Year's Best SF. edited by David G. Hartwell. 1996
This is the first volume of David G. Hartwell’s exceptional Year’s Best anthology series that would run from 1996 to 2013. Hartwell created this collection because he believed that …
For decades, until recently, there was usually one of more good year’s best anthologies available in paperback in the SF field. The last ones vanished with the deaths of distinguished editors Terry Carr and Donald A. Wollheim. There has been a notable gap. This book fills that need.
Hartwell also was convinced that modern SF collections had blurred the boundaries of science fiction. He wanted to reaffirm that true Science Fiction was still alive and well in 1996.
This a very strong collection with 3 truly superb stories. It is a serious launch for this new collection and I’m really looking forward to exploring future volumes.
Year’s Best SF is rated 89%.
11 good / 3 average / 0 poor.
How do I arrive at a rating?
Think Like a Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly
Good. A man facilitates transporter technology for a race of dinosaur-like aliens and must make a horrible decision.
Wonders of the Invisible World by Patricia A. McKillip
Good. A time traveler has a crisis of conscience we she must impersonate angels in a time when women are burned for witchcraft.
Hot Times in Magna City by Robert Silverberg
Good. An exceptionally thrilling tale of recovery convicts and drug-addicts who must fight volcanoes in future Los Angeles. Suspenseful, thrilling, but also deep. The explosions of magna correspond nicely to the addictions and pain that bubbles beneath the main characters. This is a interest tale to read in 2020, when convicts are conscripted to fight extreme California wildfires.
Gossmer by Stephen Baxter
Good. A couple of scientists crash onto Pluto and make a discovery that places their lives in danger. Unless they can invent a new way to get home.
A Worm in the Well by Gregory Benford
Good. A woman running a salvage ship is deeply in debt to a Japanacorp and tries to capture a wormhole trapped near the sun for a big payday.
Downloading Midnight by William Browning Spencer
Good. In a sexually conservative cyberpunk future, the only porn is AI copies of people. When one goes beserk and rampages through the “Highway,” two men are sent in to eliminate it and find a deeper mystery than they bargained for.
For White Hill by Joe Haldeman
Great. A masterpiece really. Two artists from different worlds fall in love while exploring a nearly dead planet earth which was destroyed by nanotechnology during a war.
In Saturn Time by William Barton
Average. An alternate history that postulates that the space program would have continued and grown if American presidential elections had go in a different direction.
Coming of Age in Karhide by Ursula K. Le Guin
Good. A companion piece to Le Guin masterpiece “The Left Hand of Darkness.” She returns to this world to detail a young person’s first Kemmer - where their asexual body becomes male or female to reproduce.
The Three Descents of Jeremy Baker by Roger Zelazny
Average. A space accident has Jeremy Baker being pulled to his destruction in a black hole. Along the way he meets an alien that may offer a second chance.
Evolution by Nancy Kress
Good. Antibiotic-immune diseases are making hospitals no-go zones. Mix in family dynamics, anti-science terrorism, and really well written characters. This is a very good story. And has quite a bit of resonance as I read it in 2020.
The Day the Aliens Came by Robert Sheckley
Average. Quirky and superficial tale with multiple alien races connect through madcap interactions
Microbe by Joan Slonczewski
Good. A woman scientist explored a dangerous world with the assistance of two AIs. One of which acts as her spacesuit.
The Ziggurat by Gene Wolfe
Great. Chilling, thrilling, suspenseful, and complex. A man waits alone in a cabin during a blizzard as his wife and three children arrive. They are brutally attacked by people (?) from another world or time (?). Propulsive and riveting, leading to a gut punch of an ending. Superb story!
