The Year's Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection. edited by Gardner Dozois. 1986
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection
Rated 81% Positive. Story Score 3.83
24 Stories : 7 great / 9 good / 7 average / 0 poor / 1 DNF
It is fitting that this anthology ends with Kim Stanley Robinson’s masterful tale of mountain climbing on Mars, for this is a collection with some soaring peaks. Some of these stories would be considered on any list of Best SF of the 1980s. Unfortunately, it also contains a few ‘average’ tales and one story that I DNF’d (Avram Davidson - always Avram Davison.)
The Great Stories:
Dogfight • (1985) • novelette by William Gibson and Michael Swanwick. A classic masterpiece of Cyberpunk. A small time crook becomes a master as a virtual game of airplane dogfights. He also befriends a wealthy young woman. Their lives collide in tragic ways.
The Fringe • (1985) • novelette by Orson Scott Card. There is such humanity in Card’s work. A handicapped teacher on the frontier is terrorized by his students after he reported their criminal parents to the authorities. Raw, dangerous, human, and with some real courage and hope.
Sailing to Byzantium • (1985) • novella by Robert Silverberg. One of the greatest stories of the far future. A man from the 20th century is transported to far far future where people build and explore cities of the past. A wealth of lush detail, believably strange situations, and deep worth-building. This is an hypnotic epic.
Out of All Them Bright Stars • (1985) • short story by Nancy Kress. Brief and full of import. A waitress in a diner serves an alien, but learns a hard truth about humanity that she never wanted to know. One of those stories that transcend the genre and could be enjoyed by anyone who loves literature.
The Only Neat Thing to Do • (1985) • novella by James Tiptree, Jr. A young woman joyrides through space, solves a mystery, meets an alien, and has to make some very hard decisions. A fun and mysterious piece of space opera that slowly turns into something you don’t expect.
A Spanish Lesson • (1985) • novelette by Lucius Shepard. What starts as a memoir of a bohemian life in Spain, becomes a mysterious investigation of the neighbors, and explodes to a weird tale of alternate universe Hilter and weird monsters.
Green Mars • (1985) • novella by Kim Stanley Robinson. This is a story of mountain climbing on Mars’ highest mountain, but there is a hell of a lot of interesting character develop going on behind the scenes. The adventure of the climb is riveting, suspenseful, and full of more thrilling detail than I thought possible. Really special stuff.
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection is rated 81%.
24 Stories : 7 great / 9 good / 7 average / 0 poor / 1 DNF
How do I arrive at a rating?
The Jaguar Hunter • (1985) • novelette by Lucius Shepard
Good. Magical Realism of a man sent to fight a Jaguar to save his family.
Dogfight • (1985) • novelette by William Gibson and Michael Swanwick
Great. A cyberpunk classic of a small-time crook who is an expert at a game of virtual dogfights (the airplane kind) and his friendship with a wealthy college girl.
Fermi and Frost • (1985) • short story by Frederik Pohl
Average. A thought experiment of life during a nuclear winter.
Green Days in Brunei • (1985) • novella by Bruce Sterling
Good. A cyberpunk thriller of a tech guy who finds love and violence in a country that is resisting technology.
Snow • (1985) • short story by John Crowley
Good. A man remembers his old lover in video snippets recorded and preserved by a video “Wasp.”
The Fringe • (1985) • novelette by Orson Scott Card
Great. A powerfully emotional story. On the fringes of civilization, a handicapped teachers terrorized by his students because he turned their criminal fathers in to the authorities.
The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things • (1985) • short story by Karen Joy Fowler
Average. A woman engages in virtual reality therapy to deal with emotional pain around an ex-lover who died in Vietnam.
Sailing to Byzantium • (1985) • novella by Robert Silverberg
Great. A masterful far future novella, in which a man of The Present is whisked to the 50th Century and explores love, life, and touristic leisure.
Solstice • (1985) • novelette by James Patrick Kelly
Good. A tight and nasty little thriller featuring a drug designer, cloning, and Stonehenge.
Duke Pasquale's Ring • (1985) • novella by Avram Davidson
DNF. Another bit of unreadable fantasy drivel from an author that doesn’t connect with my aesthetics at all.
More Than the Sum of His Parts • (1985) • short story by Joe Haldeman
Average. A damaged man is put together with robotic parts - including sexual ones - and spirals into violence and sadism.
Out of All Them Bright Stars • (1985) • short story by Nancy Kress
Great. When a waitress in a diner meeting an alien, she learns things about humanity that she’d rather never have learned.
Side Effects • (1985) • novelette by Walter Jon Williams
Average. A barely SF story about a corrupt doctor doing clinical trials with prescription drugs.
The Only Neat Thing to Do • (1985) • novella by James Tiptree, Jr.
Great. Thrilling and heart-wrenching at once. A young woman out for fun adventure in her spaceship comes across alien life that lives in her head —- and is forced to make some very difficult decisions.
Dinner in Audoghast • (1985) • short story by Bruce Sterling
Good. Sumptuous story of dinner and fortune telling in an ancient forgotten Arab-African city.
Under Siege • (1985) • novelette by George R. R. Martin
Good. Cool time travel story about a geek mutant who embodies a man in 1808 to attempt to stop the devastation of the Soviet Union by changing a siege in the past.
Flying Saucer Rock & Roll • (1985) • novelette by Howard Waldrop
Average. Violent Doo-Wop gangs, concerts, blackouts, drinking piss, and maybe some aliens.
A Spanish Lesson • (1985) • novelette by Lucius Shepard
Great. A countercultural young man befriends his neighbors in Spain, which ultimately leads to portals to another world full of alternate dystopian Hitler.
Roadside Rescue • (1985) • short story by Pat Cadigan
Good. A kinky tale of an alien who helps a man with his broken down car.
Paper Dragons • (1985) • novelette by James P. Blaylock
Good. Slipstream crazy with giant crabs, steampunkish dragons, tinkerers, and the California coast.
Magazine Section • (1985) • short story by R. A. Lafferty
Average. Quirky story of a man writing “true tall tales” in various newspapers.
The War at Home • (1985) • short story by Lewis Shiner
Average. Americans who didn’t fight in Vietnam, start getting flashbacks and PTSD about the war.
Rockabye Baby • (1985) • novelette by S. C. Sykes
Good. Paraplegic man discovers a new life after his injury. A friend at the inpatient facility may have a way to be healed, but at very high cost.
Green Mars • (1985) • novella by Kim Stanley Robinson
Great. Incredibly detailed and suspenseful story of mountain climbing Mars’ highest peak.
