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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.087608
EAN num: 9780061252099
ISBN number: 0061252093
Label: Eos
Manufacturer: Eos
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 512
Printing Date: June 01, 2008
Publishing house: Eos
Release Date: May 27, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 45310
Studio: Eos
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The thirteenth annual collection of the previous year's finest short-form sf is at hand. Once again, award-winning editors and anthologists David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer have gathered together a stunning array of science fiction that spans a veritable universe of astonishing visions and bold ideas. Hitherto unexplored galaxies of the mind are courageously traversed by some of the most exciting new talents in the field—while well-established masters rocket to remarkable new heights of artistry and originality. The stars are closer and more breathtaking than ever before—and a miraculous future now rests in your hands—within the pages of Year's Best SF 13.
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Rated by buyers 
-
If you want left wing, liberal bias picking your stories, then you will like this collection. Otherwise, skip it.
The authors start right off discussing global warming and voodoo science in the Intro, and want you to believe it's established science (well it is established doctrine with the left wing kooks).
Best not waste your time or your money on this book.
Rated by buyers -
I am seriously considering avoiding anthologies edited by Hartwell. I opened his book and about 2 pages in, they have a whole page
ranting about how someone deposited a fraudulent check drawn on their (his) bank account. That' really too bad, but what in the heck is this doing in a years best anthology? His pick for best SF short story of the year is some mediocre story by his personal god, gene wolfe, which is for the most part incoherent. Then in the preface to the greg egan story 'preface', hartwell says "he tends to write what we sometimes call neuropsych hard sf". Well, jolly good for you mr.hartwell, I applaud that amazing creation of a new genre of science fiction. How dumb do you think
most sf readers are?
There are only about 5 stories in this volume worth reading.
I generally buy this as a time killer until Dozois comes out with his anthology of The Years Best Science Fiction. Maybe it is me, I just came off of a jag reading most of Iain M. Banks books, but a lot of the stories
in Hartwell's anthology are just childish or inane. The story by Nancy Kress was very dismaying - the characters in her story are at best cartoons, which was dismaying considering some of her previous work.
This book is ok if you are really jonesing for some SF, but don't expect to be thrilled.
Rated by buyers -
This volume is less interesting, on the whole, than other recent entries in the series. Gene Wolfe's "Memorare", Bernhard Ribbeck's "A Blue and Cloudless Sky", and perhaps Ian McDonald's "Sanjeev and Robotwallah" are the standout stories; Kage Baker's "Plotters and Shooters" and Terry Bisson's "Pirates of the Somali Coast" are fine lighter fare (though the latter is hardly "science fiction" on even the most generous understanding of the term). Honorable mention: Tony Ballantine's "Third Person". There are some other OK stories in here, but in all honesty it's not what you'd expect from a "Year's Best" compilation.
Two editorial decisions that puzzled me: the inclusion of a number of rather annoying "short-short"s (1-3 page stories); and the inclusion of Ken McLeod's "Who's Afraid of Wolf 359?" The latter is a decent read, but it is culled from a collection of original stories that contains quite a few stronger entries: the excellent The New Space Opera edited by Gardner Dozois.
Here's hoping subsequent year turns out better. In the meantime, we have Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (Year's Best Science Fiction) to look forward to.
Rated by buyers -
If you enjoy science fiction that is timeless, such as Niven, Pournelle, Asimov, Clarke, Cherrye, then you won't enjoy this collection at all. These stories were dated before they made it to the press. The previous reviewer mentioned it being a near future.... The very first story is a thinly veiled reference to Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Miley Cyrus.... There are many collections that will be read for decades to come. This collection of stories details todays political and moral scene, decades from now people will be scratching their heads reading this.
In short, this was a waste of my time and will make the trash can... I can't even bear taking it to Half Price Books lest someone else will waste their money on it.
Rated by buyers 
-
The thirteenth volume of this series is down on quality from the twelfth, which was outstanding, at 3.90. This one averages 3.71.
However, there is one great story, Terry Bisson's 'Pirates of the Somali Coast'. When they are that good I suppose you can forgive the fact that it may only be SF in the nearest of near future senses, perhaps. However, you could call it a horror story, or satire so grey you have to find out what call the Old Ones from Out Of Space call their colour darker than grey to categorise it.
