A review by gatspender
The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 27 by Gardner Dozois
3.0
Evidently this wasn't a great year for short form SF. Dozois presents us the usual broad selection, with the usual poor copy editing (lots of errors, I can only assume the anthology was compiled in a hurry). I'm partly writing this review as a prompt for myself, as I think there's little here that i'll remember a month from now.
The good:
“A Heap of Broken Images” by Sunny Moraine. How we deal with (or not) the grim events of the past is an interesting subject. How an alien culture might do it is fascinating.
“One” by Nancy Kress. Something different! There are so few SF stories centering around complicated, fleshed-out working class characters in a (more or less) contemporary setting. There are two Kress stories in this volume, both actually quite similar. This is the better one.
“Fleet” by Sandra McDonald. I don't normally like post-apocalyptic fiction, but this is strange enough a setting to feel fresh.
The bad:
“Murder on the Aldrin Express” by Martin L. Shoemaker. Dull, dated story. It could have been written 40 years ago save for the odd reference to nanotechnology.
“The She-Wolf’s Hidden Grin” by Michael Swanwick. Well enough written but just a little too sparse, like a novella stripped down to short story length. Miserable as hell, too.
The peculiar:
“The Irish Astronaut” by Val Nolan. I think the word is "lyrical". A good piece but I wouldn't classify it as science fiction purely because it's about an astronaut. They really exist! This was included, I suspect, to add some literary cred.
The good:
“A Heap of Broken Images” by Sunny Moraine. How we deal with (or not) the grim events of the past is an interesting subject. How an alien culture might do it is fascinating.
“One” by Nancy Kress. Something different! There are so few SF stories centering around complicated, fleshed-out working class characters in a (more or less) contemporary setting. There are two Kress stories in this volume, both actually quite similar. This is the better one.
“Fleet” by Sandra McDonald. I don't normally like post-apocalyptic fiction, but this is strange enough a setting to feel fresh.
The bad:
“Murder on the Aldrin Express” by Martin L. Shoemaker. Dull, dated story. It could have been written 40 years ago save for the odd reference to nanotechnology.
“The She-Wolf’s Hidden Grin” by Michael Swanwick. Well enough written but just a little too sparse, like a novella stripped down to short story length. Miserable as hell, too.
The peculiar:
“The Irish Astronaut” by Val Nolan. I think the word is "lyrical". A good piece but I wouldn't classify it as science fiction purely because it's about an astronaut. They really exist! This was included, I suspect, to add some literary cred.