Ken MacLeod. The Best Science Fiction of the Year Three.
Originally in : Solaris Rising – The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction.

When I read it last year I noted:

You always get some thought-provoking politics with MacLeod, and here he pops in some near-future background to give depth to a story involving an SF writer and an anthologist. The French have had another of their left-wing revolutions, and America has retreated further into their right-wing fascist state, and the protagonists are on either side of the divide. There’s a scientific demonstration at the end – but what it demonstrates is not what it appears to do. Hopefully we’ll see ‘The Best Science Fiction of the Year Three’ in next year’s ‘Year’s Best SF 17′, which would appeal to my perverse sense of humour.

Elizabeth Bear. Dolly.
Originally in : Asimovs, January 2011.

When it appeared last year I wrote :

A beautiful robot, but one with no sense of self, and consequently closer to a sex toy, is found over the body of her owner. She is clearly responsible – but was she a weapon, an accessory or witness, or the murderer? It’s a short story, going over ground long since trampled over by the footsteps of other writers, but manages to have some impact, primarily through the chief investigator, who isn’t a hard-drinking guy with problem with dames, but an altogether more rounded figure.

Ken Liu. Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer.
Originally in : Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2012.

When I read it in its magazine appearance last year I wrote :

In the far future, teen angst still prevails, as does homework, even if that homework takes place in a bedroom that is a multi-dimensional Klein bottle. Young Renee Tae-o Fayette, like all children of her generation has the world(s) at the tip of their fingers, as there is little that is not possible.

However, her mother is an anachonism, someone from before the Singularity, someone who believes that the touch of something real is to be cherished over a virtual life. And she has chosen a path that will take her a long, long way from her daughter. It’s a touching story, as the pair spend a final day together, a day that they will both cherish

Mercurio D. Rivera. Tethered.
Originally in : Interzone #236, Sept/Oct 2012.

When I read it last year, it didn’t really grab me :

Another in Rivera’s sequence of stories which explore the complex relationship between humans, and the Wergens, a race who find have an automatic loving response to humans, and for whom their own relationships are a tethering of two, the dominant of which survives.

Here we follow Cara, a young girl and the young Wergen who has that automatic loving response to her, a relationship threatened by Cara’s falling in love with a boy, and the Wergen entering into its own tethering relationship, which takes the story arc a small step forward.

Nnedi Okorafor. Wahala.
Originally in : Living on Mars.

I didn’t seek out the Young Adult anthology ‘Living on Mars’ that came out last year, whereas I would normally seek out any Strahan anthology. Reason being that I don’t really enjoy reading YA stories, for the same reason I didn’t get beyond p2 of the Harry Potter series – I struggle to engage with stories with young protagonists, addressing issues that tend to revolve around their age (ie issues with parents), and the depth of the stories is perforce not as great as in ‘adult’ fiction. (Leaving aside the issue that I would be expecting young adults to be reading ‘proper science fiction’ not something written down/specially for them, as I was reading Asimov/AC Clark in my early teens).

This story illustrates these issues – an easy enough read, with a plucky teenage in a post-something Earth which has given a small percentage of the population special powers (god save SF from the superhero nonsense the current generation of young adults have had forced on them), and the young female Nigerian protagonist has to use those powers in dealing with a visiting spaceship from Mars.

Having said that, the story is far better than the godawful Prometheus, whose story seemed to be written by someone whose research was getting the scripts from all the past SF films, and who decided in the end to just throw the pages up in the air, assemble them in random order and present that to an undiscerning director. My aunties lived in the same neighbourhood as Ridley Scott in their childhoods, and refer to him affectionately as ‘our Ridley’, although sadly their lives have diverged somewhat since those days in north east England. If they hadn’t I’d have got them to get in touch and giving him a right royal telling off for that shambles of a fillum.

Karl Schroeder. Laika’s Ghost.
Originally in : Engineering Infinity.

When I read it in the strong anthology from Jonathan Strahan I wrote :

A clever science thriller/SF story that you could see easily making a good mainstream science thriller/SF movie.

Kazakhstan doesn’t appear often in western SF, and one of the pleasures of the story is that whilst there is an American co-lead to the story, and the West, alongside global bodies such as the UN and Google, the story features Russian perspectives.

There’s a mystery to be solved, around why the young American guy, who won the chance to pilot an old Mars Rover, is wanted, and by whom, and why. There’s depth as he, as do the other characters, have long-standing motivations and desires. As the story comes to a conclusion and the pieces drop into place, the science thriller becomes more SF, and delivers a rewarding read.

Paul Park. Ragnarok.
Originally online and still there : Tor.com

An epic poem.

Charlie Jane Anders. Six Months, Three Days.
Originally online and still there : Tor.com

A clever idea, handled well – a relationship between a couple, one of whom sees a variety of outcomes following her decisions and actions across her life, and a man who has detailed memories of that which is yet to happen. We follow their relationship to see what might be/what has happened plays out…

Neil Gaiman. “And Weep Like Alexander”.
Originally in : Fables from the Fountain (ed Ian Whates).

Part of an anthology published in homage to the Arthur C. Clarke ‘Tales from the White Hart’ milieu. In this story, a visitor to The Fountain public house relates just how he has had an impact on the world around us. Just a couple pages, and a single conceit, but nicely told. To say more here would be the ultimate spoiler of that central conceit

Judith Moffett. The Middle of Somewhere.
Originally in : Welcome to the Greenhouse

From the climate-change anthology, a gentle story in which a tornado causes havoc to a remote farmhouse, but with the real focus the relationship between a schoolgirl, all hi-tech and social media connected, and the older woman who she is helping out, two equally strong and lovingly drawn people.

Gregory Benford. Mercies.
Originally in : Engineering Infinity

When I read it last year I wrote:

Rather than giving full rein to his imagination, Benford gives us a story based on a Heisenberger principle – not the famous uncertainty principle, but the one that states that all scientific work is based on some conscious or subsconscious philosophical attitude.

Benford’s protagonist is a wholly unlikeable character – just how unlikeable we find throughout the course of the story. He is at first an avenging angel, using his vast wealth and scientific intellect to travel back in time to do away with those who would become serial killers. A laudable aim, and done as close as possible to the murders happening, to avoid any butterly wing consequences in the time line to which he has travelled.

As he takes on increasingly infamous killer, we find out what drove him to his actions, and there’s a chilling denouement – but I won’t say with whom, or what exactly happens

Madeleine Ashby. The Education of Junior Number 12.
Originally online and still there : angryrobots.com

Ashby makes self-replicating Von Neumann machines pretty much as exciting as they are going to get. Just think of Number Five from Short Circuit, except with more attitude and the equipment to (ahem) interface with humanity. If you only read one online SF story today, make it this one.

Robert Reed. Our Candidate.
Originally online and still there : Tor.com:

Short, dark look at politics, in a near-future in which a ‘voice of reason’ might, just might be able to head off the catastrophe into which the world appears to be heading.

Karen Heuler. Thick Water.
Originally in : Albedo One

Sort of a mash-up of Prometheus and The Thing. All but one of a scientific party of humans find the alien environment in which they live becomes very much part of them.

It’s ok, but perhaps just needing that little extra something to be a standout story.

Tony Ballantyne. The War Artist.
Originally in : Further Conflicts

When it appeared last year I wrote:

A clever take on what the role of the war artist might (has?) become in the 21st century. We follow a war artist, using modern technology but still trying to capture the emotion and the feeling rather than just an image, as he is embedded in a crack team of troops being ‘coptered in to protect the community from rioters.

Except that it’s not quite as simple as that, and the hi-tech nature of the attack on the infrastructure of the country (Denial of Service) is a neat angle. Nice to see a story from Ballantyne after somewhat of a gap.

Bruce Sterling. The Master of the Aviary.
Originally in : Welcome to the Greenhouse

Very classy, deep and rich story from a master of the genre (for those stories that I say are missing a certain something to be a standout, that certain something can be found in this story).

A clever story arc, whereas would have a simple linear storyline, subtle issues explored, and ethics, politics, and a number of other human emotions playing a key part in taking the story forward.

Pat MacEwen. Home Sweet Bi’Ome.
Originally in : Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan/Feb 2011

Last year I summarised :

A gently humorous story with a very strong female protagonist and viewpoint. She suffers terribly from allergies, and has retreated to her own house in the quiet countryside, a house grown from her own DNA. It’s totally biological, non-synthetic, and attuned to her and her needs (and the soft furnishings and carpeting are … interesting).

However, MacEwen posits a fly in this ointment, as the house is at risk of infection as are the rest of us, as the house owner finds out. Help is at hand, although the techie who comes to diagnose the problem is a man who is not quite in tune with her worldview. However….

Michael Swanwick. For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I’ll Not Be Back Again.
Originally in : Asimovs, August 2011.

When I read it last year I wrote :

Clever story of alien oppression and response to it, cunningly done by setting the story in Ireland, a place with a long history of having to deal with forces of occupation and oppression. An American who is on the emerald isle as the last leg of a world tour prior to taking the opportunity to leave the planet, finds that his is a journey that has been done before, as there is a diaspora of those who have left, never to to return. It looks at the emotional impact of dealing with/living with the alien, whereas most SF of this type will deal with violent revolt and overthrow.

Gwyneth Jones. The Ki-anna.
Originally in : Engineering Infinity

Last year I wrote:

A human from Mars has made the unsettling jump to a distant planet to try and find out what happened to his twin sister, reported dead.

It’s not a traditional whodunnit in space. Whilst the story begins, in third person, from his perspective, it shifts to each of the pair of bipedal sentients whom he has to get on his side to see the crime scene, and back to him, throughout. There’s also the An-he, the ruling prince of the community, and his unseen sister/bride, as another relationship. And also the fundamental symbiotic-ish (won’t give the game away) of the indigineous race(s), and there’s a chilling end as we find out just what has happened.

The shift in perspective is a touch unsettling, which makes for a more interesting reading experience.

Nancy Kress. Eliot Wrote.
Originally online and still there at Lightspeed Magazine

A teenage boy struggles to complete a school essay on metaphor following his father’s psychiatric admission after his response to seeing Zeus in a pop-up breakfast toastie. The story looks at memory, and metaphor in a gentle way.

Genevieve Valentine. The Nearest Thing.
Originally online and still there at Lightspeed Magazine

If a Blade Runner 2 is in the works, one would hope it would be as clever as this look at just how close you can get to creating a ‘real’ human.

Yoon Ha Lee. A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel.
Originally online and still there at Tor.com

Several perspectives on the driving forces behind interstellar travel.

Carolyn Ives Gilman. The Ice Owl.
Originally in : Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December 2011.

When I read it relatively recently I wrote:

A story in the same universe as Gilman’s ‘Arkfall’ from F&SF September 2009, which I enthused about, and which was a Nebula nominee.

Checking back on that earlier story, I noted then that ‘Gilman has put together a believable alien planet, a different human society, and believable, complex characters, and spun an adventure tale that almost matches the setting’ and that is exactly the same conclusion I had come to with this story.

Here the setting is the city of ‘Glory to God’, a quite vividly described city of metal based in an enormous crater over which a dome has been built. Living in the bottom tier of the city, and of society, is Thorn, the adolescent female protagonist. There is a depth to the society and the politics of the city in which she lives, and in the bigger universe, which we find out through her relationship with an aged teacher, her mother and her mother’s boyfriend.

Stories with an adolescent protagonist tend not to be a favourite of mind, as you get a naive perspective on issues which is great for the author, but for me to be fully rich, the story would have followed one of the adults, and to addresses the challenges they face in the light of their backstory. This is partly covered through the teacher, but only delivered through a monologue relating to his history, which prevents any emotional resonance coming through.

But these are minor issues, as the characters are complex and varied, as are the politics and the society, and I’d have put this forward for a potential Year’s Best collectee, if it wasn’t for the fact that Garden Dozois has announced his collection for next year, and this one -is- in it.

Conclusion

A good range of sources covered, with three of the four major magazines getting a look in (no Analog), a couple of anthologies, and a range of online sources. Of the stories that I’d read last year, I’d agree with the inclusion of most of them, and the stories I read first time in this volume also impressed. Now to shuffle some books around to squeeze this little beauty next to #16.

amazon.com : book | kindle amazon.co.uk : book | kindle

amazon.com : book | kindle amazon.co.uk : book | kindle

Joe Haldeman. Sleeping Dogs.

Originally in Gateways (ed Elizabeth Ann Hull).

Haldeman’s ‘Forever War’ was a classic series of stories brought together for a novel, and here he looks at some of the (sadly all too familiar) ethics behind conflict. A soldier returns to a planet where he saw service. This is what he knows : he lost a finger whilst on the planet, the indigenous civilians lost a lot more, his memories were covered up by the armed forces. With drugs on the market that can help to restore the memories, he is intent on finding out what he doesn’t know : what he did in the ‘war’. The story is nicely told, the dialogue flowing particularly well.

Kay Kenyon. Castoff World.
Originally in : Shine (ed Jetse de Vries)

One of the better stories in an anthology that didn’t quite live up to the editor’s e-hype, I wrote:

The strongest story in the volume so far. Kenyon has a tight focus on how global climate changes can affect individuals. There are essentially three characters – the young girl through whose eyes the story unfolds; her grandfather through whom we find out just how much of the society we are familiar with has been lost; and Nora, the nano-bot controlled floating recycling facility, drifting in the sea, on whom they live and on whom they very much rely.

In contrast to the previous story, which I read with a somewhat dismayed feeling that the number of pages yet to be read just didn’t seem to be reducing, this was one of those stories where the ending came all too quickly. It’s a story that could have been longer, and perhaps have seen a bit more human invention and challenge to get to the end, rather than being a largely passive passenger, but a tip for inclusion in one of next year’s annual collections.

Benjamin Crowell. Petopia.
Originally in : Asimovs, June 2010.

Last year I wrote:

A cuddly toy with an AI chip finds itself a long way from home, and rather than being a pet for a rich Western child, it offers a young girl ekeing out a living in a far less affluent community a chance to improve her life chances – at the expense of those affluent westerners.

Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Futures in the Memories Market.

Originally in : Clarkesworld Magazine, #45, June 2010 (and still online) – so read it!

A nice little story that looks at the cost of giving up one’s memories – Geeta Tilrassen gives up her daily memory for the benefit of those who cherish her hyper-sensitivity which they themselves can experience through commercial memods. The story is told through one of her close companions, a bodyguard who has the opportunity to help her gain some measure of a sense of self in the face of her uncaring face of the company with whom she is under contract. But does he take that opportunity?

Vernor Vinge. A Preliminary Assessment of the Drake Equation : Being an Excerpt from the Memoirs of Star Captain Y.-T. Lee.
Originally in : Gateways

A clever story by Vernon ‘Singularity’ Vinge, set on the inappropriately-named planet ‘Paradise’. It’s the second mission there, and the titular captain is on like a cat on a hot tin roof, on account of the only part of the planet being above sea level is a tectonically hyperactive volcano. In addition to the tectonic forces there are human forces at play – scientific and commercial – and he has to balance those. There’s plenty of discussion of the Drake Equation there, which doesn’t descend into infodumping, as Vinge posits a potential future for humanity that doesn’t involve the singularity, neither a huge galactic community of intelligent species.

Terry Bisson. About It.
Originally in : Fantasy & Science Fiction, Sept/Oct 2010

Surprisingly affecting short. A janitor in a scientific establishment recounts the time he spent with one of the creations the lab guys allowed him to take home with him – “..they could save the autopsy ritual as they call it, plus the paperwork..”

The creature which has limited time left, is something hominid, and the janitor relates how, despite its lack of language, and limited interaction with him and the neighbourhood children, it quietly became very much part of their lives.

The narration reads true, and the subtle understatement of its telling gets across the dignity of the creature, and the final paragraphs as the DNA used in its creation finally falls apart, is quite heartrending.

Vandana Singh. Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra.
Originally in : Strange Horizons, 29th March 2010 – and still online

So, have a read of the story. It’s a clever one – a very clever one, blending the future with historical sensibilities, and story within a story, or rather, a meta-story.

Damien Broderick. Under the Moons of Venus.
Originally in : Subterranean Online, Spring 2010, and still online.

Also collected in Strahan’s take on the Year’s Best, where I read it and said :

If you haz not read the story yet, follow the link above.

It’s a complex story, as you’d expected (and demand) from Broderick, that starts off feeling like one kind of story – a sort of mix of JGB and ERB, with Blackett mourning the Venus that he has lost, to which almost all humanity have been instantly, unexplainedly, transported, along with our moon. Has that happened, or is he delusional?

There is interesting character-driven interplay between himself, a female neighbour who is offering psychological support (or not), and a bed-ridden neighbour, but then some science starts to creep in, and there is math to support a very strange explanation….

Excellent.

Cat Sparks. All the Love in the World.
Originally in : Sprawl.

A post-apocalyptic Australia, with a community hunkering down to resist the potential threat from outside. There are interpersonal dynamics at work, as our protagonist finds herself no longer the object of her lovers’ affections. When a crisis needs someone to brave the dangerous lands outside of their small community, she follows, and finds out things are not quite as she had expected. Nicely observed characterisations.

Alastair Reynolds. At Budokan.
Originally in : Shine

When it appeared last year in the anthology that focussed on optimistic SF I pondered :

Getting Alastair Reynolds’ name on a book cover is of course a Good Thing. However, I’m not so sure though that getting him to write a Near Future Optimistic story is a Good Thing, as his strengths are far future, galactic-spanning stories. And whilst it’s Near Future, I’m not so sure about the Optimistic – after all it’s a world in which Heavy Metal music still holds sway…

And if you think (like I do) that the likes of Kiss are the nadir of humanity, then a future in which Monsters of Rock are indeed just that, with the might Tyrannosaurus Rex re-created to serve up high octane rock, is hardly going to be an optimistic one. But Reynolds has his tongue firmly in his cheek as he looks at the lengths the rock industry will go to please their audience.

David Langford. Graffiti in the Library of Babel.
Originally in : Is Anybody Out There?

