The Best of the Best, Edited by Gardner Dozois

[Bick]

I've been reading The Best of the Best - 20 years of the Year's Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois.

This was originally published in 2005, and collects what Dozois considers to be the best or most memorable 36 stories from the first 20 year's of his annual anthologies - i.e. from the first edition in 1984, through the 20th in 2003. That being the case, I figured these stories should all be classics of the genre and well worth reading. Also, interestingly, I hadn't read many of the stories at all (only 1 or 2), so it seemed a good anthology to tackle. Its a decent size, and I expect I'll take two goes at it, but I've now read the first 19 stories, so thought I'd post my comments on each story here.

Blood Music – Greg Bear
This is a terrific story, justifiably famous. It’s hard to say too much without giving anything away, but the idea is great and its well-executed. Highly thought-provoking and engaging, as all the best SF should be. Everyone who likes SF should read this story. Winner of the 1983 Nebula Award and 1984 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. *****

A Cabin on the Coast – Gene Wolfe
Quite an engaging story, well written by Wolfe, about loss and time passing. Unfortunately, despite its selection here in the very best SF stories within a 20-year span, it isn’t remotely SF. I suppose it would be best described as weird fiction or fantasy and was therefore disappointing to me. Nominated for the 1985 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Rated on the basis of quality as a SF story. **½

Salvador – Lucius Shephard
This is a war story. War’s bad and bad things happen. Its reasonably engaging I guess, but not especially interesting. A young recruit in a war in ‘Salvador’ has strange experiences while taking drugs to help him fight and cope. The thing is, it’s not SF as there are no real SF elements. The drug the soldiers use could simply be a ketamine-type nasal spray and it would be exactly the same story. This would perhaps best be classified as magical realism, or fantasy again, or simply non-genre. This means 1 of the first 3 stories in this Best of the Best SF anthology, is… not SF by my definition. Won the 1985 Locus Poll award for Best Short Story and was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Short Story. **½

Trinity – Nancy Kress
Okay, we’re back to SF, which was nice to see. This is a very good story, well told. This was longer – novella length – but was well-paced and enjoyable. I’d not read much Nancy Kress before, but I may hunt out more now. The idea of using science to search for God is excellently carried out and the characters are well drawn. Thought-provoking and interesting. Nominated for the 1985 Nebula Award for Best Novella. ****½

 

[Bick]

Flying Saucer Rock and Roll – Howard Waldrop
This was reasonably well constructed, but I tend to find that vocals and music are next to impossible to write well, and Waldrop kinds proves my point. It’s light stuff, and not especially interesting, though it is just about SF (at the end). Most of the story is about a vocal band taking part in a gangland ‘sing-off’. Nominated for Locus, Nebula and Hugo Awards in 1986 for Best Novelette. ***

Dinner in Audoghast – Bruce Sterling
This is written beautifully. It’s set in a 15th century west African state, and describes a dinner held by a rich man of some local power. During the dinner, they meet and listen to a man who tells them the future. The dinner was very nicely described and the foretelling of the future for the state was striking, I guess, but overall the story wasn’t that interesting to me. It is also a fantasy tale and not SF. Given Sterling doubtless wrote some great SF shorts in the period, it seems strange that Dozois selected this story which I suspect isn’t representative of his best work. Nominated for Best Short Story in 1986 Hugo Awards. ***

Roadside Rescue – Pat Cadigan
This is terrific. This is a short tale of a roadside ‘rescue’ of a chap who automobile breaks down. Clearly set in the future, with several interesting SF ideas in its short length, this is a little gem. It’s hard to say too much more without spoiling the story. Recommended. ****½

Snow – John Crowley
This was quite an interesting concept, and nicely written, so I quite enjoyed it, but it wasn’t one of the very best SF shorts I’ve read. Does the past get less clear in a literal sense as we move forward in time, rather than it just being memory that fails us? Nominated for Best Short Story in 1986 Hugo Awards. ***½

