- Hardcover: 688 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin's Press (28 Feb 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312336551
- ISBN-13: 978-0312336554
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 15.7 x 5.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,351,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Synopsis
For over twenty years THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION has been recognized as the best collection of short science fiction writing in the universe and an essential resource for every science fiction fan. Now, with hundreds of stories and dozens of authors who have gone on to become some of the most esteemed practitioners of the form, Hugo Award-winning editor Gardner Dozois looks back on two decades of stories to bring readers the ultimate science fiction anthology. With such notable authors as Ursula K. LeGuin, Michael Swanwick, Bruce Sterling, Connie Willis, Nancy Kress, William Gibson, Greg Bear, Joe Haldeman, Gene Wolfe, Robert Silverberg, Stephen Baxter and many more, BEST OF THE BEST will be the most significant science fiction short story anthology published in years.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
I don't envy Gardner Dozois his task of selecting the thirty-six stories in this book from 20 years of his Best of the Year collections--which in themselves required painful decisions to exclude many first-rate stories. I am glad he put himself through it, though. These are the stories that made the greatest impression on him as a reader--a reader with an educated palate earned through decades of fine reading.
My favorites:
Pat Cadigan's "Roadside Rescue" is a brief tale about a man whose car breaks down and is repaired through the generosity of an alien visitor. Perhaps generosity isn't quite the right word...
John Crowley's "Snow" introduces a new, high-tech method of remembering a loved one after they die. It has its complications, both technical and emotional.
Terry Bisson's "Bears Discover Fire" is one of my very favorite stories. Enough with super-intelligent aliens and artificial intelligences! What would it be like if ordinary animals became just a little bit smarter? Well...
Greg Egan stretches the imagination with "Wang's Carpets," a new kind of life that exists in the same physical world as humans, but several layers of abstraction away from us. Sort of...
In Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life" a mother pieces together the narratives of her life and of her daughter's life. It's a little hard to follow without some translation.
Please don't let my taste affect your reading more than it should; all thirty-six of these stories are very good. I suggest reading every one of them then trying to select your own top five. It's interesting to experience some small fraction of Gardner Dozois' pain in selecting them.
My favorites:
Pat Cadigan's "Roadside Rescue" is a brief tale about a man whose car breaks down and is repaired through the generosity of an alien visitor. Perhaps generosity isn't quite the right word...
John Crowley's "Snow" introduces a new, high-tech method of remembering a loved one after they die. It has its complications, both technical and emotional.
Terry Bisson's "Bears Discover Fire" is one of my very favorite stories. Enough with super-intelligent aliens and artificial intelligences! What would it be like if ordinary animals became just a little bit smarter? Well...
Greg Egan stretches the imagination with "Wang's Carpets," a new kind of life that exists in the same physical world as humans, but several layers of abstraction away from us. Sort of...
In Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life" a mother pieces together the narratives of her life and of her daughter's life. It's a little hard to follow without some translation.
Please don't let my taste affect your reading more than it should; all thirty-six of these stories are very good. I suggest reading every one of them then trying to select your own top five. It's interesting to experience some small fraction of Gardner Dozois' pain in selecting them.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
17 reviews
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful
A superior collection of thought provoking fiction.
4 Jun 2005
Format:Paperback
Gardner Dozois has once again put together a collection of short speculative fiction that every reader of science fiction should have on their shelf. It is filled with a twenty year progression of stories that both reflect the times they were written, and their relevance today as well.
Dozois did a very wise thing while putting together this anthology by choosing stories that made the most significant impact on him as a reader, rather than picking award winners or short stories that have been widely reprinted. Therefore you get Nancy Kress's "Trinity" rather than her much published "Beggars in Spain," and James Patrick Kelly's "10(16) to 1" instead of his "Think Like A Dinosaur."
Some of my favorites I was happy to find enclosed as well by Pat Cadigan, Joe Haldeman, Ursula K. Le Guin and Eileen Gunn. A stellar group of stories that comes Highly Recommended.
Dozois did a very wise thing while putting together this anthology by choosing stories that made the most significant impact on him as a reader, rather than picking award winners or short stories that have been widely reprinted. Therefore you get Nancy Kress's "Trinity" rather than her much published "Beggars in Spain," and James Patrick Kelly's "10(16) to 1" instead of his "Think Like A Dinosaur."
