Customer Reviews

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection

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Gardner Dozois offers his collection of the best science fiction stories from 2009. As in previous anthologies, he treats readers to a chapter-length summation of developments in the field during 2009, a set of well-chosen stories, and a list of "Honorable Mentions" for further reading. I enjoyed all 32 stories as well as the value-added material.

My five favorite stories are described below.

Alexander Irvine's "Seventh Fall" takes us on the road with a traveling minstrel who earns his way through a post-apocalyptic world performing old plays. He looks for books from the past and for pieces of his own past without much hope of finding either.

Dominic Green's "Butterfly Bomb" takes us to an isolated planet where an old man lives alone with his granddaughter. When a slave ship steals her away, he calls on skills from his youth to attempt a desperate rescue.

Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette's "Mongoose" provides an over-the-shoulder view as a professional exterminator and his companion battle a troublesome infestation on board a space station. It shows us what a Pip and Flinx story might be like if written for adults.

Albert Cowdrey's "Paradiso Lost" is an old soldier's letter to the son of a comrade-in-arms about the adventures of his youth and the roots of his cynicism. It has a similar tone to Joe Haldeman's The Forever War.

James Van Pelt's "Solace" tells two stories linked by a candleholder owned at different times by the main character of each. In the past a young man survives a snowstorm while faithfully standing his post. In the future a young botanist endures the challenges and confusion of repeated awakenings during a colony ship's many centuries of travel.

This collection is highly recommended. My only disappointment was that I had already read five of the stories in David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's Year's Best SF 15. The editors of both books are equally responsible for the overlap, but my disappointment falls on this collection because the Kindle version was released so much later in the year.

This ongoing series always manages to collect many gems, many good stories, and a few less good ones. As usual, Dozois introduces the collection with an eloquent synthesis of the year in science fiction. If you only read one sf anthology this year or every year, this constitutes a substantial choice. The fact that there is one every year insures a certain consistency in content and quality. It is worth looking up the previous volumes as well.