A review by hinoki
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eleven, Volume 11 by
3.0
I can definitively give this book 2.82/5 stars. I know this because I actually rated every single story, then found the average.
Here's a list of authors that wrote one star stories (some were even DNF to me): Abercrombie, Irvine, McAuley, Sherman, Tidhar, Kiernan. I didn't like stories about aimless space travel, complex descriptions of aliens or robots, or stores that drag (you only have 15-20 pages? How can you still have filler?) Abercrombie's story was next level bad. Was his story accepted just to give the collection some variety?
My favourite stories (5 stars, def will check out their other work) are:
You Make Pattaya by Larson. Some white guy's adventure in Thailand (it gets better but I don't want to give anything away). Takes place some time in the future. I liked how futuristic technology was mentioned in passing but wasn't explained in too much detail.
Fable by C. Yu. A sort of allegory about a guy trying to deal with what's going on in his life. I think I was a little soft on this because it was the last one and I felt bad about only giving 4 5 stars for 28 stories.
Touring with the Alien by Gilman. Out of all the 5 stars this one in the best. An alien invasion story that in no way resembles The War of the Worlds. I liked the slow-ish burn. I loved every character. Seasons of Glass and Iron by El-Mohtar. I really appreciated that this was written as a more "classical" style fairy tale. Yeah there was a part in the middles that was a bit heavy handed, but as a whole I really liked it.
Here's a list of authors that wrote one star stories (some were even DNF to me): Abercrombie, Irvine, McAuley, Sherman, Tidhar, Kiernan. I didn't like stories about aimless space travel, complex descriptions of aliens or robots, or stores that drag (you only have 15-20 pages? How can you still have filler?) Abercrombie's story was next level bad. Was his story accepted just to give the collection some variety?
My favourite stories (5 stars, def will check out their other work) are:
You Make Pattaya by Larson. Some white guy's adventure in Thailand (it gets better but I don't want to give anything away). Takes place some time in the future. I liked how futuristic technology was mentioned in passing but wasn't explained in too much detail.
Fable by C. Yu. A sort of allegory about a guy trying to deal with what's going on in his life. I think I was a little soft on this because it was the last one and I felt bad about only giving 4 5 stars for 28 stories.
Touring with the Alien by Gilman. Out of all the 5 stars this one in the best. An alien invasion story that in no way resembles The War of the Worlds. I liked the slow-ish burn. I loved every character. Seasons of Glass and Iron by El-Mohtar. I really appreciated that this was written as a more "classical" style fairy tale. Yeah there was a part in the middles that was a bit heavy handed, but as a whole I really liked it.