Jonathan Strahan “The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of
the Year Volume 10” (Solaris, 2016)
Fanlore says that once upon a time fen were able to read all
the fiction published in a year. Sounds ridiculous,
right? Obviously that’s impossible now.
It seems like there’s fiction everywhere. And even if we throw cost out
the window – because there are a bunch of free publishers online – you still
couldn’t read all the short fiction!
There’s just not enough time.
That’s why these “best of the year” anthologies are so
great. I don’t have to read
everything. I can read whatever catches
my crow eye, & then catch up with a couple of these BOY books.
And this book brings the goods. Massive authors – Neil Gaiman, Kim Stanley
Robinson, Caitlyn R Kiernan, Kai Ashante Williams, Alyssa Wong, Kelly Link,
Geoff Ryman, Nalo Hopkinson, et al! There's a wide variety of styles to the
stories from traditional riffs on SF themes & problems to fantasy and
horrific tales.
Did I love all of it? No.
But that’s not my expectation. My
expectation is that I’m presented with well written stories by authors that
would be read. These are the sorts of stories that are involved in the genre
dialogue. Even the ones I didn’t love, I
did not regret reading.
My feeling upon completion is that 2015 was a good year for
short fiction. Not only were there
plenty of young authors working in the form, but well established authors had
things to say as well.
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