Some good, some not so. A few I ended up skipping over.

I've been reading Gardner Dozois year's best SF collection for around 15 years, but over the last few I have begun to find Dozois's collection rather tiring. Too few really good stories, too many extremely depressing or just plain boring.I thought I'd try Strahan and now despite the impressive shelf in my library filled with a lovely sequence of Dozois's fat volumes I'm going to switch to Strahan.I enjoy the widening of the range to include fantasy, as much science fiction isn't anything like sc...

03 Jan 200910 Apr 2016Oh, my. There are some excellent stories in here. I checked it out to read Willis' "D.A.", which I loved for her faced-paced hecticness. "How To Talk To Girls At Parties" is a re-read for me, but it is still might good. "In The House Of The Seven Librarians" is a story about feral librarians and is a perfect little fairy tale. "Halfway House" was just a bit too opaque for me, I never felt like I quite got it. "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)" was marvelous and satisf...

• How To Talk To Girls At Parties - Neil Gaiman [**]• El Regalo - Peter S. Beagle [***]• I, Row-Boat - Cory Doctorow [****]• In The House Of The Seven Librarians - Ellen Klages [*]• Another Word For Map Is Faith - Christopher Rowe [*]• Under Hell, Over Heaven - Margo Langanan [***]• Incarnation Day - Walter Jon Williams [****]• The Night Whiskey - Jeffrey Ford [****]• A Siege Of Cranes - Benjamin Rosenbaum [****]• Halfway House - Frances Hardinge [*]• The Bible Repairman - Tim Powers [*]• Yellow...

"How to Talk to Girls at Parties" - Neil GaimanA quiet glimpse into a typical day for a pair of young teen boys. Quietly unsettling.----------"El Regalo" - Peter S. BeagleI don't like the idea of magic without sacrifice--such as feeling weak afterward or something. So this fairytale-type magic in this story didn't do it for me. And it seems like there should be a learning curve involved, but successfully making garbage bags dance and getting the cat to play Monopoly? It seems like it'd be rather...

A decent collection of short stories, some better than others.

An interesting collection—in anthologies like this one, a reader will obviously encounter some stories that they enjoy more than others. I do have to say, however, there was only one that I found rather opaque and several that I really, really enjoyed.My favourites:In the House of the Seven Librarians by Ellen Klages, which I have reviewed separately.I, Row-Boat by Cory Doctorow, a tale of a sentient machine (said row-boat) who ponders Asimovian philosophy and the nature of life.The Night Whiske...

Spoilers below..."How to Talk to Girls at Parties" by Neil Gaiman. 3 out of 5 stars. A young man and his friend believe they've gone to a party, when in fact, they've found a house full of aliens who look like young women. I'm not a huge fan of Gaiman, but this story is pretty typical for him, so if Gaiman is your thing, you'll probably like this one. "El Regalo" by Peter S. Beagle. 3 out of 5 stars. A teenage girl can't stand her 8-year-old brother, who is a witch. He learns to go back in time....

There are a lot of anthologies that claim to contain the “best” content from a certain time period/genre/author, but Night Shade Books’ THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY OF THE YEAR: VOLUME ONE delivers on the title’s claim in an exquisite fashion. Editor Jonathan Strahan has assembled the ultimate mix tape of 2006′s short fiction in these genres, and it reads like a symphony. Anthologies can be piecemeal affairs; readers tend to hopscotch around them, picking and choosing based on the author...

A better than average collection. In my experience with ‘best of’ collections, there’s usually a ho-hum quality to 85% of the book, with one or two pretty goods and maybe one great story. This volume is unique in that there are a few virtually unreadable stories that have no business even being at the top of the slush pile… not sure what Strahan was thinking on those, but I’m going to counter my own argument and say I’m glad they’re here! Strahan took chances with his selections, and it shows. R...

Didn't care for this editor's choices. All a little weird and depressing.

Sith clicked the phone off. She opened the trunk of the car and tossed the phone into it. Being telephoned by ghosts was so . . . unmodern. How could Cambodia become a number one country if its cell phone network was haunted? As I progressed through the book, I realised that a large number of the stories were to do with death in one form or another. I suppose it could be a coincidence, but was there something about 2006 that inspired authors to write about death and its aftermath, or did the edi...

This collection was heavily weighted toward fantasy rather than SF so it offered a different mix of stories than Gardner Dozois' annual anthology. The stories were OK but I'd have preferred the balance weighted the other way, so I can't give this book high marks.

A fine kick-off to his then-new series. Notable for containing my favorite Peter S. Beagle story ever, "El Regalo":""[Angie, age 15] saw [Marvyn, her 8 1/2 yr old brother] on the floor, playing with Milady, the gray, ancient family cat. Nothing unusual about that: Marvyn and Milady had been an item since he was old enough to realize that the cat wasn't something to eat. What halted Angie as though she had walked into a wall was that they were playing Monopoly, and that Milady appeared to be winn...

Just a wonderful set of stories to lose yourself in.

An excellent mixture of short stories, all different from each other, but all contain a sense of wonder and excitement.

Excellent.choicesA.nice.selection of sci-fi and.fantasy. I enjoyed all of.the stories. I usually prefer novels or short stories but this is well worth the tjme

A wonderful collection of recent science fiction and fantasy, "The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume One" is worth the read. The year in question was 2006, but some of the stories are timeless. Jonathan Strahan has been editing SF&F for a number of years, and his expertise shows. The collection seems to lean toward fantasy, and a couple of the stories I might reclassify as horror, but I won't quibble with good writing and creative stores.Among my favotites were Neil Gaiman's "...

I'm generally not impressed by anthologies unless they contain authors I am familiar with. I decided to take a gamble since this was on sale and give it a shot. There were maybe three stories I enjoyed.....yes three...some stories simply made no sense while others took so long to develop I contemplated just skipping over them. One in particular that I actually did skip was called The Wizards of Perfil, in which a young boy was somehow in two places at once. Now this seems interesting enough at f...

I read this on my Nook and found that the short form is where it excels. Having several short-story collections with me at all times allows me to pick and choose according to my moods.As for this collection, I found it to be extremely well-rounded. Though there was not much in the way of "hard" sci-fi included, the stories run the gamut from whimsical ("In The House of the Seven Librarians") to serious ("I, Row-boat"), to odd ("Under Hell, Over Heaven"), to somewhat disturbing ("The Night Whiske...