Thursday, December 4, 2014

Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2014 Review

Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2014

Rich Horton

Diamond Book Distributors

Pub Date: Jun 10 2014

4/5 Stars

 

         So I always have some trouble with anthologies; I should probably be used to reviewing them by now.  But I haven’t gotten there quite yet.  But here we go…

          There are plenty of cool stories in this collection but here are my favorites, in no particular order:

                  A Stranger from a Foreign Ship, Tom Purdom

                  Effigy Nights, Yoon Ha Lee

                  Rosary and Goldenstar, Geoff Ryman

                  The Bee Her Heart, The Hive Her Belly. Benjanun Sriduangkaew

                  Dragonslayer of Merebarton, K.J.Parker

                  Loss, with Chalk Diagrams. E.Lily Yu

                  They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass, Alaya Dawn Johnson

                  A Window or a Small Box, Jedediah Berry

                  Live Arcade, Erik Amundsen

                  Found, Alex Dally MacFarlane

                  A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel, Ken Liu

                  It’s the End of the World as We Know It, and We Feel Fine, Harry Turtledove

                  The Dead Sea-Bottom Scrolls, Howard Waldrop

                  Out in the Dark, Linda Nagata

                  On the Origin of Song, Naim Kabir

                  Town’s End, Yukimi Ogawa

                  The Discovered Country, Ian R. MacLeod

 

               What I found so exciting and interesting about most of these stories is that they are so original, different from most of what is out there right now.  I also found the fact that the best stories are written by authors who have only written short stories or at least are only famous for writing short stories.  Some of the stories are seeming, at least to me, a tipping off point for any number of novels.  I’m kind of amazed that NONE of the authors that had my most favorite stories had never written in the longer form.  But perhaps that’s why these stories were so well crafted and interesting.  I would certainly recommend that anyone with a descent amount time, picks up these short story collection.

 

 

 

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