The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 2

The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Published by Tachyon Posted on May 9, 2014 by cayocosta72

With stories of horror, time travel, high fantasy, science fiction and more, this volume includes stories from the likes of Stephen King and Jane Yolen and many more. Pulled from the best of the last 65 years of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, this is a genre reader’s dream

What a collection! Filled with classic stories from SF masters and those we really should know, these tales contain people you like and people you fear. There is the ultimate in reality TV and a traditional fairy tale, hard SF and classic Heinlein, and some which were more tongue-in-cheek. There are what ifs, imaginative children, a giant baby, and a boy who never grows up, an unexpected alien invasion, a new kind of pay-it-forward, the magic and sadness of love, and inept magic users.

Not only does one story contrast then and now, but so does the entire collection. It's hard to find SF like this now.

There was only one I couldn't get into, and one I didn't really enjoy, and that's a pretty good ratio for a collection of short stories. All were new to me, to my delight, and I've found plenty of new authors to add to my reading lists.

As a long time reader of science fiction and fantasy reader, I was happily satisfied and enjoyed the stories in this anthology. While many stories were ones I had read, there were a few titles and authors that were new to me. The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy has been a magazine that I have enjoyed greatly. I hope readers who don't know science fiction or fantasy will read this volume for an introduction to the variety there is in this genre. There is a brief introduction to each story in the volume.

It is a good balanced collection. I recommend highly that you get this anthology. It's fantastic!

Sci-Fi Friday: Anthologies!

Infinite Science Fiction ONE, Dany G. Zuwen and Joanna Jackson, eds. (Infinite Acacia, $12.99).

Solaris Rising 3: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, Ian Whates, ed. (Solaris, $7.99).

The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, Volume Eight, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris, $19.99).

The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 2, Gordon Van Gelder, ed. (Tachyon Publications, $15.95).

And it’s time for yet another round-up of science fiction anthologies—always a go-to endeavor, given how much great science fiction starts with the short stories, novelettes and novellas that can still be found in s/f magazines and websites. Short s/f work remains the best place to discover the new and someday-to-be-legendary writers in the genre as well.

First up in this round-up is Infinite Acacia’s first anthology, Infinite Science Fiction ONE. Stories include Janka Hobbs’ “Real” (”human” trafficking in an alien world); Tim Major’s “By the Numbers” (data-tracking on steroids); “Tin Soul” by Elizabeth Bannon (how much robotics is too much robotics?); John Walters’ “Matchmaker” (time-traveling love story); “Slow” by Jay Wilburn (really claustrophobic space story); and both Matthew S. Dent’s “Nothing Beside Remains” and “Infinity” by J. B. Rockwell, which take different Wall-E approaches to AI and robotic beings.

A few of these tales edge toward horror, but it’s good horror.

Solaris Rising 3 has the advantage of some top authors in the s/f genre—Ken Liu, Ian MacLeod and Martin Sketchley—but it also offers some s/f that mingles a bit in horror, as in Chris Beckett’s “The Goblin Hunter,” where a planet’s colonists’ single-minded war on the indigenous species is about their own survival. And speaking of ethnocentrism and alien contact, Liu’s “Homo Floresiensis” offers an interesting take on how that might play out, while Laura Lam’s “They Swim Through Sunset Seas” suggests that we might want to think twice before messing with alien species.

The interest paid to eventual contact with alien life forms—and its consequences for us—seems to be a trend, though; it’s as if our s/f writers are giving some serious thought to Stephen J. Hawkings’ warnings about contact not being a terribly good idea.

That the Jonathan Strahan-edited anthology’s 2014 volume is only now getting reviewed tells you all you need to know about how much good s/f there is out there. The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 8 is a venerable institution compared to some of these anthologies, and this volume doesn’t disappoint. This one also has some heavy-hitters—Joe Abercrombie, Geoff Ryman, Neil freaking Gaiman, Lavie Tidhar, Greg Egan—and because it also includes fantasy, there’s more room for variety.

That includes Gaiman’s take on the Sleeping Beauty tale (”The Sleeper and the Spindle”); Ted Chiang’s speculative story about a drug that enhances memory to the point of perfection—with some unforeseen consequences, of course (”The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”); Charlie Jane Anders’ intriguing tell of wizardly fame (”The Master Conjurer”); and An Owomoyela’s amazing story of war (”In Metal, In Bone”).

Of course, the lean toward fantasy and speculative literary fiction is particularly strong in this selection; even the s/f story “The Promise of Space” by James Patrick Kelly is firmly grounded in a love/grief premise. Perhaps the creepiest example of this genre creep is in Madeline Ashby’s amazing “Social Services,” in which a story of a near-future social work with a wealthy problem child for a client moves from s/f to fantasy to outright horror with nary a genre boundary in sight.

