The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection Hardcover – July 8, 2008

Another strong collection in the series, although a lot of the best stories were at the start of the book and it becomes a little more mixed thereafter. Some of my favorite stories are the McDonald, the MacLeod, the Kosmatka and the Sterling."Finisterra" - David Moles 4/5Poachers are killing multi-kilometer long animals floating in the atmosphere of a gas giant. Good concept and exciting."Lighting Out" - Ken MacLeod 4.5/5A young woman tries to gain independence from her mother while avoiding a "fast-burn" singularity. Fun singularity stuff, although there is not much really new."An Ocean Is a Snowflake, Four Billion Miles Away" - John Barnes 4/5A filmmaker captures the orbital insertion of a comet that will terraform Mars."Saving Tiamaat" - Gwyneth Jones 4/5A diplomat faces hard choices while representing one faction of a species that has destroyed its homeworld. Interesting ideas on the limits of politics."Of Late I Dreamt of Venus" - James Van Pelt 4/5The founder of a Venus terraforming project tries to oversee its very long duration. Nicely meshes the founder's personality with the project as a whole."Verthandi's Ring" - Ian MacDonald 5/5Two huge galactic cultures fight a war of extermination. Great space opera with a lot of ideas in a fairly short story."Sea Change" - UnaMcCormack 3/5In a restrictive, heavily class-divided future Britain, a teenage girl has to deal with the bad influence of the friend she is living with. Not bad, but didn't excite me."The Sky Is Large and the Earth Is Small" - Chris Roberson 3/5In an alternate history, an old prisoner in the dominant Chinese empire is questioned about his time among the Mexica."Glory" - Greg Egan 3.5/5Representatives from a galactic civilization are sent to a more primitive world to study the mathematical theorems of a vanished race. Has some interesting concepts."Against the Current" - Robert Silverberg 4/5A man starts moving backwards through time at a rate of a couple of decades per day. Nice concept and an enjoyable story."Alien Archaeology" - Neal Asher 3/5"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" - Ted Chiang 4/5Stories of people in Middle Ages Baghdad who use a gate that can move them 20 years forward or backward in time. A very interesting handling of a number of time travel paradox situations."Beyond the Wall" - Justin Stanchfield 3.5/5An alien artifact on Titan causes space-time distortions. Interesting."Kiosk" - Bruce Sterling 4/5A street vendor's use of a nanotech fabricator leads to an economic revolution. A funny, somewhat satirical view of how change happens."Last Contact" - Steven Baxter 3.5/5A mother and daughter spend time together as a space-time anomaly threatens the Earth. A different take on the end of the world."The Sledge-Maker's Daughter" - Alastair Reynolds 3/5A girl on an Earth suffering from a new ice age gains some high technology. Didn't seem like anything new."Sanjeev and Robotwallah" - Ian McDonald 3.5/5A street urchin becomes a helper to the handlers of robot soldiers. Minor story with an interesting setting."The Skysailor's Tale" - Michael Swanwick 3/5A boy runs away from home and sails across timelines on a flying ship from an alternate British Empire."Of Love and Other Monsters" - Vandana Singh 4/5An alien with the ability to manipulate human minds comes to terms with his existence on Earth. Main character is interesting in all the internal conflicts he has to deal with."Steve Fever" - Greg Egan 4/5Nanotech bots infect the world in an attempt to resurrect their creator, Steve. A fun twist on the out-of-control nanotech story."Hellfire at Twilight" - Kage Baker 3/5A Company operative looks for an ancient Greek scroll at an 18th century English estate. Average Company story."The Immortals of Atlantis" - Brian Stableford 3/5An ancient race's DNA is hidden inside the mitochondria of modern humans.Interesting concept."Nothing Personal" - Pat Cadigan 3/5A policewoman investigates a crime with suspects who seem to appear in the world with no previous history."Tideline" - Elizabeth Bear 4/5An AI war machine tries to memorialize it's dead platoon. A very good, moving story."The Accord" - Keith Brooke 3/5Agents of the controlling anomaly in a VR afterlife chase an anomaly that threatens its existence. Very Matrix-like."Laws of Survival" - Nancy Kress 3.5/5A woman in post-nuclear America is kidnapped by aliens to serve as a dog trainer."The Mists of Time" - Tom Purdom 3/5Time travelers watch a British raid against slave traders. Didn't really get the point of this one."Craters" - Kristine Kathryn Rusch 3.5/5Terrorists find a nasty new way to send bombs through security."The Prophet of Flores" - Ted Kosmatka 4/5Archeology in a world where intelligent design is scientific fact."Stray" - Benjamin Rosenbauam and David Ackert 3/5A powerful immortal being tries to live in the regular world."Roxie" - Robert Reed 3/5The life of a dog and the end of the world."Dark Heaven" - Gregory Benford 3.5/5A detective investigates murders that seem to be tied to an alien embassy. Good, but I could pretty much see where it was going.