The weakest part of the book is after this story, where it trails off in quality from there.
The other standout is Kage Baker's amusing Plotters and Shooters.
It was a pleasant surprise to find the ebook of this after not seeing one for volume 12, meaning no waiting around, not paying someone with a plane the same price as the cost of the book to get it here, or more, etc. So well done publishers for bringing that back.
There's the usual brief overview at the start, pointing out JBU and Strange Horizons online, and several original anthologies being good - New Space Opera, Fast Forward, Solaris 1, etc. They also included a poem.
The editors are also quite keen on Tony Ballantyne this year, mentioning him multiple times - but neither of these stories I thought were that good.
So, call this volume a bit over a 4.25, or 4.5 on the usual scale.
Year's Best SF 13 : Baby Doll - Johanna Sinisalo
Year's Best SF 13 : Aristotle OS - Tony Ballantyne
Year's Best SF 13 : The Last American - John Kessel
Year's Best SF 13 : Memorare - Gene Wolfe
Year's Best SF 13 : Plotters and Shooters - Kage Baker
Year's Best SF 13 : Repeating the Past - Peter Watts
Year's Best SF 13 : No More Stories - Stephen Baxter
Year's Best SF 13 : The Tomb Wife - Gwyneth Jones
Year's Best SF 13 : An Evening's Honest Peril - Marc Laidlaw
Year's Best SF 13 : End Game - Nancy Kress
Year's Best SF 13 : Induction - Greg Egan
Year's Best SF 13 : A Blue and Cloudless Sky - Bernard Ribbeck
Year's Best SF 13 : Reasons not to Publish - Gregory Benford
Year's Best SF 13 : Objective Impermeability in a Closed System - William Shunn
Year's Best SF 13 : Always - Karen Joy Fowler
Year's Best SF 13 : Who's Afraid of Wolf 359? - Ken MacLeod
Year's Best SF 13 : Artifice and Intelligence - Tim Pratt
Year's Best SF 13 : Pirates of the Somali Coast - Terry Bisson
Year's Best SF 13 : Sanjeev and Robotwallah - Ian McDonald
Year's Best SF 13 : Third Person - Tony Ballantyne
Year's Best SF 13 : The Bridge - Kathleen Ann Goonan
Year's Best SF 13 : As You Know Bob - John Hemry
Year's Best SF 13 : The Lustration - Bruce Sterling
Year's Best SF 13 : How Music Begins - James Van Pelt
Accelerated cradle snatching.
3.5 out of 5
Accelerated cradle snatching.
3 out of 5
DAS Biography.
4 out of 5
Space vault menace.
3.5 out of 5
Deathlok defense defeat predicted, Avenger!
4.5 out of 5
Holocaust memories, game boy.
4 out of 5
Interbreeding expansion remnant conversation.
3.5 out of 5
Extradimensional big brain spaceflight fun, Batman.
4 out of 5
Multiplayer tomb raid.
3.5 out of 5
Grandmaster class tunnel vision.
4 out of 5
Orchid Flower followup Duty.
4 out of 5
Colonization time adjustments.
3 out of 5
Omnipotence? Bah. Pass the grog.
3 out of 5
Possible past wife hookup system.
4 out of 5
Static cult life.
3.5 out of 5
Empire threat impetus attack gives boomerang inspiration.
4 out of 5
Bad ghosts, bad machine, bad game.
4 out of 5
Yo Ho Ho, and many machine guns. With internet access, hats, and a lot less relatives than at the beginning.
5 out of 5
Battletech comes and goes, but pizza always popular.
4 out of 5
A walk-on part in the war, a lead role in the Sarge.
3.5 out of 5
Artificial revelation recreation.
3.5 out of 5
Genre written commercial adjustment.
3.5 out of 5
"Youve secretly discussed artificial intelligence for forty thousand years?" "Thirty thousand," the metaphysician admitted. "Unfortunately, it took us ten thousand years to admit that the systems behavior had some unaccountable aspects." ... Read More
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