Authors: Gardner Dozois, Gardner Dozois
ISBN-13: 9780312608989, ISBN-10: 0312608985
Format: Paperback
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Date Published: July 2010
Edition: (Non-applicable)
GARDNER DOZOIS has been working in the science fiction field for more than thirty years. For twenty years he was the editor of Asimov's Science Fiction, during which time he received the Hugo Award for Best Editor fifteen times.
Gardner Dozois, winner of nine Hugo Awards for best editor, pulls together the finest works of contemporary science fiction. This annual anthology, considered to be the definitive collection of the genre, blends together a wide variety of authors and styles. Space opera, Asimov, international science fiction writers, and hard sf are all found in this collection of 28 stories.
This annual anthology remains the best one-stop shop for short fiction, and it's a must for fans of literary SF. The notion of intelligence links several stories. Nancy Kress, in "Computer Virus," posits an intelligent computer program trying to save its life, but it does so by risking that of a child. The dense and busy "Lobsters" by Charles Stross considers the implications of denying intelligent uploaded constructs here, of lobsters human rights or autonomy. Michael Blumlein's zany "Know How, Can Do," easily the best story, posits a self-aware worm linked to a human brain, told from the point of view of the worm, "Flowers for Algernon"-style, as it acquires human intelligence, language and emotions. Alternative realities remain a productive theme. In "The Two Dicks," Paul McAuley posits an alternative reality where Philip K. Dick, who in this world wrote mainstream fiction instead of SF, meets Nixon. Ken MacLeod's ambitious, character-driven "The Human Front," set in an alternative reality just a little different from ours, describes a man's growth toward adulthood in a war-torn Britain. Dan Simmons, Alastair Reynolds, Maureen F. McHugh and Paul Di Filippo also contribute especially memorable tales. Although one could quibble with Dozois's choices and there are one or two clunkers in here this anthology is an enjoyable read that overall maintains high standards of quality and variety. It's essential for SF fans who simply don't have time to separate the wheat from the chaff on their own. (July 23) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Summation: 1998 | xi | |
Oceanic | 1 | |
Approaching Perimelasma | 37 | |
Craphound | 56 | |
Jedella Ghost | 72 | |
Taklamakan | 87 | |
The Island of the Immortals | 118 | |
Sea Change, with Monsters | 126 | |
Divided By Infinity | 161 | |
US | 181 | |
The Days of Solomon Gursky | 191 | |
The Cuckoo's Boys | 234 | |
The Halfway House at the Heart of Darkness | 277 | |
The Very Pulse of the Machine | 289 | |
Story of Your Life | 304 | |
Voivodoi | 339 | |
Saddlepoint: Roughneck | 349 | |
This Side of Independence | 393 | |
Unborn Again | 404 | |
Grist | 416 | |
La Cenerentola | 462 | |
Down in the Dark | 476 | |
Free in Asveroth | 510 | |
The Dancing Floor | 524 | |
The Summer Isles | 544 | |
Honorable Mentions: 1998 | 603 |