Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection Book

Here's the Best SF review, which is detailed, lengthy and impressive:
Mark Watson was doing an impressive job of keeping up with all the Year's Best anthologies then, and this will be my guide and memory-aid here.

And Alytha's review here is equally long and detailed:

As usual, I've previously read a fair number of these stories elsewhere. And my library copy is seriously overdue. So, here's what I have. I'll check it out again (sometime, maybe) and read some more. Links provided when I could find them. Notes added for a partial reread in early 2021.

Special callout to "Every Hole Is Outlined," a wonderful novelette by John Barnes. This one is an easy 5-stars for me: it's a love story (of sorts), a captain's biography and the story of a far-future relativistic interstellar freighter, her odd crew, and the increasingly strange galactic society that her crew barely understands. A shining example of why I keep reading this stuff, and I doubt that many of you have seen it. Enjoy!

I've also starred [*] stories of special merit, in the list that follows. Maybe this time (2021) I'll get to the ones I missed in 2018.

• I, Row-Boat • novelette by Cory Doctorow. Previously read. Cool story: 2021: didn't hold up to reread well. DNF
• Julian: A Christmas Story • novella by Robert Charles Wilson
• Tin Marsh • novelette by Michael Swanwick. This is a good story, and memorable for me, in that I helped Swanwick get the mining stuff right. 3.5 stars.
• The Djinn's Wife • [India 2047] • novelette by Ian McDonald. 3 stars. Previousy read.
• The House Beyond Your Sky • short story by Benjamin Rosenbaum. Online at
Story notes (SPOILERS): 4 stars?
• Where the Golden Apples Grow • [Mars (Kage Baker)] • novella by Kage Baker. Previousy read, partial reread. Weak 3 stars.
• Kin • short story by Bruce McAllister.
• Signal to Noise • novelette by Alastair Reynolds. Alt-universe romance, kinda sorta. 2.5 stars.
* The Big Ice • short story by Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold. 2021: Easy 5 stars, and a freebie to boot! Superwoman meets Alien! Don't miss. Really!
• Bow Shock • novelette by Gregory Benford. Read, OK+
251 • In the River • short story by Justin Stanchfield
* Incarnation Day • novella by Walter Jon Williams. WJW's brilliant pastiche of a Heinlein juvenile, updated for the 21st century. Easy 5 stars. Full review here:
• Far As You Can Go • short story by Greg van Eekhout
• Good Mountain • novella by Robert Reed. Very odd world. Not reread.
• I Hold My Father's Paws • short story by David D. Levine.
• Dead Men Walking • [The Quiet War] • novelette by Paul J. McAuley.
374 • Home Movies • novelette by Mary Rosenblum. Read prior, I think.
395 • Damascus • novelette by Daryl Gregory.
• Life on the Preservation • short story by Jack Skillingstead. One day in a future Seattle. Cute.
• Yellow Card Man • [The Windup Universe] • novelette by Paolo Bacigalupi. Prev. read, I HATED it.
• Riding the Crocodile • (2005) • novella by Greg Egan. Prev. read, strong story. 4 stars?
492 • The Ile of Dogges • short story by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
• The Highway Men • novelette by Ken MacLeod. First-rate Scots post-apocalypse. One of his better shorts. 4+ stars. Good review:
524 • The Pacific Mystery • novelette by Stephen Baxter
540 • Okanoggan Falls • novelette by Carolyn Ives Gilman
566 • Every Hole Is Outlined • novelette by John Barnes. 5 stars! See lede.
589 • The Town on Blighted Sea • short story by A. M. Dellamonica. After the war. We lost, and ended up in a refugee camp. 4 stars for writing and extrapolation. Zero for fun. Yuck. YMMV.
606 • Nightingale • [Revelation Space] • novella by Alastair Reynolds. Another postwar story, this one about an effort to capture a war criminal, who's hiding out in a spooky, hidden hospital ship. It went on & on, getting grosser & grosser, until I gave up. DNF. Not for me!

