Quite a few of these just fell flat for me and as a result the collection lost my interest. Probably just my own taste. It felt like a slog at times.

This book is a captivating and immersive read that hooks you from the first page. The writing is beautifully crafted, with vivid descriptions and strong character development that makes the story come alive. The plot is well-paced, balancing moments of tension with quieter, reflective scenes that allow the characters to grow. The themes explored are deep and thought-provoking, resonating long after the final page. Whether it's the emotional depth, the twists and turns of the plot, or the unforgettable characters, this book is a must-read for anyone who enjoys rich, engaging stories. Highly recommended.

I'm a not of an outlier in my social groups online for being into short stories, so it took a bit more effort to convey how this was one of my anticipated arcs for the season. I loved the Hugh Howey books I've read, and have at least equally loved all the John Joseph Adams anthologies I've read. Not surprisingly this new anthology was fantastic. I am used to having a few great stories, a few 'just ok' ones, and a bunch of filler, but in this collection there are no fillers. A few of the stories were just not subgenres I gravitate towards, but I still really enjoyed them all. I'll definitely be recommending this book to my friends and family who enjoy sci-fi/fantasy story collections.

unfortunately i never finished this one... but what I did read, I enjoyed quite a bit... this may not be my genre.

Back when I was writing my weird brand of science fiction, I regularly submitted my work to what I considered to be the big-name magazines that published such work: Asimov’s, Interzone, On Spec, etc. I got turned down at each magazine — though I once got a friendly rejection letter from Asimov’s. Even though I submitted to these places regularly, I wasn’t reading any of their short stories. (Which, of course, may say something about why I was getting turned down.) That makes The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 so important. If you’re hurried for time and can’t read through the usual SF and fantasy magazines, you get the best of the best, the cream of the crop here. Based on the book’s introduction, this volume takes the 20 best short stories published in the SF and fantasy fields in 2023. It splits them even between the genres: 10 science fiction stories and 10 fantasy stories. That makes for a very generous helping of fiction, and this should appeal to anyone who wants to keep dibs on what’s being published out there. Also of note is that this collection is relatively evenly split between more well-known or established writers (such as Sam J. Miller and Amal El-Mohtar) and names you probably haven’t heard of.

Of course, with a collection such as this one, a person’s favorites are probably based on subjectivity. What I might like could very well differ from what you might like. However, even if a story or two doesn’t resonate with you (I disliked the hard SF stories, for instance, though I could see the intelligence behind these stories and understood why they were included), there’s bound to be something that you’ll enjoy if you keep reading. My favorites from this collection were usually, and strangely, rooted more towards the horror end of the spectrum. There’s plenty here for those who like their gore: Grady Hendrix’s “Ankle Snatcher,” which is about the creatures that live under the bed, is delightfully scary, though it easily could have been cut in half and have more of a chilling effect. Then there’s Rebecca Roanhorse’s “Eye & Tooth,” a piece about a pair of monster hunters that is begging to be expanded. (Roanhorse, though relatively established, is an author worth watching as she has two pieces in this collection.) And then there’s P. Djèlí Clark’s “How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub,” which turns the tables on Victorian British colonialism of subjects from India. These stories do something to subvert the usual horror tropes — and they’re a great deal of fun, too.

However, there are other standouts from this book as well. P. A. Cornell’s unusual time-travel story, “Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont,” about a woman from the present day who falls in love with a serviceman from the American outbreak of World War II, is touching, bittersweet and sad, even if it has something of a happy ending. “John Hollowback and the Witch,” a story by fellow Ottawa, Canada, resident Amal El-Mohtar, is a beguiling tale of a man who has been cursed to have a hole in his back and the steps he entails to try and reverse the curse. Similarly, Jonathan Louis Duckworth’s “Bruised-Eye Dusk” is a rip-roaring fantasy tale set in a land not unlike the swamps of the southern U.S., where a man who can break spells tries to save a small village from a curse. As you can see, for me, the more vital tales in this collection hewed to the fantasy side of things. While there are standouts among the SF stuff in this book, including Roanhorse’s “Falling Bodies,” which has a shocking ending, it tended to be the weaker of the material for me — particularly as a lot of it was jargon-filled and written in a way for the reader to try and parse between the lines as to what is being said. The main offender is the lone Asimov’s story here: Christopher Rowe’s “The Four Last Things.” I had no idea what the piece was about, and, to me, it wasn’t entirely memorable — though your mileage may vary.

