The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection

I find these giant collections of stories on my e-book to be the perfect thing when traveling. Dozois' collection is probably the best of the big three that come out every year, but that might just be because his always contains twice as many stories. In any case, great, diverting reads and a good way to keep up with the best sf writers' non-novel works. ( )

These Annual collections are always full of ideas and with the honourable mentions give a good picture of SF in 2012 in this csse. Always well worth a read. ( )

Gardner Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction is always highly anticipated in my household, and this edition is no different. I have always trusted Dozois's tastes as an editor, and although I read much less science fiction than I used to, I still check out his choices eagerly. This year there were only a couple of stories that I had read previously (in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction), so most of the material was new to me. As with any anthology, there are some stories I like more than others, and a different reader is apt to like stories that I didn't and vice versa. That said, I was really taken by "Weep for Day," by Indrapramit Das, about humans on a planet half in daylight and half in darkness, waging genocide against the night people; "The Stars Do Not Lie," by Jay Lake, concerning Creationism and science on a distant planet; Eleanor Aranson's "Holmes Sherlock," part of her Hwarhathian series; "Steamgothic," by Sean McMullen; Elizabeth Bear's novella, "In the House of Aryaman, A Lonely Signal Burns," a mystery; "Sudden, Broken and Unexpected," by Steven Popkes, a rock'n'roll novella; "The Wreck of the 'Charles Dexter Ward,'" by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, essentially a zombies-on-a-spaceship tale; and Christopher Barzak's "Invisible Men," a retelling of Wells's The Invisible Man from the point of view of the maid-of-all-work at the inn where the title character hides out. A couple of observations that have probably been true for some time now, but that struck me in particular with this edition: A fairly high percentage of stories make a point of having lead or major characters who are LGB or T, and there are more non-Western authors being represented than ever before. In some cases, the gay element felt exploitative to me, in others it was intrinsic to the story; but with respect to the increasing inclusion of non-Western writers, I find that an excellent trend that I hope will continue! As ever with this collection, if you buy only one anthology of sff, this is the one to buy; highly recommended! ( )