Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good start to a new "Best of" series, 10 Jul 2002
When David Hartwell started his own annual series of the year's best SF with this volume in the mid nineties, the doorstopper series edited by Gardner Dozois had been running for over a decade. Hartwell made some passing references to other anthologies being unfocused but otherwise he avoided the issue and that begged the question of why this series started and should you buy it instead of or as well as the Dozois book?On the strength of this, the first volume, I am happy to recommend Hartwell's choice to anyone who is into SF in the traditional sense. That does not mean that the contents are old fashioned just that the contents are certainly Science Fiction and not some related genre. The fourteen stories here, all of which were written in 1995, include works by a selection of the best of contemporary SF authors. Writers like Silverberg, Baxter, Benford, Kress, Haldeman, Woolfe, Zelazny and Sheckley rarely disappoint though the last of those is represented here by one of his weaker recent works. The highlights for me were Joe Haldeman's "For White Hill" and Robert Silverberg's "Hot Times in Magma City". The first is a tale of war, art, love and sacrifice set on a ruined Earth in the far future and the second is set in a near future LA beset by volcanic eruptions. The producers of "Volcano" and "Dante's Peak", a pair of similarly themed disaster movies should have studied Silverberg's tale to see how to inject some real humanity into the subject. Like the Silverberg story, William Spencer's "Downloading Midnight", Gene Wolfe's "The Ziggurat" and "Evolution" by Nancy Kress are all set on a contemporary or near future Earth and all three are compelling and rewarding stories. Stephen Baxter's "Gossamer" and Gregory Benford's "A Worm in the Well" demonstrate that the traditional setting of space travel in the Solar System can still give rise to highly enjoyable and original ideas that bring "golden age" styles right up to date. This is not a perfect book, there are still a couple of stories here that left me wondering what the editor was thinking when he included them but on the whole, the book stands as justification for the fact that there is certainly room for another "years's best" series. If you buy Gardner Dozois' books, you should give this volume a go as well.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another great book in the 'Year's Best SF' anthology series, 24 Mar 2002
By A Customer
David G. Hartwell has come up trumps yet again in selecting last year's (2001) best Science Fiction. Featuring big names like Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert Silverberg and Stephen Baxter, there are some real gems in this anthology that are sure to please. As usual, I don't think the actual order of the stories particularly compliments the book. I found that the opening story in particular didn't set the pace well, but the quality did soon pick up quickly, so the first choice was forgiveable. Not every story did seem quite up to standard, but all were on the whole, quite enjoyable, which makes this anthology (and any of the others in the series), well worth a look in.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
The T.Rex of 'Best of's, 11 May 2009
Annual collections have evolved like dinosaurs from the slim volumes of the 60s and 70s into the paperback versions of Tyrannosaurs, vying for attention with their garish colour schemes (Sadly, the text for the cover of this issue completely obscures the artwork, looks like it's been thrown together hurriedly in a copy of Adobe Illustrator and doesn't do the volume itself any justice at all).
This series, ably edited by David G Hartwell, goes head to head with the Gardner Dozois series and a whole subspecies of other annual compilations which somehow survive to re-emerge next year, so good luck to them.
This volume purports to be the best SF of 2000. I say purports to be since the publishing history is a little strange, giving a first paperback publication date of June 2000, when some of the stories included were not published until July/August 2000. Looking at the publication dates of the stories included we notice that, yes, it seems that possibly all of the work included comes from a time before August 2000, which is unfortunate if your excellent SF story was published in, say, November 2000.
Odd.
This volume (no 6) comprises of:-
The Reef - Paul J McAuley (Skylife Ed Benford/Zebrowski 2000)
Reality Check - David Brin (Nature, Vol 404 2000)
The Millennium Express - Robert Silverberg (Playboy, Jan 2000)
Patient Zero - Tananarive Due (F & SF 2000)
The Oort Crowd - Ken MacLeod (Nature, Vol 406 2000)
The Thing About Benny - M Shayne Bell (Vanishing Acts, Tor 2000 Ed Ellen Datlow)
The Last Supper - Brian Stableford (Science Fiction Age, Mar 2000)
Tuberculosis Bacteria Join UN - Joan Slonczewski (Nature, Vol 405 2000)
Our Mortal Span - Howard Waldrop (Black Heart, Ivory Bones, Avon Books/Eos, Ed Ellen Datlow and Terri Wilding)
Different Kinds of Darkness - David Langford (F & SF, Jan 2000)
New Ice Age, or Just Cold Feet? - Norman Spinrad (Nature, Vol 405 2000)
The Devotee - Stephen Dedman (Eidolon #29/30 2000)
The Marriage of Sky & Sea - Chris Beckett (Interzone Mar 2000)
In The Days of the Comet - John M Ford (Nature, Vol 405 2000)
The Birthday of the World - Ursula K LeGuin (F& SF, Jun 2000)
Oracle - Greg Egan (F& SF, Jul 2000)
To Cuddle Amy - Nancy Kress (Asimov's, Aug 2000)
Steppenpferd - Brian W Aldiss (F&SF, Feb 2000)
Sheena 5 - Stephen Baxter (Analog, May 2000)
The Fire Eggs - Darrell Schweitzer (Interzone, Mar 2000)
The New Horla - Robert Sheckley (F&SF July 2000)
Madame Bovary, C'est Moi - Dan Simmons (Nature, Vol 407 2000)
Grandma's Jumpman - Robert Reed (Century, Spring 2000)
Bordeaux Mixture - Charles Dexter Ward (Nature, Vol 404 2000)
The Dryad's Wedding - Robert Charles Wilson (Star Colonies, 2000)
Built Upon The Sands of Time - Michael Flynn (Analog July/Aug 2000)
Seventy-Two Letters - Ted Chiang (Vanishing Acts, Tor 2000 Ed Ellen Datlow)
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by David G. Hartwell
by David G. Hartwell
by David G. Hartwell
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