Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Second Annual Collection: 2004 by Gardner Dozois

From Barnes & Noble

There is no need to speculate why Gardner Dozois has won the Hugo Award for Best Editor 13 times: His annual "year's best" science fiction anthology is brimming with superlative writing from the likes of James Patrick Kelly, Nancy Kress, Terry Bisson, Pat Murphy, Stephen Baxter, Vernor Vinge, and many more. The 22nd installment of this stellar collection contains over 200,000 words of superb genre writing.

From the Publisher

Widely regarded as the one essential book for every science fiction fan, The Year's Best Science Fiction (Winner of the 2004 Locus Award for Best Anthology) continues to uphold its standard of excellence with more than two dozen stories representing the previous year's best SF writing. The stories in this collection imaginatively take readers far across the universe, into the very core of their beings, to the realm of the Gods, and to the moment just after now. Included are the works of masters of the form and the bright new talents of tomorrow. This book is a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.

Publishers Weekly

As in previous volumes in this series, Dozois, who has won the Hugo for Best Editor 11 times, again presents a large helping of stellar short SF. Nine of the 27 stories are, quite appropriately, from his own magazine, Asimov's, which continues to dominate the various genre awards. Dozois also includes four stories each from Fantasy and Science Fiction and the British Interzone. Also represented are Analog, Amazing, Science Fiction Age, and two semi-pro magazines, Absolute Magnitude and the Australian Altair, as well as such original anthologies as Moon Shots, Not of Women Born and the Canadian Tesseracts. Among the high points are two time-travel pieces, Kage Baker's story of San Francisco before the great earthquake, "Son Observe the Time," and Michael Swanwick's pre-historic time-paradox tale, "Scherzo with Tyrannosaurus"; Eleanor Arnason's understated story of alien gender-role reversal, "Dapple"; Kim Stanley Robinson's "A Martian Romance," which is set not in the world of his Mars trilogy but in a subtly alternate universe; and Greg Egan's "Border Guards," hard-SF that imagines a future in which immortality is a given and soccer is played using the principles of quantum physics. Also included is quality fiction by such luminaries of the field as James Patrick Kelly, Frederik Pohl, Ben Bova, Robert Silverberg and Paul McAuley, plus such rising stars as David Marusek, Alastair Reynolds and Sage Walker. As usual, the anthology begins with a detailed survey of the year in SF and ends with a long list of Honorable Mentions. Dozois's annual volume remains a standard by which the field of SF should be judged. (July) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Publishers Weekly

Dozois's Year's Best, like any successful representative of a large constituency, sometimes suffers from blandness and inconsistency. As usual, it's oversized23 stories, nearly 600 pagesand includes a variety of types of SF as well as near-horror, fantasy and humor. Five of the stories are final nominees for Nebulas, and two new ``Hainish'' stories by Ursula LeGuin were nominated for Tiptree Awards; ``The Matter of Segrri'' won. No story here is less than competent and professional; but, with a few exceptions, there is a voiceless sameness in the writing, practically a house style, that over so many pages grows tedious. (Nearly half the stories, by page count, come from the Dozois-edited Asimov's Science Fiction.) A number are flawed (``hard'' SF stories about ``aliens'' that think just like humans) or unremarkable, but these are outweighed by many fine pieces and by standouts such as LeGuin's ``Forgiveness Day,'' perhaps the best story in the book; Eliot Fintushel's ``New Wave''-like ``Ylem''; William Sanders's ``Going After Old Man Alabama'' and Terry Bisson's ``The Hole in the Hole,'' both of which are winning and funny; Katherine Kerr's chilling ``Asylum''; and Michael Bishop's grand and humane ``Cri de Coeur.'' Dozois's intelligently and ably put-together anthology does its stated job as well as any one book or editor could. Even with competition, it would still be the best of the Best. (July)

Publishers Weekly

The latest in Dozois's definitive, must-read short story anthology series takes the pulse of science fiction today, revealing it to be a genre of breathtaking scope and imagination. Classic SF situations take on a new twist: observation/first-contact stories "The Ocean of the Blind" by James L. Cambias and standout "The Clapping Hands of God" by Michael F. Flynn follow humans as they disastrously make contact with alien species that they cannot comprehend; in Stephen Baxter's generation-starship story, "Mayflower II," someone has to stay awake to tend the humans throughout the millennia of travel; and in the postapocalyptic world of Brendan Dubois's "Falling Star" we mourn the loss of our civilization. Several stories first appeared online, including Christopher Rowe's Hugo nominee, "The Voluntary State," which outrageously plays with Tennessee icons, and Vernor Vinge's "Synthetic Serendipity," about boys' virtual reality games. A comprehensive summation of the field and a list of honorable mentions make this book indispensable as a reference volume. The range of stories and styles means there's something here for everyone. Agent, Vaughne Lee Hansen at the Virginia Kidd Agency. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Ann Welton - VOYA

