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The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection (Year's Best Science Fiction) | 
 enlarge | Creator: Gardner Dozois
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
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Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 10404
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 704
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 5.7 x 1.9
ISBN: 0312363354
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.0876208
EAN: 9780312363352
ASIN: 0312363354
Publication Date: July 10, 2007
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Product Description
The twenty-eight stories in this collection imaginatively take us far across the universe, into the very core of our beings, to the realm of the gods, and the moment just after now. Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents, including:
* Cory Doctorow * Robert Charles Wilson * Michael Swanwick * Ian McDonald * Benjamin Rosenbaum * Kage Baker * Bruce McAllister * Alastair Reynolds * Jay Lake * Ruth Nestvold * Gregory Benford * Justin Stanchfield * Walter Jon Williams * Greg Van Eekhout * Robert Reed * David D. Levine * Paul J. McAuley * Mary Rosenblum * Daryl Gregory * Jack Skillingstead * Paolo Bacigalupi * Greg Egan * Elizabeth Bear * Sarah Monette * Ken MacLeod * Stephen Baxter * Carolyn Ives Gilman * John Barnes * A.M. Dellamonica
Supplementing the stories are the editor’s insightful summation of the year’s events and a list of honorable mentions, making this book a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Another Bad Anthology August 27, 2008
Two good stories: Tin Marsh, by Swanwick, and Kin, by Bruce McCallister. The rest were poorly written, plotted, and realized short stories. Yawners to say the least. This best of has warn out its welcome years ago.
Good stories, just maybe too much of the same February 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Dozois best science fiction anthology is always a doorstop, and I can't complain that they skimp on word count. He always includes a number of novellas as well as the many short stories. But I've noticed in the past few years, and this year is no exception, that the stories tend to take on a certain sameness toward the end. Those last few stories get to be a slog, and it doesn't really matter whose stories they are.
The stories here merit inclusion, but there are too many of similar theme and tone, and most are grim. Few pages are devoted to short fiction by women, and you see the same authors year after year. They are good authors, but I would think that in any given year the best stories should come from a more diverse group. Possibly not -- I haven't read all of them.
But of the stories that did stand out to me:
Kage Baker's "Where the Golden Apples Grow" is an affecting, stark, city mouse/country mouse-type story about two martian-born boys trying to grow up in difficult times.
"The Djinn's Wife," by Ian McDonald, starts slow but builds as it chronicles a dancer's infatuation with an artificial intelligence in a future India.
"I Hold My Father's Paws," by David Levine, is a rare spot of humor in the anthology, although the humor is pretty dark. It is about a man relationship to his absentee father, and to say any more would probably just ruin it.
Best of all (and yes, I'm biased, since I live in a very small town in Wisconsin) is Carol Ives Gilman's "Okanoggan Falls." It may be that loving this story requires understanding how thoroughly Gilman nails small town life, but trust me, it's accurate. It's also a nice little story of alien invasion.
Altogether, a lot of end-of-the-world (in one way or another) going on in this anthology. It may be best taken in small doses.
 The Year's Best Short Fiction anthology, hands down December 12, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I stopped reading this series years ago, but I randomly picked this one up at the book store and started to skim. Within minutes, I was hooked. This is a superb collection of short stories from a wide variety of authors that just made all my other "best" anthologies of the year hang their dog ears in shame.
Not Free SF Reader November 18, 2007
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
You could call this an excellent example of this particular series perhaps, as the average for these stories is 3.86, and a couple I have read have gone over 4. Still, a rather good effort to put that together. You certainly won't be detecting much of a sense of humour in this one, though, in general.
As usual, the highly useful summation and introduction gives information, and tries to round up for the reader the magazine sources for those that are mostly interested in core science fiction, without generally having to put up with fantasy/horror/slipstream etc., when they don't want too. He also talks a bit about books and other media, and I agree with most of this except for V for Vendetta, a movie of which this household approved. It sounds like Dozois hadn't read this, from his comment.
By now you could fill one of these huge volumes with his intros, too, if he ever needs a project.
Overall, a top notch editorial job on display here.