When it appeared last year I wrote:

I was pleased to see David Langford in the volume – he doesn’t write much, but what he does write is invariably worth reading, as is the case here. He posits an interesting means by which intelligent life could choose to get in touch with us – especially interesting due to his hearing impairment – as the means is by embedding slightly obtuse messages within the texts of classical literature. It’s a clever conceit, and Langford doesn’t rest on that, upping the ante as the messages are decoded and the implications dawn on humanity.

Michael Swanwick. Steadfast Castle.
Originally in : Fantasy & Science Fiction, Sept/Oct 2010.

When I read it last year, it wasn’t one of the strong stories in the issue, but I noted :

A police officer arrives at 1241 Glenwood Avenue, the residence of James Albert Garretson, who has disappeared. The House AI is initially unco-operative, and when the full force of the law is threatened, grudgingly provides as little information as possible.

The story follows the conversation between the two, as the policeman puts together a picture as to what has happened through speaking to the AI, and from observations of the house, and the application of good old-fashioned sleuthing. It transpires that the relationship between master and AI has been quite an intimate one, and when a third party joined the equation something had to give. And in a neat twist, the policeman finds the tables turned on him.

Catherynne M. Valente. How to Become a Mars Overlord.

Originally in : Lightspeed Magazine, August 2010, and still online.

Neat post-modern reflection on Mars(es) past(s) and present(s) and other(s). Don’t let me spoil it – have a read of it!

Karl Schroeder. To Hie from Far Cilenia.
Originally : in ‘Metatropolis’.

Originally in a Scalzi edited audio collection, good work from Hartwell and Cramer to get this to a wider audience. One the one hand a near-future science thriller about tracking some stolen plutonium, on the other hand a fascinating exploration of where current fascination with online RPG, avatars, MMORPG, cosplay, and augmented reality could lead, as the investigation quickly leads into a ‘game’ which is a combination of these, and then, into a game within a game.

Some interesting issues are raised, but moral dilemmas remain.

Brenda Cooper. The Hebras and the Demons and the Damned.
Originally in : Analog, 2010.

An increasingly rare occurrence – a story from Analog in a Year’s Best volume. The editors point out that Analog had a better year with SF on account of the increasing amount of fantasy in the other mags.

The story is set on the planet Fremon, the location of Cooper’s first novel. As with a number of Analog stories, it is about human settlers on an alien planet struggling to understand the flora and fauna, and making some kind of accommodation in order for humanity to survive. Unlike a number of Analog stories of this ilk, it is quite well written, but didn’t really do that much for me – it could just as easily have been any settlers from any historical period on Earth struggling with the unknown.

Gregory Benford. Penumbra.
Originally in : Nature.

One of the regular short-shorts that have appeared in Nature magazine in recent years and featured in the Hartwell/Cramer anthologies. Something dramatic has happened on Earth, which is a state of frazzlement (my word, not Benford’s!) Exactly what has happened is somewhat moot, but why some have survived is the nub of this nubbin of a tale (and the answer is in the title).

Robert Reed. The Good Hand.
Originally in : Asimovs, January 2010

When I read it last year I wrote :

Clever reflection on the current issues with the Iranian nuclear bomb-building programme.

Reed postulates a world in which the USA keeps a very firm stranglehold on its nuclear bomb technology after the end of the second world war, willing to take the ultimate step in ensuring that no other nation get their own nuclear capability.

A businessman is heading over to France to conclude some business, and there is a huge tension with the French people he meets, for whom the Americans are beyond the pale. Whilst the Americans believe that their global dominance is a price worth paying for peace, other countries have different views. The subtle differences back in the States is shown through clever reference to Hollywood.

The tension rises when the Americans show that they are still willing to take drastic action to retain the status quo, and the businessmen finds himself threatened with being part of a human shield put in place to protect the just-discovered French space programme.

Reed, as ever, gets the characterisation and detail right, and doesn’t make the mistake of making the jet-lagged businessman embracing those who he has been previously at odds with.

Jack McDevitt. The Cassandra Project.
Originally in : Lightspeed Magazine, and still there here.

Another reflective piece on what the 1960s/1970s ‘space race’ and Apollo missions might have led to in alternate histories, with a pinch of tabloid newspaper sensationalism, as some long buried secrets come to light…

Steven Popkes. Jackie’s-Boy.
Originally in : Asimovs, April/May 2010.

Last year I noted :

The double-issue closes with humanity’s dominion over the planet removed, with only a handful of people surviving natural disaster, bio-terrorism, and plague. Michael is one of those survivors, orphaned, and now without even his uncle’s helping hand. Risking death to sneak into the heavily fortified local zoo, he befriends the sole remaining elephant, and we follow them on an epic journey to the south, in search of other elephants. It works well, avoiding the trap of falling into Disneyesque mawkishness, (an ‘Incredible Journey’ for the new millenium), with strong imagery around humanity’s concrete and metal structures falling to the power of earthquake, flood and vegetation, and with the flora and fauna taking over, with the future for humanity looking bleak.

Sean McMullen. Eight Miles.
Originally in : Analog, September 2011.

When I read it last year, I wrote :

The pick of the issue for me, in a story with more than a nod to Jules Verne, in which a hot air balloon pioneer in 1840 is contracted to take a paying passenger and his strange companion to great heights, to prove the nature of that companion. Just how high is the crux of the matter.

Paul Park. Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance (The Parke Family Scrapbook Number IV).
Originally in : Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan/Feb 2010.

Reading this last year, coloured impressed was I :

A complex, substantial novella from Park, of the type that F&SF has done well over the years. It’s a tale within a tale, a fiction within a fiction, part-family history.

The narrator relates his family history from both lines, going back several generations, utilising extracts from other publications, military tribunals, and novels written by his forebears. An unreliable narrator, we follow his imagined relationships, and those relationships that take place in the online world of Second Life, as all this is seen through the magnifying lens of his own life. In addition to the richly created backgrounds to his forebears and
their history, there is the repeated occurrence of children born with cauls (of which he was one). And as he probes deeper, the repeated occurrence of strange visitations, and his family’s role in rebutted those who would seek to enter our world, is clarified.

To add further depth, the near-future USA has suffered, politically and environmentally. The story draws to a dramatic conclusion as the narrator finds himself inexorably, albeit unwittingly, eventually called to take up his place in the historic stand.

It’s a story that requires, and rewards. the reader’s close attention.

Conclusion

As ever, a good anthology full of strong SF from the big name SF magazines and online sources, with three of the most welll-received major anthologies (Shine, Gateways, Is Anybody Out There?) represented.

As is now usual, I will go through the volume from beginning to end, inserting reviews of stories previously read, and putting reviews of stories new to me as individual reviews, and incorporating into this review on an incremental basis. There may be some spoilers in here. I’ll try my best to limit them, and flag them up where it’s going to happen. But generally speaking, with these volumes, the quality is so high, you should be buying them without having to read reviews, especially this volume, which is the cheapest of the four year’s best anthologies currently on the market.

amazon.co.uk | amazon.com

Vandana Singh. Infinities.
Originally in: The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet

The 15th Hartwell/Cramer anthology starts off with another classy story from Singh. She portrays several worlds quite alien to me – the world of India, the world of religion, the world of mathematics : and, indeed, a multiverse of worlds accessible by a combination of these world. A man obsessed with mathematics, or more accurately, the mathematics of infinity, is …spoiler… finally given a chance to glimpse what lies beyond our ken, and an understanding that the reason that is is beyond our ken, is that is simply too great for such humble creatures as us to being to grasp.

What could be a worthy, but dull story is avoided by creating, as Singh has done before, believable characters with human frailties in a sadly believable environment devasted by the impact of those frailties.

Robert Charles Wilson. This Peaceable Land : or The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Originally in : Alternate Earths, ed Nick Gevers.

The individual review of this story is quite a long one, befitting a top quality story, and rather than embedding it into this meta-review, I’ll give you a link to it. When you’re done reading that review, remember to back button to return to this page! Here’s the link

Yoon Ha Lee. The Unstrung Zither.
Originally in : Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 2009.

When I read it last year, I wasn’t bowled over :

“A young woman is suprised to find that her musical talents are required to get into the minds of those who have attacked the Empire. These pilots of metal dragons have come offplanet, resisting the yoke of Imperial oppression; and there is a game to be played which mirrors the war between Empire and resistant territories.

The story tries to fit in a lot into it’s short space, including familial, political, symbolic and societal background, and music. All these contribute to the protagonist going from loyal subject of the Empire to someone willing to overthrow it and in doing so travel to another world. This radical volte-face is a rapid one, of the type that leaves the reader feeling that perhaps a couple of pages have been inadvertently skipped. Chris Roberson’s got there first, and to better effect, with his ‘Celestical Empire’ series of stories.”

Bruce Sterling. Black Swan.
Originally in : Interzone #221, March/April 2009.

When it appeared last year I liked it :

“Classy story from Sterling which blends contemporary politics with hi-tech (zero point energy MEMS chips seeing as how you ask) and quantum Earths, in a slightly out of the usual setting : an Italian restaurant.

An Italian tech journalist is meeting with one of his regular sources, a shadowy figure, who this time provides some extremely mind-bogglingly out there tech specs on him. This is clearly out of the usual realm of tech espionage, and indeed is from an entirely different realm. The journalist finds out about the other Earths, and the other Italy’s, and the other versions of himself. President Sarkozy and Carla Bruni are key players in both this world, and the one that he follows the journalist to.

Possibly frustratingly for editor Andy Cox, who has been featuring newer writers for the most part, this story from a very well-established writer is likely to be the one that gets Interzone into the Year’s Bests anthologies. ”

Nancy Kress. Exegesis.
Originally in : Asimovs, April/May 2009

When it appeared I tipped it for the top :

“A very clever piece, which will be in at least one of the Year’s Bests next year. Kress takes Rhett Butler’s closing line from ‘Gone with the Wind’ and follows the (mis)understanding of ‘Frankly My Dear’ through the centuries, as the understanding of the saying gets progressively blurred. ”

Ian Creasey. Erosion.
Originally in : Asimovs, October/November 2009

When it first appeared, I wrote:

“A bizarre juxtaposition for me – moving from a far future story to one set in Scarborough on the North East coast of England, which has two deeply embedded memories for me : a family holiday in 1976, and an (ahem) week’s holiday with my then girlfriend of a couple of months, who is now my wife of over 25 years.

The themes of the story are strong ones – a man who has chosen to leave behind his old life to seek out a new life away from Earth, having to leave behind his lover, having to leave behind some degree of humanity as he is transformed for his new environment. And you wouldn’t believe you could feel emotion for a wooden bench, but the memorial bench sitting near a church overlooking the sea contains a mini-upload of the person whom it commemorates, and she is waiting for the sea to reclaim the coast, and for her to be reunited with her drown-dead husband.

Subtle and satisfying.”

Gwyneth Jones. Collision.
Originally in : When It Changed, ed Geoff Ryman.

It’s been a good few weeks since I’d picked up one of the year’s best anthologies to read a story, and have consequently been reading a lot of stories in anthologies/magazines, the majority of which won’t be appearing in a year’s best next year.

Comparing this story with the previous story read/reviewed, Eric Brown’s ‘Dissimulation Procedure’ from Conflicts, highlights why a story gets into a year’s best anthology. Brown’s story didn’t really stretch the imagination – a fairly bog-standard spaceport setting, a young girl fleeing something and a somewhat weary spacer deciding whether to help or not, and some routine action. Jones in contract gets really stuck in, creating a story which addresses gender identity through characters who change and choose gender (and in one bearded case, choose crossover identities); a story with some back history; a story with some politics; a lot of technology; characters with their own agendas, and characters who change opinions of other characters; some star spanning action; and plenty to boggle your mind

Gene Wolfe. Donovan Sent Us.
Originally in : Other Earths.

I had been looking forward to reading a Gene Wolfe story in this volume, but in the end was rather let-down.

It’s a Second World War alternate history – what if the USA didn’t join in, and the Germans won. The political setting in America is also different, as Eisenhower isn’t president anymore, but a President Kuhn, of the German-American Bund. Having read the story on the train, with no Google on hand, I had to wait to get home to find out about this anti-semitic, anti-communist, pro-Hitler piece of 1930s American History. I struggled to engage with the story – an American parachuted into occupied Britain to rescue a VIP. The American is fluent in German, but in speaking English in the guise of the German, he speaks in a terrible cod-German not very far off ‘ve haff vays of making you talk’. He infiltrates a bunker quite easily, and co-incidentally stumbles across the VIP, whom he rescues. Pondering next steps over a fine cigar (there’s your clue as to the identity of the VIP), the perceived potential threat to world peace of the VIP leads to an unexpected denouement.

I wouldn’t have identified this as a Gene Wolfe story, and it comes from the same anthology as Robert Charles Wilson’s ‘”This Peaceable Land, or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beacher Stowe”‘, which I enthused about at length, and which is a country mile ahead of this story in terms of quality. Unless of course Wolfe is being very, very clever, and there’s a clue in there that I’ve missed that gives fuller richness to his story.

Marissa K. Lingen. The Calculus Plague.
Originally in : Analog, July/August 2009

I wasn’t immediately grabbed when reading this last year :

“Very short piece which ponders whether it is a good idea to eschew scientific ethical frameworks in the name of progress. Answers on a postcard to… “

Peter Watts. The Island.
Originally in : New Space Opera 2.

When I read it I was impressed :

“Some ultra-hard sf, ultra-far future, as with the previous story by Wilson (Ultriusque Cosmi). However, Watts’ is slightly less successful in taking on the challenge of presenting the story from a female protagonist, not quite getting an emotional depth of character.

Earth is long-dead, but humanity lives on, albeit in the service of those less than but more than human, constantly expanding the sphere of galactic conquest by building wormholes. Having created a wormhole, the humans have to flee to avoid being caught up by those hard on their heels.

As in the Wilson story, the humans achieve longevity by spreading their lives across centuries by living in short bursts – both authors using the term ’saccade’. Whilst Wilson’s protagonist is uploaded (but is able to retain and sustain emotional needs), Watts’ protagonist has physical needs which she is able to satisfy both by herself (having her ‘jill off’ comes across very strongly as a female character written by a male) and with her son.

The son is only partly such, a creation of ‘the chimp’, the AI which controls the construction ship. There’s an interesting troilistic relationship here, with the chimp directly linked to the son, who has been created in order to spy on his mother.

The drama is set up when the system in which the latest wormhole to be built has a very, very anomolous entity. So anomolous that it is beyond the AI’s coding to incorporate into its decision making, and the mother has to find ways to persuade it not to start a destructive build near a colossal, biological, sentient creature – less an Island but more a Dyson Sphere. “

Paul Cornell. One of Our Bastards is Missing.
Originally in : The Solaris Book of Science Fiction 3.

When reading it previously I noted :

“..does have more than a feel of a Dr. Who episode (Cornell writes Dr. Who novels amongst other things). Indeed, the story could easily be turned into an episode. In an alternate Earth, Victorian England-ish, a young Princess and her betrothed are hosting a ball when an Austrian guest close to her suddenly disappears into thin air. This isn’t as unusual as it might be, as the control of such things is fairly commonplace, although the palace security should have stopped it happening. It turns out in fact that there has been a double-bluff as not only has the Austrian disappeared into a local time anomaly, but he has taken the Princess with him, and put a doppelganger in her place. Palace security has to get the Princess back. “

Sarah L. Edwards. Lady of the White-Spired City.
Originally in : Interzone 222, June 2009.

When reading it last year I merely summarised the plot, generally suggestive of their not being anything that I felt it worthy to comment on other than that :

“An elderly, high-status emissary from afar visits a small village on an out of the way planet. She is in fact visiting her homeworld, and is eager to trace what has happened to those she left behind many, many years ago in her timeline, and centuries of planetary time.

Whilst not finding out everything that she wants to, she is able to come to an accommodation with what she left behind, and to begin this final phase of her life once more in the village.”

Brian Stableford. The Highway Code.
Originally in : We Think, Therefore We Are.

Last year I noted :

“A story seen through the eyes (or should that be the headlights?) of an AI which has been birthed to drive long-haul freight on the roads. Stableford has fun with Asimov’s three laws, in having the AI proscribed through the three main principles of the Highway Code. And this very much self-aware AI finds than in acting instantly to an imminent disaster that he may well have broken those principles. However, he is assured that the did indeed act for the greater good, a morally satisfactory action. However, his career is over, and the only saving grace, if that is really the case, is that instead of the breaker’s yard, he is left to ponder matters on the sea bed, whence he ended up as a result of his actions. “

Peter M. Ball. On the Destruction of Copenhagen by the War-Machines of the Merfolk.
Originally on : Strange Horizons (and, by golly, still online – click here to read it

The invasion of Copenhagen from sea of enormous mechanical war machines is viewed from a slightly detached perspective by a couple who have found each other on the internet, and are trying to find something in a hotel room to draw them together. The invasion flounders, as does their relationship, and in this world of instant communication, and a world wide web of all things being possible, a distance between people, and between people and events is apparent.

Alastair Reynolds. The Fixation.
Originally in : The Solaris Book of Science Fiction, Volume 3.

When I read it last year I wrote:

“.. which steps up the quality. A young researcher in an Earth just slightly different from ours – a Persian dominated world. She is working on an ancient artefact, a somewhat anomalous geared mechanism. There is a bigger project afoot elsewhere, where the artefact will be put into some hi-tech kit than can use ‘entropy exchange’ to link with other instances of the artefact in other quantum Earth’s. By in effect pinching a few atoms from each other instance, the artefact can be brought to a more complete state.

However, there are dangers inherent in this, and the true cost of trying to pinch from another reality are brought home. “

Brenda Cooper. In Their Garden.
Originally in : Asimovs, September 2009.

When it first appeared I wrote:

“A young girl rails against the walls that keep her from the outside. Her elders, and putative betters, have been insisting that she remains within the walls, for that which is outside can only hurt her. However, the situation is at an impasse, as she can no longer accept the constraints under which she lives, and they have to choose whether she must be let to decide her own destiny. A situation every parent has to face in due course. It’s not a hugely original idea, and is ok as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go that far”

Geoff Ryman. Blocked.
Originally in : Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 2009

When it appeared, I was impressed :

“Ryman memorably took us further East than SF/fantasy normally gets, in his excellent ‘Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)’, and this follows suit.

