The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois (Editor)

Overview

Embark on a mind-bending journey through time and space with the Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection. This anthology showcases the most imaginative and thought-provoking stories from the early days of science fiction to the brink of the twenty-first century.

Featuring works by both masters of the form and bright new talents, this collection includes gems such as "The Wedding Album" by David Marusek, where the line between reality and simulation blurs in a high-tech future; "Everywhere" by Geoff Ryman, which questions whether utopian living is truly recognized by its inhabitants; "Hatching the Phoenix" by Frederik Pohl, a star-crossing tale of the enigmatic Heechee aliens; and "A Hero of the Empire" by Robert Silverberg, an alternate history novelette that explores the consequences of a never-fallen Roman Empire.

From nearby planets to distant futures, from the past to universes no larger than a grain of sand, the twenty-seven stories in Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection will transport you to realms beyond your imagination. Supplemented by the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions, this book is an invaluable resource for science fiction enthusiasts and a must-have for any fan of speculative fiction, science fiction fantasy, or science fiction and fantasy short stories.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312271626
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/12/2000
Series:	Year's Best Science Fiction Series , #17
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	640
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Gardner Dozois (1947-2018), one of the most acclaimed editors in science-fiction, has won the Hugo Award for Best Editor 15 times. He was the editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine for 20 years. He is the editor of The Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies and co-editor of the Warrior anthologies, Songs of the Dying Earth, and many others. As a writer, Dozois twice won the Nebula Award for best short story. He lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Read an Excerpt

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection
AcknowledgmentsThe editor would like to thank the following people for their help and support: first and foremost, Susan Casper, for doing much of the thankless scut work involved in producing this anthology; Michael Swanwick, Ellen Datlow, Virginia Kidd, Jim Allen, Vaughne Lee Hansen, Sheila Williams, David Pringle, Charles C. Ryan, David G. Hartwell, Jack Dann, Janeen Webb, Candas Jane Dorsey, John Clute, Warren Lapine, Dwight Brown, Darrell Schweitzer, Bryan Cholfin, and special thanks to my own editor, Gordon Van Gelder.Thanks are also due to Charles N. Brown, whose magazine Locus (Locus Publications, P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA 94661, $43 for a one-year subscription [twelve issues] via second class; credit card orders [510] 339-9198) was used as a reference source throughout the Summation, and to Andrew Porter, whose magazine Science Fiction Chronicle (Science Fiction Chronicle, P.O. Box 022730, Brooklyn, NY 11202-0056, $35 for a one-year subscription [twelve issues]; $42 first class) was also used as a reference source throughout.ANNUAL COLLECTION. Copyright © 2000 by Gardner Dozois. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Table of Contents

Summation: 1999
The Wedding Album / David Marusek
10¹6 to 1 / James Patrick Kelly
Winemaster / Robert Reed
Galactic North / Alastair Reynolds
Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance / Eleanor Arnason
People Came From Earth / Stephen Baxter
Green Tea / Richard Wadholm
The Dragon Of Pripyat / Karl Schroeder
Written in Blood / Chris Lawson
Hatching the Phoenix / Frederik Pohl
Suicide Coast / M. John Harrison
Hunting Mother / Sage Walker
Mount Olympus / Ben Bova
Border guards / Greg Egan
Scherzo With Tyrannosaur / Michael Swanwick
A Hero of the Empire / Robert Silverberg
How We Lost the Moon, a True Story by Frank W. Allen / Paul J. McAuley
Phallicide / Charles Sheffield
Daddy's World / Walter Jon Williams
A Martian Romance / Kim Stanley Robinson
The Sky-Green Blues / Tanith Lee
Exchange Rate / Hal Clement
Everywhere / Geoff Ryman
Hothouse flowers / Mike Resnick
Evermore / Sean Williams
Of Scorned Women and Causal Loops / Robert Grossbach
Son, Observe the Time / Kage Baker
Honorable Mentions: 1999

Editorial Reviews

“...the best, most comprehensive look at today's science fiction, with 22 stories of consistently excellent caliber...” —Publishers Weekly - starred review

From the Publisher

2001 Locus Awards - Winner, Winner

EBOOK COMMENTARY

Since the first 10 years ago, Dozois' ample annual anthologies have become reliable showcases of superior sf craftsmanship that surpass all other such annuals in both scope and variety. In the latest, Dozois assembles the usual broad range of authors, from stellar figures such as Silverberg, Clark, and Wilhelm to relative newcomers who nevertheless register here as major talents: Greg Egan, for instance, whose brilliant "Dust" recounts the short-lived experience of a self-conscious computer simulacrum and is, all by itself, worth the price of the entire anthology. Other entries outstandingly include a wry alternative history of the Americas in which the Chinese got there first, by L. Sprague de Camp, and a bizarre, "secret" view of the life of James Joyce by Ian McDonald. Prefacing each of the 28 stories is one of Dozois' brief but informative commentaries; a long list of "Honorable Mentions" is appended, and Dozois' yearly summation will grace the published volume. A must for enthusiasts of fine writing in any genre.

Carl Hays

As ever, Dozois leads his anthology with a homerun by Ian R. MacLeod and follows it with a second MacLeod, "Isabel of the Fall." Two dozen tales give ballast to this voyage into SF and fantastic realism, including MacLeod's "New Light on the Drake Equation," which takes place perhaps a century from now. The story turns on Tom Kelly, a fading SETI scientist who's on a French hilltop radio-scanning the heavens for First Contact and using as his guide the Drake Equation, which helps map the likely areas an alien culture might try to contact us from. The fallible equation is less certain than he is, but Tom has great assurance about contact-for a number of decades. During them, he's visited by his ex-lover, the star-crossed Terr, a hyperenthusiast who exhausts subjects that interest her and who left Tom to take up flying with wings attached to a newly improved back musculature (Tom took up drinking to pass the time). Aside from descriptions of marvelous scientific advances in personal grooming, little confronts the reader except many pages of fine writing about waiting, waiting, waiting. "Isabel of the Fall" is a future children's story looking back at the urchin Isabel, who was taken into the Dawn Church, became a Dawn singer, and had to climb the minaret daily to clean the great mirrors that collect light from heaven-until she had a great fall . . . Also outstanding: Dan Simmons's "On K2 with Kanakaredes," about a trio of climbers forced to accept the company of a bug-shaped, six-legged alien, Kanakaredes from Aldebaran, when they climb Everest. And not to be missed: Nancy Kress's "Computer Virus"-about a mother whose home is invaded by-well, check the title. True fiction. The pure stuff.

Kirkus Reviews