Year's Best Science Fiction 02 # 1985

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The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection for 1984 pub in 1985This collection is the second installment in the popular and long-running "The Year's Best Science Fiction" series:Fantastic Science Fiction!The Year's Best -- And Biggest CollectionHere's the cream of the crop: short stories, novelettes, novellas by science fiction writers already famous and awarded for their high-quality work in science fiction.  Dozois's Year's Best, like any successful representative of a large constituency, sometimes suffers from blandness and inconsistency. As usual, it's oversized?23 stories, nearly 600 pages?and includes a variety of types of SF as well as near-horror, fantasy and humor. Five of the stories are final nominees for Nebulas, and two new "Hainish" stories by Ursula LeGuin were nominated for Tiptree Awards; "The Matter of Segrri" won. No story here is less than competent and professional; but, with a few exceptions, there is a voiceless sameness in the writing, practically a house style, that over so many pages grows tedious. (Nearly half the stories, by page count, come from the Dozois-edited Asimov's Science Fiction.) A number are flawed ("hard" SF stories about "aliens" that think just like humans) or unremarkable, but these are outweighed by many fine pieces and by standouts such as LeGuin's "Forgiveness Day," perhaps the best story in the book; Eliot Fintushel's "New Wave"-like "Ylem"; William Sanders's "Going After Old Man Alabama" and Terry Bisson's "The Hole in the Hole," both of which are winning and funny; Katherine Kerr's chilling "Asylum"; and Michael Bishop's grand and humane "Cri de Coeur." Dozois's intelligently and ably put-together anthology does its stated job as well as any one book or editor could. Even with competition, it would still be the best of the Best. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. Summation: 1984 • Gardner Dozois Salvador • Lucius Shepard Promises to Keep • Jack McDevitt Bloodchild • Octavia E. Butler Blued Moon • Connie Willis A Message to the King of Brobdingnag • Richard Cowper The Affair • Robert Silverberg PRESS ENTER [] • John Varley New Rose Hotel • William Gibson The Map • Gene Wolfe Interlocking Pieces • Molly GlossTrojan Horse • Michael Swanwick Bad Medicine • Jack DannAt the Embassy Club • Elizabeth A. Lynn Pursuit of Excellence • Rena Yount The Kindly Isle • Frederik Pohl Rock On • Pat Cadigan Sunken Gardens [Mechanist-Shapers] • Bruce SterlingTrinity • Nancy Kress The Trouble with the Cotton People • Ursula K. Le Guin Twilight Time • Lewis ShinerBlack Coral • Lucius Shepard Friend • James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel Foreign Skins • Tanith LeeCompany in the WingsA Cabin on the Coast • Gene Wolfe The Lucky Strike • Kim Stanley Robinson Honorable Mentions: 1984 • Gardner Dozois •