The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection: No.3 [Hardcover]

I don't know what happened here, but most of these other reviews are for the wrong book. Only the three oldest reviews are for the right edition. The Product Description is for the right one(#13) but the Editorial Review by Amazon.com is for #17 as are 15 out of 20 of the Reader Reviews.

The table of contents for #13 is:

A WOMAN'S LIBERATION by Ursula K. Le Guin

STARSHIP DAY by Ian R. MacLeod

A PLACE WITH SHADE by Robert Reed

LUMINOUS by Greg Egan

THE PROMISE OF GOD by Michael F. Flynn

DEATH IN THE PROMISED LAND by Pat Cadigan

THE WHITE HILL by Joe Haldeman

SOME LIKE IT COLD by John Kessel

THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN FUTURE by Allen Steele

THE LINCOLN TRAIN by Maureen F. McHugh

WE WERE OUT OF OUR MINDS WITH JOY by David Marusek

RADIO WAVES by Michael Swanwick

WANG'S CARPETS by Greg Egan

CASTING AT PEGASUS by Mary Rosenblum

LOOKING FOR KELLY DAHL by Dan Simmons

THINK LIKE A DINOSAUR by James Patrick Kelly

COMING OF AGE IN KARHIDE by Ursula K. Le Guin

GENESIS by Poul Anderson

FEIGENBAUM NUMBER by Nancy Kress

HOME by Geoff Ryman

THERE ARE NO DEAD by Terr Bisson

RECORDING ANGEL by Paul J. McAuley

ELVIS BEARPAW'S LUCK by William Sanders

MORTIMER GRAY'S HISTORY OF DEATH by Brian Stableford

There's more than just a few modern classics here. They are:

McHugh's Hugo and Locus Award winning THE LINCOLN TRAIN

Kelly's Hugo Award winning THINK LIKE A DINOSAUR

Marusek's WE WERE OUT OF OUR MINDS WITH JOY

Bisson's THERE ARE NO DEAD

Egan's WANG'S CARPETS

Le Guin's A WOMEN'S LIBERATION

And the Hugo Award winning THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN FUTURE by Steele

There's some others which are really good (STARSHIP DAY comes to mind) and a few stinkers (Rosenblum's 'choppy' prose comes to mind), but when gathering 24 stories from any given year that is bound to happen.

Oddly there are no Nebula Award winners in this edition.

#13(1995) is perhaps the best of all of Gardner's Annuals. A recent discussion at the Asimov's Magazine website, which Gardner was still editing at the time, found most people liking #13 the best. It's odd to find a decade's best stories being those from mid-decade, it's always been the earlier or later years which defined any other decade. In that discussion over at Asimov's #12(1994) and #14(1996) were the other most popular of the Annuals, so that further illustrates just how good the short SF of the mid-nineties was.

I buy one of these big daddies every year and can never wait to start in on Gardner's Annual Summation. In fact, Spouse has to drive home because I can't wait until we get home to start reading. I GOTTA READ IT NOW! The Summation alone is ALMOST worth the price, I say "almost" because these puppies aren't cheap when they're hot off the presses. But, you now have the opportunity to buy these bad boys cheap.

If you're a student of SF this book is an absolute must. You get samples of everything going on in the genre AND that very in-depth Summation.

If you're simply a fan this book really isn't a must because there are stories which some people would hardly consider as being Science Fiction, but there's always that Summation. The Hartwell SF Annuals are probably more to your liking as far as being strictly SF. But then again, this particular edition doesn't have much of that "fluffy" stuff as compared to many of the other editions.

It's a great collection of stories. Buy it, you'll spend a lot less than I did.

Although I did not enjoy every story, I respected them. Meaning the ones I did not like I am sure someone else would. The ones I liked best were "Think Like a Dinosaur", "The Lincoln Train", "Genesis", & "Feigenbaum's Number". Although I'd like to say the title character in "Looking for Kelly Dahl" is quite interesting & memorable. "Think Like a Dinosaur" is good for people who liked the idea in Tom Godwin "The Cold Equation's", but thought it was sappy. It also has interesting aliens. "The Lincoln Train" introduced me to Maureen F. McHugh (which is a mixed blessing), still it's a good Alternate History story vividly written. Poul Anderson has written some of my most & most hated novels. Still "Genesis" is an interesting far future tale. My favorite part is more alternate history involved. "Feigenbaum's number" introduced me to Nancy Kress (mostly a good thing) it mixes math & Platonism. These stories (especially the Kress) are more emotional then I am used to sf being. Still it is a fairly varied mixture that even contains some hard sf. My only complaint is that he could have chosen less confusing stories that were under ten pages. (or just not included stories that short since he obviously doesn't like them that short)

These 24 stories from 1995 are arguably the best of the year's science fiction. The book opens with a summary of the year's important events in SF. Each story is introduced by well-written author bio, descriptions of the author's other publications and an enticing story preview. Dozois business as usual.

Four of my favorites:

Joe Haldeman's "For White Hill" seems like just another love story on the home planet Earth. Two lovers are attracted by their different approaches to life.

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...

James Patrick Kelly's "Think Like a Dinosaur" has become a classic. Comparisons to Tom Goodwin's "The Cold Equations" are appropriate. I find Kelly's story more chilling. Being able to think--and act--like an alien is a matter of empathy.

Terry Bisson's "There Are No Dead" feels like Stephen King's Stand By Me distilled into a Ray Bradbury short story. It has its own logic.

This is a pretty good collection. There is a range of style and setting to the stories. It's likely that at least one will hit you from an unexpected direction. A friendly hit, most likely. The "Honorable Mentions" at the end of the book point to good stories from 1995 that Dozois couldn't find room for. You might enjoy tracking some of them down.