...

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.

This high quality anthology makes for good solid reading if you are a hardcore science fiction fan and you yearn for 650 oversize pages of it. You will really like some of the stories, not remember others and dislike a few, as is the way of all anthologies.You'd think a review of so much book would be longer, but I've said all I am going to; and probably all you really need to know.

Most of the stories in this edition were 'very good' to 'excellent'. The two I liked best were "Softly Spoke the Gabbleduck" by Neal Asher, about hunting a fabled beast on another planet; and "In the Quake Zone" by David Gerrold, a different kind of time travel story. Some others I thought were very good were "Beyond the Aquila Rift" by Alastair Reynolds, about a trip through ancient alien portals that went awry; "The Canadian who Almost Came all the Way Back from the Stars" by Jay Lake and Ruth...

http://nhw.livejournal.com/724852.html[return][return]This is always the best value for money of the various best-sf-of-the-year collections, if also the most intimidating (I don't seem to have finished last year's). Plenty of stories that I had already read and enjoyed, and several that were new to me - note especially "The Canadian Who Came Almost All the Way Back from the Stars" by Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold, "The Blemmye's Stratagem" by Bruce Sterling, "Audubon in Atlantis" by Harry Turtledo...

While I have read quite a bit of SF in the last five years, I have read almost no short SF...until now. Ultimately, I found this to be a very enjoyable collection. I take notes as I read (or listen, in this case), and looking back, it's hard to believe how many unique stories were crammed into this one anthology. Generally speaking, I started with the shorter stories and worked my way up to the novellas. Contrary to my expectations, I tended to enjoy the longer stories more. In hindsight, I'm no...

The first half of this book was great, then there tons of stories that were essentially painful space filler. I would have finished this a week ago if it would have kept the pace that they started with. The last story in the book was almost on par with the first half. It's worth reading but there were several hundred pages of blah so when you get bored don't feel bad about skipping some of them if you have to.

I've generally quite liked the earlier editions of these (also edited by Dozois), but I found the selection here to be a little lacklustre. Readable as always, but with no real gems. Nevertheless, I'm awarding honourable mentions to Triceratops Summer, Beyond the Aquila Rift, Zima Blue, Second Person/ Present Tense, In The Quake Zone and Little Faces.

1. Beyond the Aquila Shift - Alastair Reynolds. A rendition of a lost-in-space story, told a la MEMENTO. Interesting, but ending very predictable by the half-way point. I also question the authenticity of the main character's reaction -- surely a space-travelling human should be more resilient than that? 2.5 STARS.2. Second Person, Present Time - Daryl Gregory. Exploration of what happens when one's personality destructs, to be replaced by a naturally-occurring other, and whether and how to ref...

An excellent anthology series that does publish awesome short stories. Tons of cool stuff in here.Ok I finished this, so I'm going to add a little more to it. Since there are a pile of stories here i'm just going to make comments on the ones I remember and liked, my apologies to the early stories in the book as I read them over a year ago.The Calorie Man- Paolo Bacigalupi: This story was awesome, it takes place in the future where there are no fossil fuels, but genetic engineering is well advanc...

I checked this book out just for one story: "The Calorie Man" by Paolo Bacigalupi. It is a fascinating and thrilling story. His new future for the world is terrifying and fascinating.

Really enjoyed reading these diverse stories.

I read Triceratops Summer by Michael Swanwick.If you want to imagine Triceratops in modern America, then this is your story. The main character comes across a herd of Triceratops wandering across the road he's on, and life gets fun from there. A largely amusing read, it considers what people will do when they know there's a wobble in the time continuum.

This is an anthology, and an old faithful one at that. I have read volumes of this anthology for years and always marvel that Gardner Dozois seems to find so, many incredible stories to include in these things every year.We open with Ian McDonald’s The Little Goddess: what a brilliant start to this collection! In this we travel to a future India, that probably isn’t that far away, filled with incredible technology, and ancient traditions, to meet a girl who become a God as a child and finds hers...

This was a solid, if unspectacular collection. Good stories from Paolo Bacigalupi, Ian McDonald (who normally I can't get on with), Alastair Reynolds (ditto), Michael Swanwick, James Patrick Kelly, Elizabeth Bear, and David Gerrold (the guy who wrote 'The Trouble with Tribbles'! Yes!). Elsewhere though things are pretty run-of-the-mill and forgettable - in particular was not a fan of Robert Reed's 'Camouflage', which tries to go for that noir-style non-sequitur plot, but was just impossible to f...

A good solid healthy chunk of shortform sci-fi. Maybe nothing utterly mindblowing, but even the worst aren't dreadful, although a small number are easily missable. The collection ends well, with James Patrick Kelly's engaging Burn. Nice moments too from Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds, Harry Turtledove and David Gerrold. I don't read a lot of short fiction, so it's nice to try a new form, and with any anthology, if you don't enjoy one story, there'll be another along shortly.