E-Book Overview
In science fiction's early days, stories often looked past 1984 to the year 2000 as the far unknowable future. Here now, on the brink of the twenty-first century, the future remains as distant and as unknowable as ever . . . and science fiction stories continue to explore it with delightful results:Collected in this anthology are such imaginative gems as:"The Wedding Album" by David Marusek. In a high-tech future, the line between reality and simulation has grown thin . . . and it's often hard to tell who's on what side."Everywhere" by Geoff Ryman. Do the people who live in utopian conditions ever recognize them as such?"Hatching the Phoenix" by Frederik Pohl. One of science fiction's Grand Masters returns with a star-crossing tale of the Heechee---the enigmatic, vanished aliens whose discarded technology guides mankind through the future."A Hero of the Empire" by Robert Silverberg. Showing that the past is as much a province of the imagination as the future, this novelette returns to an alternate history when the Roman Empire never fell to show us just how the course of history can be altered.The twenty-seven stories in this collection imaginatively take us to nearby planets and distant futures, into the past and into universes no larger than a grain of sand. Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents.Supplementing the stories are the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.
E-Book Content
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The Years Best Science Fiction SIXTEENTH ANNUAL COLLECTION
Edited By Gardner Dozois
Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU
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contents
summation: 1999 the wedding album • David Marusek 10 16 to 1 • James Patrick Kelly winemaster • Robert Reed galactic north • Alastair Reynolds dapple: a hwarhath historical romance • Eleanor Arnason people came from earth • Stephen Baxter green tea • Richard Wadholm the dragon of pripyat • Karl Schroeder written in blood • Chris Lawson , hatching the phoenix • Frederik Pohl suicide coast • M. John Harrison hunting mother • Sage Walker mount olympus • Ben Bova border guards • Greg Egan
scherzo with tyrannosaur • Michael Swanwick a hero of the empire • Robert Silverberg HOW WE LOST THE MOON, A TRUE STORY BY FRANK W. ALLEN • Paul J. McAuley phallicide • Charles Sheffield daddy’s world • Walter Jon Williams a martian romance • Kim Stanley Robinson the sky-green blues • Tanith Lee exchange rate • Hal Clement everywhere • Geoff Ryman hothouse flowers • Mike Resnick evermore • Sean Williams of scorned women and causal loops • Robert Grossbach son observe the time • Kage Baker HONORABLE MENTIONS: 1999
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summation: 1999
Well, the dreaded Y2K-crisis deadline is past, and so is the changing of the millennium (except for the calendar purists, who still shoulder the proud and lonely burden of insisting it’s not the twenty-first century yet, when everybody else on earth thinks that it is), and, so far, the world has not come to an end, the angel has not descended with the seventh seal, and civilization has not collapsed — more to the point for this particular book, the publishing industry has not collapsed either, and science fiction has stubbornly refused to die, although strangely hopeful notices of its imminent demise have been put forth every year for more than a decade now.
(Of course, just because these Symbolically Significant Dates have passed, doesn’t mean that the human race couldn’t still be destroyed by a dinosaur-killer asteroid tomorrow, or that civilization, the economy,
and/or publishing couldn’t still collapse at any time — it wouldn’t do to become sanguine. Neve