Gardner Dozois shows us that 2007 was a better-than-average year for science fiction. Per expectations from previous anthologies, this volume includes more than the selected stories. The "Summation 2007" chapter reviews the state of science fiction for the year in exhaustive detail. And the introductions to each of the 32 stories are particularly effective in highlighting other work by the respective authors.My favorite five stories focus on emotional themes:James Van Pelt's "Of Late I Dreamt of Venus" is an off-key story about love, patience and centuries-long dedication as two very different people work to change the face of Venus.Ted Chiang's "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" explores the intertwining stories of time travelers and shows us several ways to find meaning from our losses.Elizabeth Bear's "Tideline" traces the parental relationship between a boy and a damaged robot struggling to remember the past with honor.Robert Reed's "Roxie" compares human denial in the face of an incoming asteroid to human denial of the failing health of a man's best friend.Gregory Benford's "Dark Heaven" shows us death from many perspectives, from a coroner's detachment from the bodies in a homicide investigation, through a detective's feelings about his late wife, to the very different views held by a visiting alien race.The collection as a whole is highly recommended. My hope is that future collections will also appear in Kindle format, to allow surreptitious reading on my iPhone during the inevitable solemnly unimportant meetings of my life.

As always, this yearly collection of short and novella-length science fiction is superbly selected and edited by Gardner Dozois. BUT THIS YEAR THE PUBLISHER, ST. MARTIN'S GRIFFIN, ALLOWED THE FIRST EDITION, PAPERBACK, TO BE RELEASED WITH A COMPLETE SECTION (PAGES 109 TO 140) MISSING. The missing section includes (or should have included) parts of stories by Una McCormack and Greg Egan and all of "The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small" by Chris Roberson. This is not simply a problem with one copy of the book; there's no physical gap between pages 108 and 141. Another printing may include the missing section, but I'd advise looking the book over before you purchase it.

I just prefer reading off paper to using an e-reader. I downloaded this to my S4 thinking that I would read a story here and there, using the phone, but I just don't. It's a pain in the ass to use the e-reader, IMO. Should have bought the paperback.The anthology itself, as usual, is spot on terrific. If you don't want to have to wade through a bunch of mediocre magazine stories, or a bookshelf full of fanfic - quality series, this along with the rich horton annual is a great way to find new, good science fiction.