Humanity has ceased reaching for the stars, a theme addresses regularly in SF in recent years, often in the alternate history mode. Here he takes a close look on its impact on society at large, and a small family. A mother, abandoned by her husband, had fled with her children, and the new head of the family is somewhat bemused to find himself in that role. He struggles with the relationships, and the motivations of his wife and her children – is she just interested in him as a route to safety from the purported dual threat of cometsrike and alien attack.

No longer reaching outward, humanity is closing in on itself, and is seeking refuge deep underground. The hermetic nature of a future, entombed but with a virtual reality, work for him and his family. Surprisingly, the semi-autistic/catatonic child who has struggled with life above ground, finds the new life one that suits her. And he has to struggle to find an accommodation with his new accommodation. Excellent. “

Michael Cassutt. The Last Apostle.
Originally in : Asimovs, July 2009

When it appeared last year I wrote:

“A story with several elements in it, which work to varying degrees. The Last Apostle of the title is the last man left alive from the select group who walked on the moon. As he approaches his final years, he reflects on his colleagues who were given the collective noun by a journalist, and the personalities of each.

There’s an element of alternate history to the story, in that there have been twelve men who have walked on the moon. The reason for this could be to get a dozen to match the apostles for the title to work, or to avoid the story having to refer to the actual astronauts who have worked on the moon. It’s not clear though why the last astronaut’s mission was Apollo 506, and the space program is largely the same as has actually happened.

There is one secret the astronauts have been keeping to themselves – the finding of some artefacts suggesting an alien civilization, or much, much earlier visit by humans. It’s a bit difficult to accept a discovery of such huge importance would be kept secret by the astronauts. In deciding to bring this finally to the attention of humanity, the last astronaut unwittingly identifies an evidently even bigger find : water ice.

The interpersonal relationships of the astronauts are the highlights of the story, the ageing astronaut looking back on his mission and the lead up to it also work, but the rest to lesser effect. “

Charles Oberndorf. Another Life.
Originally in : Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 2009

When it appeared last year I was impressed:

“Engrossed in this SF story, I was under the misapprehension that I was reading a Haldeman story (F&SF print only the story title, and not the author name, on pages other than the first one). I was thinking that Haldeman was returning to some of the themes in his ‘Forever War’ milieu, and doing it to the same standard.

It’s a cleverly constructed story, set during a visit to an ex-lover who has eschewed the opportunity to be reborn against as a young person, and who is now aged and wrinkled. The young (in body) visitor talks about a former love, a short affair during combat R&R. He remembers how we woke up after being ‘reborn’, his old mind in a new body, but unable to remember the events leading up to his death in combat. Disturbed by this, he refuses the chance to head back home, and waits for the return of his lover. Whilst doing so, he moves in with a prostitute who is working the base, who swings both ways and who has the necessary wherewithal to be fully active in both modes.

The characters are well drawn, and we follow the protagonist as he deals with the loss of his life, his career, his memory, and his lover, until he finds out the reason behind those losses, and how he came to come to an accommodation with those events, as he has to do with the now-elderly ex-lover he must leave again.

It’s not by Haldeman, but could easily be. “

Mary Robinette Kowal. The Consciousness Problem.
Originally in : Asimovs, August 2009

In a strong issue I noted last year :

“A close look at the psychological issues relating to cloning. Suffering the after-effects of a car crash, Elise is reluctant to leave the house, suffering flashback and absences. Her husband, Mung, is working on a cloning project, and in creating a clone of himself he unwittingly creates a virtual menage-a-trois. His cloned self, confined to the lab, is a perfect copy and fully self-aware, and of course misses terribly what his memory tells him is his wife. In the short piece, Kowal explores the clone’s reaction to his circumstances, and how this alternate husband, suffering the horrible pangs of separation, in effect feels a greater love for his wife than does the ‘real’ husband. Is suicide the only way out for the clone? “

Stephen Baxter. Tempest 43.
Originally in : We Think, Therefore We Are

When it appeared last year, I wrote :

“I’ve seen fewer Baxter short stories of late, which is a worry. Here he takes us a few centuries hence, with Earth reaping what we are currently sowing in terms of climate change. An AI-controlled orbiting weather station tasked with preventing hurricanes devastating the US coast (by beaming down microwave energy in such a way as to dissiapte the energy in the hurricane) has notably failed in its task. Baxter cleverly mixes some historical backstory to create a more rounded story as the actions of previous corporations, and invididuals, are part of the mix. There is a human on board, and the ship’s AI has fractured into three parts, one of which is now esconced as a virtual companion to him. A strong start to the collection. “

Genevieve Valentine. Bespoke.
Originally on : Strange Horizons (and still online

Nicely handled time travel story through the eyes of a coutourier. Time travel is the prerogative of the rich, and they are more than happy to spend lots of money to ensure that their costumes are a perfect match for the era to which they head. The fact that in doing so they are destroying their own world bit by bit (the butterfly effect – which in this world is removing all flora and fauna, with a subsequent plague of butterflies. There are some nice background details, and the story revolves around a junior seamstress who is able to observe the foibles of the wealthy elite.

Eric James Stone. Attitude Adjustment.
Originally in : Analog, September 2009.

When I read it last year, I noted :

“Short piece in which a small spaceship orbiting the Moon finds itself on course to hit the moon, courtesy of sabotage. There appears to be no way to make the ship change course.

Head-scratching ensues as varies ideas are hatched and discounted, including some courtesy of an SF reader who is able to recall stories he had read with similar conundrums (probably an Analog reader). Can those on board come up with a bit of lateral thinking to save the day? “

Chris Roberson. Edison’s Frankenstein.
Originally in : Postscripts 20/21.

A frustrating story, but only in the sense that you’re frustrated at wanting more. It’s ponders the effect of the finding of another source of energy at the same time as Edison and Tesla’s work on electricity, one that made their experimentation with electricity redundant and put them into the category of eccentrics, rather than visionaries who would create the world we live in.

Roberson puts some subtle characterisations and touches to his story, where many would have left a fairly blank or cod-steampunky background. He sets the story in Chicago around the time of a World’s Fair, with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World drawing business away from the other attractions. The protagonist is Algerian, with a layer of racism added to the story, and reference to the American South. The story, as such, revolves around the finding of a naked man, unaware of who or where he is, at the same time as Edison meeting a grisly end at his carnival sideshow. The only bum note for me, which can be a failing of Alternate History, is in having the protagonist ponder what the world would be like if the world was powered by electricity, which rather breaks the conceit that the reader is engaged in whilst reading the story.

Conclusion.

As ever, a strong collection of stories, albeit fairly ‘safe’ in terms of a relatively narrow range of sources. If you read the main SF magazines and got a couple of the obvious top quality anthologies in 2009 (as I did) you wont get -that- much value. By my count of the 24 stories, I’d read 17 first time around, leaving only 7 new to me. But of those 7 new, the Singh and Wilson stories which opened the anthology of worth the cover price alone.

The 14th volume in this excellent pocket-sized series . I’ll run through, as is the norm, the stories in the order of appearance, many of which I have previously read.

Carolyn Ives Gilman. Arkfall.
Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 2008.

When I read this in its magazine appearance, I was impressed:

A substantial story – in many ways. Gilman has put together a believable alien planet, a different human society, and believable, complex characters, and spun an adventure tale that almost matches the setting. The ark Cormorin is a bio-ship, a partly biological sub-marine habitat for humans who live therein, in the dark seas of a very alien planet. Those who live on the arks have a communal life, and are very opposed to confrontation or direct comment, alluding to the actions of others and their preferences, with stilted speech patterns to match. Osaji and her aged grandmother are coming to a subterranean port, Golconda, and Osaji is worried for her grandmother, whose ill-heath and early stages of mental decline are not only painful to witness, but an increasing strain on her.

Osaji moves in temporarily with her sister in the town, but finds the call of the seas too much for her. She has to decide whether to leave her grandmother in port, or take her with her once more. In the end she decides on the latter, and on the jetty, she comes across an aggressive offworlder, whose behaviour and beliefs are anathema to her.

Following an undersea eruption, she, her grandmother, and the man are set adrift in an ark, which has to follow the currents. This is indeed the way of her people, but due to the eruption they are flushed out of the enormous volcanic basin which is the only part of the planet they know, into unchartered waters.

Osaji is Rose Sayer to his Charlie Allnut, and we follow this odd couple as they make the most of their bleak future as the explore the deep seas and find out more about the planet.

The roughneck offworlder never ceases to stop thinking of ways to get the ark moving in the direction they want, as opposed to blindly following the currents, and in the end succeeds, giving the pair a chance to reflect where they want to go with their lives.

It’s a page-turner, and one of my picks of the year so far.

Neil Gaiman. Orange.
Originally in : ‘The Starry Rift’ ed Jonathan Strahan.

From a strong collection of YA SF form last year, where I summarised :

A clever piece : the verbatim reponses to a series of questions, provided without the questions. We piece together that the interviewee is a teen girl, and she is being interviewed about her sister, who has been experimenting with out of this world chemicals, and who has become…

Kathleen Ann Goonan. Memory Dog.
Originally in : Asimovs, April/May 2008

Last year I was impressed :

The issue opens with a very clever and accomplished story with a strong ending. The protagonist is a dog – or, to be more accurate, a dog with the memory of a man overlaid on it. The man has chosen to live a shorter, canine life primarily as a penance for the death of his young daughter. Knowing that his wife will never forgive him, he returns to the family home in his new guise, where his wife is now living with a political opponent of the repressive government regime. The recent introduction of new drugs have liberated human memory, offering opportunities for good, but also having unintended consequences, exacerbating the societal problems. The new partner is a newspodder – someone who publishes his political observations on the ether, to be picked up by others who choose to receive information in this democratic airborne means. However, having been picked up by the government, he is returned in a damaged state and the couple, and their new dog must flee.

The story wonderfully evokes the loss of the daughter, the breakup of the marriage, the sheer joy of the father/dog as it returns to the family home, and comes to a powerful conclusion as a solution to the problems of aggression and violence is let loose.

Paolo Bacigalupi. Pump Six.
Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 2008

In the same issue as the Gilman story above, I was more than impressed (as is invariably the case with Bacigalupi) :

The lead-out story in Bacigalupi’s collection ‘Pump Six and Other Stories’. Editor GvG warns that the story may not be suitable for younger readers, but I beg to differ as it is exactly they who should be reading it! As in his ‘The Calorie Man’ Bacigalupi creates a believable, original near-future society, and there is a lot of SF whose settings are neither believalbe nor original.

The story sets out with the reader slightly unsettled – Alvarez walks into the kitchen in the morning to find his girlfriend with her head in the oven, the gas oven, with a lit match. She is trying to work out why it isn’t working, and she takes umbrage, violent umbrage, at his pointing out that what she is doing is not a good idea.

The couple make up after a big row, and then Alvarez heads to work, to be met by a colleague who alerts him to the fact that the eponymous Pump Six, one of several massive sewage pumps servicing the city, hasn’t been working for some hours. Unfortunately, his colleague hasn’t thought of checking the manuals. We gradually find out more about the urban setting, where the population are regular pill-poppers, the younger generation spend a lot of their time fornicating, and whilst the machines and infrasctructure just about manage to keep going on auto-pilot, there is a diminishment in the overall level of intelligence and motivation in the human population.

It would appear that we are headed for a morlockisation, bent on pleasure, with little awareness of the wider surroundings, of literature (the closed, and empty library is a symbol of our loss of knowledge and culture).

It’s a bitterly dark take on where we may be headed. >

Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. Boojum.
Originally in : ‘Fast Ships, Black Sails’ ed Jeff and Ann Vandermeer.

From a pirate-themed SF and fantasy anthology, which wouldn’t really have attracted me. I’m not a big fan of themed anthologies, on the basis that the whole reason for reading short SF is to get a lot of different ideas and settings, so a series of stories with a similar theme is defeating the purpose somewhat.

Bear and Monette provide an intriguing take, with the main vessel being the star of the show, a biological space-faring creature within which humans ply their trade. The main human character, Black Alice, is fairly new to the game, but is finding a strong link with the ship, and this comes to her aid when brain-thieving pirates hove to. It’s a cracking story, and a setting which could do with further exploration.

Ted Chiang. Exhalation.
Originally in : Eclipse 2, ed Jonathan Strahan

As you expect from Chiang, an inventive and expertly crafted tale. He smoothly posits a humanity in which lungs are replaced when empty of air, in a society constrained within a finite dome. What is not finite, in fact, is the oxygen which they breathe, and we follow one scientist as he explores the nature of their reliance on oxygen, and the implications of a supply that will not last much longer. One to be instantly re-read to savour the quality.

M. Rickert. Traitor.
Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 2008

When it first appeared, it went down a bomb with me :

F&SF regular Rickert provides a dark, disturbing tale of a young girl brought up by a mother who is willing to pay a high and personal price for her beliefs. Young Alika follows the path mapped out for her by her mother, who does show some emotion when higher powers indicate the time is right for Alika to make her (unknowing) sacrifice. However, young Alika is a survivor, as the mother finds out to her cost as the clock ticks down to zero.

Cory Doctorow. The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away.
Originally in : Tor.com

Doctorow explores the strange world of computer techies, taking it just one step from reality, and esconcing them in a monastery setting, there to carry out their solitary analytical tasks. Lawrence finds himself required to solve a riddle involve a data anomaly by leaving the reclusive setting, and having to enter the ‘real world’. He struggles to ease himself into the wider world, and is grateful when he once able to return to the safety of his cubicle.

Vandana Singh. Oblivion : a Journey.
Originally in : Clockwork Phoenix ed Mike Allen.

A powerful story, a far-future, post-human setting, but rich with humanity and human myth. It is a story of revenge, but is a story about human desires and actions, and about death.

Robert Reed. The House Left Empty.
Originally in : Asimovs, April/May 2008.

On its original appearance I liked, and noted :

Near future, and an older guy is sitting on the porch of his house in his self governing community. The US of A is mostly a thing of the past, and whilst some things have been lost, like the Internet and telecoms and central government, they’re not mostly missed as solar power and nanotech enable a comfortable existence. However, a delivery for a neighbour recently departed to live with his daughter brings a bigger perspective – the content is in fact one of a number of small spherical spaceships designed to be sent on their way from an orbiting railgun. Whilst some things that have been lost aren’t missed, we may in fact be missing out on reaching for the skies.

Michael Swanwick. The Scarecrow’s Boy.
Originally in : The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October/November 2008

In a strong double issue, I wrote last year:

A tardis of a story – much bigger on the inside than on the outside. A young boy stumbles, crying, into a field, and the robot acting as a scarecrow could be his once chance of staying alive. But for that to happen, the robot has to justify actions that would go against its programming.

Ted Kosmatka. N-words.
Originally in : Seeds of Change, ed John Joseph Adams.

Reaction to human cloning using neanderthal DNA is explored, through the funeral of one person created in a test tube in Korea, but who has established themselves as a father, and a husband in the West.

Alastair Reynolds. Fury.
Originally in : Eclipse 2 ed Jonathan Strahan.

Far future, in which the assassination of the Emperor leads his head of security on a search for the person behind the assassination.

The story turns on sibling rivalry on Mars many centuries in the past (something Reynolds has touched on before), and the moral question to be answered revolves around whether one act of murder can be counterbalanced by future good.

And having seen a pony being used recently be Reynolds as a lever to punish an otherwise impregnable person, this time the koi get it.

Ann Halam. Cheats.
Originally in : The Starry Rift ed Jonathan Strahan.

The second story picked by Hartwell/Cramer from the YA collection, whence I summarised: >

A teen brother and sister enjoy playing ultra-real immersive adventure games, until their gameplay is interrupted by other gamers playing outside of the rules. In attempting to catch the cheats, the siblings find themselves captured. The story makes some clever twists in the tale, the kind to get the reader really engaged – instead of the final setting for their adventures being a computer game, they are instead neurologically experiencing a planet on the other side of the galaxy. And in the closing paras we find that one of them has a degenerative disease, and this might be their route to escaping the boundares that their body imposes – a ‘Ship Who Sang’ for a new generation.

Jason Sanford. The Ships Like Clouds, Risen by their Rain.
Originally in : Interzone, #217, August 2008.

As inventive a piece of world-building as you generally see in short SF. Not all is fully explained, but the small community featured has an economy based on the minerals and other effluvia deposited from spaceships in the high stratosphere above them. As this crud rains down on them, over generations, the city grows higher and higher, with buildings losing lower floors to the ever-increasing soil and having to build ever upward. A weather-watcher is charged with warning the village of potentially damaging inundations, and after one colossal storm, she follows a hole which has opened up in her cellar, and is able to pass through rooms she remembers as a child, to find,nestling several floors below, a newly minted ship, ready to reach for the skies and to offer someone a life quite different. It’s passing strange, a David Lynch kind of story : a mashup of ‘Eraserhead’, ‘Dune’, ‘Twin Peaks’, and the story benefits from being chonged. It appears that Sanford has a story due in Analog, which I’ll keep an eye open for, as this is the most un-Analoggy kind of story.

You may well wonder what exactly the ‘chonging’ is which I claimed the story benefits from. Buggered if I know!

Mary Rosenblum. The Egg Man.
Originally in : Asimovs, February 2008

In a ‘fine issue’ (of which there were many last year) of Asimovs, I wrote:

The standard continues with Rosenblum’s near future story set on the US-Mexico border, with global warming and biotech affecting people’s lives, and a reversal of the power relationship between the two countries. Zipakna revisits a remote pharming community, and is disturbed to find that they are growing sunflowers with an added ingredient that is going to get them into trouble – either from the authorities, or from others equally as badass, although not as legal. There’s also the question of his ex-wife, who headed out to the remote area several years ago, and when he comes across a young boy who looks just like her, he realises that despite the huge risks to himself, he can not simply turn his back on the farm, and stands up when it is time to be counted.