I think I've checked all the stories for valid links to online copies. Please add others if you find them.

Veeery long and detailed review! :)


I, Row-Boat, by Cory Doctorow. Probably the first science fiction story about scuba-diving that I've read. The pun in the title is to be taken literally too. In the far future, Earth is a protected nature reserve. Humans have long ago uploaded their consciousnesses to the internet, and all kinds of things have become conscious and sentient. Robbie the row-boat is just taking people who have downloaded into human-shells to go diving on a reef, as usual, when it becomes apparent that the reef has achieved sentience, and started to communicate with the internet. And it is not happy about having people poke around on it. A really interesting story. I guess the subject matter arises from itself once you come up with the titular pun, but still...also contains lots of philosophical discussion on Asimovism, a religion of AIs. 8/10
Julian, A Christmas Story, by Robert Charles Wilson: In a different and not that far future, mankind has regressed to a vaguely 19th century lifestyle du to fossile sources of energy running out. The knowledge of these times is regarded as myth, and society is ruled by the church. Two young men from very different sociological backgrounds try to find their way in life, in politically troubled times. An OK story, but not terribly interesting or groundbreaking. 6/10
Tin Marsh, by Michael Swanwick: Mr Swanwick is one of my absolutely favourite authors, and deserves much more attention than he seems to get. In this story, two prospectors on Venus looking for valuable metals get very bad cabin fever (or space-suit fever?) being stuck out there, with only themselves for company, for months. They find out that you can get to know somebody too well, and that that somebody then probably will try to kill you. a nice little psychological thriller set in the desolate landscape of Venus. 8.5/10
The Djinn's Wife, by Ian McDonald: Set in the same world as his novel River of Gods, ie, India in the near future, populated by all kinds of aeai's (AIs). A young dancer falls in love with a suave AI diplomat, and in a fit of entitlement issues, decides to marry him in order to get some attention. At first, they have a really good time as the superstars of the moment, but soon she notices that her world is shrinking inwards towards a not quite real husband, and her art, while he, as an AI, can be everywhere at the same time...it gets worse from there. The story is told by the dancer's daughter, who may or may not be the daughter of the AI. Considering all the other things he can do, stimulating an egg to divide shouldn't be that far out. And there are some clues...I really like the rich world of River of Gods, and this is a good story about being careful what you wish for. 9/10
The House Beyond Your Sky, by Benjamin Rosenbaum: I honestly have no idea what this story is supposed to be about. Nor what the author smoked while writing it. 5/10
Where the Golden Apples Grow by Kage Baker: unfortunately I only discovered Kage Baker's work after her death. Her two fantasy novels, The Anvil of the World, and House of the Stag are really good and should definetely by read. The story here is about two boys born on Mars, one as the son of a trucker, the other into a family of farmers. Both find that the grass is greener on the other side, and that their life as it is sucks quite badly. When fate throws them together, they both get to know the other side, and prepare to make some major changes in their life. A good story, which looks at both sides pretty realistically. On the other hand, how often does the grass actually remain greener on the other side once you get there? Maybe you'd have to be an idealistic teenager. And maybe that wouldn't be all that bad...7.5/10
Kin by Bruce McAllister. In yet another far future, Earth has made contact with various alien species, one of which specialises in assassinations. And then there is a corrupt government, and a young boy who is not going to take that without a fight. And despite being physically as different as they could possibly be, the boy and the alien assassin find out that they're not that different in mind after all. Pretty solid but not overly spectacular story. 6.5/10
Signal to Noise by Alastair Reynolds: A couple of scientists have established contact with a parallel and identical dimension, when the estranged wife of one of them dies in a freak accident. It turns out that at that moment, the dimensions start diverging, as in the other one, Andrea didn't die. In a last desperate attempt to seek redemption for himself and the mistakes he made in his relationship, Mick travels to the other universe, or rather, takes over the body of the other Mick for a week. The whole thing is morally a bit awkward. The Andrea on the other side is not his wife, technically, and in no way has a duty towards him, especially as their counterparts were getting a divorce anyway. It's basically just something Mick does in order to make himself feel better, and as Andrea is a really nice person, she plays along, although she feels pretty miserable about it. might be a bit of a waste, using the first contact to another dimension for that kind of thing. Also, the description of the decay of the signal between the dimensions, and the ensuing gradual loss of senses; touch, hearing, vision, is one of the creepiest things I've ever read. 8/10
