This Is Going To Take A While

As threatened promised last time, I have started alternating novels with Clarke's "Year's Best Science Fiction" collections. The Year's Best collections tend to be a pretty hefty amount of reading - 1x/year was enough when I was reading Dozois's Year's Best.

Several years ago, I got a BookBub deal (prolly $1.99) on the 1st edition of Clarke's Year's Best, 2015 (published in 2016), & the 3rd edition, 2017. I think I paid $7.99 for the 2nd edition. So 2 of those are in this post (1 & 2), plus 3 novels. If I do 2 of these a month, it will take me 4ish months to get current with these. At that point, maybe I will read something non-SFF.

Next up to read, Clarke's Year's Best, 3rd edition, 2017 (published in 2018). 2018 was the year the 35th & last "Year's Best Science Fiction", by Gardner Dozois was published. So that will complete the handoff. Clarke's 4th edition in 2019 will have Clarke carrying the torch.

Note, there are 2/3 other Year's Best SF(F) collections currently being published. I am going to stick with Clarke.

The Dozois Year's Best I greatly enjoyed for 3.5 decades. Here's a post talking the 2015 Year's Best. I purchased all of these in hardback when possible else the trade paperback. I am currently missing editions 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 19. In the 2015 post I was missing 4 more, but i picked up editions 6, 7, 11, & 18 at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR - incredible bookstore. Here's what the collection looks like now:

The bottom shelf is all Dozois, plus the 2nd shelf from the left to the pale green volume, which is "Very Best of the Best" or some such, which may have been published posthumously. I count 29 volumes, which = 35 total - 6 missing, so it all adds up.

Meanwhile, 5 books:

1. "The Downloaded", Robert J. Sawyer, 2024, 169 pages, 52k words. Almost novella length? Apparently this was originally a multi-episode audio book before the print version came out.

   I read some of Sawyer's stuff a couple of decades ago and liked it pretty well. The main premise of the book seems way unlikely - a quantum computer is used for the uploads of a group of astronauts going to another star - and a group of convicts sentenced to life. Seriously? So there's plot, yak, yak, yak, an OK conclusion, not a bad read.

2. "The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 1", Neil Clarke, 2016, 512 pages, 249k words, 31 stories. Seems odd to be taking the time machine back to 2016. I think coming through these in order will hopefully let me identify trending authors. Several of these stories I had already read in other collections, enough time had passed that the rereads were enjoyable.

   A very good collection, not a bad story. Odd, though. The story from the collection that really stuck with me was by Seth Dickerson, of "The Traitor Baru Cormorant", & "The Monster Baru ...", & "The Tyrant Baru ...". I had kind of decided I really didn't like his stuff - too depressing. I have his latest novel, and had tentatively concluded that it would never make it to the top of the "to read" stack.

   The story that stuck is titled "Three Bodies at Mitanni". Here's a sample of the subject matter:

   The most efficient, survivable form of human civilization is a civilization of philosophical zombies.

   A story heavily dealing with morality, I think. Reminiscent of Lucius Shepard in the early Dozois', and Bruce Sterling.

3. "Service Model", Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2024, 367 pages, 113k words. My current fav new SF author. Very prolific. This is a WALL-E type whimsical servant android trying to find meaning in its life after all the humans are gone. Very silly at times, cartoonish, but, an easy and enjoyable read.

4. "Best Science Fiction Of The Year", by Neil Clark, 2017, 608 pages, 256k words, 27 stories. I dislike how Kobo has done the metadata of this book. The book cover has the title as "The Best Science Fiction of the Year" "edited by Neil Clarke", with "Volume 2", with the 2 in a red circle, in the upper right corner. The ebook listing, you have to open and dig around to figure out that this is indeed Volume 2. Plz do better, Kobo.

   I flagged several passages I liked as I was reading the book. Reviewing them for this post, this 1 seems to be a keeper:

   It’s funny how people adjust. The world was going through changes that, before they happened, would have been thought of as mind-boggling, world-shattering, unfathomable. And yet life just went on, the way it does. In years past, people had adjusted to the notion that humanity might be wiped out by a couple of psychotic button-presses. People had adjusted to living in the midst of bubonic plague, to having their cities bombed every night, to being ruled by lunatic, murderous despots. If people could adjust to those things, they could adjust to a life of no war, no disease, and unearned abundance.

   From "They Have All One Breath", by Karl Bunker, who I will definitely keep an eye on. The story is about what kind of *topia comes about after benevolent AIs assume control of planet Earth, down to micromanaging and eliminating all aggressive behavior, even into the animals.

   Here's another. From "Number Nine Moon", by Alex Irvine, a nice piece of Martian astronomy:

   Phobos was rising, big and bright. Sometimes sunlight hit Phobos a certain way and the big impact crater on its planet-facing side caught the shadows just right, and for an hour or so there was a giant number 9 in the Martian sky. Steuby wasn’t superstitious, but when he saw that, he understood how people got that way.

5. "Invasive", by Chuck Wendig, 2016, 328 pages, 92k words. I haven't been dreaming much lately. Last night I dreamt of ... ants swarming in my kitchen!

   We just got down to Naples, FL Saturday. Monday am, someone from our pest control company is at the front door. She sed they had treated for ants recently & were following up to make sure everything was OK. We occasionally get ghost ants - little tiny, like a spec of dust. The pest people put out bait, it gets carried back to the nest, ants gone. But, I'd seen no ants, so no problem.

   But, at the same time, I was reading "Invasive". The plot: evil mad geniuses bioengineer Frankenstein (components from many different species) ants who use their fatal stings to kill humans & harvest their skin for the fungus Candida Albicans - like leafcutter ants. Ant swarms occurred pretty frequently in "Invasive". So I think it deserves some credit for my ant nightmare dream.

   Wendig's stuff continues to impress me. Well plotted, interesting & engaging characters, whimsical, bittersweet.

The Unread shelf in the Kobo app on my iPad is at 144 books. LOL, I just DON'T seem to be catching up!