The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Second Annual Collection
Edited by Gardner Dozois
(672p.) St. Martin's. $19.95.
(July 2005)
ISBN: 0-312-33660-8
In the growing list of "year's best" SF anthologies, Gardner Dozois's is still a
"must read." This year's twenty-second edition covering the year 2004 proves
why. It's massive (664 pages, 28 stories), excellent, and diverse. Along with
veteran writers (including M. John Harrison, Nancy Kress, and Vernor Vinge),
there are newcomers like Paolo Bacigalupi, Colin P. Davies, David Moles,
Christopher Rowe, and Vandana Singh. Known-but-not-for-SF writers like fantasist
Caitlin Kiernan and mystery/thriller-writer Brendan DuBois are also present.
Some stories seem like fantasy (Kage Baker's "Mother Aegypt"), others blend
genres (James Patrick Kelly crosses aliens with hard boiled private eyes in "Men
Are Trouble" and, in "Intrigue," Walter Jon Williams mixes spaceships and
intrigue). Standard SF tropes are given fresh twists by Michael F. Flynn in "The
Clapping Hands of God" (first contact) and Stephen Baxter with "Mayflower II"
(generation starship). Eleanor Arnason presents a unique perspective in "The
Garden," a "science fictional romance" written by an alien. Dozois includes his
summation of the field and honorable mentions list. The volume, like the genre,
may now be venerable, but it's obviously still vibrant. -- Paula Guran, CFQ V.37.6/7