For this collection Gardner Dozois selected SF stories which he considered as best amongst those published in 2007. The one from previous year was very honest and this one is mostly on the same level.As in earlier anthologies, for this one Gardner Dozois selected stories which he considered as the best or most important of the given year. This collection includes also an overview of what happened in SF (largely understood) in 2007 and at the end there is also the very useful section of "honourable mentions" - stories which couldn't be selected for this collection because of lack of space (and this is already a HUGE book!), but which were also of good quality.Most stories are good, honest, solid stuff, with no less than six being VERY GOOD: "Alien Archaeology" by Neal Asher, "Last contact" by Steven Baxter, "Hellfire at Twilight" by Kage Baker, "Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear, "The Accord" by Keith Brooke, "Mists of time" by Tom PurdomOn another hand for my personal taste there were also five stinkers: "Of Late I Dreamt of Venus", "Verthandi's Ring", "The Skysailor's Tale", "Of Love and Other Monsters", "Stray". The remaining twenty one stories range from "good" to "readable".That being said, as for the 2006 anthology, I cannot rate this collection five stars, mostly because of a generally depressed and pessimistic mood in most of those stories. There is not even one amongst them in which we could find at least an ounce of exhilarating joy that is usually associated (at least for me) with the exploration of new possibilities, new horizons, new discoveries, new knowledge; in fact there is virtually no joy associated with anything. It sounds almost as if all modern SF was written by a bunch of terminal cancer patients for a public of masochists enjoying chronic depression...Linked to the previous point, there is also an almost absolute lack of humour in those series; only in "Hellfire at Twilight", "Alien Archaeology" and "Roxie" we may find some lighter moments.Below, more of my impressions about every story, with some limited SPOILERS:-------------------------------------------"Finisterra" by David Moles - in a distant future, on a strange planet, a gas giant which was probably modified by some powerful aliens, gone extinct since, live powerful zaratanis, colossal creatures which float into the top layers of the atmosphere; some are big enough that human towns were built on them. Then appears a band of poachers, who want to bag some of those creatures - maybe even the largest of them, the impossibly gigantic and ancient zaratan Finisterra. This is a honest, READABLE story, with an interesting religious aspect - in this reality Islam is the dominant religion and the few "dhimmis" (non-Muslims, mainly Jews and Christians) who are still tolerated are nevertheless discriminated and oppressed, which leaves them the choice between converting, running away to the wilderness or live on the absolute margins of the society... An useful reminder of reality, especially in our times of total political correctness..."Lighting Out" by Ken MacLeod - in a distant future an aged woman, who spend most of her life in every kind of shady endeavour she could find, contacts her estranged daughter with a business proposal; quite obviously, this cannot end well... A honest, READABLE "cyberpunk" story, but nothing more."An Ocean Is a Snowflake, Four Billion Miles Away" by John Barnes - terraforming of Mars is a frequent topic in SF and here the technical aspect of the whole thing is quite well described; but the story is harmed by its two main protagonists, a man and a woman who came to make a document about the next step of transformation; as she is pale and uninteresting and he is an unpleasant, quasi autistic man, their interactions are really boring. READABLE, average story."Saving Tiamaat" by Gwyneth Jones - in a distant future a man and a woman are charged with chaperoning two delegates to a peace conference, destined to end a horrible civil war; the code names of two delegates, who are also a man and a woman, are "Baal" and "Tiamaat". This is actually a GOOD story, in which author surprises as many times with unexpected but ultimately plausible developments. Enjoy!"Of Late I Dreamt of Venus" by James Van Pelt - another terraforming story, this time about Venus - an incredibly wealthy woman decides to use all her fortune and power to change Venus into a perfect planet - superior even to Earth... The story begins well, then slows down and at the end just crashes and burns... All in all a rather POOR story, with a weak ending."Verthandi's Ring" by Ian MacDonald - extremely ambitious and terminally weird story about a future war between two civilizations so advanced that they are quasi-Godlike... The whole thing is however too weird and the ending is simply abysmally stupid! A POOR story."Sea Change" by Una McCormack - two teen-aged girls who were raised together make trouble and their rich parents ground them on an island in Scotland... The SF element of this story is very discreet - it is actually almost a "regular literature" short story. READABLE, but nothing more."The Sky Is Large and the Earth Is Small" by Chris Roberson - it is an alternate reality story which takes place in XVII century China, under the reign of Emperor Kangxi (who really existed also in our reality); in this world Europeans never conquered the Aztecs and neither