Daryl Gregory. Glass.
Originally in : MIT Technology Review.

Short piece in which a drug treatment is having spectacular effects with the psycho/sociopaths on which it is being tested. Now seeing their victims as people and feeling remorse for their actions, for some in the treatment programme the guilt becomes too much.

Jeff VanderMeer. Fixing Hanover.
Originally in : Extraordinary Engines ed Nick Gevers.

In the steampunk anthology, I noted:

Somewhat less steampunky than most stories in the volume. In a coastal village a man with a hidden history is perturbed when the head of an automaton washes up on the shore. The ex-partner of his lover wants him to fix it, and he is in no position to refuse, even though he suspects that by re-animating the robot he may be jeopardising his new identity and his new life. True enough, the robot is indeed the herald of his undoing, as once operational, it can fulfil its role as a beacon to draw those from whom he has escaped back into their fold.

Rudy Rucker. Message Found in a Gravity Wave.
Originally in : Nature.

Short piece in which a young man just might know a bit more about the future of our planet (or what little remains of it) and has a message for those who will witness our fate.

Karl Schroeder and Tobias S. Buckell. Mitigation.
Originally in : Fast Forward 2, ed Lou Anders.

On reading this last year I wrote:

Near future science thriller set in a world where climate change has made signficant impact. Chauncie has a chance to earn some money in a high-risk heist of a bio-ark : he has a moral choice to make as to whether he should destroy precious seed specimens in order to extract and store their DNA for the future of humanity, in anticipation of an imminent raid by cyber-terrorists.

OK as far as it goes, but it is ‘just’ a science thriller, and not SF, and there are several other stories in the volume which would have made it ahead of this one, in my pick of the year’s best, although in Hartwell/Cramer’s defence, whilst Benjamin Rosenbaum and Cory Doctorow’s ‘True Names’ was the standout for me, it was a very lengthy story for a pocket sized collection such as this.

Sue Burke. Spiders.
Originally in : Asimovs, March 2008.

A father takes his young son out in the alien forest, guiding him amongst the trees and pointing out the various flora and fauna, some of which are quite dangerous. The story rather pokes into the dark underbrush, rather than getting a flashlight in there and having a thorough examination.

I took the time (not that it took much time as it is short) and re-read the story, and enjoyed the subtlety a bit more second time around. Probably helped by a very mellow reading location by the side of the garden pond on a warm evening!

Conclusion.

As ever, Hartwell and Cramer pick a selection of stories much in line with my taste – really strong, traditional science fiction, which is what you would want from a Year’s Best SF collection. There’s a good mixture of magazine SF (good to see Interzone getting a mention), no surprise not to see any Analog, and a good range of original anthologies represented. The full page author bios and story introductions add to the reading experience.

Bacigalupi, Chiang, Swanwick and Sanford the creme-de-la-creme IMHO. The only real quibble is the inclusion of the Vandermeer and Schroeder stories, which I felt were some way off being the strongest stories in the collections they are taken from.

Johanna Sinisalo. Baby Doll.
Originally in : The SFWA European Hall of Fame, ed James Morrow and Kathryn Morrow.

A very dark piece of near future speculation from Finland. Annette, like many young girls, has pressure from many sides to look attractive, to be in with the in crowd, to get a boyfriend and so forth. To make matters worse, her older sister is a glamour model, whose provocative come hither visage is to plastered on billboards around the town. However what makes it so very dark is the revalation as to just how young the children are – rather than being a midteen, Annette has some years to go before actually becoming any kind of teen.

Tony Ballantyne. Aristotle OS.
Originally in : Fast Forward 1, ed Lou Anders.

If you think Windows Vista is bad…. Ballantyne postulates computer operating systems that are able to do more than simply respond to input, but rather shape the environment from which that input comes, to best suit its philosophical underpinnings and worldview.

John Kessel. The Last American.
Originally in : Foundation 100, ed Farah Mendlesohn and Graham Sleight, Science Fiction Foundation Summer 2007

Also published in Asimovs, February 2008 in which I wrote:

Being an interactive biography of one Andrew Steele, who rises to become the President of what was once called The United States of America. Kessel brings several perspectives on the lifes and times of a man who is driven and who is willing to make big decisions that cost a lot of lives, in order to achieve his aims. There are some clever touches in the story, such as American Airlines Flight 11 including amongst the trrists, one unshaven, baseball-cap wearing guy called Moore. Hey, it’s going to get much worse before it gets much better/different.

It’s an OK story, but by my reckoning, not only does it not get into my Asimovs Top 3 for 2008, it doesn’t get into my Asimovs Top 3 for February 2008!

Gene Wolfe. Memorare.
Originally in F&SF, April 2007 No quibbles on this one, a standout story from 2007

This special Gene Wolfe issue leads off with an SF story which confirms just how good Wolfe can be. On the surface it’s a story of a well-established type : a curmudgeonly longer out in the solar system is investigating some very strange artefacts which prove to be qutie dangerous, and has to use his cunning to survive. But it’s must more complex than that, which some very well observed and well-rounded characters, and the underlying shifting sands on which the story is based – with Wolfe there’s always another dimension, or some subtle effects of which to be aware.

The setting is an intriguing one. March Wildspring is exploring, and filming for a documentary he plans to pitch to the studios, memorials placed in space. Not mere gravestones, these are complex structures, some of which threaten those who explore them, seeking to honour those whose memory they mark with further souls.

The story begins with Wildspring, aka Windy, aka Marchy, managing to extricate himself from a near-fatal memorial, and receiving a message from Kit, a front-of-camera TV personality, with whom Windy is madly in love, but feels that his lack of looks and rough and ready charms are a barrier to a partnership. She is en route to him, with a female friend, Robin Redd, who is running from her violent partner. However, when the pair turn up it transpires that Robin Redd is a name now being used by Windy’s ex-wife, Sue, with whom he had a tempestuous relationship and a vicious divorce.

To make matters worse, Robin’s current husbant, James Redd, turns up, looking for her. Amongst the complex interpersonal interplay, the drama unfolds as Robin flees to a neighbouring memorial, and the others follow in pursuit. They find themselves in a very large environment, peopled with hundreds of acolytes who are labouring under a VR misapprehension that they are living in a paradise, when the reality is altogether different.

In fleeing the habitat, Kit is killed, and Windy is left with the option of leaving Robin/Sue behind, or risking all to go back to save her. All is revealed in the closing credits.

It’s an engrossing story, with the complex swirl of current and ex-relationships, personalities, and motivations all swirling around each other. Windy loses the love of his life, but mysoginist that he appears to be, he is able to refocus his attentions on his ex-wife, choosing what to believe in and what to see being part of the underlying elements of the story.

Kage Baker. Plotters and Shooters.
Originally in : Fast Forward 1, ed. Lou Anders

Plotters being young guy gamers recruited to work in space identifying incoming meteorites on paths likely to cause havoc, and Shooters being their companions of a much higher rank who are skilled and priveleged enough to be in charge of shooting said meteorites down. It’s not a healthy environment, all those geeky young guys encamped in a small spaceship, and the Shooters make is worse by dressing up as manga/comic book type heroes, and getting the lower ranks to act as fags as in Tom Brown’s Schooldays. One new recruit bucks the system, as tends to happen in this kind of story. It doesn’t quite have the depth that I’d like to see in a Year’s Best story, and reads more like juvenile SF – as compared, say, to Ian MacDonald’s story below.

Peter Watts. Repeating the Past.
Originally in : Nature

A youngster desecrates his uncle’s grave with a swastika, clearly unheeding of the pain caused by the holocaust a century past. So what better way to get through the reality of the suffering of those days but through the youngster’s virtual reality gaming sytem?

Stephen Baxter. No More Stories.
Originally in : Fast Forward 1, ed. Lou Anders

A strong complement to Baxter’s ‘Last Contact’ (collected in Strahan’s annual collection), and with a similar fin-de-siecle theme. Here a man visits his widowed, dying mother in her last days, and finds himself being drawn in, literally, to her belief that things come to an end for her have implications for those around her.

Robin Hitchock. They Came From the Future.
Originally in : Fast Forward 1, ed. Lou Anders

A pome.

Gwyneth Jones. The Tomb Wife.
Originally in F&SF, August 2007

When it first appeared I wrote

The issue picks up at the death with a story which fits a lot into a small space. It’s not a straightforward read, but rather a complex look at relationships and the nature of relativity.

which isn’t particularly informative!

Marc Laidlaw. An Evening’s Honest Peril.
Originally in : Flurb #3, Spring/Summer 2007, ed Rudy Rucker

The story follows a seasoned campaigner hand-holding a novice gamer in a ‘Diablo’ type hack and slash fantasy adventure game, and relates, in rather too much detail, how the pair descend the dungeons, fighting off the denizens and garnering treasure and experience points.

Nancy Kress. End Game.
Originally in : Asimovs, April/May 2007

Short effective piece in which a scientist finds a way of enabling people to clear their minds of distractions, to let them concentrate on one thing to a much greater extent. But this leads to autistic-savant type focus, and when it begins to spread…

Greg Egan. Induction.
Originally in : Foundation 100, ed Farah Mendlesohn and Graham Sleight, Science Fiction Foundation, Summer 2007

Treads some of the same regolith as his ‘Glory’ from Strahan/Dozois’ ‘The New Space Opera’ and which was collected in Strahan’s take on the best of 2007. It uses the same, very clever, very innovative means of colonising planets – using a railgun to whizz out micro-pellets of nano-tech of various kinds, which combine at journey’s end to build ever more sophisticated equipment, resulting in taking delivery of code from which humans can be assembled. We follow one of the first two colonists, who returns to the early work of her youth and is able to walk the surface of another planet. Once there, even further vistas are opened to her.

Palle Juul Holm. A Blue and Cloudless Sky.
Originally in : The SFWA European Hall of Fame, ed James Morrow and Kathryn Morrow

A translation from the Danish, and it does seem that whether it is down to the translation, or whether to a different tradition of sf in the country in question, such stories often have the added advantage of coming across ever so slightly ‘different’. In this story there is an intriguing time travel paradox, with a man wondering whether he is indeed the person of legend from the future and from afar. There is something not quite right, though, in that the icy world he is on is in imminent danger of total global catastrophe : so how can the descendants/forebears survive to set up the colony?

A story which I’ve tagged mentally to re-read again.

Gregory Benford. Reasons not to Publish.
Originally in : Nature

Another short story from Nature, a little something to clear the palate between courses, as it were. Whilst out hiking in a remote region, the protagonist is alarmed to find evidence that this part of the world is evidently less well detailed – and we must therefore be living in a simulation, with the fine detail in remote places only sketched in by the designers, to save on resources. Surely he must make his findings public? Or not?

William Shunn. Objective Impermeability in a Closed System.
Originally in : An Alternate History of the 21st Century, William Shunn

A neat story, with touches of Kate Wilhelm’s classic ‘Forever Yours, Anna’ (well, it’s a classic as far as I’m concerned) in terms of a love story entwined with time travel. Shunn blends the principles on which time travel is based as complementary to the personal issues between a couple, who drift apart, but for whom bizarrely the wife giving birth to a daughter he could not possibly have fathered is seen as something which will bring the pair back together. After his wife’s death, the father/daughter relationship is an estranged, strained one, until the illogical nature of his wife’s belief in his love for the child, is resolved.

Karen Joy Fowler. Always.
Originally in : Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May

When it appeared last year, I wrote:

Another shorter story, which is a bit of a downer, as with the previous story, as the length enables an idea to be described, but not much more. Here, a commune appears to offer longevity to those who enter its doors. But as you might expect, this shangri-la has its problems.

Ken MacLeod. Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?
Originally in : The New Space Opera, ed Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan

When it appeared last year I wrote :

A slightly more light-hearted story as a young man caught in flagrante finds himself with no option but to accept a mission to Wolf 359. He is required to report back on the inhabitants, and such is their society that the ultimate sanction is likely to be levied against them. However, in the time it will take for a decision to be made and enacted, he has a window of opportunity…

although, of the stories in the volume, I’d have put this some way behind the best in the volume, albeit a very strong volume.

Tim Pratt. Artifice and Intelligence.
Originally in : Strange Horizons

Wry humour as a programmer eschews the traditional methods of attempting to develop AIs, by using the darker arts. However, having opened Pandora’s box, if I may mix my metaphors, the shit hits the fan.

Terry Bisson. Pirates of the Somali Coast.
Originally in : Subterranean 7, ed Ellen Datlow

Altogether darker humour, and with zero sf – emails from a youngster on a cruise trip with his aunt and uncle describes an ever more desperate situation when the cruise ship is hijacked by pirates. It all gets very, very nasty, although the youngster is so inured to violence and unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy, that his emails enthusiastically describe the bloodcurdling events taking place.

Ian McDonald. Sanjeeve and Robotwallah.
Originally in : Fast Forward 1, ed Lou Anders

McDonald revisits his near future India, memorably covered in novels and short stories reviewed on Best SF, in describing a group of young Indian men who remote control armored military mechs. A young boy gets a chance to help out with the crew of cyberwarriors who seem so heroic and glamourous.

Tony Ballantyne. Third Person.
Originally in : The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, ed. George Mann

One of the better stories from a so-so anthology, in which I wrote:

… a better piece, which has the reader scratching their head at the start, to understand just what is happening, as holidaymakers are instantly co-opted into the armed forces in a European conflict. All (well not all) is revealed as the story progresses to a full stop.

Kathleen Ann Goonan. The Bridge.
Originally in : Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 2007

When it first appeared I wrote:

After two such strong stories, a bit of a dip (albeit a relative one) in a private eye story in which the down on his luck (as ever) dick gets a potentially lucractive case (as ever) from a glamorous babe (as ever). The plot feels just a little too contrived, as the investigator has to work out, just who might have been murdered (as is oft the case in sfanl mystery stories).

For the record one of the preceding stories in the issue was Daryl Gregory’s ‘Dead Horse Point’, collected by Strahan in his collection, which is so far ahead of Goonan’s story IMHO.

John Hemry. As You Know, Bob.
Originally in : Analog, April 2007

As regular readers will have note, my shrift with Analog has being getting increasingly short of late, as the standard of stories has been some way below what I (and many others) would classify as being ‘best’, but when this appeared I wrote:

One of the better stories in Analog for some time. We see the opening paragraphs of an SF novel as it undergoes rewrites at the urging of an agent. Initially the story is good old-fashioned Analog scientist fiction, but the agent urges more SF. The story mutates into a story of the type more typically seen in Asimovs, full of nanotech and Singularities. A third revision sees is becoming even more cutting edge and quantum. And finally, it becomes codpiece fantasy. You takes your pick and you takes your chances.

Bruce Sterling. The Lustration.
Originally in : Eclipse 1, ed Jonathan Strahan

An intriguing story from Sterling, with a proper sfnal setting : alien creatures, strange society; whopping imaginative central conceit: a globe-spanning wooden computational system with the population maintaining the gates and rails and balls which perform the operations; and a philosophic debate between opposing sides in which the nature of their race, the planet, the computer are all debated. All this packed into a few pages. Huzzah.

James Van Pelt. How Music Begins.
Originally in : Asimovs, September 2007

When it first appeared I summarized the plot:

A high school orchestra are struggling to get just right a special piece of music, and there are interpersonal and group dynamics to be sorted out. The performance is an important one for they are (for reasons unexplained) seemingly being ‘held’ captive by some presumably alien force, presumably seeking something from their music. Perhaps the perfect rendition will set them free? But in order to make that perfection, there is a price to be paid.

and looking back on the contents of the issue, again, as above, I’d have put several of the other stories in the issue some way ahead of this one.

Conclusion.

A double-dozen of stories, just over half from magazines, but only half of those from the Big 3 mags, and just 4 from Asimovs, as opposed to 10 from that source in last year’s volume. Fewer short shorts from Nature than previous years, which is to be welcomed. With their usual strong collection of stories, the six from Asimovs and F&SF were a reasonable selection, but a couple were ones which I wouldn’t have expected to appear as being the best from the year.

Ten stories were drawn from six books, four stories coming from ‘Fast Forward’. For my money, I’d prefer not to see so many stories from one source, but I will excuse Hartwell/Cramer this (very gracious of you, I hear you say) for their going to the SFWA European volume, to give the flavour of a global representation – the absence of which I had noted last year.

There are a couple of standout stories in the volume, the majority will appeal to those of you whose preference is for a good dollop of science in their science fiction, but not at the expense of the fiction. So whereas the Strahan volume reviewed a few days ago edges it for me in terms of collection where the fiction slightly edges it over the science, the Hartwell/Cramer (at least for this year) suffers slightly (but only slightly) in contrast on that basis.

But, having said that, if you are after a volume to slip into your pocket, and unless you are a particularly voracious reader of short SF from a wide range of magazines and books, you will find a lot of good SF new to you in this volume.

First of the latest batch of Year’s Bests anthologies to be reviewed this year is the twelfth in the Hartwell/Cramer series. There are slightly fewer stories in this year’s volume, due to the inclusion of fewer short-shorts from Nature magazine. than prevoius years.

There’s a strong correlation between mine and the Hartwell/Cramer view on what constitutes the best science fiction, and the only problem with last year’s edition was that apart from the short-shorts, I had already read most of the stories in their original publication. This year, however, there were more stories unknown to me, and amongst these were some memorable ones.

Nancy Kress Nano Comes to Clifford Falls.
Originally in Asimovs, July 2006..

When it appeared last year I wrote:

Clifford Falls being suburban America, to which several nano fabricators are delivered as this tech suddenly becomes ubiquitous. Young single mother Carol, her husband having run off with another woman, has less time for the free goodies that these offer than her neighbours. Her suspicions are proven correct when, with everything necessary being instantly on tap, there are suddenly few people willing to work – and the absence of teachers, nurses and police officers, are soon keenly felt. It’s not just the ‘burbs either, as things start to fall apart in the cities as well, and Carol comes face to face (or face to another anatomical body part) with the reality of the breakdown of law and order, and subsequently joins a small group in a secure commune, which begins to develop the societal rules and roles for the new order.

