Three SF Antholgies Reviewed

I'm slowing working my way through my collection of science fiction anthologies. This review covers three anthologies featuring stories from 2018 and 2018 and 2019.

It's impossible to keep up with the flood of stories being published both in the traditional magazines and online, so the years' best anthologies are what I rely on for short fiction. I bookmark the stories I like and record the percentage of favourites out of the the total number of stories in the book as a guide to picking editors. I'm fairly ruthless in reading stories; if a story doesn't grab me in the first few pages, I skip it and move on.

The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Vol. 4 edited by Neil Clarke

Stories from this book are from 2018. My likes percentage was 55 or 16/29. 

These are the stories that really struck me. 

• "Domestic Violence" by Madeline Ashby
• "Ten Landscapes of Nili Fossae" by Ian McDonald. 
• "Requiem" by Vandana Singh. She is my favourite author discovery so far.
• "Nine Last Days of Planet Earth" by Daryl Gregory
• "Freezing Rain, A Chance of Falling" by L. X. Beckett
• "Hard Mary" by Sofia Samatar
• "OK, Glory" by Elizabeth Bear
• "Byzantine Empathy" by Ken Liu. Another author I need to pay more attention to. 
• "Meat and Salt and Sparks" by Rich Larson. I've enjoyed every story I've read by him. 
  

The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Vol. 5 edited by Neil Clarke

Stories from this book are from 2019. My likes percentage was 54 or 15/28.

These are the stories that really struck me.

• "The Painter of Trees" by Suzanne Palmer
• "Deriving Life" by Elizabeth Bear
• "The Little Shepherdess" by Gwyneth Jones
• "Such Thoughts are Unproductive" by Rebecca Campbell. Another author I need to watch.
• "Permafrost" by Alastair Reynolds. This was my favourite story in the book.
• "The Work of Wolves" by Tegan Moore
• "Mother Ocean" by Vandana Singh
• "old Media" by Annalee Newitz
• "The Ocean Between the Leaves" by Ray

The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 1, The Saga Anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan

Stories from this book are from 2019. My like percentage was 57 or 16/28.

These are the stories that really struck me. 

• "The Bookstore at the End of America" by Charlie Jane Anders
• "The Painter of Trees" by Suzanne Palmer
• "Sturdy Lanterns and Ladders" by Malka Older
• "Cyclopterus" by Peter Watts
• "The Work of Wolves" by Tegan Moore
• "Emergency Skn" by N. K. Jemisin
• "Thoughts and Prayers" by ken Liu
• "Reunion" by Vandana Singh

If I had to rate the two editors, I'd say that the overall level of stories in Strahan's anthology was a bit better, but Clarke had more of the really memorable stories.

On the virtual TBR shelf, I have Strahan's Saga anthology from 2021 and three more Neil Clarke anthologies covering 2020 through 2022. In November, he'll be releasing an anthology covering 2025. I don't know if there will be ones forthcoming for 2023 and 2024. I will be getting the Locus anthology for 2025 sometime in the next month or two. My library doesn't get the anthologies edited by John Joseph Adams and based on the couple I've read, I doubt I will buy them unless they go on sale. But what I have will keep me going for quite a while.