The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (Year's Best Science Fiction)
This venerable annual’s twenty-fifth edition represents a milestone for editor Dozois. He has kept faith with the series for a quarter-century without ever shortchanging, or even showing any signs of shortchanging, readers on either quality or abundance of selections. The current volume includes the usual mix of veterans and newcomers, from Robert Silverberg, Bruce Sterling, and Nancy Kress in the former category, to David Moles, Una McCormack, and Chris Roberson in the latter. With his keen eye for cutting-edge ideas, Dozois showcases tales about airborne cities, terraforming Mars, and alternate universes and generally guarantees that we will read all 32 mind-bending stories. Neal Asher’s “Alien Archeology” follows a futuristic Indiana Jones into hostile extraterrestrial space to recover a stolen artifact. In Stephen Baxter’s “Last Contact”, a mother and daughter bond for the last time before the universe ends in a Big Rip. Again as usual, Dozois supplements the collection with his customary literate “state of the genre” summation and provides illuminating introductions to each author. --Carl Hays