The Big Ice by Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold: Unfortunately not set in the "Flowers" universe, but still really good. A young woman is just trying to life her own life as a scientist on a distant planet when her past as a highly bio-engineered pawn of a noble house catches up with her. Fighting for her life, she finds support from an unforeseen source, deep beneath a glacier. Good story about dealing with your inheritance, whether you want to or not, and how to escape it in a rather interesting manner. 9/10
Bow Shock by Gregory Benford: An astronomer finds a weird asteroid and travks it for awhile, until he finds something even weirder. This is what happens when physicists try to write fiction...up to the last couple of pages, this is not science fiction, but just astronomy with a bit of the glamorous life of an astronomer with literary aspirations thrown in. Once it gets interesting, it's over. Even though it has illustrations. It should have started about two thirds in, and dealt with what happened after. Good idea, but extremely dry and pretty boring execution for the most part. 4.5/10
In the River by Justin Stanchfield: A scientist is biologically modified in order to be able to communicate with a species of water-dwelling aliens, and travel with them for a while to find out more about their maths and science. After a short time, she goes native, and when she has to be taken out of the River again because her implants are starting to break up, she finds coming home very hard. A good story about the meaning of home and the people you belong to, and that you sometimes find them in unforeseen places. 8.5/10
Incarnation Day by Walter Jon Williams. Out on the moons of the gas giants, resources are scarce, so children are brought up in cyberspace, and only incarnated after they've grown up and got the skills to get a job and be a useful member of society. Until then, they are the property of their parents, who can send the Blue Lady (not to be confused with the Blue Fairy, who does the opposite), to terminate their programm if they're not satisfactory. This way of growing up of course leads to various mental illnesses being very common out there, but pretty much ignored, until one young programm child dares to take on the system, enttailing the risk of getting herself terminated as her actions are very much against the ideas of her frustrated and very technologically-oriented mother. Really interesting premise, and good execution. 8.5/10
Far As You Can Go by Greg Van Eekhout: a young boy and his robot friend leave a post-apocalyptic city to look for a better life at the beach, and have some adventures on the way. Solid story about friendship and growing up, coupled with a bit of post-apocalypse. Solid but not terribly exciting. 7/10
Good Mountain by Robert Reed: The world is made of living island, which travel around the ocean, until they eventually hit the Continent, and stick to it. Thus, the Continent gets ever bigger. Public transport is done by worm (as in, inside the living worm, which even has windows), and everybody has mockmen slaves, who seem to be like humans but bred to be barely intelligent enough to perform tasks. Now, as the Continent gets bigger and bigger, it traps rising bubbles of methane gas rising from the ocean under it, which leads to explosive blow-outs, which can devastate whole islands at a time, as they're basically made of living wood. Currently, these blow-outs get progressively worse, and the whole Continent is going up in flames. On the last worm, a group of travellers is racing ahead of the flames, trying to reach the coast and a ship to outlying islands. However, a young woman on the worm claims to be a scientist exploring a crashed alien space ship near a station nor far ahead. She claims to have discovered that the passengers of that ship seeded life on the planet, and were themselves the ancestors of the worms, and technologically extremely advanced. She proposes to lead the other travellers to the ship to sit out the blaze. However, the worm driver claims that she is very often on his route, and takes a young man along every time to have a look at the spaceship. And they're never seen again...A really really bizarre world, with references to Dan Simmons' Hyperion cycle, and Dune. The end of the story is not really clear on the woman's claim. It all depends on how you see the worm driver. On the one hand, he does have a long experience about what's happening, or rather not happening, near the stations. And he has no reason to lie about her and the other men. However, he seems very preoccupied by his worm, and getting away from the place is very much in his own interest. And the girl's story is really plausible...9/10