Some of my favorites I was happy to find enclosed as well by Pat Cadigan, Joe Haldeman, Ursula K. Le Guin and Eileen Gunn. A stellar group of stories that comes Highly Recommended.
68 of 84 people found the following review helpful
Good but should have been great
20 Sep 2005
Format:Paperback
From the way this volume is marketed, you could be forgiven for thinking that you are buying a collection of the best short fiction written in the field of science fiction over the past 20 years. Beware, this book does not contain the best of the best over the past twenty years. It does not even contain the best stories from The Year's Best Science Fiction from the past twenty years. On the other hand, it does contain some excellent stories (e.g. A Cabin On the Coast-Gene Wolfe, Salvador-Lucius Shepard, Dinner In Audoghast-Bruce Sterling, The Pure Product-John Kessel, Recording Angel-Ian MacDonald, and others.) But it also contains inexcusably slight and, in some instances, downright unreadable stories (e.g. Trinity -Nancy Kress, execrable chick-lit of the worst kind, The Winter Market-William Gibson, pretentious, narcissistic drool, Coming of Age In Karhide-Ursula K. Le Guin, if I want to read the gory details about puberty I'll stick to medical manuals which at least deal with humans, Lobsters-Charles Stross, twenty pages of supercool, pseudo-hightech gibberish that will make you look forward to your next root canal.) Another problem, when Dozois does get the author right, he often gets the story wrong. (e.g. He chose the slight, silly Even the Queen-Connie Willis, when he could have chosen Cibola or Last of the Winnebagoes. He chose the good but excruciatingly slow Story of Your Life-Ted Chiang, instead of the brilliant, exotic Tower of Babylon, while Salvador-Lucius Shepard is a good story, A Spanish Lesson and The Ends of the Earth are much better. Tales From the Venia Woods-Robert Silverberg is also a good story but pales beside A Long Night's Vigil In the Temple and Sailing to Byzantium -so what if it's a bit long, it's a true classic, None So Blind-Joe Haldeman is okay, Graves would have been a much better choice, etc.) And why would Dozois feel he should limit his best authors to just one story in the volume? If this is supposed to be the best of the best why not put in two Silverberg or three Shepard stories instead of including piffle like Bears Discover Fire-Terry Bisson? And why no George R.R. Martin, one of the top five short story writers over the past thirty years? Under Siege belonged in this volume. Why no Gregory Benford? Of Space/Time and the River belonged in this volume. Alphas belonged in this volume. Why no John Varley? Press Enter belonged in this volume. If this is supposed to be the best science fiction in the past twenty years, why isn't the profoundly disturbing The Angel of Violence-Adam Wisniewski-Snerg included? So, while I think this is a good collection of stories, it should have been a great collection of stories, but isn't.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Not perfect, but good enough
4 Aug 2006
Format:Paperback
First of all, let it be known that I bought this collection for one story by one of my favorite authors: "The Wedding Album", which did not disappoint. Of course, I had to get my money's worth by reading the whole thing.
There are some real gems in this collection: Bear's gruesome classic "Blood Music", Ian Macleod's superb "Breathmoss", Sterling's "Dinner in Audoghast", "Daddy's World", and a few others. Unfortunately, these excellent works stand up like islands in a sea of others that range from "good" to merely "competent". There was one story in particular that had me scratching my head as to why it was included.
I agree with another reviewer, in that I understand that Dozois wanted to create a well-rounded collection precisely by not picking the most widely-read works. That said, a collection of stories with the equally visceral punch of "Blood Music" and "The Wedding Album" would have really rocked my world.
Recommended.
There are some real gems in this collection: Bear's gruesome classic "Blood Music", Ian Macleod's superb "Breathmoss", Sterling's "Dinner in Audoghast", "Daddy's World", and a few others. Unfortunately, these excellent works stand up like islands in a sea of others that range from "good" to merely "competent". There was one story in particular that had me scratching my head as to why it was included.
I agree with another reviewer, in that I understand that Dozois wanted to create a well-rounded collection precisely by not picking the most widely-read works. That said, a collection of stories with the equally visceral punch of "Blood Music" and "The Wedding Album" would have really rocked my world.
Recommended.
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