Believe me, this is a good thing.

Finally, the second volume in a series of stories curated from one of the best of the magazines, The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 2. If the previous two anthologies had heavy-hitters, this one has legends: Brian Aldiss, Paolo Bacigalupi (the remarkable “The People of Sand and Slag”), Jack Finney, Elizabeth Hand, Robert A. Heinlein, Stephen King, Kit Reed, Robert Silverberg … oh, hell, why bother listing them? The stories in this book are so good (and surprisingly, many of them are funny) that you need to buy it.

And if you’re not subscribing to Fantasy & Science Fiction, why the hell not?

What can one possibly say about something titled "The Very Best of..." when it's covering stories from what is arguably the very best magazine publishing fantasy and science fiction stories? Well...you know it's probably pretty darned good!

There have been over thirty "Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction" anthologies, collecting years and decades worth of stories published between the pages of the magazine and there's even been a previous "The Very Best of" anthology. That's a lot of history of a lot of very good fiction and a daunting task for editor Gordon van Gelder to select the very cream of the crop.

The book opens with a story from 1952, "The Third Level," by Jack Finney. The story manages to reflect the thoughts and fears of its time, while remaining timeless (perhaps because our thoughts and fears don't change so much, after all?).

I won't go through, story by story - there were a few that didn't really have much impact on me (it's the same when I read this, or any other, magazine) - such as C.M. Kornbluth's "The Cosmic Expense Account" and Robert Heinlein's "'--All You Zombies--'" and "Attack of the Giant Baby" by Kit Reed.

But more often than not I was impressed by the stories ...only a small handful that I remember reading back in the late 1970's/early 1980's when I subscribed to the magazine: "Jeffty is Five" by Harlan Ellison is such a story, as is George Alec Effinger's "The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, <em>Everything</em>." Ellison's work was always cutting edge and 'Jeffty' is one of the classics that continues to stand the test of time. Effinger is someone who's work I saw a lot of at the time but who doesn't have the following that he should. This is a great way to introduce him to new readers.

I stopped reading F&amp;SF in the 1980's - not because I wasn't interested, but ...well...life happens sometimes. My point, though, is that the writers here that appeared in the magazine after the 1980's are authors who are 'new' to me (though I've recently become acquainted with those still publishing). I enjoyed Charles de Lint's "The Bone Woman" and Maureen F. McHugh's "The Lincoln Train" - an alternative history story.

"Maneki Neko" is by Bruce Sterling - one of my favorite 'new' authors (though he's pretty established now) and this story shows his deft hand. He's known as one of the leaders of the 'cyber-punk' category and here he combines his noted cyberpunk skills with humor. A fun story, and it's these fun stories that always made me appreciate <em>Fantasy and Science Fiction</em>.

As I wrote at the top, there's a lot of good fiction here, since it's the best of the best, and it's difficult to choose an absolute favorite, but Paolo Bacigalupi's "The People of Sand and Slag" would be my selection for most powerful, moving story.

This collection contains the following:

Foreword - Gordon van Gelder
Introduction - Michael Dirda
"The Third Level" - Jack Finney
"The Cosmic Expense Account" - C. M. Kornbluth
"The Country of the Kind" - Damon Knight
"The Anything Box" = Zenna Henderson
"The Prize of Peril" - Robert Sheckley
"'--All You Zombies--'" - Robert A. Heinlein
"A Kind of Artistry" - Brian W. Aldiss
"Green Magic" - Jack Vance
:Narrow Valley" - R.A. Lafferty
"Sundance" - Robert Silverberg
"The Attack of the Giant Baby" - Kit Reed
"The Hundredth Dove" - Jane Yolen
"Jeffty is Five" - Harlan Ellison
"Salvador" - Lucius Shepard
"The Aliens Who Knew, I Mean, <em>Everything</em>" - George Alec Effinger
"Rat" - James Patrick Kelly
"The Friendship Light" - Gene Wolfe
"The Bone Woman" - Charles de Lint
"Maneki Neko" - Bruce Sterling
"Winemaster" - Robert Reed
"Suicide Coast" - M. John Harrison
"Have Not Have" - Geoff Ryman
"The People of Sand and Slag" - Paolo Bacigalupi
"Echo" - Elizabeth Hand
"<em>The New York Times</em> at Special Bargain Rates" - Stephen King
"The Paper Meagerie" - Ken Liu

Looking for a good book? <em>The Very Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 2</em>, edited by Gordon van Gelder is a book that can't help but appeal to anyone who already loves the genre and is a great way to introduce great science fiction and fantasy to new readers.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.