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The Year's Best Science Fiction, 14th Annual Edition
edited by Gardner Dozois

One series of books which I regularly read (and which I recommend if you want to keep up-to-date with the SF field) is Gardner Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction annual anthologies. Now into its fourteenth year, this book collects the stories which its editor thinks is the best for the year.

Of course, the meaning of 'best stories of the year' is a heavily loaded one and depends on the editor's taste. But having read many Year's Best books and reading many Asimov's Science Fiction magazines (which is also edited by Dozois), I have come to respect Dozois's tastes in stories. I may not agree with all his choices, but I do know that if he considers a story good enough to be in this collection, then it is probably a story worth reading.

Here is my own review of each of the stories found in this collection:

• "Immersion" by Gregory Benford. If there was ever a case of an author who plagiarises himself, this story is it. "Immersion" is the same as the section in Benford's book, Foundation's Fear, where Hari Seldon and Dors Venabilli go to another world for refuge and find themselves trapped in the bodies of primates. Only the names and locations have been changed in "Immersion", but otherwise it is the same story. I am not saying it is a bad story and if I had not read Benford's Foundation book, I would have enjoyed this story. But having read the book, I know exactly what will happen in "Immersion" making reading it a pointless exercise. Benford, what have you done?
• "The Dead" by Michael Swanwick. A neat, chilling story about what could happen if the dead could be resurrected to do tasks the rest of us don't want to do. It ends on a chilling note when 'other uses' for the dead are put forward. Comparable with McDonald's Terminal Cafe.
• "The Flowers of Aulit Prison" by Nancy Kress. An interesting and thoughtful story about an alien species whose sense of reality is not 'real' unless it is one shared by the community. An investigator, who is an outcast for not sharing their reality, is offered a chance 'regain' reality by finding out what information from a Terran doctor in a prison. But what she finds out will lead her to question just whose reality is the 'real' one.
• "A Dry, Quiet War" by Tony Daniel. In a universe whose ending is preceded by a universal war, a soldier returns back in time to his home. But he finds he may to re-fight the war to keep his world safe. A fascinating story which hints at massive events happening elsewhere.
• "Thirteen Phantasms" by James P. Blaylock. A neat tale about a reader who finds, in an old science-fiction magazine, an order form for a book. He sends it off and unexpectedly gets a reply from an unusual source.
• "Primrose and Thorn" by Bud Sparhawk. Combining elements of two Arthur C. Clarke stories ("The Wind from the Sun" and "A Meeting With Medusa"), Sparhawk gives a fascinating view of what it may be like to hold a yatch race in the winds of Jupiter.
• "The Miracle of Ivar Avenue" by John Kessel. A unusual "what if you had another chance to change your life" story, given a twist from the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics. I wouldn't know what I would do, given such a choice myself.
• "The Last Homosexual" by Paul Park. A chilling look at what may happen when 'science' is used as a tool to back up narrow beliefs.
• "Recording Angle" by Ian McDonald. Set in the universe of McDonald's Evolution's Shore, this story takes a look at how Gaby McAslan deals with recording the final minutes of a hunter who chooses to embrace the Chaga (the biological lifeform taking over Africa) rather than fight it.
• "Death Do Us Part" by Robert Silverberg. An interesting contrast to Frederik Pohl's Outnumbering the Dead, this story is also set in a world where treatments allow humanity to live virtually forever. But the life of one character here may have a different ending.
• "The Spade of Reason" by Jim Cowan. I'm not sure what to think of this story. The execution of the story is unique. It is about a character who sets out to perform the 'monkey typist' experiment (randomly typing out strings of letters) in an effort to 'speak' to god who he believes expresses his wishes in the random movements of sub-atomic particles. But I find the conclusion puzzling.
• "The Cost to Be Wise" by Maureen F. McHugh. I anticipated a lot from this much talked about story but came away disappointed. Set on a 'pastoral' world using only appropriate technology, a high-tech student find out what happens when things go wrong. If there is a deeper meaning in this story, I'm afraid it was buried too deeply for me to decipher.
• "Bicycle Repairman" by Bruce Sterling. A neat, funny story that reminds me of Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. A bicycle repairman discovers a video box may be more than it seems in a world where electronic and real personalities are difficult to tell apart.
• "The Weighing of Ayre" by Gregory Feeley. A chilling story about how certain 'modern' weapons may not have been so modern after-all.
• "The Longer Voyage" by Michael Cassutt. The story deals with people living on a star ship whose journey has been delayed for many years. Used to being in this 'limbo', their lives are upset when they discover they may actually be leaving after all.
• "The Land of Nod" by Mike Resnick. The last of Resnick's "Kirinyaga" story, this story looks at the mudumungu as he strives to stick to the Kikuyu way of living in a world which does not understand him.
• "Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland" by Gwyneth Jones. A look at how in a world where sexual tensions may be released through the use of virtual environments, one participants may have gotten more than was bargained for.
• "The Lady Vanishes" by Charles Sheffield. A unique and neat look at how you can make a person really vanish without resorting to magic.
• "Chrysalis" by Robert Reed. In an asteroid world, which holds the last humans in the universe. A child learns how her guardians may be hiding the truth about her race and about herself.
• "The Wind Over the World" by Steven Utley. Tells how a search for a missing time-traveller may alter how we think about a person.
• "Changes" by William Barton. In this multi-generation story, tied together by NASA space launches, Barton tells a story of grandfather-father-son relations that show that some things never change.
• "Counting Cats in Zanzibar" by Gene Wolfe. Not being a fan of Gene Wolfe, I sorry to say that I don't quite understand the point of the story. A meeting between two people, one apparently a robot, leads to a confrontation between creator and created.
• "How We Got in Town and out Again" by Jonathan Lethem. A usual quirky Lethem story about two people involved in a race in a virtual environment. But it is what happens around them that really decides who will win.
• "Dr. Tilmann's Consultant: A Scientific Romance" by Cherry Wilder. An unusual story about an unusual patient with the ability to heal patients with mental illnesses.
• "Schrodinger's Dog" by Damien Broderick. A strangely funny story about a journey to many universes. But the methods used to make the person take the journey is not very pleasant.
• "Foreign Devils" by Walter Jon Williams. Another story based on Wells's The War of the Worlds, this one has the Martians landing in China. The effects of the invasion show how people will still take advantage of the situation, no matter how strange it can be.
• "In the MSOB" by Stephen Baxter. Not one of Baxter's better stories, this one tells of the last person in a very special breed of people.
• "The Robot's Twilight Companion" by Tony Daniel. A look at a drilling robot that gradually develops consciousness and how it sees life in a country increasingly polarised over the environment. It also deals with an unusual relationship with a daughter of a geologist. There is a hint about a living Gaia but is never properly developed in the story.

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