THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION
Sixteenth Annual Collection
edited by Gardner Dozois
paper 0-312-20445-0 Twenty-five stories from 1998: some 2 stories and 48 pages shorter than last year’s entry, the finished book will include an approximately 50-page editor’s summation (not seen). Among the amazing odysseys to be enjoyed here: physicist Geoffrey A. Landis descends into a black hole; Ian McDonald jaunts beyond the end of the universe; Paul J. McAuley takes us to Europa; Michael Swanwick explores Io; Allan Steele ponders Mars; William Barton tours the moons of Saturn; and Cherry Wilder investigates strange occurrences aboard a space habitat. Elsewhere, leading Australian hard-SF writer Greg Egan describes a far-future coming-of-age/test of faith; Bruce Sterling tangles with high-tech spies; Ted Chiang impresses once again; immortality comes in two different flavors (from Ursula K. Le Guin and from Robert Charles Wilson) as do alternate worlds (an American variant from Howard Waldrop, a British one from Ian R. MacLeod), along with aliens and trade (Cory Doctorow), weird ghosts (Tanith Lee), genetics (Robert Reed), engineering (Stephen R. Baxter), vengeance (Chris Lawson), godlike humans of the far future (Tony Daniel), Cinderella (Gwyneth Jones), and more. Indispensable: hats off to the tireless and knowledgeable Dozois.