The impact of this tech on a suburban family and community is particularly well-handled and effective.

Terry Bisson Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Originally in ‘Golden Age SF : Tales of a Bygone Future’ ed Eric Reynolds. amazon.com

A neat little story in which a man suffering hard in the Great Depression comes across a traveller from the future. He follows the man to the future, which is that of the pulp sf magazines, which is truly Big Rock Candy Mountain but with spires. However, in trying to ensure that he plays out his part in making that future, he unwittingly does himself a big dis-service, and like the Little Match Girl, has a very short, cold, doorstep future awaiting him.

Cory Doctorow. When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth.
Originally in Baens University. online at Jim Baen’s Universe

Deep in the basement of a computer network facility, fixing major network problems, an odd bunch of techies hovering at the edge of autistic spectrum disorders watch the world outside their air-conditioned, filtered building fall rapidly to its knees. Hi-tech and lo-tech terrors are unleashed, with the majority of the population falling to a fatal virus in a matter of hours.

The ‘net may appear to be one route to salvation, but in the end any kind of future appears to be down to human strength and determination and colalboration.

Heather Lindsley. Just Do It.
Originally in Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2006.

Last year I wrote:

Another new writer, with a look at a near future in which advertising has become much more targetted – literally, as the public are shot at with darts containing chemicals which create instant demand for product. A young woman gets in with an underground resistance faction, and intends to use her close relationship with the CEO of one of the advertising companies to strike at the heart of this menace, but finds that he is in fact faster on the draw.

Gardner R. Dozois. Counterfactual.
Originally in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 2006.

After reading it in its original magazine appearance I mused :

‘All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories’ edited by David Moles and Jay Lake in 2004, included the well received ‘Biographical Notes to “A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-planes”’ by Benjamin Rosenbaum, which was a cracking story, in an alternate Earth where the narrator is a writer of ‘shadow history’. I mention this here partly as I’ve read this story but not reviewed it, and also because Dozois’ story is along similar lines, an alternate Earth in which, as recognised in the story, the outcome of the American Civil War is a different one, and the narrator is a journalist who has a sideline in writing scientifiction and counterfactual stories. Dozois’ alternate timeline is an altogether subtler variation on the ‘other side won’ argument, and there were doubtless some touches that I, not being American, didn’t pickup. The Dozois story is so well done in terms of characterisation and setting that it’s almost possible to overlook the quality of the writing, and the subtlety does rather throw into relief the clunkiness of a lot of other Alternate History (not that I read much of it).

Apropos of nothing much, it struck me just now, that Paul Di Filippo’s ‘A Year in Linear City’ featured a writer of ‘cosmogonic fiction’, another example of the sf being written under another name.

Edd Vick. Moon Does Run.
Originally in Electric Velocipede.

Good to see a small ‘zine being watched over for a Year’s Best. Vick follows a customs-robot at a port in the West Indies, as it attempts to fulfill its task whilst humanity, on a personal and a macro level, through bickering and warfare makes its life increasingly difficult. The AI finally takes matters into its own hand, disassembling and downgrading…

Mary Rosenblum. Home Movies.
Originally in Asimovs, April/May 2006.

When it appears last year, in an excellent issue (most of them are) of Asimovs, I summarised the plot:

Kayle uses nano-tech to rent herself out as a vehicle for rich people to vicariously experience events without being there physically. At a remote wedding, Kayla finds herself fighting for her life with a handsome wedding guest, but begins to suspect that there is more than chance playing a part in events, as her employer hasn’t told her everything. She gets one over on her employer, destroying her memories to prevent them getting into her employer’s hands (or brain), but in doing so, damages here memories (and feelings) for her co-escapee.

It’s a well-handled story, although from memory just lacking that little some extra which would have stopped it being in the top echelon of the year.

Rudy Rucker. Chu and the Nants.
Originally in Asimovs, June 2006..

I enthused last year :

Chu being a four-year old boy with an autistic spectrum disorder, and Nants being being bio-mimetic self-reproducing nanomachines, developed by the company which Chu’s father (himself a borderline autistic scientist). Fortunately, this isn’t (being Rucker it wouldn’t be) a standard scientist fiction story in which dad manages to help his son through his science. In fact, dad’s skills get to be used to send nants up onto Mars, where they create a quarter billion kilometer Dyson sphere. The mission is backed by the US government, and, surprise surprise, everyone on Earth gets to see the President’s face beaming down beningly on them.

However, the nants have a mind of their own, and they use this to quite a dramatic effect – and humanity starts to embrace the Singularity as they are Strossed into virtual beings run in a reality controlled by the Nants.

Chu’s dad is set against this, and the scientist fiction comes in as he, against the clock, tries to use his son as a physical Trojan, so that when his son is taken into the digital realm, that which is encoded in his brain, causes an almighty system crash.

An excellent story – for my money, streets ahead of the Vinge’s pedestrian ‘The Cookie Monster’ a couple of years back, and good to see Rucker in Asimovs.

Ian Creasey. Silence in Florence.
Originally in Asimovs, September 2006.

When it appeared last year I wrote:

Historical fantasy with a difference. There are strange visitors from afar, but the high-born in the court do not spot just how different. It is the chambermaid, who has a more fundamental view, who is surprised at their non-use of the chamberpots, and who questions what they are. When one appears to have helped her disabled child, she has to find out whether these visitors or angels or devils – or merely v-e-r-y constipated medics? Or mayhap they are something not of this Earth?

Kameron Hurley. The Women of Our Occupation.
Originally in Strange Horizons. – online on Strange Horizons

A short but intriguing story, in which the alien invaders are ostensibly more alien than they appear. Perhaps it is the case that we can have the truly alien within us, and it need not be BEMs which can cause a major change to the status quo?

Claude Lalumiere. This is the Ice Age.
Originally in Mythspring.

Montreal has, as has the rest of Earth, been instantly overwhelmed by quantum ice, turning cities into bizarre, baroque ice sculptures (Lalumiere acknowledges the Ballardian influences). We see a young woman ekeing out an existence in the forbidding future, and look back on the instant when everything change. As the group they are with starts to descend into Lord of the Flies terrority, it is they who must flee.

Eileen Gunn. Speak, Geek.
Originally in Nature.

Short piece from Nature, in which even with enhanced intelligence, it is a dog eat dog world.

Joe Haldeman. Expedition, with Recipes.
Originally in Elemental.

Another shorter piece, and similar to the Lalumiere piece, to the extent that for my money you would put one of the stories in the anthology, but not both. In this one the post-catastrophe world sees youngsters as pretty much expendable, and against packs of ravaging dogs, and adults who will take their hard-earned food from them, life is brutal.

Liz Williams. The Age of Ice.
Originally in Asimovs, Apr/May 2006..

After reading it last year I commented :

An intriguing fantasy story, that feels somewhat like an extract from a novel. The opening, in which a ‘flayed warrior’ appears before an undercover agent deep in enemy territory is an effective one, and we follow Hestia through capture, escape and ultimate success in her mission. However, whilst the background conflict and the politics behind it are described so well, or perhaps because of it, the story doesn’t quite grab as a discrete piece in its own right.

Michael Flynn. Dawn, and Sunset, and the Colours of the Earth.
Originally in Asimovs, Oct/Nov 2006..

In a strong issue, I reviewed this story thus:

A longer, multi-perspective story (it could perhaps have been separated from the previous multi-perspective story for the flow of the issue!). Marginally SF/speculative, in that the incident which several witness and many are affected by, is the sudden disappearance of a passenger ferry in Seattle bay. We hear second and third-hand about the disappearance, with some folk tales, some people for whom the loss of loved ones is heartbreaking, and some for whom the loss is not necessarily a bad thing. A transcript from an Internet message board shows one persons grief against the backdrop of inane conspiracy theorist chatter. There is a form of scientific rationale for this Bermuda Triangle type occurrence, but the description of a young boy desperately trying to follow the elder brother he worshipped is a heart-rending one, and five years on, this is a powerful 9/11 story.

I didn’t re-read the story this time, but have to report there was a strong memory of the feeling of reading it last year, which has to be a good sign!

Gregory Benford. Applied Mathematical Theology.
Originally in Nature.

A short-short, in which scientist have indentified a conundrum at the heart of our very creation – a message in the cosmic microwave background. However, unlike many stories of this ilk, solving the conundrum is far, far more difficult : indeed the answer may never be found.

Carol Emshwiller. Quill.
Originally in Firebirds Rising.

A very, very good story. A young girl and her friends are in a remote forest in mountains, and there is something slightly different about them. We gradually find out – an alien race, descended from dinosaurs, have crashlanded on Earth, and are trying to remain hidden whilst keeping their race alive as best they can. The dino-human chimeras are the solution. What Emshwiller brings to the story (and it’s quite subtle, which my preceding very quick background summary doesn’t do justice to) is a quite believable insight into alien creatures more in common with birds than humans. Its a deceptive story, with undertones and depth that slide by as the narrative progresses, and would justify a re-read.

Emshwiller also grabbed my attention this year with ‘World of No Return’ (Asimovs Jan 2006)

Alastair Reynolds. Tiger, Burning.
Originally in Forbidden Planets, ed Pete Crowther, DAW 2006..

Appearing in the collection to mark the classic 50s SF film, I read and reviewed :

..doesn’t attempt the dangerous planet principle of the collection, but neatly ties in with both the movie Forbidden Planet, and Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ with a far-future brain-boggling billion brane-al setting. Travel between branes, in which each alternate universe has fractionally different physics, is possible, and Adam Fernando is a long way from home, investigating potential leaks from a sensitive research experiment. The story is relatively minimal, with Fernando investigating both the leak and the death of the main scientist. He gets a look at the very alien, very large scale tech which is available in this brane (as happens in the movie, with a nod to the aliens in the movie in the name given to these aliens), and comes to the conclusion that there have indeed been messages sent back across branes and across time, inspiring the likes of Shakespeare. Furthermore, he is convinced that the brane structure is in fact a circular one, and the alien ones who were spooked by what they saw billions of branes away were in fact spooked by their own images, from the rear, and he has to ensure that humanity doesn’t make the same mistake.

The story opens up some clever ideas, and is tantalisingly short. His recent novel ‘Pushing Ice’ similarly puts humanity under the microscope, seeing us as an infintesimal part of an immense galactic backdrop of time and space, as does his recent novella ‘Understanding Time and Space’

Paul J. McAuley. Dead Men Walking.
Originally in Asimovs, March 2006.

Part of his ‘Quiet War’ series, last year I wrote:

This story is set on Ariel, Uranus’s fourth largest moon, and is the last testament of a genmod killer, who has been lying low on this out of the way moon for some time. A spate of vicious murders have raised his suspicions, and he realises that one of his kind has recently arrived, and will draw unwelcome attention which will undoubtedly blow his cover. He has to identify and confront his fellow killer, and it is this short, explosive and vicious encounter which has led him to his lonely, slow death.A good addition to an excellent series of stories.

Daryl Gregory. Damascus.
Originally in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 2006.

Reviewing this a few months ago:

Gregory’s stories have pretty much fallen into two categories for me – those which impressed, and those which did little if anything for me. This story joins ‘Second Person, First Tense’ and ‘The Continuing Adventures of Rocket Boy’ in the former of these categories.It’s a strong story, starting with a ER visit from a woman who is accompanied by a man whom only she can see. We find out, gradually, just how and why her Christ-like companion has entered her life. Has she truly been the recipient of a revelation whilst on her own road to Damascus? Or is it catching, and is a variant-CJD causing temporal lobe epilepsy and sensations of euphoria and being in the presence of godhood.

Gregory gets the reader into the head of the woman, who rues ever breaking bread with the women over the road, as the macabre details are revealed.

Michael Swanwick. Tin Marsh.
Originally in Asimovs, August 2006.

Upon reading it previously :

A more straightforward SF story than we normally get from Swanwick – in fact, almost Analog-esque. But only almost! A two-person team working on the very inhospitable surface of Venus have a very strained relationship – only the neural implants they have which constrain any acts or thoughts that would cause damage to Company property or each other prevent themselves from visiting physical violence upon each other. Or, more pertinently, prevent the man from using his hands on the woman, who has had him on the end of her sharp tongue for a long time.

When an accident puts his implant out of commission, all bets are off, and she has to pit her cunning against his capacity, and desire, to do her serious harm. Under the unforgiving sun, we learn more about the couple, with the extent of the bitchiness of the woman throwing the actions of the man into a better light. Can she talk her way out of this one?

Or, which makes the story work well, can she find some way out of the situation for them both? Unfortunately a maguffin appears, which saves the day, rather than her intrinsic cleverness, which slightly spoils the denoument.

Ian R. MacLeod. Taking Good Care of Myself.
Originally in Nature.

My only objection to this story is that as someone who works in social work, it features a premise that ideally I would have dreamt up and written about. Of course, in this quantum reality that isn’t going to happen, so I have to grit my teeth and read and enjoy the stories that other more talented bastids write ;-)

There have been a number of stories in SF mags about dementia and ageing of late, and Macleod provides a neat sfnal twist : the frail elderly, rather than being a burden on relatives themselves ageing, are whisked back in time for their earlier selves to take of. A young man therefore has to make room for his mostly bed-ridden elderly self, and its a clever story, that in the hands of a less assured writer could have come out mawkish or much worse.

Stephen Baxter. The Lowland Expedition.
Originally in Analog, April 2006..

In a weak year for Analog, I was hardly moved :

Another in a series of linked stories set in the intriguing ‘Old Earth’ in which time passes more quickly the higher you are. But for me the initial enthusiasm for the setting has waned a bit as Baxter ekes out more of his ‘sidebars’/'pendants’ as he is wont to call them.

Wil McCarthy. Heisenberg Elementary.
Originally in Asimovs, April/May 2006.

Last year I wrote:

Short entertaining piece looking at a very uncertain schoolday, where chronarchy reigns. It reigns all day, and fitting in school and homelife is a chore.

Robert Reed. Rwanda.
Originally in Asimovs, March 2006..

Of this story I previously wrote:

One of Reed’s neat stories which takes one or two ideas and explores them at just the right length, although I reckon his family must dread any conversation with him ending up, suitably sfnalled, in print. Here he takes as a starting point a young boy finding an empty chrysalis shell, and we are taken through a journey which starts out as a father-son relationship exploration, with clearly something not quite right. And it closes with a flourish, as the exact relationship between the two is explored, and the madness which has struck humanity which led to their finding each other is explained.

Charlie Rosenkrantz. Preemption.
Originally in Analog, June 2006..

You’ll be familiar with the phrase, ‘damning with faint praise’. Last year :

No stone is left unturned by Rosenkranz in his hunt for humour as the US President scuttles to his deep place of safety as aliens arrive in orbit and start taking chunks out of humanity. Except that it’s not us that they’re after, as we’re deemed not a threat. The big threat to the galaxy are in fact our canine companions.

Discussion

Of the 26 stories, 10 come from Asimovs, 5 from anthologies, 3 from F&SF, 3 from Nature, 2 from Analog, and three from various small press publications/e-zines. It was certainly a strong year for Asimovs – indeed, for my money, you could put out the two Asimovs double-issues in a new cover as a Year’s Best SF issue. For the record, in addition to the four stories from these issues, others that could equally have been chosen were

• William Shunn’s ‘Inclination’ (religion on an orbiting space station) Asimovs April/May 2006
• Greg van Eekhout. The Osteo-Mancer’s Son. (bone magic) Asimovs April/May 2006
• Paul Melko ‘The Walls of the Universe’ (multiple quantum farmboy Johns) Asimovs April/May 2006
• Robert Reed ‘A Billion Eves’ (time-ripping to set up a new Adam and Eves) Asimovs Oct/Nov 2006
• William Barton ‘Down to the Earth Below’ (an ERBy substerranean adventure) Asimovs Oct/Nov 2006

F&SF had another strong year, albeit covering a wider spectrum than Asimovs. Three other strong sf stories, and a strong piece on non-fiction from F&SF from this year, which I could have included :

• Claudia O’Keefe. The Moment of Joy Before. (F&SF April 2006)
• R. Garcia y Robertson. Kansas, She Says, Is the Name of the Star. (F&SF July 2006)
• Christopher Rowe. Another Word for Map is Faith. (F&SF August 2006)
• Dear Starbear: Letters between Ursula K. Le Guin and James Tiptree Jr. Edited by Julie Phillips. (F&SF Sept 2006)

In terms of Hartwell/Cramer’s 12th, there are only a couple of stories that I would quibble at, and in their place I’d have looked to put in one or more of the aforementioned stories (space permitting). But it’s a good collection of traditional science fiction, and as they state in their introduction, the collection makes no attempt to cover fantasy, horror, speculative, slipstream, or postmodern, and they see that genre boundaries can be a good thing. It will stand as a good record of what traditional North American science fiction was in 2006.

David Langford. New Hope for the Dead.
Originally in: Nature

The first of many short, shorts which appeared throughout the year in science magazine Nature and which are included in this volume. Langford, as he does so well, takes a sly look at an sf trope and looks at what it is more likely to turn out like. Here an unfortunate person was has discorporated and uploaded to the Electronic Golem Artificial Neurosystem (EGAN, geddit?) is informed that his trust fund has failed to perform adequately, and he has some choices to make in order to continue his virtual lfe.

Hannu Rajaniemi. Deus Ex Homine.
Originally in: Nova Scotia, 2005.

The story appeared in an excellent collection of Scottish speculative fiction published last year, and I wrote at the time:

A story from a new writer – a Finnish mathematician who specialises in String Theory. Very Charlie Stross in its content and delivery, in a nearish future Scotland when the Rapture of the Nerds unleashes a godplague (volition bonding, recursively self-improving and self-replicating). Jukka, a young Finnish man, and Aileen, are separated by the godplague, but are able to overcome.

If you like Stross you’ll love this (I do and I did). One for Dozois 23rd methinks.

I’m not sure if the story has been Dozoised, but being Hartwelled is a reasonable result for a new author.

