Friday, July 6, 2012

The Year's Best Science Fiction 29th Annual Collection

The Year's Best Science Fiction 29th Annual Collection


Edited by Gardner Dozois

St Martins, Jul 3 2012, $21.99

ISBN 9781250003553



This annual collection consistently is one of the best and the latest anthology obtains the high standard due to the overall strength of the thirty-five entries. My advanced reader copy failed to include the year’s Summation essay so I obviously cannot comment on that. Many of the stories are award nominees with several winners. The sources range from the internet to magazines to books with few contributions from the less commonly known online sources. In "The Choice" by Paul McAuley occurs after the Spasm left the world devastated with places like Norfolk, England under water as two lads visit the sea dragon craft of aliens. The police suspect Dolly (by Elizabeth Bear) the sex robot was either the weapon or the killer of her viciously murdered owner. Linnea is stunned as to whatever that terrible thing is that has her mom leaving their home built by The Coffin People in The Dala Horse by Michael Stanwick; note that my advanced copy did not include the wonderful illustrations by Julie Dixon as found at http://www.tor.com/stories. In “Ghostweight” by Yoon Ha Lee, on Rhaion Lisse hosts a ghost as she becomes an Imperial cadet with one goal to destroy those who assaulted her village when she was a child. He is in charge of building a bridge over the mist in "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" by Kij Johnson is a wonderful novella about a man in charge of building a bridge over a mysterious substance known as mist. In "The Cold Step Beyond" by Ian R. MacLeod, Bess of the Warrior Church travels to an isolated sector of Island City of Ghezirah where she is to kill someone.



Harriet Klausner

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