The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Thirteen

Starred review from July 27, 2020
Strahan (The Book of Dragons, editor) packs the first volume in Saga’s Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology series with 28 diverse and brilliant stories. Climate change looms large in many of these pieces: the clientele of “The Bookstore at the End of America” by Charlie Jane Anders, the resource hunters in Peter Watts’s “Cyclopterus,” and the loyal science bots of Alec Nevala-Lee’s “At the Fall” all navigate near-future worlds ravaged by global warming. E. Lily Yu’s “Green Glass: A Love Story,” Rich Larson’s “Contagion’s Even at the House Noctambulous,” and “It’s 2059 and the Rich Kids Are Still Winning” by Ted Chiang, meanwhile, take scathing looks at all-too-possible dystopian worlds split between haves and have-nots. Tobias S. Buckell’s “The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex” and Sofia Rhei’s “Secret Stories of Doors” both find dark humor in very different visions of the future. There are no misfires here, and the standouts include N.K. Jemisin’s twisty “Emergency Skin,” Suzanne Palmer’s bleakly elegiac “The Painter of Trees,” S.L. Huang’s haunting “As the Last I May Know,” and Tegan Moore’s fierce “The Work of Wolves.” Strahan’s thoughtful selections offer a sometimes chilling, always fascinating look at the best of the genre.