The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year

February 21, 2011
Strahan's fifth anthology contains 29 wide-ranging tales. Neil Gaiman's "The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains" is a deceptively simple folktale-styled story of the price one may pay for gold. "The Sultan of the Clouds" by Geoffrey Landis untangles a complex knot of childish power. Sarah Rees Brennan's "The Spy Who Never Grew Up" gives a beloved childhood icon a sinister update; Diana Peterfreund's "The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn" turns unicorn lore on its head; and Rachel Swirsky's "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window" puts a fantasy spin on the temporal culture shock of immortality. This year the fantasy tales outdo the SF in depth of storytelling and characterization, though all the inclusions are strong, with few ideas left by the wayside.

May 1, 2008
Strahans second best-of annual collects such varied voices as Elizabeth Bear, Mike Resnick, and Peter S. Beagle, with the result that all the contents live up to their billing. Wildly different in approach they may be, buttheyre equally well realized. From Bruce Sterlings inspired creation of a postcollapse, street-level economic revolution in Kiosk to Theodora Goss lovely Singing of Mount Abora with its explanation for Coleridges unfinished works, these stories provide one thing that short fiction is best at: affording tantalizing glimpses of intriguing worlds and people. Theres a healthy dose of humor here, too, in Charles Strosss inspired rendering of a postsingularity heir to Bertie Wooster. Strahan has done an admirable job of winnowing a selection of stories by writers both new and firmly entrenched that reminds us of the nearly limitless possibilities encompassed in the phrase science fiction and fantasy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)