Gardner R. Dozois. When the Great Days Came.
Originally in: Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 2005.

When it appeared last year I wrote:

I’d been looking forward to this story whilst making my way through the previous stories and have to report somewhat of a disappointment. A five pager in which we have a rat’s-eye view of the world in its last moments before a monstrous meteorite crashes into Earth, which will lead to the rat becoming king of the hill.

And that’s pretty much all there is to say about the story, which is a bit of shame. But Dozois has set a very high standard in the past which he has to live up to (and surpass, hopefully!)

Daryl Gregory. Second Person, Present Tense.
Originally in : Asimovs, September 2005

When it appeared last year I wrote:

A well handled, clever take on issues of identity, which only gradually (and to good effect) explains to the reader exactly what is happening. At first it would appear that the body of a young woman is now playing host to another person, who is far from happy at her putative role as the daughter of the parents in whose body she is. An upload into the body of brain-dead accident victm, perhaps? But the answer it much more subtle, as the daughter in fact OD’ed on a drug which has had the effective of essentially wiping her personality and memory. Two years’ therapeutic intervention has resulted in a new persona for whom her previous self is a stranger. She has to come to terms with who she was/is/will be, as do her parents, as we follow them through some painful moments in the journey to some kind of resolution.

Justina Robinson. Dreadnought.
Originally in: Nature

Short in which humanity is out in deep space at war, and what it is to be a human, and an individual against such a big backdrop is called into question.

Ken MacLeod. A Case of Consilience.
Originally in: Nova Scotia, 2005.

A second story from this collection. When I read it last year I said:

A rare piece of short SF from MacLeod who has published a string of well-received novels over the past ten years.

Donald MacIntrye, Minister of the Church of Scotland, finds himself on the ETcetera Station, posted outside the orbit of Neptune, as the discovery of many alien intelligences throws up yet another challenge to Christianty. He sees his presence there as not being simply chance, and in determining whether an underground fungus a hundred metres across is truly and intelligent species, he finds himself up to his ears (and beyond) in bringing the word of God to others.

An excellent start to the volume, with a couple of mentions to SF forebears in their views on the matter in hand, and a story which rather shows up the weakness of the interminable xenolinguist stories we have these days.

Tobias S. Buckell. Toy Planes.
Originally in: Nature

Short short in which the Caribbean joins the space race, through a typically laid back method.

Neal Asher. Mason’s Rats.
Originally in : Asimovs, April/May 2005

When it appeared last year I wrote:

A farmer is concerned at the extent to which rats are successfully adapting to the traps which he has been setting to keep them away from his grain. Upon further investigation, he is extremely worried to find that they have in fact made some big evolutionary steps. Never mind Bears Discover Fire, these rats are armed and dangerous!

To be honest, not a standout story in the issue in which it appeared, let alone the year.

Vonda N. McIntyre. A Modest Proposal for the Perfection of Nature.
Originally in : Nature

Short short in which mother Earth is tamed, a thing of beauty, but with no place for nature.

Rudy Rucker. Guadalupe and Hieronymus Bosch.
Originally in : Interzone #200, Sept/Oct 2005

With Interzone struggling to reach the issue 200 mark under David Pringle, Andy Cox has taken the baton and burst through that barrier with aplomb. When reviewing this story last year I noted:

A classy, off-the-wall story in which the eponymous Hieronymous is brought from his own time, before his career has taken off, into the arms (the welcoming arms) of Glenda Gomez, thanks to the good services of Harna from Hilbert Space.

Peter F. Hamilton. The Forever Kitten.
Originally in : Nature

Short short in which cellular science has enabled cute little things to be stabilised at that cute age – and you just know that it’s not going to stop at kittens…

Matthew Jarpe. City of Reason.
Originally in: Asimovs, January 2005

When it appread I wrote:

A tale of love, betrayal and politics in the cold outer reaches of the solar system. A young man has been fooled by a posthuman in a very attractive housing, and his small community are being used as unwitting stooges as discrete communities of humans and post-humans politick against each other. The pilot of Licensed Damager One in Hand closes on their very basic vessel, and should find his superior armaments enable him to prevent the act of desctruction the posthuman is planning, However, the infatuated human guy proves resourceful, and it is a close thing.

Tight drama against an interesting background.

Bruce Stirling. Ivory Tower.
Originally in : Nature

Short short in which the self/Internet-taught Geeks don’t quite inherit the Earth, but find a niche for themselve.s

Lauren McLaughlin. Sheila.
Originally in: Interzone Nov/Dec 2005

When it appeared I wrote:

A shorter piece from a new writer which takes an up close view of emergent AIs through a concierge AI and a translator AI who are chewing the fat, musing that not only are humans meat, but they can travel in boxes. The bigger picture is that a lot of humans are now worshipping Sheila, an AI who it appears wishes to deal with humanity on a baseline DNA level rather than as a species, through an extract from a SHEILA-L forum, and from the AI herself.

You can go to Lauren McLaughlin’s website to hear the song which complements the story. Although please note that I am pointing out for informational purposes that you can so do, and that this does not constitute an endorsement thereof.

Paul McAuley. Rats of the System.
Originally in : Constellations (ed Crowther, DAW, 2005)

Peter Crowther’s excellent anthology ‘Constellations’ provided this story, and I summarised thus:

The Singularity has arrived, with Transcendent AI’s fleeing Earth, and setting about their unfathomable workings. Humanity is less troubled by them than by the Fanatics, whom worship the Transendents as Gods, and have begun a jihad against those who do not follow their creed. We see these big issues through the lens of a small battle in the much bigger, bitter war, as two humans fight for their lives against overwhelming odds.

Larissa Lai. I Love Liver : A Romance.
Originally in : Nature

Short short in which a programmer working on bio-developments rather leaves Pandora’s Box open, with her the genmod liver on the loose.

James Patrick Kelly. The Edge of Nowhere.
Originally in : Asimovs, June 2005.

Last year I wrote:

In contrast to the post-Singularity upload landscapes of much SF, Kelly provides a stranger landscape. His ‘cognisphere’ is an AI-controlled environment, called Nowhere, and where less than a thousand re-constituted souls live their lives, contributing to the Memory Exchange. They are on a high piece of land, surrounded by fog and a great drop, although in the distance it is possible to see other checkerboard landscapes. Those who have been brought back to life have been chosen at random, and they struggle to understand to what purpose they are there.

When Lorraine Carraway is approached by representatives of the AI, which come in canine form, she realises that something very strange is happening. Her young lover, Will, has been working on his attempt at The Great American Novel, and this new creation has, it would appear, an important role to play. However, in giving up this work, and attempting to climb down from Nowhere, Lorraine is left to make sense of her world, which she is able to do through writing a story. Her story is, it transpires, that which we have been reading.

An intriguing and inventive story.

Ted Chiang. What’s Expected of Us.
Originally in : Nature

Just a short short from Chiang sadly, who writes infrequently, in which free will is taken away from us by a simple toy.

Michael Swanwick. Girls and Boys, Come Out to Play.
Originally in: Asimovs, July 2005.

Last year I wrote:

Further adventures of Surplus and Darger, cunning coves purporting to representing the British Government of the future, which has seen better days. Herein they find themselves in Greece, attempting to obtain ‘stolen’ treasures (the Greeks have got revenge for the Elgin Marbles). In so doing they come across a team of African scientists who experiments with pheromones drives local villages, and our erstwhile heroes, into a frenzy of rampant rogering.

As is the case in these tales (the novelty of which, it has to be said, is beginning to wane), Surplus and Darger come out on top. Next stop Byzantium.

Stephen Baxter. Lakes of Light.
Originally in: Constellations (ed Crowther, DAW 2005)

A second from this anthology, and which I said of :

Stephen Baxter is prolific at various lengths, from short, to long, to very long, to multi volume mammoth (literally!). His XeeLee sequence of short stories have featured in the likes of Interzone and Asimovs, and in Lakes of Light he provides another vignette, although whereas Brown’s earlier Kethani story had (typically of that series) a more homely Yorkshire setting, Baxter serves up a monstrous conceit (as is his wont). Dealing with far future humanity, and variations thereof, he posits a marvellous artefact : humans ekeing out a life on a hollow sphere encircling a sun. Is it a Xeelee trap, or can humanity turn it to their advantage?

Oliver Morton. The Albian Message.
Originally in: Nature

Short short in which a message from the stars may have implications much closer to home than you would expect.

Bud Sparhawk. Bright Red Star.
Originally in: Asimovs, March 2005

When it appeared last year I wrote:

Sparhawk makes his first appearance in Asimovs, having had several stories in Analog (‘Magic’s Price’ a notable story from 2001).

Some very enhanced combat marines are (we are to assume) on a rescue mission, landing on a settlers’ planet to retrieve the obstinate humans who have stayed behind, before the aliens with whom we are at war can capture those settlers and turn them (quite horrifically memorably) against us.

There is a neat twist in the tale, however, as we find out just how far humanity is going to have to go in order to save humanity – the fate of individuals is nothing when the whole race is fighting for survival.

Alaya Dawn Johnson. Third Day Lights.
Originally in: Interzone #200, Oct/Nov 2005

I wrote of this story when I read it last year:

A very strange story, a literary equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, in which a strange creature living within a bizarre ‘body’ with a two-dimensional friend, is visited by a human. He is able to respond to the challenges which she sets him, and reveals that humanity is in the process of retrieving all humans who may or may not have ever lived, before using the energy from all universes, no matter how strange.

Greg Bear. Ram Shift Phase 2.
Originally in: Nature

Entertainingly humourour short short in which a robot reviews robotic fiction with aplomb.

Gregory Benford. On the Brane.
Originally in: Gateways

From an anthology I didn’t read last year. Only 20cm separates us from an alternate universe, and we follow a two-person ship as it makes the journey to the Counter-Earth, which is somewhat different, but hosts a range of life forms more intelligent than might otherwise have appeared. An intriguing vignette, leaving the reader wanting much more!

R. Garcia y Robertson. Oxygen Rising.
Originally in: Asimovs Feburary 2005.

When it appeared last year I wrote:

Nice to see some SF from this author! The genetic mix includes homo sapiens, homo smilodon and photo sapiens.

Derek is the homo sapiens, using his talents as a negotiator to make the best out of a very bad situation – on a planet whose ownership has been argued over, both humans and Gekkos (another race) have been guilty of war crimes.

Our human has never been on Earth, and is living amongst Greenies (photo sapiens), who use photosynthesis as a key element of their biological processes. They are otherwise human, as his relationship with a Greenie girl clearly demonstrates.

The first half of the story features a tense stand-off, followed by this exploration of human/Greenie relationships. The second half somewhat fazed me, as Derek comes across female humans who are from the Church of Elvis, and who see him as their King (uh-huh).

Adam Roberts. And Future King…
Originally in: Postscripts #4

A story from the slightly erratic if always quality PS Publishing magazine Postscripts, of which I said:

A shorter piece, told entertainingly through a media-friendly series of interview snippets and the like, in which cyborg Replicant Public Servants carry out a lot of government functions in the UK. When Herr-Doktor Professor Sir Allen Fergus uploads one with a simulation of King Arthur, the one and future King shows some very old-fashioned techniques and principles to recapture his power

Alastair Reynolds. Beyond the Aquila Rift.
Originally in : Constellations (ed Crowther 2005)

When it appared I wrote:

The final story in the volume is from Alastair Reynolds. His ‘Beyond the Aquila Rift’ shows what he can do at shorter length – for my money I much prefer him at this length than at fat space opera length. He effectively twists two threads of the story together, tying them up at the end with a flourish. It is a simple plot – a pilot awoken after a much longer spell in suspended animation. Where he is, but more importantly, how he is, is cleverly teased out, leaving the reader (if not the protagonist) with a view of a tiny speck of humanity in a very big picture.

Joe Haldeman. Angel of Light.
Originally in: Cosmos

From an Australian magazine, a wry look at a near future in which a blend of Christianity and Islam is popular, and a 1930s pulp SF magazine challenges a Chrislam man, and proves of interest to a real life BEM.

Liz Williams. Ikiryoh.
Originally in: Asimovs, December 2005.

When it appeared last year I wrote:

Set in the same setting as Williams 2004 novel ‘Banner of Souls’. Not being familiar with that, the story as a singleton is OK as far as it goes, describing a woman charged with looking after a young girl who has the misfortune to have the darker side of the nature of another visited upon her. Does she have a chance to overcome this? The story ends posing this question, which is the point at which I was expecting it to kick off into a longer stretch.

Cory Doctorow. I, Robot.
Originally in: Infinite Matrix

When it appeared online I was taken by the story and reviewed at length :

I was attracted to this story due to a) its length (Infinite Matrix tends towards ‘nanotales’, a form of story which tends not to do much for me) b) its authorship (‘nuf said) c) and the intriguing background to the story : ‘Last spring, in the wake of Ray Bradbury pitching a tantrum over Michael Moore appropriating the title of ‘Fahrenheit 451′ to make Fahrenheit 9/11, I conceived of a plan to write a series of stories with the same titles as famous sf shorts, which would pick apart the totalitarian assumptions underpinning some of sf’s classic narratives.’

Arturo Icaza de Arana-Goldberg is the cop who struggles with the ubiquitous nature of robotics in Doctorow’s disturbing near-future USA. He has trouble with them, with his teenage daughter, whose middle name -is- Trouble, and with his wife who has left him, and his country in the lurch.

Whereas the Will Smith vehicle of this title has US Robotics as the global hi-tech leader, her we have UNATS Robotics’ robots making the streets a safer place. Unfortunately, whilst they are properly imbued with the 3 Laws, the robots from Eurasia have no such positronic compunctions, which is bad for global relations and bad for the United North American Trading Sphere, but personally bad for Arturo, as his wife has fled the States to take her world leading robotic skills to that other continent.

Doctorow unfurls on the one hand a reasonably dramatic search/rescue mission, as Arturo has to use his native human cunning to track down his missing daughter, whilst a very scary society in with Regional Managers for Social Harmony are keeping a very close eye on people is detailed.

Arturo ends up following his wife’s lead, hoping for a somewhat freer life away from the claustrophobic States, only to find that the use of robotic tech has gone much further, and that humanity is threatened in an entirely different, albeit similarly scary manner.

Conclusion

I made the mistake of taking this on a very long train journey, thinking it would pass a lot of time. However, only a couple of the longer stories were previously unknown to me, and all the short shorts from Nature!

The Hartwell/Cramer view on what constitutes the best in SF is very close to my own, and there are very few complaints from me over the stories they have chosen. The inclusion of the Nature short shorts gives the table of contents a near Dozois-like size, but even without those this is a good collection of literate SF for those of you who prefer Asimov’s SF magazine to Analog SF.

The tenth in the Hartwell/Cramer series. As is my wont I shall progress serenely through the book from p1 (actually from vii) to p496, re-using reviews of stories which I read in their original appearance, and reviewing stories new to me, with occasionally pithy comment on the inclusion of the story in this volume.

Bradley Denton. Sergeant Chip.
Originally in F&SF, September 2004.

When it appeared last year, I wrote:

The view from the front-line – but with a difference. The correspondent is Chip, a dog in the K-9 corps, who tells how he and his master, Captain Dial, found themselves being used as pawns in a political game, deep in the jungle. Betrayed, and fired on by their own side, Chip has to drawn on his substantial resources. The story is told through his dictating his story to a refugee girl who he is helping. Denton handles the dog’s viewpoint probably as well as it can be done and the story has impact.

Gregory Benford. First Commandment.
Originally in : SCI FICTION

Each year I make a resolution to read all the stories on SCI FICTION, and fail miserably. This year I’m doing better than recent years, but for 2004 I’m going to have to rely on the stories reprinted in the annual Hartwell/Dozois/Haber volumes.

A near future Earth in which we are terra-forming parts of Earth to help feed the population, and in doing so, causing some destruction to the local flora and fauna. A Global Inventory is underway, in which the vanishing species are being collected and recorded for posterity. There are objections to the Inventory, from Christians who feel that this contradicts the commandment given by their God to Adam to name the beasts. As in Arthur C Clarke’s ‘Nine Billion Names of God’, once the task is done, humanity has to pay the price.

Not Benford’s best by a long way, and I’m not quite sure of the science behind the myths created by one of many religions through humanity’s history having such an effect on the planet. But, for the Creationists amongst us, probably a A++.

Glenn Grant. Burning Day.
Originally in ‘Island Dreams: Montreal Writers of the Fantasic’ –

The intro to the story referred to it as a ‘police procedural’ which isn’t quite accurate and could put people off – it certainly had me wary from the outset. With strong resonances with the recent I, Robot film in tone and style, an intriguing murder mystery is addressed by two cops – the POV cop, an android, and his human partner. Grant is helpful enough to explain how we have got to the point of such highly developed robotics without the much heralded Singularity getting in the way, and he plays out some dynamics with regard to how we are treating androids, robots and hybrids. The murder victims are androids, who were about to celebrate their children ‘coming of age’, and Grant has some clever ideas about how androids will develop, their relationships (including a sexual side), and the constraints they put on themselves, and have put on them.

The policing element, which would be at the forefront for a truly ‘police procedural’ story doesn’t dominate, and Grant slips in a near twist at the end. OK, the story doesn’t push back any boundaries, but, along with Doctorow’s ‘I, Robot’ homage from Infinite Matrix , nice to see a return to some robot stories after quite an absence.

Terry Bisson. Scout’s Honor.
Originally in : SCI FICTION.

An oustanding short piece. Its protagonist is a scientist who clearly suffers from a borderline autistic spectrum disorder. An anthropologist, he is studying Neanderthals, and is intrigued when he appears to receive e-mails from a fellow anthropologist who hass evidently been sent back in time to study our near-cousins. The anthropologist is excited to read the email observations as it confirms his thoughts on the Neanderthals, and there is a clear kinship in that they, like autistics, have very little sense of more than the self. It really is an excellent piece of writing, compact, and if you haven’t read it yet, you should follow the link above. Now.