One of the things that delighted me about this collection was the number of stories that featured queer characters as protagonists in this. V. M. Ayala’s “Emotional Resonance” goes so far as to have gay robots as its main characters. So there’s a lot to dig into here, and, again, my favorite stories might not be your favorite stories, which is all the more reason to search this collection out and see for yourself. Of course, there are other standouts here, but I would be remiss to name them all. Ultimately, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 is a fantastic collection and a sign pointing to where the science fiction and fantasy genres are going. Reading this may stir your creative juices and get you to try writing fiction (again). However, if this collection proves anything important, if you try to write your own stories, you must also read others’ stories to see what’s being done with the genre. That was my fatal mistake; don’t let it be yours. Most of the stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 hit home runs, and you’ll have a whale (if not a Kraken) of a time reading this. This is excellent stuff.

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 was a great collection. It had a range of styles and some quality authors.

Thank you to Net Galley and Mariner Books for the ARC. I really enjoy reading short story collections, they're a great way to discover new authors to read. I really liked the stories picked for this collection. Some of my favorites are Eye and Tooth by Rebecca Roanhorse, Zeta Epsilon by Isabel J Kim, Bari and the Resurrection Flower by Hana Lee, Disassembling Light by Kel Coleman, John Hollowback and the Witch by Amal El-Mohtar, How To Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub by P Djeli Clark, and Falling Bodies by Rebecca Roanhorse.

This collection was wonderful, diverse, and so very engaging. Short story collections can be touch and go, but the quality of just about all of these were top notch. I love sci-fi, but am not as crazy about fantasy, and still found myself really enjoying the fantasy stories included in the collection. This collection of stories is small but mighty, and I'll probably end up buying it to have on my shelf.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I love short fiction, so I was absolutely thrilled to receive an ARC of this anthology highlighting some of the best and brightest science fiction and fantasy short stories published during the 2023 calendar year. This anthology series has been going on for several years, and after reading this one, I can certainly see why. The selected stories covered a broad range of styles, authors, and original publications, and read as a whole, I thought it was well-curated, and an excellent snapshot of the year in speculative short fiction. As is always true for me with anthologies, there were some stories I loved, a lot of stories that I liked, and a few that I disliked, but overall the hit rate was quite good. With the stories I disliked, I know it’s a matter of my own tastes; those stories were lauded and celebrated by a lot of other readers and editors, but just didn’t work for me personally.
I especially appreciated the extra touches in this anthology, which give the reader a broader glimpse of the SFF short fiction world. Series editor John Joseph Adams provided a helpful explanation of how stories were sourced, chosen for initial consideration, and then given to guest editor Hugh Howey, who read them anonymously, without any bylines or information about where they first appeared, and then made the final selections. Adams also shared information about all the periodicals, anthologies and collections where the stories originally appeared, as well as a list of the eighty stories that were considered. Along with author biographies, the book also included contributor notes for each story. I really enjoyed hearing from the authors themselves about the inspirations and experiences that led to the creation of their story.
I used to always be a year or two behind on new SFF short stories, but now I try to keep up on them in order to nominate and vote for the Hugo Awards. From that perspective this anthology is very successful. I had only heard of about half of the stories included, which just shows how much fantastic SFF fiction is out there, and I had only read 6. Several of my own favorites were represented, either in the anthology itself or in the “top eighty” list that was included. While I might quibble with some of the specific choices made by the editors, that’s based on my own personal reading preferences. Overall, the included stories average out to a 4 star rating, but the experience of reading the anthology as a whole was an easy 5 stars.

Story highlights:

- Zeta-Epsilon by Isabel J. Kim
- How it Unfolds by James S.A. Corey
- The Long Game by Ann Leckie
- Bruised-Eye Dusk by Jonathan Louis Duckworth
- Window Boy by Thomas Ha

Thank you to John Joseph Adams, Hugh Howey, Mariner Books, and NetGalley for generously providing an ARC for review!

This collection was the best of the 2024 series and the strongest writing was Rebecca Roanhorse’s two short stories.

I especially liked "How it Unfolds" by Corey. I felt that a couple of the stories were derivative. They sounded too much like other current media. I felt that the first story was the most prescient.