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The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2010

Sarah Monette, John Kessel, Kelly Link, Jo Walton, Holly Phillips, John Langan, Lucius Shepard, Dominic Green, Theodora Goss, Rich Horton, R. Ga

This is a thick reprint of short stories published elsewhere, from lots of big names in the field. My rating is based on the average rating I gave to each individual story -- overall, it's a very good collection, with only six out of the thirty stories that I gave a rating of less than 4. It's a sci-fi and fantasy collection, but the majority of stories are science fiction, and only a couple that I'd call straight fantasy. My preferences tend to be more towards sci-fi, so keeping that in mind, here are the stories which I gave 5 stars:The Island by Peter Watts. This is a hard-SF story about a spaceship crew building a wormhole network for the post-humans who have forgotten about them. After really enjoying Watts's novel Blindsight, I will have to start looking for more from him.The Endangered Camp by Ann Leckie. Alternate universe in which dinosaurs evolved to sentence and begin space exploration.Necroflux Day by John Meaney. A weird horror-punk sort of sci-fi/fantasy story about a world where souls are an energy source.This Peaceable Land, Or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe by Robert Charles Wilson. Set in an alternate history in which the American Civil War never happened. As real-world Southern apologists are so fond of claiming, this led to the eventual death of slavery as it became economically unfeasible, but not in the humane and peaceful manner that those pro-Confederate fantasists imagine.Crimes and Glory by Paul McAuley. A good-old fashioned space adventure, with a law enforcement officer pursuing a mad genius across solar systems.Glister by Dominic Green. A group of roughnecks on a space colony trying to escape, some really alien fauna.Wife-Stealing Time by R. Garcia y Robertson. A sort of pulp space adventure with American Indian tribes living on Barsoom, granting hunting licenses to offworlders who come to hunt the native wildlife.Mongoose by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear. This tale of a "pest control specialist" working on a space station has nods to Lewis Carroll and H.P. Lovecraft; both his "pet" and the vermin it hunts are strange, other-dimensional creatures.Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance by John Kessel. A monk of an ancient religious order has to steal something that will free their planet from a conquering empire. Lots of high-tech adventure and ancient artifacts.
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