The Winter Market – William Gibson
This was cyberpunk I suppose, and it makes me think that either this genre hasn’t aged well, or Gibson’s work of the period hasn’t aged well. Its overtly “cool”, style over substance, written with little (or no) explanation of what’s going on, silly technical abbreviations, no likable characters and no appreciable plot. I don’t know what was going on in it, and I couldn’t be bothered to work it out or even finish it – an absolute dud. *½

The Pure Product – John Kessel
This was a bit more like it. It set up a pretty interesting scenario, and the reader wonders what the motivation or cause of the time-travelling protagonist’s actions are, but it ends without explanation, failing to provide any clear conclusion regards his motivations or the state of future, which I thought was going to be the point. So, for a while I thought I might rate this very highly, but overall, it’s a lesser than it might have been. ***½

 

[Bick]

Stable Strategies for Middle Management – Eileen Gunn
This was meant to be humorous, I suppose, but humour in SF is very hard to do well. Basically, is just a daft bit of fluff. Mildly amusing concept, I guess, of employees mutating rapidly into other creatures to get ahead in middle management. Silly, but actually not silly enough to really work for me. Nominated for 1989 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. **½

Kirinyaga – Mike Resnick
I liked this a good deal. Although set in a perfect reproduction of pre-colonisation Kenya, it’s the first story in which we leave Earth (12 stories in), as its set on some sort of enormous space station or artificial world. It looks at the often-competing moral forces of enlightenment and ‘progress’ against traditional values. I thought it was successful and it was written very well. I’m a fan of Resnick’s work, and he continued to impress with this. Winner of the 1989 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. ****

Tales from the Venia Woods – Robert Silverberg
This is one of Silverberg’s Eternal Rome series of stories, which unfortunately are not my favourite works of his (Dozois’ preferences seeming to diverge from mine again). It’s a pleasantly told, gentle tale of two children who find someone in a hunting lodge, long forgotten. I liked the alternative world, in which the Roman Republic survives to this day. Setting ordinary events in an alternative Earth isn’t particularly SF though – this is a gentle little fantasy tale really. ***

Bears Discover Fire – Terry Bisson
This little fantasy story does what it says on the tin. It’s well told, and I like the author’s voice here, but there’s no suggestion how or why bears discover fire (Bisson’s intention, doubtless), they just apparently do, and the way in which humans interact with the bears and vice versa is entirely fantastical. These are not problems per se, but they put this into the fantasy camp, and preclude me classifying it as SF. The story is perhaps a fable about our need to congregate, which we no longer do well, though bears seem to do it more naturally – perhaps because they newly have fire while we’ve progressed away from it. Or something. I’m certainly in two minds about it. It won the Locus, Nebula and Hugo Awards for Best Short Story in 1991. ***½

 

[Bick]

Even the Queen – Connie Willis
Connie Willis writes very well, and this story is highly engaging, with nice characters and an interesting SF idea. Whether the idea she’s exploring is really my cup of tea, I’m not sure though; in the future women routinely use a drug to prevent menstruation, and one women’s daughter has proposed going back to old natural ways, by joining the ‘cyclists’. Entertaining arguments ensue. I hope it’s not sexist to suggest this would perhaps resonate more with women than men. ****

Guest of Honor – Robert Reed
A terrific novelette from 1993. This concerns a far future society where humans have near immortality but are cautious of space travel. So, they create people to do the adventuring and exploring for them, who when they return form scouring the galaxy after decades, provide the memories of travel for them. There’s a lot to this story and it’s thought-provoking and imaginative. Robert Reed writes very well and conveys his characters and their fears with aplomb. Highly recommended SF. ****½

None So Blind – Joe Haldeman
This is really rather good. A medical procedure can bring genius, but with dire consequences for the volunteers; an allegory on the sacrifices people make to advance their careers. It’s engaging and well written. That’s a run of 3 or 4 decent stories in a row for Mr Dozois. ****

