The Year's Best Science Fiction, Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection

Starred review from June 1, 1998
There's little doubt that Dozois (Dying for It) is to the 1980s and 1990s what John W. Campbell Jr., was to the 1940s and 1950s--the finest editor in the world of short SF. Asimov's, which he edits, routinely earns half or more of the short-fiction nominations for the Hugo and Nebula awards each year, and his anthologies are equally strong. This collection features nine clearly deserving stories from Asimov's, plus 19 other excellent pieces from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Analog, Science Fiction Age, Interzone and a variety of original anthologies and less well-known magazines. The stories range widely in type, from the highly literate work of John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly to the hard SF of G. David Nordley and Geoffrey A. Landis; from the alternate history of William Sanders and Howard Waldrop to the upscale space opera of Walter Jon Williams and Robert Reed. Among the best-known writers represented are Robert Silverberg, Nancy Kress and Gregory Benford. Of particular interest is the large number of non-American writers. Brits Paul J. McAuley, Stephen Baxter, Peter F. Hamilton, Gwyneth Jones, Ian McDonald and Brian Stableford, along with the hot Australian writer Greg Egan (represented by two stories), contribute nearly half the volume. Also included are Dozois's usual summation of the year in SF and his valuable list of honorable mentions. This anthology represents contemporary SF at its very best. (June) FYI: Dozois is a nine-time winner of the Hugo Award for best editor.

May 25, 2009
Veteran editor Dozois, 15-time Hugo winner, offers 30 stories, several of them Hugo-nominated. The table of contents is dominated by familiar names like Michael Swanwick and Greg Egan, but occasionally leavened with relative newcomers like Hannu Rajaniemi and more obscure authors like James Alan Gardner. Settings range from the present-day (Nancy Kress's “The Erdmann Nexus”) to the distant future (Ian McDonald's “The Tear”) and alternate history (Aliete de Bodard's “Butterfly, Falling at Dawn”). Similarly the moods range from relatively upbeat (Dominic Green's “Shining Armour”) to pessimistic (Swanwick's “From Babel's Fallen Glory We Fled”). In some entries the SF elements appear to be almost an afterthought, but most earn their inclusion. Dozois also provides short biographies, a detailed overview of the year in SF and a lengthy list of honorable mentions. This is a worthy addition to a venerable series.

Starred review from July 3, 1995
Dozois's Year's Best, like any successful representative of a large constituency, sometimes suffers from blandness and inconsistency. As usual, it's oversized--23 stories, nearly 600 pages--and includes a variety of types of SF as well as near-horror, fantasy and humor. Five of the stories are final nominees for Nebulas, and two new ``Hainish'' stories by Ursula LeGuin were nominated for Tiptree Awards; ``The Matter of Segrri'' won. No story here is less than competent and professional; but, with a few exceptions, there is a voiceless sameness in the writing, practically a house style, that over so many pages grows tedious. (Nearly half the stories, by page count, come from the Dozois-edited Asimov's Science Fiction.) A number are flawed (``hard'' SF stories about ``aliens'' that think just like humans) or unremarkable, but these are outweighed by many fine pieces and by standouts such as LeGuin's ``Forgiveness Day,'' perhaps the best story in the book; Eliot Fintushel's ``New Wave''-like ``Ylem''; William Sanders's ``Going After Old Man Alabama'' and Terry Bisson's ``The Hole in the Hole,'' both of which are winning and funny; Katherine Kerr's chilling ``Asylum''; and Michael Bishop's grand and humane ``Cri de Coeur.'' Dozois's intelligently and ably put-together anthology does its stated job as well as any one book or editor could. Even with competition, it would still be the best of the Best.

July 1, 2009
In the insightful Summation 2008, editor Dozois in passing mentions the dire impact todays economy is having on the sf periodicals. Despite growing audiences for sf films, readership and circulation of such magazines as Asimovs and Analog continue to plummet. None of those trends affects the quality and abundance of the selections in the twenty-sixth edition of Dozois standard-setting annual, which displays a full spectrum of dazzling ideas from sfs best writers, both veterans, such as Michael Swanwick, Greg Egan, and Geoff Ryman, and newer voices, such as Dominic Green, Hannu Rajaniemi, and Gord Sellar. The subjects of the 30 masterfully crafted entries include a sentient starship, an artificially intelligent spacesuit, life on one of Saturns moons, and a distant planets deadly civil war. Among the most outstanding contributions are Stephen Baxters awe-inspiring Turings Apples, recounting the unpredictable effects an anomalous extraterrestrial radio signal has on humanity, and Mary Rosenblums The Egg Man, profiling Earths devastated ecological future. Waste no time adding this first-rate anthology to the sf shelves.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)