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This is the 1986 volume of DAW's long-running annual best-of anthology series, with his picks of the best short science fiction that appeared in 1985. There's a fun three-way collaboration from Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann, and Michael Swanwick, along with good stories by Lucius Shepard, Frederik Pohl, Connis Willis, and Harlan Ellison. My favorite was a Robert Silverberg novella, Sailing to Byzantium.
I'm not finding much in this series that is very good. Some of the stories aren't really what I would call science fiction. In this book, I only read the stories I had not read elsewhere. There were only three and I liked one of them.
I'll get to the book itself soon, but I am going to indulge myself a bit first. You see, this is my one thousandth posted review on Goodreads—and although this particular book turned out to be not so special, I think reaching that milestone warrants a little reflection.I joined Goodreads and started posting reviews in May, 2008, brought here by my friend Sarah Einstein. Since that very first post, I have always tried to write the kinds of reviews I like to read. Most of 'em are longer than that
Maybe this volume came together before SF and fantasy became separate literary entities, but that's my major beef with this volume. Some of the stories were "just okay" but there were a couple of gems in the volume. I don't read fantasy and skipped over those. Your experience could be differe4nt than mine.
Wollheim had the ability to unerringly select the best tales of a year, and at the same time capture the spirit of the time in which they were written. The 1986 volume is a great example, in which each story carries weight. "Pots" by Cherryh, was not as tidy as the other tales, in part because it is an exerpt from a longer work and not a true short story.
I'm slowly reviewing every story in every edition of this series.Earthgate, J. Brian ClarkeAncient aliens invented a jump gate granting access to all the empty habitable worlds, but (apparently) not to the two worlds which developed intelligent life. Why? So that the humans and the other aliens would have to achieve cooperative friend status. A sweet idea.On the Dream Channel Panel, Ian WatsonUmmm… ok. Well. So a handful of strangers all start having the same dreams about fantastical, incredibly...
I've made it to the Jaguar story, which was sexist, I didn't like any of the stories. It doesn't happen so often i dump a book, but this was so terribly boring I couldn't carry on. It might be because of a bad translation? Who knows.
Donald Wollheim edited a "year's best" of sci-fi series. This is the 1986 volume. Authors include some major figures, such as Harlan Ellison,Robert Silverberg, Frederick Pohl, and C. J. Cherryh. Some of my favorite stories: Jayge Carr, "Webrider" and J. Brian Clarke, "Earthgate." A worthy volume in this series. . . .
This book was fun! I got it months ago at an awesome second hand bookstore in Ojai, CA. I always like SciFi, and these short stories were funny, interesting, and a great look into the mindset in the mid-eighties (spoiler/not really: a lot of nukes). I thought the stories were long enough to really get into them, but still short enough to leave me wanting more. This was a great, fun read while my house was filled with visitors!
