Customer Reviews

Anthologies don't get better than this - By: Ed F, 03 Nov 2008
As per usual a stunning collection of short Science Fiction complied by, well to me, the editor par excellence, Gardner Dozois.

I can't recommend this collection highly enough, to me its annual publication is *the* science fiction event of the year & I greatly look forward to it. This edition comprises thirty three excellent short stories from authors like Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, Neal Asher & Robert Reed (plus loads more). The stories range from a tale about a millennia old pan-galactic conflict, dimension jumping steam-punk zeppelins, a very dangerous & unusual artefact on Titan, Eastern European nanotech & an extremely moving, bleak & very English view of the last days of the universe. In addition to the stories, as usual Gardner Dozois summarises Science Fictionin general over the last year, which I find as engrossing as the collected fiction.

A word of warning, I found Stephen Baxter's tale "last contact" both excellently written & moving but also profoundly depressing; with the lines (and minor spoiler).

"'After lunch the kids went for their nap. Bill put their pillsin their lemonade'.
Maureen knew she meant the little blue pills the NHS had given out to every household.
`Bill lay down with them. He said he was going to wait with them until he was sure - you know. That they wouldn't wake up, & be distressed. Then he was going to take his own pill'"

Affecting me more than any prose I've read this year. I greatly enjoy Stephen Baxter's writing but sometimes wish that he didn't write so often about the end of the world or that he wasn't so horribly effectivein making it seem like a real human tragedy rather than merely another narrative device.