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : I ROW-BOAT - Cory Doctorow
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : JULIAN A CHRISTMAS STORY - Robert Charles Wilson
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : TIN MARSH - Michael Swanwick
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE DJINN'S WIFE - Ian McDonald
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE HOUSE BEYOND YOUR SKY - Benjamin Rosenbaum
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : WHERE THE GOLDEN APPLES GROW - Kage Baker
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : KIN - Bruce McAllister
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : SIGNAL TO NOISE - Alastair Reynolds
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE BIG ICE - Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : BOW SHOCK - Gregory Benford
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : IN THE RIVER - Justin Stanchfield
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : INCARNATION DAY - Walter Jon Williams
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : FAR AS YOU CAN GO - Greg Van Eekhout
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : GOOD MOUNTAIN - Robert Reed
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : I HOLD MY FATHER'S PAWS - David D. Levine
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : DEAD MEN WALKING - Paul J. McAuley
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : HOME MOVIES - Mary Rosenblum
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : DAMASCUS - Daryl Gregory
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : LIFE ON THE PRESERVATION - Jack Skillingstead
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : YELLOW CARD MAN - Paolo Bacigalupi
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : RIDING THE CROCODILE - Greg Egan
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE ILE OF DOGGES - Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE HIGHWAY MEN - Ken MacLeod
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE PACIFIC MYSTERY - Stephen Baxter
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : OKANOGGAN FALLS - Carolyn Ives Gilman
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : EVERY HOLE IS OUTLINED - John Barnes
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : THE TOWN ON BLIGHTED SEA - A. M. Dellamonica
Year's Best Science Fiction 24 : NIGHTINGALE - Alastair Reynolds
Asimovian reef revival survival.
4.5 out of 5
Conscripts in a fallen future like snakes more than Indy does.
3 out of 5
"Naughty girl. Papa spank!" I wish! Wahhh!
4 out of 5
Computer cops crimp AI's carnal cavorting with calisthenic chick.
4 out of 5
Making a universal mess of it.
2.5 out of 5
Road trip not good.
3.5 out of 5
A boy and a alien hitman come to an understanding.
5 out of 5
Quantum reality spousal coordination.
4.5 out of 5
Sororcidecicle's inhuman regeneration return.
4 out of 5
An astronomer researching an obscure phenomenon struggles with tenure, a woman, and trying to work out if what he is seeing is natural or not.
4 out of 5
Underwater translation leavetaking gift.
4 out of 5
Parental supervision control program subversion.
4.5 out of 5
Witch robot sea stop swap.
3.5 out of 5
Colony vermiform prolongation oxygen depletion destruction.
3 out of 5
A dog's life for me.
4 out of 5
Clone killer uncovered confrontation.
4 out of 5
Memory recording transfer rejection.
4.5 out of 5
Jaysus, that's a hell of an idea to spread around.
3.5 out of 5
Daily alien revisit.
3 out of 5
Fallen biotech magnate takes insults badly.
4 out of 5
A couple of then 10K year old posthumans decide to attempt to contact some aliens known as the Aloof for obvious reasons. This inspires others to some innovation.
4 out of 5
Playing with past censorship.
3.5 out of 5
Air rage war road rollers into bandit chopper brake break.
4 out of 5
Alternate ratzi monster zeppelin expedition shows Pacific that time forgot lives up to hyperbole.
4 out of 5
Alien invasion imitation co-operation landscaping strategy.
4.5 out of 5
Long voyaging ship's sudden crew loss requires slave freedom and spectral viewing.
4 out of 5
Squid pr0n relatively Ruthless solution.
4 out of 5
Hospital ship joined.
4 out of 5
still the best October 28, 2007
1 out of 12 found this review helpful
As always this annual collection is the best science fiction anthology of the year. Besides the strong selection of twenty-eight stories, the Summation 2006 is an interesting article that concludes that 2006 was "overall a relatively uneventful year". Still in this quiet year, Mr. Dozois references Locus magazine stating that "there were 2495 books of interest to the SF field" excluding a myriad of Internet options and other tie-ins that would dramatically increase the total. All of the chosen twenty-eight are well written with many of the authors highly regarded like Cory Docterow, Robert Charles Wilson, Kage Baker, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Reed, Greg Egan, Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette and Stephen Baxter, etc. The best of the best (at least in my opinion) are "Riding the Crocodile" by Greg Egan in which two immortals consider boldly conspicuously suicide together; Robert Charles Wilson's Julian: A Christmas Story as two men meet and struggle to survive a wintry night before traveling different life paths; and a tour of Venus in Tin Marsh by Michael Stanwick, who according to Mr. Dozois has been writing for over two decades, but I confess I only read any of his works for the first time recently (see THE DRAGONS OF BABEL). Once gain this is a superb compilation as none of the entries are losers and most are excellent exploring the genre from quantum physics communicating with the dead to outer space and beyond; 2006 may have been lacking in innovation, but still with quality tales abound prove to be a great year affirmed by Mr. Dozois' latest anthology.
Harriet Klausner
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