did they colonized North America - on another hand the Chinese developed an excellent fleet and routinely trade with the Mexica Empire and the Arab countries. One day, a bureaucrat of middle rank is tasked with preparing a report about the possibility of conquering the Mexica... This is a GOOD story, with tension building up all the time - just to end in the most anti-climactic possible way... Which is a pity, because this story had some serious potential..."Glory" by Greg Egan - in a very distant future two human scientists contact a less advanced civilization to investigate a scientific mystery on alien's home planet... Exactly as in the case of the previous story, this one begins very well, but progressively descends lower and lower, all the way to the possibly most banal and disappointing ending one can imagine. A honest READABLE story."Against the Current" by Robert Silverberg - well, this Great Ancient Master of SF rarely misses - and this short story about a guy who starts to go backward in time is a really GOOD thing, reminding me of both old "Twilight Zone" series and of "The incredible shrinking man" classical novel by Richard Matheson..."Alien Archaeology" by Neal Asher - this long but well written novella is a kind of sequel to the excellent 2005 short story "Softly spoke the gabbleduck"; it mixes very well "space opera" with "film noir" and some "cursed treasure" elements - also, we learn from it a lot, lot more about gabbleducks...))) For my personal taste this is a VERY GOOD story - in fact THE THIRD BEST in the collection."The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang - in Baghdad of "1001 Nights" an alchemist uses a portable wormhole to make people visit their future or their past. An interesting, GOOD story, approaching Islam with the kind of profound respect which SF writers NEVER show to Christian religion..."Beyond the Wall" by Justin Stanchfield - in XXIII century a gigantic alien artefact, aged 500 000 years, is found on Titan and all nations on Earth want to explore it; a team of United Nations security guards is dispatched there first to prevent anybody acceding it until the negotiations are over - and of course there will be trouble... A good initial idea and a well written story - but without a real ending and completely avoiding giving any explanation of all mysteries. Honest, READABLE thing, but nothing more."Kiosk" by Bruce Sterling - ah, those left-wingers...))) Even in 2007, they still didn't fully recover from the 1989-91 shock of seeing communism collapsing, when in the same time the capitalism didn't...))) In this terminally weird, albeit well written, short story author tries to describe a kind of social and economic revolution, somewhere, I guess, in the Balkans in a near future, after both communism and capitalism collapsed...))) A READABLE thing, but don't try to learn economics from it...)))"Last Contact" by Steven Baxter - a powerful story about the end of the world; low-key but quite terrifying, with an EXTREMELY powerful punch-line; a VERY GOOD story!"The Sledge-Maker's Daughter" by Alastair Reynolds - in a devastated post-apocalyptic world a young girl becomes the target of an abusive local heavy and goes to a witch to look for advice... Without surprise as in most of recent SF in which witches appear this is a feminist story, in which the men play of course the role of villains (or at least clueless stooges)...; still, a rather READABLE thing."Sanjeev and Robotwallah" by Ian McDonald - this story about a kind of child-soldiers is situated in the same universe (a future high tech India) as "Little Goddess" and "The djinn's wife" (both good stories) which figured in previous collections, but this one is considerably weaker and less inspired. READABLE, nothing more."The Skysailor's Tale" by Michael Swanwick - it begins as story about a young boy growing up in USA just after the Independence War and then it turns into a kind of alternate history tale - and precisely at that moment it crashes down and burns, turning into an absurd nonsensical mess with some slightly gross masturbatory fantasies... A POOR thing. Avoid!"Of Love and Other Monsters" by Vandana Singh - homosexual aliens living amongst humans are hunted by homosexual alien hunters... An incredibly messy and terminally unpleasant VERY POOR story, the WORST in this collection!"Steve Fever" by Greg Egan - a kind of post-apocalyptic "cyberpunk" story about rogue AIs and their difficult relationship with humans... I am absolutely not a fan of this author, but this is a quite honest, READABLE short story."Hellfire at Twilight" by Kage Baker - this novella is part of long running Company cycle and before reading it you may want to check this particular fictional universe on internet, to familiarize yourself with some basic rules of those stories; in that one, an infiltrated Company operative takes employment as librarian with Sir Francis Dashwood (1708-1781), 15th Baron le Despencer, a very real person who was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1762 to 1763 and is mostly remembered as the founder and president of a particularly active branch of the Hellfire Club...))) The reason for this operation is to find and steal a priceless ancient document - and I will say nothing more here... It is a VERY GOOD story and also one of the very few lighter and merrier moments in this collection...)))"The Immortals of Atlantis" by Brian