The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection: More Than 250,000 Words of Fantastic Fiction [Paperback]

Good:
"Going After Bobo"--Heartwrenching, poetic character study, but the plot is pretty thin.
"Crux"--Dark detective story/social commentary set in a brutal post-holocaust future dominated by the Orient. Quite violent, with a fast paced and tighty knit plot.
"The Raggle Taggle Gypsy-O"--Time travel with two amazing characters. Provocative, in-your-face prose.
"Radiant Green Star"--Another violent future world dominated by the Orient. This time it's a traditional mystery combined with a poetic coming-of-age story.
"Great Wall of Mars"--A cult of humans with networked implants battle unnetworked humans for survival. Lots of action, great speculation on the potential of the human mind.
"A Colder War"--Alternate Cold War history with aliens causing major problems for both sides. Confusing plot, but highly realistic narrative keeps it interesting anyway.

Great:
"The Suspect Genome"--Future world whodunit, set in an England where police work has been somewhat privatized. Brilliant plot construction and writing keep you engaged all the way.
"On the Orion Line"--Man versus powerful and inscrutable aliens deep in space, far in the future. Well developed characters, fast paced and straightforward plot.
"Obsidian Harvest"--Another future world detective story set in England. What makes this one extraordinary is the premise, where the Aztecs dominate the world--human sacrifices, feathered capes, lots of tequila. Add hard-boiled prose in the tradition of Dashiell Hammett (his "Red Harvest" is great) and you have something unforgettable.
"Patient Zero"--Nightmarish account of a dreadful near-future. Great plot, great characters, and makes some strong statements in only fifteen pages.

Highlights of the volume include 'The Birthday of the World' by Ursula Le Guin; in which a race of 'gods' struggle for power, 'Crux' by Albert Cowdrey; a time travel adventure that has more similarities to the old pulp stories than most recent SF, 'Radiant Green Star' by Lucius Shepard; a fabulous story about an orphan's search for his father while he performs in a circus in Vietnam, 'Great Wall of Mars' by Alastair Reynolds; the story of a renegade colony on Mars and attempts to eradicate it, 'On the Orion Line' by Stephen Baxter; a story of war in space that I found to be one of Baxter's most literate and readable stories, 'A Colder War' by Charles Stross; a brilliant meld of Cthulu fiction and Cold War politics, and my favorite story in the volume 'Tendeleo's Story' by Ian McDonald; the story of a young girl in Africa who grows up amid invasion by alien spores.

Like all anthologies, not all stories will please all readers. I found 'Milo and Sylvie' by Eliot Fintushel to be WAY overlong, boring, and without a coherent plot. 'Snowball in Hell' by Brian Stableford bogged down with too much gengineering talk...too many big words, not enough plot extrapolation.

This truly is a collection of the Best SF of the year. There are only a handful of stories that didn't make the book that may have been deserving (stories by Jeffrey Ford, Kage Baker, Charles Sheffield, & Robert Reed spring immediately to mind). By and large the stories in this book are extremely well-written with fascinating plots. Consider 'Oracle' by Greg Egan, a story with thinly veiled characterizations of C.S. Lewis and Alan Turing...this is a story that science fiction is all about. With the exception of the two stories I mentioned earlier, there isn't a sub-par story in this collection. Highly recommended.