The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY JUN 27, 2016

Legendary science fiction editor Dozois delivers another excellent and provocative annual anthology of the best in the field. Aliette de Bodard, one of several authors whose work appears twice in the collection, explores the dynamics of far future broken families in "Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight" and "The Citadel of Weeping Pearls." Authors find epic adventure on Venus and Mars with Victorian steampunk style in Chaz Brenchley's "The Astrakhan, the Homburg, and the Red Red Coat," rip-roaring frontier outlawry in Michael F. Flynn's "In Panic Town, on the Backward Moon," and Chaucerian intricacy in Ian McDonald's "Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathagan." "Another Word for World" by Ann Leckie and "The Children of Gal" by Allen M. Steele examine colony worlds, and John Kessel's "Consolation" offers a darkly wry future in which New England and the West Coast states have become part of Canada. "The Game of Smash and Recovery," by Kelly Link, "The First Gate of Logic" by Benjamin Rosenbaum, and Kelly Robson's chilling "The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill" explore inhuman perspectives. Dozois is always reliable, and his latest annual is a particularly excellent and illuminating examination of the depth and breadth of current science fiction.