The Year’s Best Science Fiction
By Gabriel Keough
The year’s best science fiction, is a compilation of short science fiction stories that has had yearly editions edited by Gardner Dozois, starting in 1984, and ending in 2018 with the editor’s death. It has always been highly prized in the science fiction world, with every volume having a great balance of humorous stories, plot twists, and usually some Star Wars like laser battles. It never fails to satisfy, and promises to make you think. He has featured authors such as Ted Chiang, who wrote Stories of your life. And Robert Reed, who constructed the Great Ship universe, which features humanity becoming the dominant species in the galaxies, by finding a ship drifting in space which holds extreme power and knowledge. Dozois’ editing has been complimented by many different critics and companies, such as Booklist, Publishers Review, and Library Journal. “As satisfying as its predecessors…required reading for the genre’s fans.” -Booklist.” “For all libraries, absolutely” -Kirkus Reviews.
Now, enough about the book, let’s hear about the editor, Gardner Dozois. Graduating from Salem high school, (Salem, Massachusetts) in the class of 1965, Dozois served in the army as a journalist. After the army, he moved to New York to edit science fiction. Throughout his career of editing and writing, he won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story twice, and won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor 15 times in 17 years! Stories that he has selected for his annual Best-Of-Year volumes have won, as of December 2015, 44 Hugo awards, 41 Nebulas, 32 Locus awards, and 18 sturgeon awards. This was a man who truly understood what makes a good short story. He is definitely a good recommendation for any of you who enjoy a good short story. Dozois died on May 27, 2018 of an infection.
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Great review!
You convinced me. I gather there are some years more worthy of reading than others, although I note you speak supportively of “every volume.” Do you have a particular year you would recommend, either as a good place to start or as an exemplar of all the rest – a “best of the best?” Is Amazon a good place to pick up back issues?
Good paper
Good
Mr. Durance, I think that Amazon is a great place to pick up issues, but I would recommend just going down to your local library and trying one of the copies they have on the shelves. That way you could know whether or not it would be a good idea to purchase some copies of your own.
Nuh uh lil bro