Stableford - a strange, even weird story about refugees from Atlantis living amongst common mortals in our times - just somehow hurt by the quasi obligatory kowtow to global warming hysteria... A well written, READABLE thing."Nothing Personal" by Pat Cadigan - an aging female police officer, feeling a little bit down since some time, receives a new partner, a much younger male detective recently promoted from Computer Crimes "geek squad"... Together they have to investigate an extremely mysterious case of suspicious death which may or may not be a murder - but which is just the beginning of an even greater mystery... That novella was initially going towards a major masterpiece, but was first hurt (a little) by completely unnecessary homosexual accents and then grievously damaged (like really grievously) by a poorly written, completely anti-climactic ending. Because of that this is only a GOOD story. Pity."Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear - on the ruins of the world a badly damaged war robot meets a starving human child... An EXCELLENT, VERY POWERFUL STORY, the SECOND BEST in the collection!"The Accord" by Keith Brooke - a surprising, original, clever short story, which mixes quite well SF (it happens on another planet in the future), Old Testament story of Samson and Delilah, Christian (non-biblical) lore of fallen angels, ancient heathen legends of vampires and even (I think) some Buddhism... A VERY GOOD story."Laws of Survival" by Nancy Kress - there was a Third World War and then alien ships came to the ruined Earth; this is the story of the first human who made contact with them - and lived to tell the story... Very well written, I must give it to the author, but the most extreme, hateful, hysterically left-winged ideology and also pandering to global warming hysteria hurt it quite a lot. Therefore for me it is a GOOD, solid story - but no more."The Mists of Time" by Tom Purdom - somewhere around 1845 a small British warship, HMS "Sparrow", belonging to the Preventative Squadron (anti-slavery patrol) intercepts a much larger and better armed ship which carries a cargo of black slaves towards Brazil... Albeit outnumbered and outgunned the crew of HMS "Sparrow" will engage the fight in order to free the slaves, at great risk of loss of life and limb. Both fighting sides are unaware that they are being watched and recorded by time travellers from the future. This is a BRILLIANT, EXCELLENT STORY, THE BEST IN THE COLLECTION, showing very well how left-wingers (who sadly dominate in the cinema, TV and written medias) can take even the bravest fight and the noblest sacrifice and then use their unlimited supply of venom, hatred, malice, prejudice and bias to cover it in cr@p... An absolutely recommended read!"Craters" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - this story was clearly inspired by Iraq War and Al Qaeda terror attacks; in a near future a female veteran war correspondent investigates a new, absolutely shocking development in terrorism, namely a new tactic of use of suicide bombers. A well written, well-conceived, GOOD story but damaged somehow by the political correctness - indeed, author manages to NOT mention even once Muslim extremism as the main inspiration for terrorism (and especially suicide bombings) in our times..."The Prophet of Flores" by Ted Kosmatka - this is an alternate history story telling about a world in which evolution theory was "disproved" and the obligatory official doctrine is that world was created 5800 years ago...; echoing American cultural wars and inspired also by the 2003 discovery of the "Homo floresiensis" this is a GOOD story, although author's opinion explained on the last page that there are many competing gods, each of which created a separate human evolutionary line, is even more outlandish than even the most extremist creationists views..."Stray" by Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert - a terminally freaky and extremely unpleasant story about a kind of fallen angel who lives with a black family somewhere in the USA in the beginning of XXth century; authors wanted probably to write something very deep - but they just managed the weird... AVOID!"Roxie" by Robert Reed - the tender, loving description of life, love and labors of an aging husky dog by its owner - at a time when our whole civilization may be in danger; a GOOD, honest story - although quite obviously I don't agree with author's conclusion that we all ultimately "go into nothingness"..."Dark Heaven" by Gregory Benford - this novella begins very well, as a kind of "film noir" in a near future, soon after the First Contact with aliens from Alpha Centauri; but quite soon we go into the clichés: pandering to global warming hysteria, everything explained by just another "government conspiracy", US government routinely proceeding to extrajudicial killings of its own citizens on American soil and all of that must of course end with an obligatory dump on religion... (sigh)... Well written, very READABLE story, with some nice one-liners too, but sooo filled with clichés that reader risks an overdose...--------------------------------------------------CONCLUSION: all in all a honest, readable collection, mostly on the same satisfying level as the one from previous year. It can be a very pleasant reading experience - if we just do not expect too many fireworks. Enjoy!

Got to collect them all.