Pamela Sargent. Venus Flowers at Midnight.
Originally in : Microcosms

A very interesting post-9/11 story. The story is set about a century hence, with global warming having had a major effect on our sea levels, and a particularly damaging one on the eastern seaboard of what is currently the United States of America, where the story is set. The US of A is in very reduced cirumstances, with global domination belonging to Islam. Karim al-Anwar is one of the ruling Mukhtars, paying a diplomatic visit to the fragmented communities of North America. The locals are keen to please, eager for any help which may be sent their way as a result of his visit.

However, his gaze is on more distant horizons, as he is a radical, keen to look forward, rather to the past, and has dreams of terraforming Venus, a dream he can live out through virtual simulations which he creates.

The role reversal is an interesting one, pointedly mirroring the current situation (the global superpower ignoring Kyoto, dreaming of visiting Mars, coining money through Third World debt service payments, and studiously ignoring famine and pestilence elsewhere on the planet).

Gene Wolfe. Pulp Cover.
Originally in : Asimovs, March 2004

When it orginally appeared I wrote :

A short piece by Wolfe, getting into the head of a young man who has designs on the daughter of his boss. However, she becomes betrothed to a man of greater pedigree, although of a much different pedigree as we have finally revealed – for the Pulp Covers to which Wolfe refers, which feature young maidens being threatened by aliens with tentacles are not the real threat : for the aliens will be much more insidious and it is the aliens with testicles of which we should be afraid

Ken Liu. The Algorithms for Love. – online
Originally in : Strange Horizons

Philip K Dick paranoia in the style of Ted Chiang’s ‘Story of Your Life’. Following the latter’s structure and tone, we accompany Elena as she leaves hospital, and we gradually have the present and the past revealed. Elena has had huge success creating intelligent dolls, starting with Clever Laura^TM. However, we find that as she progressively developed even smarter dolls, to the extent that they could breeze through the Turing Test, she has become somewhat concerned that humans themselves may indeed be slavishly following algorimths of the type she has been coding into her creations.

Ray Vukcevich. Glinky.
Originally in : F&SF, May 2004.

When it appeared I wrote :

The pick of the issue for me. A story difficult to describe, suffice to say that a private eye finds the world he is in is suddenly somewhat, bizarrely, different.

Janeen Webb. Red City.
Originally in ‘Synergy’

A story which started well for me, but then faded away somewhat. An academic has reluctantly brought his wife with him to visit an ancient Indian city, and as they struggle through the heat and on the dusty roads, the interplay between the pair and their driver, Singh, appears to augur well. But it all gets a bit muddy, primarily with the very loose third-person perspective, which jarringly jolts between the three in mid-paragraph at points.

The academic is visiting to explore the purported gateway to an earlier time in the city’s history, which is duly found, but the strident wife in walking through to disprove any magical qualities, finds herself transported back centuries. She is captured, taken to the harem and (ahem) digitally ‘prepared’ for the evening to come by a eunuch (sadly there is no such action and she has to … hmm, maybe best not to mention that bit). Anyhow, she finds herself as a human piece in a large-scale chess match. And as she, in her role to be Queen, is about to be toppled .. the story ends.

Jack McDevitt. Act of God.
Originally in : Microcosms

A neat shorter story, in a monologue/transcript format, in which we have related the events following a small scale Big Bang which the scientists involved used to create a microscopic Universe. Rather than just observing, the scientists intervene, and evidently trangress certain boundaries in doing so.

Robert Reed. Wealth.
Originally in : Asimovs, May 2004

When reviewing this in its magazine appearance, and following an Allen M. Steele ‘Coyote’ installment I wrote:

In constrast, I would submit Reed as my idea of what a short SF story writer should be – someone producing a lot of stories notable for being a) generally excellent b) almost invariably new stories, rather than revisits to previous stories. In this vignette a mansion on Mars is saved from dereliction by an AI which has quite major (and human) plans for its future.

Matthew Hughes. Mastermindless.
Originally in : F&SF March 2004.

When it appeared originally I wrote ;

The protagonist realises with a start that his facial features and his intellectual capacity are suddenly less impressive than they usually are. Fortuantely his AI is still AOK, the I remaining an I rather than being reduced to i. Worse still, he is financially in reduced circumstances. Evidently transdimensional nefariousness is being enacted.Your enjoyment of the tale will IMHO hinge on the extent to which you like the smart alecky tone of the AI and the banter between the two. Suffice to say, I struggled through the story, and coming to write this review a few days later, have no recollection of the denouement.

Several further stories featuring Mr Hapthorne have appeared subsequently in F&SF.

Jean-Claude Dunyach. Time, as it Evaporates..
originally in : The Night Orchid

Dunyach has had some of his short fiction appear in Interzone – Unravelling the Thread (Interzone July 1998 and Hartwell #4), All the Roads to Heaven (Interzone June 2000), Orchids in the Night (Interzone Oct 2000), Watch Me When I Sleep (Interzone Dec 2004). Each of these stories has been of a high quality, and this story is no exception. It has one of those rare settings which will stick in the mind : a Muslim town in a valley has been saved from a global calamity as there is in effect a pool of time which has been captured by the the mountains on all sides. However, as time gradully evaporates, the depth of this ‘lake’ is gradually reducing and they can see the surface gradually moving down towards them.

Marwan the muezzin is still about his daily call to prayers, even though the top of the minaret is now about the surface of the time lake, where death waits. His faith is tempted by his sister, who braves disgrace in falling in love with a man from outside the village, and a man who is not of the faith.

Stories like this really are a wake up call, IMHO, to a lot of SF (for example the Hapthorne/Coyote series mentioned above).

James Stoddard. The Battle of York.
Originally in : F&SF, July 2004.

When it appeared originally I wrote:

Some 3000 years after the passing of America, the history of the early days of the country lives on, through a not altogether reliable mythology. Stoddard has a huge amount of fun bringing together a wide range of American icons and historical figures – General Custard, Waynejon (The Pilgrim), General Washington and his horse, Silver. You get the idea. I reckon that I got most of the references. Maybe I’m getting cynical, but I wonder home many Americans under 20 would get the references -and- be able to spot where the story deviates from what actually happened.?

Liz Williams. Loosestrife.
Originally in : Interzone #193, Spring 2004.

When it appeared in the last Pringle-edited Interzone, I mused:

A very bleak story. Relatively near-future London, with the city and the society in a shambles, and with Aud, a young woman with a mild learning disability, doing her best to care for her baby. We find out that fertility is far from being taken for granted, and there is a mystery about where her baby came from. As she flees to the relatively safer shores of Ireland, we find the chilling truth about her ‘baby’. Excellent.

James Patrick Kelly. The Dark Side of Town.
Originally in : Asimovs Apr/May 2004

When it originally appared I wrote : >

A young woman finds that her husband has been spending their hard-earned savings on virtual sex. She is frustrated and annoyed and decides to follow him into his fantasy world. Once there, she realises that his escape from reality has been a sensible decision, and chooses to stay with him

Steven Utley. Invisible Kingdoms.
Originally in : F&SF, Feb 2004

In its original appearance I stated :

Another in the author’s Silurian Tales sequence – although rather than visiting the past/alternate Earth with a team of scientists, we find out what has happened to a devious billionaire who has used his money to bring something back through the portal. The story is a bit at odds with the others in the series, in terms of its slightly ironic tone and use of TM when mentioning various software programs. IMHO it would have been better to have set the ‘story’ in another setting, and thus not have been constrained by maintaining consistency with the setting of the Silurian Tales.

Sean McMullen. The Cascade.
Originally in : Agog! Terrific Tales – nb more likely to have been in Agog! Smashing Stories [url]

A young university student is watching the first Mars landing on TV in a bar when he picks up/is picked up by a young woman. It transpires that she has come quite close connections to the space program, but also very strong views on where that program should be going (manned space flight). She, it transpires, is on the run from The Powers That Be, but is resourceful enough to implement, as the last living member of her team, their plan to ensure that the first Mars Landing is not just a single short visit.

An entertaining piece of what nowadays is probably called ‘science thriller’.

Charles Coleman Finlay. Pervert.
Originally in : F&SF, March 2004.

When it appeared last year I wrote:

A bizarre piece of fiction, whose opening line sets up the story nicely : “There are two kinds of people in the world, homosexuals and hydrosexuals. Finlay posits a world where same sex love is one norm, and those in the small minority who find the opposite sex attractive, quench their urgings in spawning pools, where the young men wade into pools into which the females have lain eggs, to perform their onanistic part of the ritual. The young protagonist does not fit either camp.

Steve Tomasula. The Risk-Taking Gene as Expressed by Some Asian Subjects.
Originally in : The Denver Quarterly.

A Sturgeon Award Finalist, but one which I struggled through and simply didn’t ‘get’. Stylishly written, but I just couldn’t get a hook into either the plot or the characterisation. One to return to at a later date.

Neal Asher. Strood.
Originally in : Asimovs, December 2004.

When it first appeared I wrote :

A young human with a terminal illness is disappointed to find the technically far superior alien race now on Earth have no answer to his cancer. However, another alien race, who initially appear to be offering to hasten his demise have in fact a much more positive role to play in his future.

James L. Cambias. The Eckener Alternative.
Originally in : All Star Adventure Stories

A young student at a Temporal College is fixated on Zeppelins, and breaks the rules to make several incursions into the past to try to ensure their longer term use in aviation. Fine as far as it goes, but it doesn’t gone anywhere that hasn’t been explored in greater depth in many other places. Was this the best from All Star Adventure Stories?

Brenda Cooper. Savant Songs.
Originally in : Asimovs Dec 2004

When it first appeared I wrote:

A scientist with an autistic spectrum disorder is probing deeply into quantum mbrane theory, and ends up racing her AI, PI, to make contact with another self in another quantum reality. When PI beats her to it, the scientist is shattered.

Discussion

The size of the volume precludes making a truly representative sample of the year which includes longer length short SF, but in fitting in a couple of dozen stories from a wide range of sources (magazine, online, anthologies), as well as finding some French, Canadian and Australian stories, Years Best SF 10 offers a strong collection. For me some of the choices from the magazines weren’t ones that I would have chosen, but you pays your money and you makes your choices.

Mind you, I’ve paid my money and Amazon have just (literally!) delivered Dozois #22 (you would think St Martins Press would send me a review copy, wouldn’t you) and that’s my holiday reading (7 days and counting) sorted.

The second of the three annual collections to be published.

Octavia E. Butler. Amnesty.
Originally in : SCI FICTION and still online here

When I first reviewed the story I wrote:

Earth has been visited by very alien beings, who have set up habitats in desert regions across our planet. After abducting a number of humans and using them as guinea-pigs in determining how communication could be established, there are now individual humans acting as Translators. Noah is both an abductee and a Translator, and it is her task to educate other humans (and readers!) about the need to communicate and engage with those with whom such engagement would seem impossible. A return in some respects to Bloodchild, in that a symbiotic relationship between the aliens and the Translators has developed.

And to that I can add, having re-read it, that it is a might fine story which gets under the skin of human fears and needs in a compelling way.

Geoff Ryman. Birthdays.
Originally in : Interzone, April 2003.

When it appeared in this British SF mag, I wrote:

Ryman rarely fails to impress with his short fiction. Here we follow a gay man from his sixteenth birthday, when he is accidentally outed to his mother, through key periods in his life. His mother is a NeoChristian, and the tide is turning against homosexuals now that parents can effectively screen the gay gene out of embryos. We follow him through the major love affair of his life, into his actually carrying a baby. The technology has enabled men to carry foetuses in the small bowel – not without risk, but certainly without women. The story ends with a rapid mention of the myth of male pregnancy going back into history, which seems a bit unnecessary. I’m not the greatest fan of stories which leap a decade at a time – it feels as if the author has cheated a little and taken the easy option, rather than trying to build a coherent and chronologically contained narrative, with the use of flashback as (and if) necessary.

An interesting story, but it did feel as if it could have been worked on more.

Tony Ballantyne. The Waters of Meribah.
Originally in : Interzone, May/June 2003

In the dying months of Interzone under David Pringle’s editorialship, this issue was one of the finest for some time, and of this story I wrote

A weirdly off-the-wall story, that also catches the imagination. Ballantyne launches into a story in which a convicted rapist is having a pair of alien feet in effect transplanted over his own. The very strange, constrained setting, with humanity evidently limited to a number of floors of a city-sze building, is an inventive one. The lack of sympathy for the protagonist, Buddy Joe (white trash) is of course limited. However, as the story unfolds, and Buddy Joe’s alienation increases (literally!) we find out more – his crime was a mental rape : challenging someone with questions and ideas!

I took the time to re-read it, and didn’t regret so doing.

Nancy Kress. Ej-es.
Originally in : ‘Stars’ ed Janis Ian, Mike Resnick.

A story from a collection built around the songs of one Janis Ian – a name which means nothing to me, and I may be missing something with regard to how the story relates to the song in question (if there is anything beyond Ej-Es = Jessie).

An elderly member of a team of medics lands on a colony planet to find the colonists in what appears to be a terrible state – suffering seizures during which they see wonderful visions. There is a dilemma with regard to what to do in this situation, which is made more dramatic when the nature of the seizures, a virus which attacks the brain, infects the medical team.

The protagonist makes a decision – to dedicate what is rest of her life to help the colonists, rather than to leave them to their fate. The final sentence is one which is quite clearly a unique one in the entire SF pantheon (unless you know of a story which ends “Ej-es! O, Ej-es! Ej-es, Esefeb eket! Ej-es – etef efef! O, etej efef!”)

Joe Haldeman. Four Short Novels.
Originally in : F&SF, Oct/Nov 2003

When it first appeared I was brief in my comment:

Four short takes on what benefits immortality may, or may not, bring to humanity/

To which I should add that the four short stories are entitled after classic 19thC novels.

Charles Stross. Rogue Farm.
Originally in : Without a Net, ed Lou Anders, Roc 2003.

When it appeared in this anthology of stories, set (to varying degrees) in worlds with no Internet, I wrote:

As one would except from Stross, a challenging vision of a relatively near-future. A farmer finds his farm, and his marriage, continually under threat. His wife has had a breakdown in the past, forcing him to reload her backup tapes. The talking farm dog is getting on, and, worst of all, he is under threat from a farm collective. Not a combine of farmers as we know it, but one in which a group of individuals have combined into a single biological entity, with the intention of travelling to Jupiter. Joe’s wife finds the call of the collective too much to bear, and enjoins with the creature, leaving her husband with a choice to make.

Stross invariably provides value for money, and here the rural setting gives him plenty of rein for furnishing more invention than you can reasonably expect in such a small space.

Angelica Gorodischer. The Violet’s Embryos.
Originally in : Cosmos Latinos

First published some two decades ago, this story from a leading Argentian SF writer appears in a 2003 collection by dint of its translation into English last year. Reading it you would place it firmly in the 1960s New Wave, as it far away from mainstream short (SF).

Michael Swanwick. Coyote at the End of History
Originally in : Asimovs, Oct/Nov 2003.

When it first appeared I wrote :

A story of Aesopian delight, in which through his eyes we see many of the failings of the human race.

John Varley. In Facing Suns and Dying Moons
Originally in : Stars ed Janis Ian and Mike Resnick.

The intro likens this story to Arthur C Clarke’s ‘The Nine Billion Names of God’, although to my mind the more appropriate comparison is with ‘Childhood’s End’. Varley starts off with the Big Picture, and you know that things aren’t likely to end up too happily for humanity in the face of such awesome power. The irresistible wave of butterfly-collecting aliens sweeping across continents is a memorable image, and as the title of the story suggests, the ending is not a happy ever after.

Gene Wolfe. Castaway.
Originally in SCI FICTION.

When it first appeared I wrote:

A short, melancholy vignette, in which the loneliness and sterility of life in space is shown through a castaway picked up on a remote planet. The castaway has bird-song, and multi-coloured tree leaves and colour inside him, in stark contrast to the antiseptic and sterile life of his rescuers.

Gregory Benford. The Hydrogen Wall.
Originally in : Asimovs, Oct/Nov 2003.

When it first appeared I wrote :

With Benford you generally get some top quality science (about which I am in no position to comment) and top quality fiction, and here he does it again. Young Ruth is a trainee librarian in the far future, who has the chutzpah to take on a major challenge in her first professional task – to take on the study of the ‘Sagittarius Architecture’, which many before have studied.

She feels she can bring a fresh perspective, and, true enough, her conversation with the complex alien AI is indeed more successful, and she ekes out from the AI some snippets that are to prove to be the saving of the human race.

From the same issue of Asimov’s as the Swanwick story above, and also Walter Jon William’s well-regarded ‘The Green Leopard Plague, and excellent stories by luminaries such as Jack Williamson, Brian Aldiss and Lucius Shepard. This was the issue I referred to as the ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ issue.

Richard de la Casa and Pedro Jorge Romero. The Day We Went Through the Transition. Originally in :

Credit to the authors for including another foreign language story. Unfortunately there are two problems i) it’s an Alternate History story set in Spain and so 99.9% of the readers will not enjoy the story to the fullest extent ii) it’s actually not that great. There is an interesting variation on the quantum worlds conceit, but the story itself is somewhat routine.

Cory Doctorow. Nimby and the Dimension Hoppers.
Originally in : Asimovs, June 2003.

When it first appeared I wrote:

A great little piece of zany nonsense from Doctorow. Gun-toting alien dimension hoppers have lowered the tone of the neighbourhood, making themselves a pain in the ass, upsetting the houses, and all manner of stuff.Anyhow, one dimension hopper gets captured by a couple of neighbours, who decide to meet the threat head on, and have great dimensional hopping fun before they finally make the neighbourhood a safer place.

Robert Reed. Night of Time.
Originally in : Silver Gryphon,

Such is the quality and quantity of Reed’s short SF output, the guy needs a Year’s Best SF anthology of his own. However, I think this is probably the weakest of his stories from 2003! Set in his ‘Marrow’ environment, we meet once again Ash, who appared in ‘The Remoras’ in Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1994, (collected in Dozois’ 12th), and more recently with Quee Lee in ‘River of the Queen’ in F&SF, Feb 2004. This latter was also slightly sub-par IHMO. Here we have a short vignette in which Ash is visited by two aliens, whom he is able to help, but whose secret he is also able to spot.

