THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION
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Reviewed by Steven H Silver
Once again, Gardner Dozois has dipped into the pages of the science fiction magazines and anthologies of the last year in order to give the reader an amazing glimpse into the world of modern science fiction. For readers familiar with Dozois's anthologies and the field of science fiction, the collection remains at Dozois's high standards, providing an overview of the field and a selection of stories which demonstrate how broad the definition of science fiction can be. For people with only a casual interest in science fiction or who think the genre is simply "that Buck Rogers stuff," Dozois's collection is an eye-opening and enlightening work.
Judging from Dozois's selection, the hot new subgenre seems to be stories which are time-related. Several of the stories deal with time or parallel universes, ranging from James Patrick Kelly's "1016 to One," which tells the story of a young boy who meets a time traveler on the verge of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 to Kage Baker's "Son Observe the Time," a story set in the world of "the Company" about a group trying to preserve treasures believed lost during the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.
Of course, not all of the stories in this year's collection fall into this sub-category, and there are a wide variety of stories so all readers will be able to find at least one story which they would expect to enjoy. Just as Asimov's, the magazine Dozois edits, features stories which range from hard science fiction to stories bordering on fantasy, so, too, does The Year's Best Science Fiction 17. Representing the thirtieth anniversary of the first lunar landing, several of the stories are reprinted from Robert Crowther's Moon Shots, an anthology of Moon-related tales. Constance Ash's anthology Not of Woman Born is also represented by two stories.
Most of the works, however, come from the major science fiction magazines, which may be an indicator of the strengths of those magazines, but may also be seen as a weakness of other outlets for science fiction. The question shouldn't be whether science fiction is dying, perhaps, but whether or not it has really managed to break out of the ghetto.
Once again, Dozois has managed to encapsulate not only the year in fiction, but also the year in the business of science fiction. His position as the editor of Asimov's gives him an insight into the types of stories being written in addition to the stories being published.
| Author | Story |
| David Marusek | The Wedding Album  |
| James Patrick Kelly | 1016 to One  |
| Robert Reed | Winemaster |
| Alastair Reynolds | Galactic North |
| Eleanor Arnason | Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance |
| Stephen Baxter | People Came from Earth |
| Richard Wadholm | Green Tea |
| Karl Schroeder | The Dragon of Pripyat |
| Chris Lawson | Written in Blood |
| Frederik Pohl | Hatching the Phoenix |
| M. John Harrison | Suicide Coast |
| Sage Walker | Hunting Mother |
| Ben Bova | Mount Olympus |
| Greg Egan | Border Guards |
| Michael Swanwick | Scherzo with Tyrannosaur |
| Robert Silverberg | A Hero of the Empire |
| Paul J. McAuley | How We Lost the Moon, A True Story by Frank W. Allen |
| Charles Sheffield | Phallicide |
| Walter Jon Williams | Daddy's World |
| Kim Stanley Robinson | A Martian Romance |
| Tanith Lee | The Sky-Green Blues |
| Hal Clement | Exchange Rate |
| Geoff Ryman | Everywhere |
| Mike Resnick | Hothouse Flowers |
| Sean Williams | Evermore |
| Robert Grossbach | Of Scorned Women and Causal Loops |
| Kage Baker | Son Observe the Time |
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