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This collection of the "best" science fiction stories from 2006 is hit and miss. Some of the stories were fabulous, like "Where the Golden Apples Grow" by Kage Baker and "In the River" by Justin Stanchfield. "I, Row-Boat" by Cory Doctorow, the first story in this anthology, was a silly story that was mostly a sci-fi insider's joke. I couldn't even finish "Bow Shock" by Gregory Benford because it was boring. With the exception of the Benford story, most of the pieces selected were good to excelle...
Standouts were I, rowboat, Incarnation day, and the horror of “nightingale”
This is, regrettably, a 15-grimace, 1 incorrect careen, 2 loose strands of hair anthology. That said, these Dozois Year's Best anthologies (of which, alas, there will be no more) are a tremendous bargain and source of amusement. For writers, they are a godsend of examples of how things are done, and the wide variety of approaches that SF allows.And, yeah, this one sat on my shelf for slightly over a decade before I finally started it, but that's another thing about these collections: they age on...
Take me back to 2006, please! If the retrospective anthology for the year was so good, you can only imagine how good the uncollected stories can also be.In possession of 8 extra-ordinary stories (the Wilson, the Williams, the Levine, the McAuley, the Rosenblum, the Baxter, the Gilman, and the Barnes), a lot of above average other stories and few to none useless / unreadables, this makes the anthology one of the best that GD has edited.
It's a big book- 700 pages with about 28 stories. I enjoyed "The Djinn's Wife", "Good Mountain", "Nightingale" (Alastair Reynolds - can't say I enjoyed his other story here, "Signal to Noise"), and others. I found many were a little too "real" - I think there's a resurgence in hard science fiction (and political science fiction, for want of a better phrase), and while I enjoy it, I still long for the more esoteric - especially in a collection such as this. For example, I enjoyed "Julian: A Chris...
Here's the Best SF review, which is detailed, lengthy and impressive: http://bestsf.net/years-best-science-...Mark Watson was doing an impressive job of keeping up with all the Year's Best anthologies then, and this will be my guide and memory-aid here.And Alytha's review here is equally long and detailed: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...As usual, I've previously read a fair number of these stories elsewhere. And my library copy is seriously overdue. So, here's what I have. I'll check it...
Veeery long and detailed review! :) I, Row-Boat, by Cory Doctorow. Probably the first science fiction story about scuba-diving that I've read. The pun in the title is to be taken literally too. In the far future, Earth is a protected nature reserve. Humans have long ago uploaded their consciousnesses to the internet, and all kinds of things have become conscious and sentient. Robbie the row-boat is just taking people who have downloaded into human-shells to go diving on a reef, as usual, when it...
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1896524...Most of these stories were indeed fresh for me; four (I think) were Hugo nominees, and I'd read a couple of others in other collections (or possibly even in the original magazine publication). As usual, Dozois shows excellent taste, though my 2007 records are not in good enough shape to tell me if I think he got a better or worse result than the Hugo or Nebula nomination system. The story that stood out for me as a new discovery was Carolyn Ives Gilman's "...
It filled with good stories. The last "Nightingale" is truly terrifying. And "Every hole is outlined" is remarkably interesting
* "The Year's Best Science Fiction 24th Annual Collection" of 2006 short stories was edited by Gardner Dozois. I tried, I really tried, but could not finish. Halfway were okay "Where the golden apples grow" by Kage Baker, and "Incarnation Day" by Walter Jon Williams about rebellious teens and sad, scary, romantic "Home Movies" by Mary Rosenblum. They were overpowered by nightmare "Damascus" by Daryl Gregory, where pathetic transformed to joyous mad-cow disease victims are terrorist missionaries
Some of the stories were really great. Some were disturbing. That's what I like about short stories in collections like this. You get a bunch of lots of things. Many will stay with me. Some I wish didn't. But some will make me think. I hope some develop in to books. I will read these books. Short stories are such an interesting medium. They are very fun to read from time to time.
As with many "Year's Best" type anthologies, it's difficult to evaluate the collection as a whole. Unlike a themed collection (e.g., Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse ), you can't easily ask how each story is helping to advance or otherwise round-out the speculation or evaluation of that given theme. But that's OK; that's not why we pick up and read a collection like this. And it's a hazard we're willing -- nay: happy -- to take on.That said, the rating for the collection here is a comput...
This was a short story in the Year's Best Sci Fi 24th edition. I read this in one sitting, and I was surprised that I actually enjoyed it. I found the concept of nerve linking interesting. Being able to inahabit the body of someone else in a different place for a short period of time. In this story, Mick, the main character, links with a different version of himself in another worldline to spend some time with his wife who is still alive in that world, but who had died in his version of the worl...
Gardner Dozois' annual anthology series continues, with this Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection covering stories that came out in 2006.The early Aughts were a difficult time for sf, I think. The magical odometer year 2000 had rolled over and quickly receded from sight—but then for the U.S., in the prescient words of The Onion, our "long national nightmare of peace and prosperity" came to an inglorious end. By mid-decade, speculations about the future had taken on a much grayer tinge, and this antho...
Best stories: Alastair Reynolds, "Nightingale."Stephen Baxter, "The Pacific Mystery."Robert Charles Wilson, "Julian: A Christmas Story."Good stories:Michael Swanwick, "Tin Marsh."Kage Baker, "Where the Golden Apples Grow."Bruce McAllister, "Kin."Gregory Benford, "Bow Shock."Robert Reed, "Good Mountain."David D. Levine, "I Hold My Father's Paws."Paul J. McAuley, "Dead Men Walking."Mary Rosenblum, "Home Movies."Daryl Gregory, "Damascus."
Took a while to work through this. It wasn't what I thought it was, but found some 'new-to-me' authors to take a look at!
After having skipped last year's best of collection, I was ready to jump head first into this tome. I'm glad I did ad this one was a but different than years past. I/m not sure if it was intentional, but this year's stories seemed a bit on the long side, which was nice. They were generally longer that a regular short story, but shorter that a novella. This allowed many of the authors to go into much more detail and provide a much fuller, more fleshed out story. However, I do feel that many of th...
This slab of a volume ate up a few days in an enjoyable fashion. The worst you can expect in a Dozois collection is worthy-but-dull-and-overlong. Outright bad is very rare; the stories are always sure to be well crafted and well-written. This edition is solid. Nothing boring, nothing spectacularly stand-out either. Memorable ones included Yellow Card Man and Nightingale, both rather nightmarish. Robbie The Row Boat was fun and clever. A good collection, overall.
Another strong collection. Highlights are Nightingale, a strong horror tale by Alastair Reynolds in his Sky's Edge setting, Bow Shock by Gregory Benford about the mundanities of an astronomer academic discovering the first evidence of alien life and The Highway Men by Ken MacLeod, a near-future post-global warming story.
every single one of these collections is essential reading for true fans of science fiction short stories... each lengthy volume has a stellar array of all mini-genres and areas of powerfully influential science fiction: hard science, speculative, steampunk, alien invasions, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, space opera, fantasy, aliens, monsters, horror-ish, space travel, time travel, eco-science, evolutionary, pre-historic, parallel universes, extraterrestrials... in each successive volume in the