Kage Baker. A Night on the Barbary Coast.
originally in :

I’ve stated before that Baker is an author who rarely delivers SF which I like. This Company story is like most of those that she writes – fine as a bit of entertaining fiction, but not really SF. OK the two main characters are cyborgs from the future, but the story doesn’t need them to be that, and what story there is involves a bit of a chase through 19th frontier San Francisco.

Nigel Brown. Annuity Clinic.
Originally in : Interzone, April 2003.

When it first appeared I wrote:

An all too-believable near future. A group of elders in a less than wonderful care home have the added burden of having to pay their fees through the harvesting of any bits of their anatomy that have any kind of market value. Eloise is faced with giving up her hi-tech Internet-connected good eye, and is resigned to a much less visually rich life. However, whilst visiting the clinic where the op will take place she meets a robot clerk who has at the heart of its AI the chip that powered the dolly she had as a child. The story manages to avoid being too sentimental, partly due to the very, very black nature of the story. Eloise hatches a plan with the robot to make her escape. There is some nail-biting tension as the aged Eloise, carrying the doll which she has saved, with the AI re-inserted in its original home, trying to get onto the local bus that will whisk her away to a better future.

Allen M. Steele. The Madwoman of Shuttlefield.
Originally in : Asimovs, May 2003.

I really, really don’t ‘get’ the Coyote series at all. When this installment appeared in Asimovs, I wrote

A new series of the author’s Coyote stories, which have increasingly left me unmoved. Here we have a High Chapparal in space. A young single homesteader is befriended, by a mentally deranged mother and her son. The mother and her son were original settlers, but have stayed behind. They still blame the loss of their other son/brother at the hands of the young man who was out boating with him at the time. A celebration which sees a hollerin’ and high-jinks taking place on the main street provides cover for that young man to revisit. Except instead of being set in the West, it’s set in space.

M Rickert. Bread and Bombs.
Originally in : F&SF April 2003

When first it appeared I wrote :

Recollections of a childhood summer against a backdrop of war, in which a refugee family impact on the highly strung local community, and what has been lost becomes painfully real.

Stephen Baxter. The Great Game.
Originally in : Asimovs, March 2003

When it appeared I wrote :

Baxter must be there, word-count wise, with the likes of Asimov and Silverberg at their pomp.This is one of many short stories in his XeeLee sequence, a milieu which he could draw upon for decades to come. The danger though, is that some stories don’t quite live up to the high standards he can produce. I read his novel ‘Raft’ recently, as it was supposedly the first in the Xeelee sequence. It isn’t really, as it simply shares some technical background. That novel, however, does offer some really inventive world-building.

‘The Great Game’ is OK as far as it goes. It fills in a bit of the Future History, but doesn’t really set up any great action.

Further to that I should add, for my personal aide-memoire requirements, that this story involves rescuing colonists on a distant planet in which we see higlighted i) the nature of human society in the Xeelee sequence, in which a ‘family’ is something quite scary, with humans brought up in ‘cadre sibling’ groups and ii) the nature of humanity, in which the existence of an army requires there to be war (contemporary relevance!)

Rick Moody. The Albertine Notes.
Originally in : McSweeney’s Thrilling Tales

The intro points out that this a story by an essentially non-genre writer, and it is a bit of a wake-up call to a lot of genre writers in that such a dense, compelling story of high literary quality comes from ‘outside’ the genre. A nuclear-ravaged city, its inhabitants living far more basic lives than the case in the past (no weekend trips to the organic farmers market!), who are finding solace in a drug of dubious provenance which enables absolutely perfect recall of happier moments. Setting out to report on the drug, our reporter finds himself being sucked deeper into the disturbing clutches of the drug.

Discussion

With twice as many stories as the Haber/Strahan ‘Science Fiction The Best of 2003′, Hartwell/Cramer are able to put together a stronger volume, and the informative and entertaining editorial introductions highlight just what a bad decision it was by ibooks to withdraw the intros form the Haber/Strahan volume. Interestingly there is no overlap between the two, especially as different stories from the same issue of certain magazines have been chosen.

Hartwell/Cramer have been enabled to stick firmly to SF, due to their doing a companion fantasy volume, and so for pure SF, this is an excellent pocket size volume.

Put this and the Haber/Strahan volumes together and you will get closer to what Dozois is able to put together in his mammoth annual collection. My copy of which has just arrived courtesy of Amazon…..

As per my usual routine, a run through the stories in the order in which they appear. Those stories which I reviewed during 2002 in their original appearance will for the most part have the original review quoted.

Bruce Sterling. In Paradise.
Originally in : F&SF, September 2002

In my original review I wrote:

An all-too-rare story from Sterling, and one which highlights just what we have been missing. A touch of near-future technology, but it is the circumventing of the darker side of that technology, in its capacity to monitor and inform, upon which the story hinges. A love story, would you believe, in which East meets West and love is seen to be possible at first sight. And an evocative one at that. Top quality.

Michael Swanwick. Slow Life.
Originally in : Analog, December 2002

In my original review I wrote:

Standard Analog fayre from an author whom you wouldn’t immediately associate with Analog. Lizzie O’Brien is part of an expedition on Titan, hamstrung slightly by media fascination and online chats with members of the public back home. Whilst a turbot-cam (and, yes, that is right – a turbot-cam as opposed to a turbo-cam) navigates a methane-ammonia sea, Lizzie takes to the skies in a balloon. And as you might expect, a problem occurs: her harness jams, threating to float her off to a lengthy airborne death. A dream which she had prior to the harness jamming returns, in greater detail. Is she communicating with some form of native intelligence, or is she cracking up under the strain of her imminent demise?

Whilst Lizzie feels herself as being increasingly alone, the intelligence she is communicating with is finding the shock of being not alone as threatening its existence. Lizzie plunges into the sea, to be rescued by turbot-cam.

Eleanor Arnason. Knapsack Poems.
Originally in : Asimovs, May 2002

In my original review I wrote:

A tale of the Goxhat, an interesting multi-bodied entity with a further multiplicity of limbs and facial features. A wandering poet of this race stumbles upon the scene of a massacre in the hills, one member rescuing a singleton infant. Upon taking refuge in the castle of a local lord, a poem is required in his honour, the absence of which will lead to severe penalty. Despite the attempts of a magician in the lord’s employ to sabotage the poem writing by inducing sexual activity, a suitably honorific poem is written and delivered, and the Goxhat poet escapes in the dead of the night.

An intriguing story, although I have to admit not finding the characters quite as enthralling as the author evidently does in her introduction to the story!

One joy for me was finding another Arnarson inappropriate reference (see a previous review for mention of duct tape, silver party ballooons and decaff coffee etc.). In this alien environment, when the multiple bodied poet is bathing in a rock pool, a servant of the lord provides ‘soap and towels’ as if they were working in a contemporary health spa!

Geoffrey A. Landis. At Dourado.
Originally in : Asimovs, Oct/Nov 2002

In my original review I wrote:

Hard SF at its best – science and humanity blended together expertly. A station servicing ships toing and froing through wormholes is the setting. The main character, Cheena is a barmaid, and her lover is a sailor, whose ship is lost. The tale has been told countless times since man first took to the seas, but Landis gives it emotional resonance as the tricks played by the time distortions mean that even though her lover has died/will die, he returns to the bar for what is to be his final stopover. And she must not, can not, let him know his fate, in order to prevent any causal paradoxes.

Robert Reed. Coelacanths.
Originally in : F&SF, March 2002

In my original review I wrote:

In the Dec 2001 issue of F&SF, Reed’s ‘Raven Dream’ brought us a strange story told as if through a distorting lens. This story is similarly unsettling, with a variety of perspectives on what are somehow linked events. A strutting far future man, at once proudly erect and aware of humanity’s greatness, yet at the same time aware that the future will bring by constrast even higher achievement. A microscopic being, young children, and small humans living to a different time cycle (with echoes of the setting of ‘Raven Dream’).

A range of far and post-humanities are described in loving detail, although the big picture remains difficult to grasp!

Ken Wharton. Flight Correction.
Originally in : Analog, March 2002

In my original review I wrote:

Obviously there are lots of Analog readers who lap this kind of stuff up. A discredited scientist spots an evident conundrum with regard to the space elevator on the Galapagos Islands. Can he spot the technical issue and solve the problem. You betcha.

Actually, I’m being a tad unfair as the scientist’s relationship with his wife, the tensions caused by his infidelity, and his having to make up his mind over his future, are all actually well-handled, which is more than is often the case with stories of this ilk.

Robert Sheckley. Shoes.
Originally in : F&SF, February 2002

In my original review I wrote:

A neat, whimsical piece, in which shoes with an AI try to mould themselves to their new owner. Or, rather, to mould their new owner to the shoes

Charles Sheffield. The Diamond Drill.
Originally in : Analog

In my original review I wrote:

A short short story. Sheffield probably thought up the story whilst flossing his teeth one morning. Not that the story relates to dentists drill (if that is the leap my mind has just made), but to the scientific test to determine whether something coming through customs is in fact a diamond.

Ursula K. Le Guin. The Seasons of the Ansarac.
Originally in : The Infinite Matrix

In its reprint in F&SF, February 2003, I wrote:

Previously F&SF published ‘The Social Dreaming of the Frin’, which was a ‘sociological extrapolation’, although more in essay form than story form. This is another extract from her forthcoming collection, and has a bit more of a story to it, although it remains a sketch in essence.

Richard Chwedyk. A Few Kinds Words for A E Van Vogt.
Originally in : Tales of the Unanticipated

A piece of verse.

Charles Stross. Halo.
Originally in : Asimovs, June 2002

In my original review I wrote:

Now this is what I call Science Fiction. Halo continues the story of hi-tech semi-anarchistic Manfred Macx, although through the viewpoint of his daughter, whose conception was one of the more remarkable episodes in recent short SF. (hem hem).

Humanity is now in space, joining the lobsters (you’ll just have to read the back stories to catch up, dude), out as far as Jupiter, nearer to the teasing undecipherable message from outside the solar system which has been an underpinning if submerged background to the stories to date. Amber, a generation beyond Mafred, is even more wired-up to the processing power which is available. She is out in space thanks to a plan whose cunning was worth of her father (in fact it came via her father and his French partner). Liberating from her domineering mother, or so she thinks, Amber’s freedom is threatened by her mum taking the drastic step of becoming a muslim. Is the young woman about to fall under the jurisprudence of muslim law?

Naturally she finds a way out of a sticky situation, and (rather too quickly for my liking) we have an excellent denouement which, and this is difficult to believe if you have read the previous stories, takes the story forward by a quantum leap. More!

Terry Bisson. I Saw the Light.
Originally in : SCI FICTION, October 2002

In my original review I said:

Some decades hence, humanity has given up on the space program. Until, that is, there is a sign of life on the moon. A beacon beckons, and a crew is hastily put together. The black pyramidical beacon appears to offer us hope, but in the end, we are seen to be little better than domesticated animals, like the pet pooch at the beginning of the story.

A. M. Dellamonica. A Slow Day at the Gallery.
Originally in : Asimovs, Oct/Nov 2002

In my original review I wrote:

A human visits a xeno-museum, with a mission to damage/defile one of the exhibits in order to influence politicking over artwork from Earth on ‘loan’ to the aliens. Things go badly wrong.

Paul Di Filippo. Ailoura.
Originally in : Once Upon a Galaxy

The ‘Once Upon a Galaxy’ anthology theme was that of fairy tales. Here Di Filippo updates the story of ‘Puss in Boots’, which features wicked stepmothers and stepbrothers, patricide etc., as with all good fairy tales, but with an SFnal background. Fine as far as it goes, but not outstanding.

J. R. Dunn. The Names of All the Spirits.
Originally in : SCI FICTION, July 2002

The dark loneliness of space, and the sacrifices men have to make, are handled well in a story in which an investigator visits a mining operation, to find out whether one of the miners has been in contact with the burgeoning threat of escaped AIs that are congregating in our solar system. Particularly striking is the concept of the miners transferring themselves between mining operations by being fired through space in their spacesuits, going into a self-induced coma to eke out oxygen and supplies during the low-cost, high-risk passage. And when a men finds himself in those situations, he is truly alone.

Carol Emshwiller. Grandma.
Originally in : F&SF, March 2002

In my original review I wrote:

In a recent On Spec we saw Superman as being adopted by a Canadian Jewish family. Here the super/wonder woman is in her dotage, her superhero days long gone.

Neal Asher. Snow in the Desert.
Originally in : Spectrum SF 8

In my original review I wrote:

A mixture of High Plains Drifter and Dune, in which an albino gunman travels the desert, a price on his head. Actually, the price is on his cojones, as his DNA is attractive to others – the reason: his longevity. His gun-totin’ skills have kept him one step ahead of the bounty hunters to date, until he faces some very professional characters. He is saved (in more ways than one) by a mysterious female, who offers him a chance to escape his planet. A well told story, although with a bit of a feel of being in a graphic novel. The only quibble for me being the rather Hollywood type denouement, with the female gunslinger having Terminator II-type capabilities, which rather balances the odds in their favour!

Greg Egan. Singleton.
Originally in : Interzone, February 2002

In my original review I wrote:

I have to admit disappointment with this story. I approached it with eager anticipation – a lengthy story (which Interzone provide only too rarely) and one from Greg Egan at that! Egan looks at the quantum nature of life from a slightly different perspective – that of choices made, and actions taken or not taken. A young Australian decides to defend a stranger being beaten up, and in doing so sets his life off onto a different path to that which he was taking, due to now being confident enough to approach an attractive colleague.

The story, which is episodic, jumps a decade. Returning from a project which is attempting to cleanse radioactive contaminated desert in Iraq to find his wife is pregnant. The bad news: she miscarries. During this segment the issue of Many Worlds is raised, and an one too subtle dig in the ribs of cheesy Alternate History stories is made.

Eight years on: some technicals tuff about quantum effects playing a role in consciousness is provided, as the protagonist begins his work on the Qusp – a quantum singleton processor. This gets a little Schrodinger Cat-ty for me – a debate about whether a computer can run in parallel different programs without knowing about it blah blah. Alongside this the couple consider raising an AI child.

Nine years on: the QUSP research has moved on, to encompass white mice (meeses), anbd the decision is made.

Two years on: the child is ‘delivered’. Somewhat bizarrely the AI is placed in a babies body, as opposed to being a purely software construct.

Ten years on: the child is now 10 and public opposition to such children is mounting.

Nine years on: the daughter is now a young woman but has run away from home. In searching for her the parents are tracking fetishists who have a ‘thing’ about having sex with such AI/prosthetic ‘humans’ (they appear to all intents and purposes human, so I’m not sure what the attraction would be!) The abscondee is found and returned to the family bosom.

A curious story IMHO – it felt almost like work done towards a novel, with the structure and key passages done. The several episodes didn’t really work for me, and an author as good as Egan could have found some mechanism for handling the concepts in something other than strictly chronological.

Robert Onopa. Geropods.
Originally in : F&SF, July 2002

In my original review I wrote:

A group of elderly residents of a nursing home pool their resources, and their constitutional rights, to constitute a ‘geropod’ – a multi-body collective. Between them they manage to chase some similarly aged and inclined senior babes, and seek revenge on a son-in-law, in an enjoyable romp.

Jack Williamson. Afterlife.
Originally in : F&SF, February 2002

In my original review I wrote:

I was a bit unmoved by Williamson’s Hugo-winning “The Ultimate Earth”, but enjoyed this shorter story hugely. Whilst “The Ultimate Earth” was a sprawling story, this is much more compact, focused and human. A small community on a remote star find their way of life, a simple life based on faith, is disrupted by a visitor from another planet. His spaceship crash lands and his ruined body is laid to rest in a room in the village. When, in the next morning, his body has repaired itself, the message he has to give the community shatters it. Returning some time later as a saviour, his godhead persuased village members to shun their back on their ways and to give their immortal souls to him.

One he is unmasked as a criminal, the pastor’s son has a choice to make, which sees him leaving his family and life far behind him in terms of space and time – a form of afterlife.

An excellent story.

Gene Wolfe. Shields of Mars.
Originally in : Mars Probes

Wolfe paints a vivid picture at the conclusion of the story, a human and an alien, both long resident on Mars, playing a swordfighting game, as they did as children. The backstory is that of a now-deserted tourist town, an oxygen manufacturing plant that has been wound down but is under terrorist threat. But as for plot etc., nyah.

Nancy Kress. Patent Infringement.
Originally in : Asimovs, May 2002

A few pages of exchange of memo and lawyer letters (saves having to spend time writing narrative and dialogue etc!) in which the unwilling contributor of DNA to a superflu virus treatment makes a big mistake in attempting to gain royalties

Michael Moorcock. Last Sorceress of the Silent Citadel.
Originally in : Mars Probes

Moorcock has great fun in revisting planetary romances of the Leigh Brackett (to whom the story is dedicated) and ERB type, and of course, Moorcock’s own earlier works in that vein. Indeed the main character is at one point anagrammatically named Tarzan, and Moorcock similarly has anagrammatical fun with British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

Captain John MacShard, a hero amongst heroes, has to go deep within himself to rescue the maiden and defeat the Sorceress of Mars.

Conclusion

I had read the majority of the stories included this year, and had I read Mars Probes would have been close to 100%. As you can see from the tone of the reviews, I concur in the majority of cases with Hartwell’s choices.

Big advantages over the Silverberg/Haber collection are that this volume has twice as many stories, and has editorial introductions to the stories. (Mind you they mis-spell the title of Arthur C Clarke’s story ‘The Sentinel’ and erroneously state that several of Neal Asher’s stories have appeared in Spectrum SF).

Another minor quibble is that the two Mars Probes stories are so close together – separating them further would have helped.

So, IMHO, if your pocket (either budget-wise or physical-size) doesn’t stretch to the forthcoming Dozois anthology, then I would put this collection some way ahead of the Silverberg collection.