The cover of this twenty-second annual collection of science fiction stories states that this chunky anthology contains "more than 300,000 words of fantastic fiction." Believe it. Based on sheer poundage, the paperback version is a bargain-the contents only serve to affirm the value. Beginning with a lengthy essay that examines the state of science fiction publishing 2004-a bit bleak on the magazine front, but certainly not moribund, with bound anthologies doing well and burgeoning online life-the twenty-eight stories chosen for inclusion demonstrate a wide range of styles and subject matter. From Pat Murphy's opening tale, Inappropriate Behavior, which examines the frustrations and strengths of an autistic child inhabiting the body of a robot, to Paolo Bacigalupi's post-Holocaust world in The People of Sand and Slag, where only humans have survived-but without much that qualifies as a human soul-to Kage Baker's Mother Aegypt, which alternates between slapstick, mystery, and horror, the variety and breadth do ample justice to the genre. Drawn from magazine, online, and book publications, this overview of science fiction writing offers impressive testimony to the health not only of the field, but of short story writing in general. It is a sound inclusion for larger collections where science fiction has an audience. VOYA CODES: 3Q 3P S A/YA (Readable without serious defects; Will appeal with pushing; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult-marketed book recommended for Young Adults). 2005, St. Martin's/Griffin, 662p., $35 and Trade pb. Ages 15 to Adult.

Library Journal

From Pat Murphy's ironic tale of an encounter between a man stranded on an island and the mechano entity who claims the island as its own ("Inappropriate Behavior") to Walter Jon Williams's intrigue-filled novella ("Investments"), the 28 selections in this anthology demonstrate the high points in short sf for 2004. Editor Dozois includes a summary of the year in sf as well as a list of stories not included but worthy of an "honorable mention." A good choice for most sf or short fiction collections. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Dozois has again selected the best short sf of 1996 for inclusion in this award-winning anthology series. Among the 27 writers are Gregory Benford, John Kessel, Robert Silverberg, Maureen F. McHugh, Bruce Sterling, Charles Sheffield, and Stephen Baxter, with contributions covering romance, aliens, a high-tech future, the space program, Africa, scientific thriller, hard science, and cyberpunk. Highly recommended for all sf collections.

Kirkus Reviews

As ever, Dozois leads his anthology with a homerun by Ian R. MacLeod and follows it with a second MacLeod, "Isabel of the Fall." Two dozen tales give ballast to this voyage into SF and fantastic realism, including MacLeod's "New Light on the Drake Equation," which takes place perhaps a century from now. The story turns on Tom Kelly, a fading SETI scientist who's on a French hilltop radio-scanning the heavens for First Contact and using as his guide the Drake Equation, which helps map the likely areas an alien culture might try to contact us from. The fallible equation is less certain than he is, but Tom has great assurance about contact-for a number of decades. During them, he's visited by his ex-lover, the star-crossed Terr, a hyperenthusiast who exhausts subjects that interest her and who left Tom to take up flying with wings attached to a newly improved back musculature (Tom took up drinking to pass the time). Aside from descriptions of marvelous scientific advances in personal grooming, little confronts the reader except many pages of fine writing about waiting, waiting, waiting. "Isabel of the Fall" is a future children's story looking back at the urchin Isabel, who was taken into the Dawn Church, became a Dawn singer, and had to climb the minaret daily to clean the great mirrors that collect light from heaven-until she had a great fall . . . Also outstanding: Dan Simmons's "On K2 with Kanakaredes," about a trio of climbers forced to accept the company of a bug-shaped, six-legged alien, Kanakaredes from Aldebaran, when they climb Everest. And not to be missed: Nancy Kress's "Computer Virus"-about a mother whose home is invaded by-well, check the title. True fiction. The pure stuff.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0312336608
  
• ISBN-13: 9780312336608
• Format: Paperback, 672pp
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Pub. Date: July 2005
• Edition Description: Older Edition
• Edition Number: 22
• Sales Rank: 354,553
• Series: Year's Best Science Fiction Series, #22

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents