Mataglap SF

(Asimovs, October-November 2009) Locus 2009 recommended list   Horton Year’s Best A mildly provocative title reveals a more pedestrian story from the planet Barsoom, and I’m not enough of an ERB fan to know whether it’s supposed to be that Barsoom.  It doesn’t really matter, as the races and names introduced here borrow from American Indians, […]

Anything Mieville writes by definition will be interesting and he has yet to deliver a bad book, although his last nominee “The Iron Council” was a bit too circumspect for my taste.  Here he goes to the opposite end of the spectrum, delivering a basically straightforward murder mystery novel, and keeps the mellifluous-meter down a […]

(Analog, October 2009) Locus 2009 recommended list Flynn is an engaging writer who always comes up with original concepts for stories, with real characters and unique settings, and it seems each new story is completely different from all the others, no small accomplishment.  This novella has a lot going for it and is well worth […]

(Analog, December 2009) Locus 2009 recommended list   Strahan Year’s Best  Not much big-name hard sf in the novelette category this year, but Baxter is always worth a read.  Unfortunately this story seems to take place within a larger narrative of his Xeelee universe, and I haven’t read any of those novels, so at the end […]

Asimov’s April-May 2009 Locus 2009 recommended list   Dozois Year’s Best    Strahan Year’s Best  A somewhat pretentious title, taken from a Kipling poem, sets the tone for a poetic story typical of Broderick, whose short fiction seems to be fairly sporadic but is always worth seeking out.  This time around the setting is Titan, where […]

(Other Earths, Nick Gevers & Jay Lake, eds.) Locus 2009 recommended list   Hartwell/Cramer Year’s Best    Horton Year’s Best  The lead-off story in this anthology of alternate history stories deals with the Civil War, probably the most common period of history for meddling in this sub-genre.  But Wilson doesn’t go the obvious route where the […]

(The New Space Opera 2, Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan, eds.) Locus 2009 recommended list   Dozois Year’s Best    Horton Year’s Best  Kessel works outsidie his normal areas of interest in this engaging space opera spy story, set in the far future where humanity has died out and been recreated somehow by somebody.  The protagonist […]

(The New Space Opera 2, Gardner Dozois &  Jonathan Strahan, eds.) Locus 2009 recommended list   Dozois Year’s Best    Strahan Year’s Best  The Latin title, from what I can tell, means “both worlds”, a reference to a treatise by English philsopher and cosmologist Robert Fludd, or more specifically an illustration in that work depicting man […]

I’ve always liked Nancy Kress’s work, I think she almost always hits the right combination of an interesting science premise taken from current research and characters whose lives are changed by that science.  This book continues in that mode, although the balance is weighted more in favor of the characters.  Told from multiple viewpoints, the […]

(The New Space Opera 2, Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan, eds.) Locus 2009 recommended list   Dozois Year’s Best    Horton Year’s Best   Strahan Year’s Best   Hartwell/Cramer Year’s Best I’ve only read one thing by Peter Watts before, his Hugo-nominated novel “Blindsight” from a couple of years ago, which was probably the most blow-your-mind, […]