I Hold My Father's Paws by David D. Levine: A tale about what it means to be family, and to what extremes some people go to get rid of theirs, but in the end come back. To be rather more concrete, a young man finds out that his estranged father is undergoing a series of surgeries to turn himself into a dog, and decides to forget all the years of abandonment and go talk to him one last time. And thus, loses a father but gains a loyal companion. Very bizarre, but you can't help understanding the father's motivations. Being a human is just terrible sometimes, all the thoughts and worries and responsibilites...being a pet must be much nicer and more carefree. Personally, I'd go for cat though. 9/10
Dead Men Walking by Paul J Mcauley: An artificially grown super-assassin goes rogue after completing his mission, and having found that he actually enjoys life. However, one day his past catches up with him, and altruism doesn't go unpunished. Pretty solid average story about the meaning of being a real person. 6.5/10
Home Movies by Mary Rosenblum: Kayla is a chameleon, a person employed to go places on behalf of other people, and to record memories which will then be extracted and sold to the client, while she forgets everything. Her latest contract sends her to a wedding of members of powerful families, where she is instructed to pay special attention to a young man, who turns out to be quite attractive. And little by little, she finds out that on this job, not everything is what it seems...I really liked this one, it has some very interesting ideas, and an exploration of what morals mean in the high-tech age. 8.5/10
Damascus bx Daryl Gregory: A harrassed single mother is being taken into the circle of a group of strange women, who constantly insist on feeding her...and suddenly, she has a visit of Christ in the shape of Kurt Cobain, which is nice for her, and also heavy seizures, which isn't. The outcome has two very different meanings for two different groups of people: to most of society, Paula and the sisters are suffering from the mental consequences of conracting Kuru through eating infected human blood. To them, however, they are a sacred sisterhood that brings Christ to people through the communion of blood. Unfortunately, they all end up crippled and dying horribly. It's not quite clear within the universe of the story, which version is true, if any. Very creepy story about the evils of religion and eating people. Doubly disturbing if you think about the fact that Christians believe that they comsume Christ's flesh and blood at communion...9/10
Life on the Preservation by Jack Skillingstead: In the far future, evil elements have trapped the city of Seattle in a timeloop of an endlessly repeating 9th November 2004 for timetravelling tourists to visit, while the world outside is quite postapocalyptic. A young woman called Kylie (in the real world, are there actually any other Kylies apart from Ms Minogue and the little girls named after her?), who is sent by the Resistance to destroy the time-loop gizmo and return Seattle to the normal timestream. On her mission though, she meets a nice young man called Toby, and suddenly, the early 21st century has some nice amenities if you're used to the world after the end...Quite liked this one, although, of course, Kylie fails, but at least she'll have a good day. Over and over and over again..8/10
Yellow Card Man by Paolo Bacigalupi: set either before The Windup Girl, or as an earlier draft idea of the novel, with mostly the same characters drifting through a postapocalyptic Bangkok and complaining about bloody foreigners. The protagonist is Tranh, the unpleasant Chinese immigrant, whose total lack of any kind of redeeming character traits, as well as the complete lack of any kind of magnificent bastard attributes makes me wonder why I should care about him. And if I'm not supposed to care about him, what kind of masochist, exhibitionistic monster is the author? Still, the story is marginally more coherent than that of The Windup Girl, although that's not saying much. 3/10
