Zachary Jernigan. Pairs. (Asimovs, August 2011).
A first appearance in Asimovs for Jernigan, and it’s a good one.
Cory Doctorow. The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening. (The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 5).
Doctorow has fun (as does the reader) in a story highlighting a lot of the issues he blogs about on boingboing, and being addressed by EFF.
Ellen Kushner. The Man With the Knives. (The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 5)
Nicely told story of a grief-stricken man rescued from madness, but there’s no fantasy element – unless being set in a standard rural fantasy/medieval setting makes it a fantasy story.
Interzone #235 Jul/Aug 2011
Stories by Matthew Cook, Mercurio D. Rivera, Jon Wallace, Gareth L. Powell, Al Robertson.
Robert Reed. Swingers. (Tor.com, August 2011).
New on Tor.com in August 2011 (link only)
Al Robertson. Of Dawn. (Interzone #235, Jul-Aug 2011)
A lot of emotional intensity, and great use of music and poetry as well.
Gareth L. Powell. Eleven Minutes. (Interzone, #235, Jul-Aug 2011)
Quite reminiscent of a series of stories by Stephen Baxter a while, and a number of other stories that came out around the same time, as the SF community looked back in anger/sadness at where humanity’s exploration of space was going/no longer going.
Theodora Goss. Fair Ladies. (The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 5.)
Fantasy set in the inter-war years in Europe, in which a woman of specific talents is employed by a Duke for his errant son.
Robert Reed. Alone. (The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 5.)
Reed at his best – given the time to paint an epic story against a backdrop of immense time and space.
Jon Wallace. The Walrus and the Icebreaker. (Interzone #235, Jul-Aug 2011)
Tense, near-future thriller set in the Arctic.
The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011. (ed. Rich Horton, Prime Books 2011)
Rich Horton’s take on the best from 2010. amazon.com | amazon.co.uk
Eric Brown. The Soul of the Machine. (Further Conflicts)
Brown picks up the story of the spacer and the AI construct embodied in a foxy Venezualan body from the first Conflicts volume
Will Ludwigsen. We Were Wonder Scouts. (Asimovs, August 2011).
A well told story which ratchets up nicely to a satisfying end.
Michael Swanwick. For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone.. (Asimovs, August 2011).
Clever story of alien oppression and response to it, cunningly done by setting the story in Ireland.
Tad Williams. And Ministers of Grace. (The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 28th Annual Collection).
A story that would have had me gripping the arms of my chair, had I not needed my hands to hold the book.
Lavie Tidhar. The Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String. (The Year’s Best Science Fiction, 28th Annual Collection.)
A little morsel, perhaps an intra-course palate cleanser, between the meatier fayre betwixt it sits.
Joe Abercrombie. The Fool Jobs. (The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 5.)
A band of warriors on a quest. Except that the band of warriors is in fact a band of ne-er-do-wells who rub each other up the wrong way, use bad language, and generally just no nobility on offer.
Damien Broderick. Under the Moons of Venus. (The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 5)
A complex story, as you’d expected (and demand) from Broderick.