t's time again for Gardner Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction. The 17th installment collects the short fiction Dozois believes to be the best of 1999, along with his annual summary and analysis of the state of science fiction. This year's edition includes 27 stories, ranging in length from short stories to novellas. In the past, Dozois has sometimes been criticized for stretching his definition of science fiction too far in these anthologies. However, this year continues his recent trend of choosing stories that clearly fit within the genre's boundaries, and the volume includes a significant amount of hard science fiction.
The anthology features a strong mix of legendary writers, perennial honorees and new writers just beginning to establish their reputations. Hal Clement's "Exchange Rate" is a novella about a trading expedition on a high-gravity world, reminiscent of the planet Mesklin in his classic novel Mission of Gravity. Robert Silverberg's "A Hero of the Empire" is another story in his alternate history in which Rome never fell. In this tale, a soldier from the Western Empire is sent to Arabia as punishment; he spies on the Eastern Empire's activities there in the seventh century. Frederik Pohl's "The Hatching of the Phoenix" is a Heechee story, in which the crew of a scientific station investigates an impending supernova.
Robert Reed's "Winemaster" follows the caretaker of a hive colony trying to escape the United States after its Kansas colony is destroyed by terrorists. Eleanor Arnason's "Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance" tells of the adventures of a young alien woman who runs away from her family to become an actor, a profession forbidden to women. Chris Lawson's "Written in Blood" explores bigotry as an Australian Muslim scientist has the Koran written into his blood as encoded DNA. Two stories, David Marusek's "The Wedding Album" and Walter Jon Williams' "Daddy's World," tell of lives lived as simulations long after the originals have died. Among other prominent writers included this year are Stephen Baxter, Kim Stanley Robinson, Michael Swanwick, James Patrick Kelly, Greg Egan, Tanith Lee, Ben Bova and Charles Sheffield.
The resurgence of hard SF
The Year's Best Science Fiction is always a delight, and this 17th edition is no exception. There's not a weak story to be found. The biggest disappointment is that the stories of a few of the perennial favorites, like Greg Egan and Michael Swanwick, don't quite reach their usual astonishing level of excellence.
The best story, hands down, is Silverberg's "A Hero of the Empire." When he's writing at the top of his skills, as he is in this story, he writes with a precision and depth that can make the field's best stylists seem like amateurs. The story not only captures the characters and setting exquisitely, it takes some very surprising turns. Arnason's "Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance," also part of a continuing series, is a very effective story exploring gender roles through folktales about her alien culture. She has created a fascinating world with a complex alternative culture, making the stories in this series a pleasure to read. Lawson, a new Australian writer, has written a powerful story that deals with bigotry both within and outside a prominent religion in "Written in Blood." This story shows he has the skills to be a major talent.
Dozois has assembled another outstanding chronicle of the year's best work. This volume, along with those of the last two years, documents a remarkable resurgence in the prominence of hard science fiction, and it's never been done better.
