Year's Best SF 10 (Year's Best SF (Science Fiction)) [Mass Market Paperback]

Year's Best SF 10, $7.99 US, will charm readers of the speculative and the fantastic, so I'm pleased to update you on the status of this now decade long series -- which is very capably edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. If you love science fiction, you'll find this anthology stacks up very favorably against the Nebula Awards collection.

Each year, Hartwell and Cramer comb five hundred plus nominees (from multiple sources: books, electronic fiction websites, foreign publishers, magazines) and whittle their selections down to somewhere over twenty stories -- filling 500 pages -- that are usually representative of excellence in the genre. They admit to omitting great novellas each year, due to limited space, but that's to be expected.

A general survey of current contributors reveals: American, Australian, Canadian, English, and French backgrounds among its authors. Previous versions of this anthology have also featured the work of Argentinian, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Scottish writers. Quite surprisingly, no sci-fi from India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, or a number of other English speaking countries, has ever appeared in this series.

Readers of this series known that once Hartwell takes a shine to an author, you'll likely be seeing them in subsequent issues of Year's Best. As good as the works of Robert Reed (6 stories in 10 issues) and Gene Wolfe (7 stories in 10 issues) are, the editorial duo should offer "more diverse selection" as the decade rolls onward.

Some of the best stories included in Year's Best SF 10 are by female writers -- Pamela Sargent, Janeen Webb, Liz Williams, Brenda Cooper -- but in this genre, based strictly on numbers, male writers continue to deny them equal series representation. Loosestrife, by Brighton author Liz Williams, (set in post-global-warming London) was truly my favorite story in this entire anthology.

Burning Day, by Montreal author Glenn Grant, is a perfect marriage of cyberpunk, human prejudice, and the police procedural. Set in a gritty urban landscape riddled by chaos and violence, this graphic story about a terrorist attack -- and the human and android cops that pursue them -- simply sizzles. Buildings that "grew on their own" added just the right touch.

Even if you don't care for SF, you'll like smart stories like Mastermindless, by Vancouver Island's Matthew Hughes, which is set in a far future where science indistinguishable from magic, and magic, coexist. The star in this story is one Henghis Hapthorne, freelance discriminator. Written much in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes, this story will make you think while you laugh.

Standouts like Pulp Cover, by Illinoian Gene Wolf, can't be missed. Ostensibly a yarn told by a furniture salesman that wishes to remain anonymous, this narrative retells the account of the alien abduction of the woman that he'd once hoped to marry -- Mariel -- and her mysterious reappearance on his front doorstep seven years after she was declared dead.

The Dark Side of Town, by New Hampshire resident James Patrick Kelly is another tale told in the cyberpunk tradition that sparkles. Despite downcast trappings (young couples can't afford children, or homes) this short piece of fiction ends on an upbeat note, when a troubled couple takes refuge in a VR world tailored mapped to their own innermost secret desires.

Since I follow Year's Best, I've got questions about how the Editors determine the final slate. I think it would be a nice touch if David and Kathryn included a list of fifty Honorable Mentions that missed the cut. Basic information like author name, story title, story source, and publication date would be advantageous for both the genre and fandom.

F&SF first published six of the above stories, you'll probably want to subscribe to that digest mag. Asimov's first published four of these stories (before they were included in Year's Best) and that's another monthly worthy of your dollars. These periodicals are struggling to survive because they can't secure enough distribution and sales -- support them because they're great reading.

The tenth edition suffers from the trouble that hangs around this series: About half its volumes simply don't have truly memorable reading in them. That doesn't make it a waste of time, and this volume isn't one, but it's undistinguished - especially after last year's sparkling collection.

Unremarkable contributions came from frequently reliable writers like Gene Wolfe, Gregory Benford, Pamela Sargent, and James Patrick Kelly. Stories like those by Ray Vukcevich or James Cambias I might not have included at all. Brenda Cooper's and Neal Asher's stories, among others, outshine the ones surrounding them.

I buy the anthology every year because it often contains a couple of stories that raise the whole book's sea level, and it's a good price. I'll buy next year's as well. But when I look back over the line of Year's Best editions on the shelf for one to pick up again, this year's probably will sit right where it does now. If you didn't buy Year's Best 9, try that one first. This one's readable, just not remarkable.

Anytime an anthology claims it is the best, there will alwyas be an argument of why was so-and-so leftout. At the beggining of this book, the editors explain their parameters of why they chose what they did. The editors only chose science fiction and nothing else such as horror laced or speculative fiction. The problem is that this last year for the anthology was from a shallow pool of available material. Science fiction is in a bit of a lull. This does not mean "Year's best SF 10" is bad. It is not, most of the book is very good. Some of the stories that do not work are just unremarkeable and one or two of them, I wonder what the editors were thinking. My two personal favorite stories are "Wealth" by Reed and "Time As it Evaporates" by Dunyack. Both of these stories are excellent are are worth the price of the book alone. "Strood" is also fun to read and should not be missed. I enjoy this particular series every year and this year is no exception. As you will find with any series, some years are better than others and once again this is the case again. The book is worth the purchase, but not as good as other years such as year's 1, 4, 5, and 9.