Riding the Crocodile by Greg Egan: In the far future (again), the disk of the Milky Way has been colonised, people are more or less immortal, and can get themselves beamed about as datastream. The last big secret is the core of the galaxy, which is inhabited by the so-called Aloof, who refuse to be contacted or explored, and nicely return probes in perfect condition, but without any data. Leila and Jasim have been married for millenia, have raised kids, travelled and researched, and now they think they've seen it all, and look for one last thrill, before ending their existence. What better than to finally discover the truth about the mysterious Aloof? Good story about life and love in the high-tech age, where millenia pass in the blink of an eye while you're in transit, and almost everything that is possible has been done, and the quest to find meaning in these circumstances. 8.5/10
The Ile of Dogges, by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette: One night, Lord Tylney, Queen Elizabeth I's censor, about to destroy an inacceptable play by Jonson and Nashe, receives a visit from a timetravelling historian with a digicam...The first part is actually true. The second, unfortunately not. For Elizabeth Bear, going from Shakespeare and fairies to Jonson and timetravellers is not all that far. Really nice story with a nice little twist in the end. 9.5/10
The Highway Men by Ken MacLeod: Years ago, a misunderstanding started a war all across the Middle East up to China, the extend of which accelerated climate change, with the poles thawing, and Scotland freezing solid. A group of Highwaymen (the nice kind) find a group of hippies trying to make a living in the desolate hills, and there are more misunderstandings...Ok story, but not terribly exciting. 6.5/10
The Pacific Mystery by Stephen Baxter: In a parallel universe, Germany won the Second World War pretty much before it really got going, but that is really just the background here, as the story is set on a German flying battleship, the Goering. One of the reasons for the Germans' win is that in this world, the Pacific has never been crossed, neither by plane nor by ship, so that Pearl Harbour never happened, and the US were less interested in joining the fun. Now, the Goering is out to explore the Pacific Mystery, and reach the US from the Chinese coast. However, one year in, they've still not reached land again...the only thing they find from time to time are islands populated by ancient life-forms, starting with mammoths and neanderthals, and going back in time further and further as they go east...really really insane worldbuilding, and a very good story. 9.5/10
Okanoggan Falls by Carolyn Ives Gilman: Earth has been conquered by the alien Wattesoons, who in general are not too bad as alien overlords come. However, they decide to strip-mine a couple of small towns in Wisconsin for limestone. While riots break out in the other towns, the wife of the mayor of Okanoggan Falls has her own plans to make the alien Captain change his mind...with rather unforeseen results. Really enjoyed this one, as it gives a very different, lighter but still serious take on alien invasions. Poor Wattesoon women though...first they get the man of their dreams, and then they die. They should really work on that. 9/10
Every Hole is Outlined by John Barnes: I went to uni with a John Barnes, but I kinda doubt it was this one...anyway, another story set in the far future, where mankind is spread so far across the galaxy that travelling takes centuries, so that ship's crews become very tight and separated communities, where each member has to be replaced through careful processes when they die. Thus, the young slave Xhrina is bought (and immediately released from slavery) to replace the ship mathematician's wife. Soon, she discovers, that on certain dates important to the crew, the ghosts of dead crewmembers can be seen in the opsball. Interesting combination between hard sci-fi and spirituality. 9/10
The Town on the Blighted Sea by A.M. Dellamonica: an alien race has taken pity on one side of a civil war on Earth, and granted the survivors sanctuary on their planet. However, the aliens aren't always as nice as they could be, and nasty things happen, and have to be cleaned up. OK story without much of an impact. 6/10
Nightingale by Alastair Reynolds: A group of specialists is send to retrieve a wanted war criminal from the hulk of a former hospital spaceship. However, the ship's AI has suffered quite a bit from the role it had to play during the war, and has its own ideas about this mission, and dealing with war criminals. It also believes in war memorials to scare people off the idea. Body horror ensues. Creepy verging on horrifying, although the ship's intentions are quite understandable. 7/10.

All in all, one of the highest quality short story collections I've come across. 2007 seems to have been a good year ;)