Mortimer Gray's History of Death – Brian Stableford
This lengthy novella starts very brightly, with an interesting set up at the start that has pace and moral depth. Unfortunately, after about 4 pages it transforms into a very long and uninteresting history of the protagonist, interspersed with comments on the many volume publication of his History of Death. Telling the story of a man’s life and relationships at arm’s length, and also describing a pretend book in some depth is simply not interesting. I got about 15 pages into it, but it was unengaging, and I couldn’t be bothered reading further. There appeared to be no appreciable plot or interesting developments in sight. It’s SF at least, but not interesting SF. **

The Lincoln Train – Maureen F. McHugh
This was a nicely told little tale, set in 1865. It tells of a young woman who was from a slave-owning family being taken by train to the west where her life will be hard. If that doesn’t sound very science fiction-like to you… that’s because it isn’t. In theory, its regarded as science fiction as its alternative history (Lincoln does not die from the assignation attempt on him in this story, but that’s essentially the only difference from real history; Lincoln doesn’t appear). So, for me that’s a very weak claim to be SF, there is absolutely no SF element to it whatsoever other than this, which makes it (rather weakly) a fantasy tale. I can’t rate it that highly accordingly. **½

 

[Bick]

So, a little over half-way through the book - some general thoughts: there are some stories here I really enjoyed, and think are excellent. But I have to say, Dozois' choices for this volume are very inconsistent regarding quality, and I was disappointed that so many of the 'very best SF' stories he selected were not even SF to my mind. I guess our preferences and opinions don't overlap so much so I'll be careful about reading more Dozois volumes in future, though I expect I will read the second half of this at some point.

(Also a minor, perhaps silly point, but one that bothers me slightly: just about every cover of Dozois' anthologies shows a distant planet, or planetary surface, with the suggestion of stories set 'in space', or on extra-terrestrial locations. Except, every single story so far, bar 1, is set on Earth, and many in the present day. Now I'm not saying good SF has to be extra-terrestrial or involve a spaceship , but to have the covers all depicting outer-space and then never go there in the contents is disingenuous. Dozois isn't the only culprit, Strahan's anthologies do the same). Also, I do like stories set in space or on other planets, and none in this anthology are.

 

[Vince W]

I'll have to dig out my copy of Burning Chrome and reread The Winter Market @Bick. I remember enjoying it a lot at the time as it is cyberpunk. I can understand not liking it though as Gibson is famous for jargon and cyberspeak.

Wonderful summaries so far Bick. I look forward to the rest.

 

[Elckerlyc]

(Also a minor, perhaps silly point, but one that bothers me slightly: just about every cover of Dozois' anthologies shows a distant planet, or planetary surface, with the suggestion of stories set 'in space', or on extra-terrestrial locations. Except, every single story so far, bar 1, is set on Earth, and many in the present day.

Generally speaking and in my experience, most covers at best only superficially cover the content.
In this case I suspect that the cover solely functions to signal "SF'. Which in case of a anthology (were SFF stories can fly off in every direction) isn't so surprising.

 

[Extollager]

I've requested this book on interlibrary loan.

You get the Sercon Ace Award for the day, Bick.

 

[Bick]

Thanks for feedback guys. If you get this Extollager, I'll be fascinated to hear if you agree or disagree with my thoughts on different stories. I think if you culled the ones I've given less than, say, ***½ it would be a darned good collection (lack of spaceships and extraterrestrial adventure notwithstanding).

 

[Vince W]

I gave The Winter Market a read today Bick and I can understand your reticence to like this 'story'. I would agree that it really doesn't have a plot in the traditional sense, instead, it reads very much like a cross between a travelogue and experimental poetry. There is a thread of action in there but it's buried under Gibson's famous mixing of brand usage and neojargon. The story could be seen to serve as a testing ground for his later Bridge Trilogy.

While I think your rating is overly severe I wouldn't try to dissuade you from your opinion. It's not Gibson's best story but I would put it at *** myself.

 

[Bick]

Thanks Vince. I think how one might rate Gibson’s story depends very much on one’s tolerance for his style.

 

[Vince W]

Very true.